John's idea of 'pre-race' feeding

Now granted, he is not racing until Sunday, but he is stocking on calories early.



Proud of ya John!!



-S

Sent on the Now Network� from my Sprint® BlackBerry

"Every time I pedal a little part of me dies."

'nuf said

"I have about as much desire to finish this race as my rigid fork does."

"If my ass touches this saddle it will catch on fire."

"My face even hurts from making this face."

Ever seen a 8+ hour HRM file

For scaling purposes, each of the horizontal lines is 25 bpm. So the two that you see this file spending most of the time between are 150 and 200....with 175 being the middle ground. Indeed the average HR for the entire time= 170. The final portion of the file is what happens when you have to pedal a flat tire in. Can't generate much power that way.

National Duathlon Off-Road

Sorry, no pictures yet of race day, but in a word it was HOT. As in 95 degrees in the urban environs of Richmond. Bike Factory Racing had a few hardy entrants in several of the races:
Lisa Stover raced the sport distance and came in 6th overall in the women's field.
Kate Lucas teamed up to ride the 26k bike segment and took 5th in the team competition.
Jim Seguin and I competed with the other championship-distance athletes at the very hot, very sunny 10:30 start, and it only got hotter. Jim ran well and biked smart to gut out 38th place, and I cracked on the second run and came in at 47th.

Congrats to all of you for racing in the brutally hot conditions.

Nice job to the Cohutta 100 racers. It was quite the epic weekend for the team.

Next up is Lodi.

Caution: Hydration and Wild Animals

Hey fellow bikers. Just a word of caution to make sure you stay hydrated out there, it's apparently going to be a warm summer.

Also, summer heat can make some animals grumpy. Use extreme caution when approaching a hippopotajason (also known as a hiserpotamous) in high temperatures. Its natural habitat is mountain streams and ponds in western Virginia, but recent sightings have occurred in local bike parks as well. The animal can be quite docile and friendly, almost domesticated when well fed and comfortable temperatures. However, its use of aggression when cornered is well noted. Caution is also needed as it has been known to invade picnics and local swimming holes when hungry or warm.

Related to the hippopotajason is the shade pig. Although rare, it's territory is great. It can frequently be found on rocky mountain tops where wheeled vehicles and gasoline motors cannot reach and back country roads where such vehicles are rare.

The ol' man 4th

In Masters...and yes, he was the only one on a single speed in the group.

Way to go Dave!!!

-S

Sent on the Now Network� from my Sprint® BlackBerry

Denelle 8th place!!!

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Deni in at Sub 10 hrs.

By a large margin...10-20 minutes under.



Awesome!!!



Sent on the Now Network� from my Sprint® BlackBerry

Not all end well that goes well

Solid race under really hot conditions. I kept hearing Jason's voice in my head, take your pills. And boy did I ever.

Food tally:

4 camelbacks of water.

2 bottles of cytomax

5 packs of Cliff Blocks

2 cytogels

32 Endurolytes



Equipment total:

One tire

2 tubes

Several boots.



I was through rest station 3 at 53 miles by 4:13. Rolling solid and with most of the major climbing almost over, things were looking well for the sub 8 hour finish time I wanted. When I hit rest station 6 at mile 90 at 7:05, I knew my goal was acheivable. The last part of the cours is some gently rolling NC style singltrack and then a great decent into the finish stretch along the road. I entered a rock garden a little out of the intended line and heard a loud hissing from the rear. Trying to stay calm I cleanly dismounted and set to fixing the flat. Knowing I was tight on time, I went straight to the tube. Got it in clean, booted the area that was slashed, checked for thorns and hit it with the pump. Everything went wrong, The bead had been torn from the tire and was not going to re-seat at all. Realizing the situation, I started down the trail riding the rim on the tire and tube. This last section of trail and road that should have taken me 40 minutes to fly through and down, took almost 2 hours with having to pick lines over everyroot and rock. All totaled, I rode the rim and tire 7 miles down the mountain. Plus if the speed got up at all the tire would start to fall from the rim and was leading to some sideways skidding that would have made me proud when I was a kid.

All said, I made it in at about 9:08. Not a horrible time, but not my goal either.



As they say, "Ya win some, ya lose some."



I will be back to finish what I set out to do.



It looks like Deni just rolled by at a sub 10 hour time. Details to follow.

-S

Sent on the Now Network� from my Sprint® BlackBerry

The Time is now

Oh-yeah!!!

Nothing like testing early season fitness at a 100 miler.

Or as Deni is refering to it 'Base miles from the winter, all in one day.'



See ya on the flip side.



-S

Sent on the Now Network� from my Sprint® BlackBerry

Tomorrow's Fun

Hydration packs are icing, Clif blocks are packed and the Endurolytes are ready. With temps into the upper 80's and low 90's tomorrow. These hills in the distance may become a bit more daunting.
Look for an update tomorrow as soon as we can get on up!!!

-S
Sent on the Now Network� from my Sprint® BlackBerry

The Monster at Rest

Nothing like the morning before a big race. Your body is physically and mentally poised and even anxious. But you must wait....

My bike feels that way this morning.



-S

Sent on the Now Network� from my Sprint® BlackBerry

Jasper Wins at Twisted Tire!!!

Big News Folks: Jasper took the kids class. I hear it came down to superior course knowledge on his part. During the neck and neck race, Jasper's main adversary took the log, Jasper knew about the clear path around.....and WHAMO!!! He took the win!!!

Nice job Jasper!!!

Birthday Bash

What is the best way to celebrate one's birthday? How about nearly 3 hours and 27 miles of gravel roads (to include brokenback and mission home) before going to a crit and getting beat up on by Dave T, Danny-O and Hiser? Oh yeah, with 50 degree weather and sideways rain. Thanks to Dave T for the delicious birthday cake. err... brithday brownies! What do you expect at a birthday/brownie crit! To sum it all up. AWESOME!!! Thanks guys for an absolute birthday beating!

The New "BFR Garage"

Kinda cool news,we have started the BFR Garage, Scott R. came up with the idea (thanks Scott).
The idea is to allow open exchange of products for our team members between each other or the local cycling community. This is not an outlet where we will sell anything brand new from our sponsors. We are not trying to make a profit on this, but rather, make sure that the good parts we have laying around idle, get pressed into service by someone that can use them. The BFR Garage is going to be shown as an RSS feed on the right hand side of this page and you can simply click through to check out what is there at any time. On occasion a used bike or two may be for sale, a fork, some handlebars, cranks, etc.
Please though, don't start emailing from overseas asking how much for a new Trek Remedy.....we won't respond with anything but "see your local Trek Dealer"


Happy "shopping"

-Shawn

Cesenatico and back

Back from our honeymoon, Shannon and I wanted to start sending some pictures around.

For this crew, I thought I'd start with Cesenatico, Italy - boyhood home of Marco Pantani. There's a monument to him there, as well as a museum.

The monument is by the sea, facing west towards the mountains. I thought that was appropriate.


The museum is interesting. Lots of old footage of Marco dominating in the Giro and the Tour. Here's a photo with me and a couple of his early bianchis - they were TINY. Crazy other stuff too. Pictures of him hunting partridge. His custom harley. Some notes in Italian before his death.

And seriously, what would a honeymoon be without a stroll on the beach.

And then, Snap! Back to the home front. Two races in two weekends. And a rebuilt fork - thanks Bro. Bender says those Enduro Seals check out, and I managed to get a gap on him on the first downhill so something is working right in there again.

Bike and Build

So I just got word from one of the counselours here at the school, Andy Erwin. Over the summer he will be riding his bike 4,000 miles across the country. I am always impressed when someone can give up a whole summer to do these things. Super cool to take on a cause like this. Me, I am too selfish I guess. I hope to also ride 4,000 or more miles this summer, only I want to do it in races and in training....so my only cause....sadly is me.

Follow Andy here
http://andrewbikescrosscountry.blogspot.com/

You can donate to Andy's cause as well through his page on Bike and Build


-Shawn

Sick Days

I once had a doctor tell me that with increased lung capacity comes an increased risk of respiratory infections. Don't know how true that may be, but I have a good one going now. For some reason every spring finds me with a sinus load of colors and lungs full of cookies. Makes it hard to train right now. But truly a few days off is not bad either. Tucker likes sick days. He gets to not run with the big dogs and stay on the couch.
FORD #1 this weekend.

Who is going?

Hilbert #1

Hilbert was great this past weekend. Our team showed up in solid form and ready to put pressure on the competition. The final results turned out in our favor for certain.
____________________
Sport Men
1st Danny O
3rd Cyrus D.
____________________
Sport Women
9th Lisa Stover
____________________
Expert Vet Men
10th Ken Tankersley
____________________
Expert Women
3rd Sheila Scott
____________________
Sport Vet Men
14th John Scott
____________________
Masters
4th Jim Seguin
____________________
Enduro Women
2nd Denelle Grant
____________________
Enduro Men
1st Shawn Tevendale
4th Kevin Murray
12th Dave Tevendale (ill timed flat)
24th Jason Hiser (quit half way through to go swimming, triathlete in training)


Awesome job to everyone. Huge thanks to my dad and to Danny-O's parents for running the pit and the trailer. You guys were huge help out there!!

-Shawn