Wednesday, December 7, 2011

HERE'S MORE MUD IN YOUR EYE: MICHIGAN STATE CHAMPIONSHIP CYCLOCROSS VIDEOS AND PHOTOS

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Take a lap with Big Mac. Here's the first lap of the Cat 3 / B's State Championship Race this past Sunday, courtesy of Adam McIntyre. Adam takes this ride to the podium and a State Championship medal.

Now, finally we can get down to the muddy cases of this last weekend's State Championship. It was brutal, tough, and yeah, a whole lotta fun. It was. Well, fun now that it is over and the bikes are now all cleaned and ready for the next thrashing  (see tomorrow's post for 'what's next Big Bad Wolf Race' in Midland.) Now on with the pictorial of the weekend's race.


Ready set ... WTF where are the racers? This was the starting grid for the Masters. It was getting colder and while there was a hold on the race to a course alteration (needed to be shortened as the the course literally deteriorated - see Mac's video) the riders took cover in the heated building not seen on the left.


One dirty mudder. Our good friend and top Master's 'Crosser John Osgood rides away from the battle for the last time (I think) in 2011. Here's a guy who throws it all down every time he toes the line.


Susan Shaw after a great riding in some of, if not the most testing conditions of the year.



Susan, what happened to "Surrender the Booty?" Looks like it got mudded out.


Just one of the 15 bikes that Big Mac and I washed on Sunday. We figured we poured about 20 gallons of water through the power washer. Yeah, BISSELL means clean!


These boots were made not just for riding, but for a lot of semi-running and walking through the mud.


Here's the front end of my machine after the race. Never really went down, but it looks like it's been planted, doesn't it?


Have a seat - right there on that big mud blob. I don't think I was riding on the rivet the whole race - I just wasn't on the saddle at all. There were about 7 running sections per lap and I don't know if that's even counting the ORANGE CRUSH and the barriers. Yeah, need those barriers.


Best rider on the mud - Jeff W - Lil' Pony. Absolutely fantastic to watch how fast he could ride on the worst shit possible. Well done Jeff! (Photo by JB Hancock)


Not the best rider on the shit. This had to be the first lap. I'm too clean. Good news here is everybody else has their feet on the ground and I was riding! (Photo by JB Hancock)


Mike S lays down the pain on the goo. (Photo by JB Hancock)


This is the way the pros do it. And the Whiz. Not quite his day, but he made it a race. (Photo by JB Hancock)


Eventually Elite Winner Sven B makes a strange move, but pulls it out and goes on to win. (Photo JB Hancock)



After the mudbath was over we went inside to collect the hardware. Here's a little of what we threw on the table, and this is before Fast Freddy Bunn added his medals (a State Championship Silver and a Podium/2nd Place in the 45+ Masters, one of the toughest races of the day. Congrats Freddy! The other hardware belongs to Big Mac, and myself. Mac really earned his in the slug-fest Cat 3 race coming home 5th (podium in the overall race) and 3rd in his age group for State Championships! Way to kick off your 'cross career Adam. I snuck by, by virtue of age with a State Championship win in my age group. Well if there's an compensation in getting older, I guess this is it.


Race podium left, State Championship on the right. But that wasn't all Adam took home ...


A little something for taking third overall in the Series (B's Cat 3) for Adam. Jeff "Slayer" Haney got one of these for first place in the 45+ Series. Nice job, gentlemen. And I use that term, er, uh, incorrectly.


Freddy taking the podium with a second step in the Master's 45 and a Silver State Championship medal. Great job Freddy - lots of BISSELL on the podium - and Bastards. All good to see.



This is as close to the podium as I got. They just gave me the medal and told me to get my old ass back out to the parking lot and get back to cleaning bikes.

Didn't matter ...

That medal was getting a new home soon ...



"Thank you to all of my fans, and those that have made this possible ... anybody got a Snausage? I'll trade you for this new dog tag."

TUESDAY NIGHT RIDE REPORT:

Total Cluster F*ck in my opinion. I guess we've gone from ICEMAN training rides to BRX training rides. Ugh. Don't look for anymore ride info awhile. I'm rolling with people I know and trust until the season's over with. Let me know if you want to ride and we'll meet somewhere.

NEW: LOST AND FOUND DEPARTMENT

Heart Rate Monitor Strap

Someone found a heart rate monitor strap in the parking lot after last week's ride. Name the brand and it's yours. Just leave a comment and I'll get it back to you. We won't even ask you WTF you needed a heart rate monitor for on a week night ride.

Brains

A number of these left these behind tonight in the parking lot on tonight's ride. If you know who they belong to let them know they dropped them and we're keeping them in garbage bag until they're claimed. They can be useful, you shouldn't really ride without them ... most of them were rather small so we think they probably belong to mountain bikers - but you never know.



4 comments:

  1. Just went over 100,000 visitors to the blog during the last year. Woot, woot. I guess ...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Easy on the Mountain Biker brain comments there buddy. We're not all.....oh look, a shiney object....

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  3. Bwwwahaha. Just spit my coffee through my nose onto the screen. Okay the brains weren't small, the just hadn't been used at all.

    ReplyDelete
  4. "Shiney" is spelled without and "e". Shiny.

    ReplyDelete