Hillsboro Cross Crusade race report.. The Rematch, or 'I beat 'em...but I didn't WIN..'

Get yer Creed on! If Hillsboro was an sixth grade drop out, muscle head for a South Philly loan shark, and I was this guy, in a red, white and blue satin tuxedo jacket with matching top hat, we'd be in Rocky Eye-Eye...Only THIS time, the BROTHER wins! (Read up, sippy)

Washington County Fairgrounds

I'm still not sure exactly sure where I placed, but in the meantime, here's my race report.

I Never Did Like Horses

My Sherwood Horse-poop-fest report can be enjoyed here.

Glad we got all warmed up for the cow poop fest at Hillsboro. Ugh.

Race Report - Rainier

Hey all, HV newbie here! My race report can be read on my blog.

Can't wait until I can remember everyone's name so I can yell at you while racing :)

Kandra's Alpenrose Race Report

Can be found here.

Good racing, folks! Although I am disappointed that Dave didn't crash Ryan Trebon out of the SS race. Dude, you gotta use that starting position to get your 15 minutes of fame!

Survival of the Fittest: Race Report from Our Newest Clydesdale Racer

Posting this most entertaining race report for Jamie Fitzgerald, a recent addition to our pinstriped family. We'll soon get him as comfortable on dirt as he is on the track.

----

Here goes……... Rode the Clyde category with Bryan. Lotteried into mid-field at the start line just ahead of Bryan. The first mile or so scared the living daylights out of me. All the mad bastards resentful at being banished to the rear of the field vented their frustration by attacking on the start of the long downhill alongside the velodrome. This was expected but the intensity of it took me by surprise. It was about this time that I was overtaken by Bryan - that was the last I saw of him…..

The pre-race ride of the course paid off with the uneventful navigation of the dreaded RH turn at the bottom of the hill. I accelerated up the hill passing a few riders moving backwards - so far…..so good….. Picked up a few more down the long run alongside the car park and again past the tents. The tail end of the C’s were being caught about now which made for some traffic. Shouldered the bike all textbook-like for the run-up. Sped ‘round the velodrome apron - home turf for me. Although, riding the wrong way ‘round the velodrome felt very naughty. Alas, my time in the velodrome comfort zone ended far too quickly and it was time to get dirty again. The rest of the lap was uneventful as were the next two. Passed quite a few riders but most of them seemed to be the slower C’s - I didn‘t seem to be moving up through the Clyde field. Where were they? - had I taken a wrong turn somewhere and joined a unrelated race? Then, as I was considering this possibility some more…..the chain jumped off mid-sprint for no apparent reason in the straightaway before the switchback steps. This threw off my (until now) flawless (!) on-off technique and I arrived at steps with the wrong foot still in the pedals and little room to correct. Managed not to fall over and ascended the steps without incident. However, not before a few riders passed by - curses!

Then it was the bell lap - I was engaged in mortal combat with a Showers Pass rider - I would pass on the straights with a blinding burst of speed and he would tuck in behind and get me on the corners in the grass. I overtook him on the run-up and was first into the velodrome. All was going well until the final barrier when the front wheel caught the barrier flicking it back. One of the arms of the cantilevered brakes wedged under the downtube and the wheel was locked in place almost turned around. This was not obvious at first and precious secmins (seconds that feel like minutes) were spent puzzling over this disturbing juxtaposition of wheel and frame. Aha …..through the fog of oxygen deprivation I spotted the problem. The wheel was wrenched back into place with unreasonable force and, following the remount, it was a sprint to the line. This last minute mechanical left me a bit deflated. Oh, and the front tire was also 80% deflated - not sure when it occurred but probably pretty late in the race.

Final placing 14^th. Looks like about 6 places were lost with the mechanical at the end since the Showers Pass guy finished 8^th. Oh, well - I guess that’s how it goes. Overall, I was pretty happy with how it all went. The support was great from the sidelines. Lookin’ forward to next week……………..

Cross Crusade #1 -Alpenrose Dairy Master B's Race Report or 'Master B'n at the Dairy'

It's business time. Read up here
The Cross Crusade kicks off at Alpenrose Dairy with almost 1400 participants including 125 others in the master b's!

The Dairy giveth, the Dairy taketh away.

Blind Date at the Dairy Race report, or 'Why I Miss Crit Racing'.

short and sweet.

Starcrossed 2009

My race report is up on my blog. Anna and I killed the Cat 3/4 women's race, but the highlight of the day was German dominating the first barrier by crashing into it full speed during the singlespeed race. And by dominate, I mean that barrier was at a 45 degree angle for the rest of the race.

Hope your thumb heals up quick, Dave!!!

Decent into Madness

Cross is in the air...you can feel it. Aside from some conversations about Eugene on the team ride, its all about cyclocross. The road season is over, and while I'm both happy and sad about that, the prospect of riding in the rain, mud and sleet of cross season fills me with dread....and joy. That's whats weird about cross. We did intervals last week, the standard weekly suffer fest...the session was all cross focused. It felt like cyclocross- sprint hard, timetrial, sprint hard, rest short, repeat, repeat, repeat..until barf. Why is that fun? Add miserable weather, mud, muddy grass, and lots of water, then it becomes fun? I'm still not sure how this all works out on the balance sheet of fun to suffer. Because when I look at it on its face, it looks to be about 80 percent suffer, 20 percent fun. Not usually a recipe for "a good time." But so it is. Try and explain it to a friend who doesn't do it. You'll see (but if you do cross and road, you probably don't have any friends who don't).

I spent three hours working on my cross bike yesterday, my hands still hurt. I converted to tubeless- we'll see how that goes. I need to do some testing. But getting those damn tires on after sealing the rim was a pain in the arse. Worst part is that I still have plenty to do. Deraileur hanger is bent, chain is too short, head tube is too long, and my breaks sorta suck. But other than that, good to go.

So is there any wisdom to this, about this, from this adventure into madness? I'm not sure. Is it the pointless, slipping, sliding, silliness held in juxtaposition to the road season that makes it important? I try to stay loose during the road season, not take it too seriously, even though I invest a fair amount of energy, effort and suffering in getting better at it- but its still a pressure cooker in some way- lots of frowning determination during the road season. Whereas cross there is far less long mile rumination and expectation built in- at least for me. Short hard efforts, lots of factors beyond one's control, the simply fact that its a silly sport, all contribute to the carnival. Mix in some beer and its shirt-up, pants-down stupid. I hope it stays that way.

Vancouver Courthouse Crit

To start off I just want to put it out there that I love crits. I actually love bike racing in all its forms but crits are my favorite. Maybe its the rush that comes with high speeds and battling for postion, or maybe its the fact that crits make for excellent photo opportunities (I also love having my picture taken...)

That aside Hammer Velo had a strong showing on Sunday. Juan, Jamie, and I were all in the cat 4 mens race. Jamie talked of maybe going off the front with 10 laps to go as the course was loaded with corners and was to a breakaways advantage. This is much easier said than done but Jamie had a strong ride none the less. Juan also continued his podium streak with his 3rd place finish. As for my race...I started out strong and was able to hang on for a number of laps until the pace got ramped up and I went off the back (crits are my favorite but I never said my specialty). I still felt like I rode well and can feel myself getting stronger. Congradulations to Sam who finished 3rd in the womens 1/2/3 race, as well as Beth, Anna, Mindy, and Alice who also raced and had strong finishes.

-Chris

The Lawyer Ride: Close Encounters of the Shark Kind

(As an aside before I start this little report, I love having a team blog. Its nice to have a place to verbal dump that my mother doesn't read regularly, thus prompting the "do you EVER get any work done?" phone call.)

I've been a lawyer for almost six years, five at my current position. The infamous Monday/Thursday lunchtime "lawyer ride" has been going on for much longer than that. Richard, one of my coworkers, has been trying to get me join this ride ever since he found out, five years ago, that I owned a bike and rode it semi-regularly. I've promised to come along and reneged on that promise numerous times, citing work, fitness, rain, that it didn't fit into my Team Tedder Training schedule. Fear.

As of 1:30 this afternoon, I am no longer a Lawyer Ride virgin. Turns out that jumping into the two-wheeled shark tank wasn't nearly as scary as the lore would had me believing.

Here is what prompted the decision to join up today: Dave McHenry's stupid electronic scale. We had a discussion on Tuesday morning that I lost. And lost badly. I didn't think I'd be able to keep at my racing weight during my hiatus from serious training, but I also didn't expect to gain almost a pound a week during that time. You realize how many beers a pound per week is? Lets just say...more than four and less than five hundred. So with this in mind, I decided to pack up my extra luggage and ride with the boys to punish myself for my prolonged hedonism.

Boys? Did I say boys? I meant a whole herd of spandex clad men, most over the age of 40. We roll up and I see:

-Kits that came into circulation about the time I was born. In the 70s.

-At least two riders in cycling sandals. Not ironically.

-Fenders. Its approximately 90 degrees out. I need fenders to keep the sweat out of my eyes.

At this point, I figure that if I can't make it up Thompson in front of two 65-year old men in cycling sandals, there is a serious problem with my ability to retain fitness.

The ride rolls out and up Cornell at a leisurely pace until the group reaches NW53rd. One showdown begins there. I decide to take Thompson with the majority of the riders. As soon as we turn the corner, the acceleration begins. Although I can definitely feel the lack of intervals, tempo rides and generalized not giving a shit about getting my heart rate up, I make it up to Skyline with the front third of the group.

Then its south to Greenleaf. Eight hundred meters of stand up, grind it out climbing. Again, I'm nowhere near the front, but I'm also a long ways from the back.

Then its back downtown through the zoo. This was my favorite part of the ride. Until I got cut off by a bus, I was sitting comfortably in the slipstream of someone with twice my body weight and three times my cornering ability. And just rode the wave.

I'll be returning to this ride (and would recommend it to downtown dwellers), now that I have no fear of the group having to "slow up and wait for the girl." The route is fixed, there are least two regroups and the general level of bike-handling is high. And the male-female ration was at least 40-1. Score.

PIR 7/14/09

Today's PIR started out like any normal one. The first few laps were moderately paced but then picked up for the prime. Usually after the prime the group slows considerably so it didn't bother me that I dropped to the back of the pack not wishing to contest the sprint. However we crossed the line and the pace stayed firm. I found James' wheel who was following Kolben who was trying to close a small gap that had opened in the middle of the field. We turned on the the back stretch with the wind now in our face (we were going counter clockwise) and the gap was still there. I looked down at my computer which told me we were going 25mph straight into the wind. I decided to take a drink and absentmindedly drifted half a bike length off of James' wheel. Some idiot decided to force his way into this gap and then decided he didn't like the pace because he slowed down tremendously and left me grabbing for the brakes. As I scrambled to put away my water and avoid riding into this fools rear wheel the gap between me and my teammates became larger. I tried sprinting to catch but our effort to close the gap left my legs in shambles. The sinking feeling you get when you see the field riding away came over me. No one else in my groupetto including the idiot responsible was willing to work. The gap grew larger and any hope of regaining the field was crushed. I have only been dropped one other time at PIR in my second ever race there 3 and a half years ago. James has apparently been blessed with an endless natural supply of fast twitch muscle fibers as he went on to get 2nd. Kolben deserves most of the credit on that one supplying him with a killer lead out. Further excuses for my poor performance include the fact that I worked 8 and a half hours of physical labor at my job today and I had to go #2 the entire race. Whatever though...I'll just keep doing my intervals and workouts and hope for the best. I love racing. I don't care if I get last in every race...actually I would. See you all who are going to Vancouver Crit!!!! Hoping for a good result there.
-C-Rob

Sunday Morning Team Ride Report: AKA "What Happens When Tedder Doesn't Lead the Team Ride"

Ferdinand Magellan was born circa 1480 in Portugal. However, he subsequently obtained Spanish nationality, so that he could try to find a westward route to Indonesia. He thereby became the first person to lead an expedition across the Pacific Ocean.

This is your teammate Jamie. He was born somewhere on the East Coast sometime after the death of Elvis. In an attempt to demonstrate that the quickest route to Camas from Northwest Portland is via the Northwest Territories, he was the first person to lead an expedition to Lacamas Lake up Highway 30, over the St. John's Bridge and through Smith-Bybee Park.

If this makes no sense, it shouldn't. If you don't know why this doesn't make any sense, go to google maps and map it out. Wait, I'll do it for you. I'm no geometry wizard, but it doesn't seem to me like the quickest way from point A to point B is to first head ten miles in the opposite direction. But I am female and last took a math course when I was 17. Maybe I'm missing something.

But the five hardy explorers that showed up for the Sunday morning team ride managed to survive hangovers, summer rain, gravel roads, dead ends, gonorrhea jokes and a deluge of smack talking to get in a great 65+ mile ride up and around Lacamas Lake. Thanks to Chris S. for chaperoning what would have otherwise turned into something resembling an eight-wheeled bar fight. A bar fight that Christy and I would have won, leaving the boys to ride home alone. My guess is they would still be riding around Mt. Adams looking for the shortest route into North Portland.

(PS: This hereby serves as official team notice that Jamie has been nicknamed. You all should be able guess what that nickname is.)

Welcome to the Velodrome Pt.2 Race report 7.11.09

Two men enter, one man leaves. Race report for Oregon State Track Championship.

NWX Crit Report

The NWX Crit was fast. Actually fast, not "fast in my mind" because I got my ass handed to me for 30 minutes. Fast as in verified by Jen Ackeroyd (Group Health) on Saturday morning when we ran into each other at Wickiup Reservoir, who called it the fastest crit she had ever participated in. This made me feel better about the race, because, up to that point, I had spent 12 hours being pretty peeved about how I had ridden.

Fourteen ladies lined up. Twelve finished. I rolled in ninth.

I think this brief race report can be brought to you by the letter "A"...as in "altitude," "attitude" and "a-game." I definitely didn't bring the third, and although I would like to blame it on the first, the second was likely more to blame.

Problems started straight from the whistle. A local pro took the first lap out at a blazing pace and I immediately felt like I was breathing through a straw. Second lap I hit my pedal when I started pedaling too soon after a tight corner. The noise was such that I thought I had flatted. So I pulled off, no flat. Shit. So then came four laps of chasing back onto a group that was attacking each other every 1/2 lap. It took a lot to suck it up and not drop out.

Then came 20 minutes of gaining and losing position and constantly fighting not to get completely thrown off the back. I had a really difficult time maintaining my position on the high speed corners. I'm going to pin about 2/3 of this on my own handling inexperience. There was, however, two or three riders in the back half of the pack that were constantly passing on the inside on the corners (not necessarily a no-no, but definitely unsafe and not appreciated by the other riders) and I wasn't being aggressive or confident enough to hold my position and my legs just didn't have it attack and move up front. Was constantly giving up a spot or two. Each time it happened, I got more and more frustrated.

That frustration level had hit about 8 on a sale of 10 by the last two lap. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't corner, I couldn't seem to get myself up to midpack for the sprint. The course had a nice little riser going into the final straightaway...usually a great thing for me, but today my legs were basically ignoring all of my requests for an extra gear.

But I finished. Upright (despite hitting my pedal three times after the initial incident). With the group. And with a list of things I need to work on before my next crit.

Salem (fast)twitch trials- Race report 6/28

It was fun, fast, and furious for the Hammer Velo crew today!
So light a stogy and sit back, race report commin' atcha'.

Short Track Ate My Helmet.

My Monday night race report is up on my blog. I think we had John Lin, Chris Streight, Jeff, Dave German, Kolben, myself and the entire Gapay clan out racing. If you can get your hands on a mountain bike, you should really try this out...its a total hoot and great training for cyclocross. Which is ONLY 11 weeks away....

Capitol Criterium Race report 6.20.09

...'Its the Water'

Capital Criterium

Juan, Jeff, Sam and I journeyed up to Olympia, Washington yesterday to race the Capital Criterium. I don't have any racing pictures, but here is a picture of a really weird unicorn cake Sam and I spotted at a cafe near the race course:

Racing in Washington is sort of a pain in the ass. You have to buy a USCF one-day license and pay $10 to rent a number. Its total racket. All of a sudden, a race that originally cost $25 costs $45. Lucky for Sam and I, we got to race one minute for every dollar and got $10 of it back for returning the numbers unharmed.

I liked this course. The front side was a straightaway 500 meter incline. Not really a climb, because we could big ring it, but the grade was high enough that you could use it to make people suffer. It plateaued at the south end and the back and north sides were downhill and technical. Basically...it was like doing one minute intervals with 30 seconds rest at 90% for 45 minutes. Barf-o-licious.

Jeff raced first, in the masters A/B race. Direct quote: "Those are some fast old fuckers." Unfortunately, our fearless leader was pulled early and paid around $2 a minute to race. Not a good value.

Juan went next. From where we could see the course, it looked like he held 2nd-8th wheel the entire race and finished fourth. He'll probably post his race report up here later this week.

Sam and I rode in the Cat 3 race. It was just Cat 3s...a change up from riding down here. Another change was that 80% of the riders belonged to one of three teams. And those teams are coordinated and disciplined. Like Juan, I'll post my longer race report later, but here's the short version.

Since I hadn't put in a hard effort on the bike for 14 days, I spent the first 20 minutes wishing that a meteor would fly out of the sky and put me out of my misery. I watched Sam win a prime and tried to pick up on how the teams were coordinating. All while trying not to get yo-yo-ed off the back. At about 25 minutes, everything started to feel better, both in my legs and in my head, and I was able to really start racing, instead of simply surviving.

It was pretty obvious after 20 minutes who two of the teams wanted to save for the end of the race. The third, I had a pretty good idea, but wasn't 100% positive. There was lots of talking in the pack and there was more than one instance where I wanted to tell someone to quit bossing me around. But I'm trying to behave myself and I was likely breathing too hard to do more than squawk.

It was also obvious that after Sam contested a few primes and I put in some good attacks on the incline that the organized teams tried to start limiting our movement. We kept getting boxed in and/or pinched out on the good cornering lines. It didn't take me long to realize that if the pack stayed intact in the last 2 laps, we were dead meat.

So with three to go, I took a huge flyer off of the front from the base of the climb. And I just kept hammering until the end of the race...standing up on the hill and taking the corners as quickly as possible on the backside. The effort wasn't going to win the race, but I figured that I could throw down enough hurt and shell enough people to give Sam and I some room to move at the end.

This effort was really fucking hard. There was lots of drool and I threw up in my mouth at the end of the race. That is all I have to say about that.

Two women passed me with 1/2 lap to go and I just willed myself to stay on their wheels until the end. Lucky for me, the finish was the steepest part of the incline, and I was able to hold on for third. Sam had room to get herself up to fifth.

So this is what I like about WA races...being the wild cards messing with the organized teams and they have much better schwag for podium finishes. I got a really nice steel water bottle, $20, socks, a t-shirt and some tire levers that look like sex toys.

We stopped for milkshakes on the way home. All in all not a bad race experience.

Murderhorn 6/17 pics

The Hammer crew was out in force last night, both in the packs and on the sidelines cheering. Snapped a few photos of our women dominating the race. While we didn't pull any wins, there was no doubt that Anna and Mindy left their mark on the race by SHATTERING the women's 4 field. Props to Sal for her second place!

Mt. Tabor Round One

Results are still preliminary and still in need of correction...but I can say for sure that Mindy wiped the floor with the Cat 4 women's field and Sam finished 4th in the Senior Race.

Juan, James and Jen also raced, but I'm not sure where they finished...will update when results are corrected and finalized.

The rest of us heckled and drank tasty beverages on the volcano.

PIR Master's Monday 6.08.09 Race Report

Hot racing action on Monday night!
High speeds, blistering attacks and suicide breaks- good times.

Dave German and I owned the night from the front of the pack (and nearly book ending the final results in the process ;-) )...Many a lunch was eaten.

PIR 6/9/09

Another exciting evening of racing at PIR. James Ralston and I were the only Hammer Velo representatives. We did six laps with primes on laps 3 & 4. I launched an attack off the front with around 300m to go on lap 4 and got 2nd or 3rd place and collecting some points. James ended up 4th in the final sprint and I didn't sprint then. The cat 3/4 and 1/2/3 races were all points races with points to be had on every lap. It made for some awesome racing.

Crash and Burn: LK's Mt. Hood Race Report

It's a pretty long report, considering I only rode half of the race...but here is my version of Mt. Hood Cycling Classic.

PIR 6/8/09

Excellent job everyone who raced last night, especially Juan with the win the Masters 4/5.
**I took a ton of photos and I'll try and get the rest on PhotoBucket and send you guys the link.
***CLICK THE PHOTOS AND THEY BECOME HUGE***

Wednesday Morning Ride

James Ralston and I rode from L.O. over to the Springwater Corridor and across the steel bridge to waterfront park and then went back the way we came except we rode up through Riverview Cemetery.

32 miles
16 mph avg

Some cell phone pics from the ride...

PIR Women's Race: June 1

Yah, so there was a bad crash in our field last night. Everyone knows about that, so I'll just post on the good stuff that happened during the race.

I only have 7-8 PIRs under my belt, but until the crash, this was by far the hardest, and most entertaining, women's PIR race that I've been involved in. Why?

Veloforma showed up.

VF had Tina, Laura and Stephanie. We had Beth, LK, Anna and Mindy. Perfect ingredients for a Monday night throwdown.

Beth attacked in the first lap and it was on from there. VF attacks, HV chases. HV attacks, VF chases. Ironclad and Dawn Riddle from Gentle Lovers also helped mix it up a bit.

Damn, those gals are fun to race with. Very few lulls in the action and when we weren't attacking, there was some good cooperation in keeping the overall pace high.

VF killed all of the prime laps and the final sprint, but we will have our revenge.

PIR - 6/1/09

Well, it was a strange night out at PIR on Monday night starting with the Philadelphia-style-cheese-steak-slime-humidity. Thanks, but no thanks.

Jon rocked it in the novice5's, placing a strong fourth after a strategic race.
I picked up the win on the first hot spot for $10 and got nipped at the line for third on another by Joe Martin (of Veloce, who is quickly becoming my new nemesis). I got placed third overall for the night based on points, which was really a formality since our finish was scrubbed because of the horrible crash in the women's race. Kristin of Ironclad is pretty banged up, but apparently showing good signs. We are all thinking about her, and sending out healing thoughts.

I was pretty thankful and happy that my own teamates escaped severe physical injury last night. It's always scary when you hear the bikes hit the ground and shattering of plastic that inevitiably comes with it. Seems like just about every night I'm at PIR someone goes down, sometimes pretty close by. Its a dangerous sport, cycling. Anyway, I mostly wanted to give a huge shoutout to my teamates who were there at the scene when things went bad. I was blown away by how compassionate, caring, worried, helpful, and supportive to one another you all were. It made me very proud to call you all teammates.

Rubber side down.

Do, or do not. There is no 'try.'

Fast Twit [sic] Friday 5/29/06 Racy racy!

Bit redundant to LK's report-squirrelly junior and all...but read here for a little dash of George Lucas' wisdom mixed in with my own homespun wisery...The pain will bring us closer together.

Team Time Trial: Senior Women

Fast Twitch Friday: May 29

Cramps, German and I wandered out to Alpenrose on Friday night to try out some track racing. It was Dave and I's first time track racing, and Cramps' first time since he was 19 (so, say, first time since 1974).

For novice riders, Friday night racing is held in an omnium format: three races, the overall "winner" being the rider that accumulates the most points at the end of the night.

Juan was there when I arrived and Dave, in typical Dave fashion, didn't get to warm-up because he showed up 10 minute before racing started. Juan and I did get some good warm-up laps in, and he helped diagnose, and partially alleviate, the rattling coming from my chain.

Here is my race report, I'll let the boys add theirs in later...

Race One: Alpenrose Mile. 6 lap scratch race. I spent the first four laps trying to get out from being stuck behind a very squirelly BBC junior. On the back stretch on the fifth lap, I was able to get around her and move toward the front. Attacked at the start of the bell lap and was able to hold on for the win.

Unfortunately, a rider that was trying to catch me on the front stretch ran into my calf with her front wheel when she stood up to sprint. I stayed upright, she went down pretty hard, but was able to get cleaned and bandaged up to race in the third race. Her tire left a second degree burn on the back of my calf, bruised my ankle bone and destroyed the buckle on my right shoe.


Race Two: Ten Lap Tempo Race. Points given each lap, 2 for first, 1 for second. I basically hung out for the first three laps, then went high, moved out front, accelerated and stayed out front for the final six. Hard work, especially into the wind, but I'm a bit undergeared (48x16) and was spinning out frequently-- so I didn't feeling like I was working any harder than about 80%.

(Pre-Tempo Race. Credit: Jose Brujo Sandoval)

Race Three: Unknown Distance-ride until the bell ring, then sprint like hell. At this point, I've won the omnium and decide to just sit in and work on getting comfortable in the pack. I start out in the front and fade to the back once Elena Larsen and Kristin McCarthy attack the field. Got to watch the sprint from the back...good learning.

At the end of the night, both Juan and I won the omnium for our groups. I think German's rental bike left him undergeared for most of the races and he'll be able to be more competitive with a different gear ratio.

todays ride 5/29/09

So seven people showed up including myself (chris robinson). We did a loop around Clackamas County, it was really hot, I went through two bottles in less than 2 hrs, and I also found out that the town of Rainier(location of state rr) was in Oregon and not Washington.

Wild kingdom - Sharks and seal pups. PIR 5/26 race report

One man's baby is another man's lunch. PIR race report from the wilds of the 3/4 race. Phew! I made it out alive.

see it here: http://hammer-d.blogspot.com/

Bridge of the Gods Training Ride

8 brave souls left River City Bikes at 7:30 am Monday morning on our way to Hwy 14 and eventually The Bridge of the Gods....It was a nice sunny morning as we met at the bike shop, Beth showed up coughing up a lung but we are kinda use to that so it was not a big deal as we knew she would tough out the ride and be fine....It was a group mixed of Hammer Velo members, Lindsay, Dave, Sam and Jeff, Mo from Sorella and Bryan and Aaron....
We got to Camas and Dave and Mo pealed off to head back around Lacamas Lake as Mo is still not up to doing real high mileage yet...The rest of us kept rolling and making what looks to be our permanent stop on this ride in Washougal at a little road side coffee shop for some caffeine for a few people....We stopped here a few weeks ago while up there and now they know us by name...: ) Or by Beth's Cough and several Oh Fucks thrown in there....So off we go heading east and keeping a good tempo, we come to the first real climb up to the Viewpoint of the Mt. Pleasant area, a good long steady climb and then a great downhill into the flat lands along the river....Some rolling terrain along the way until you reach the next smaller climb up and over the Beacon rock area and then fast and flat into North Bonneville where we make our next fluid stop....Then it's up over the Bridge and the grating, Sam and a few other's first time over the bridge and it is alittle spooky if you look down through the grating your first time....The nice lady at the toll booth let us roll through without paying again and down the ramp we go, just about then we see all the Guinness Boys across the street so we had to go say hi, we left before them and never saw them again on the way home as we kept up a good pace heading back west on the Oregon side. The traffic was crazy through the falls area, people parking all over the roads blocking traffic but we weaved our way through and hit the short hills and rollers out to the base of the Crown Point climb, at that point, Sam and I waited for a few minutes for Beth, she was feeling the ride at that point and being half sick was catching up to her....So we started the climb, Lindsay, Aaron and Bryan were out of sight, Sam and I started picking up the pace and caught Bryan with a .5 mile or so to go to the top, he was not happy about that : ), this was his longest ride ever and he rode strong all day....We re-grouped at the top and rode down into Springdale where we made our last stop for cokes..YUM..YUM, a great way to end the ride the last hour or so, riding a good hard tempo all the way back into town into a little head wind....I was ready to be done as my eyes were so messed up with allergies I was seeing good only out of the left, the right was kinda glued together at that point....But a great ride, we kept everyone together for the most part, got out 100 miles in and then headed home....Fun times.....

Rehearsal Race Report

Big day for HV out at the Rehearsal Race...two state champions!

Here is my race report.

Team Ride Video

Here is the first cut at the team ride video from the Oregon City Ride three weeks ago....

http://www.vimeo.com/4641442

Enjoy! And thanks to Alice and Bill for setting this up!

Luge Party 3.0-Save the Date

Back By Popular Demand...the Luge Party.

Where: Jeff and Shari's House (email LK at lkandra1977@yahoo.com if you need directions)
When: June 13, 5PM until Jeff makes us all shut up and go to bed.

"What is a luge party?" you ask. It is a party whereby we procure a huge block of ice, torch a channel into it and then pour various alcoholic substances down it into your mouth. Mmmmmmmmm.

Party will feature special appearances by Emily Moon and (hopefully) Dave McHenry in a undersized superman costume. Ice luge sponsored by the friendly folks at Hammer(ed) Velo. Entertainment provided by belated birthday girls Lindsay and Sam and the rest of the Tedder-Tots.

You need to bring: (1) beer to share or a bottle of something from the booze family to pour down the luge and (2) something to throw on the BBQ.

Please carpool, get a designated driver and/or bring a sleeping bag just in case...we will have a keymaster and she is not one to be trifled with.

LK's Race Reports

My Silverton and PIR race reports (as well as my story of learning to ride the Velodrome), are up on my personal blog:

http://trigrrlsalmanac.blogspot.com/

Who is doing Rehearsal on Saturday??

Team pictures-May 2009

I think it is quite fitting to have the first true Hammer Velo post be about the team pictures we had taken before our May 9th, 2009 Saturday group ride. Spirits were high, people were smiling, the birds were chirping, and the sun was shining; so, we had our good camera faces on.

Big thanks goes out to Julie for taking the pictures. There were well over 100 pictures taken; so, I just went ahead and included below two of my favorites. You can check out the rest of the pictures (some more goofy than others) at http://picasaweb.google.com/JACarter5/20095HammerVelo?authkey=Gv1sRgCPT1xc-ttvyYWA&feat=directlink.