Man, where have I been? We are months into the 2009 race season and I have done a horrible job updating everyone on the team happenings. So let me give a recap of the last two months here:
Jeff Socia has basically gone mad. Last year he finally found his niche for racing and it happens to be ultra endurance events. So far this year he has completed in two 100 mile mountain bike races as well as the 60 Mile Stony Marathon. His first race was a learning experience, the Mohican 100, and in my eyes he still finished pretty well, 40th out of over 125 racers. He took his knowledge from that race and went into the Lumberjack 100 with more confidence and a fresh set of Stans Olympic ZTR's with Crow tires......big upgrade from his Mavic 819's. He started off very well, in the top 15, before an unfortunate mechanical that caused him to pull out of the race after the first 25 miles. Not much you can do when the crown on your fork snaps. He rebounded back for the Stony Marathon but came to the starting line with a sinus infection....we all know how something like this is bad for hydration. He still managed a podium finish with a 2nd place but he was well off his expected pace and would have challenged for the win if he was healthy. He has a few more of these ultras planned so I will do my best to keep you updated on him.
Heather Patterson has been tearing into the season like we all expected her to. What's crazy tho is that after 5 races she is sitting atop of the Women's Elite standing with a second, third, first and fourth place finishes. I do not have much info from her on how she has been feeling this year. I know she decided to concentrate more on bike racing this year and stray away from Triatholans because it was too hard for her to find time for the pool. What I will say is that she is one Tuff Chic and I'm glad she is on my team because it makes me look bad when girls from another team are faster than me. Yeah I said it, Heather is faster than me. So now I have someone to chase.....or draft, whatever way you want to look at it.
What else is new you might ask, Carolyn Galloway, that's what. Gerry saw an unsponsored rider at the starting line in Expert/Elite Women's and scouted her that day. Heck of a good chance that she is faster than me too.....this is not good for my image, however, it's good for the team. Carolyn sits second in the overall standings right behind Heather and let me tell you how cool it is to see that.....it's cool. I hope to make it out to meet her soon and get her on the site so we can show her off a bit and make other teams jealous. Boy, imagine the rankings if Dawn hadn't decided to take a year off......good chance she'd kick my butt in a race as well right now. Man do I have some work to do for next year.
Speaking of kicking my butt, Mike and I have decided to enter a two man team in the 12 Hours of Stony. Gerry and Brian will be manning a two person team as well. Rumor has it Heather will be showing up for the 6 Hour solo and Jeff will be there for the 12 Hour Solo if his plans to race out of town fall through. He's trying to get into the Wilderness 101 that same weekend.
So that wraps up our late night edition of this Team Signoutfitters.com broadcast. Still plenty of warm weather and races to come so stay tuned and I will do my best to keep you updated. Keep your bike rubber side down and keep your head off the ground because Aryn is back in the saddle and 650 miles into Base One training for the 2010 season. That's right, I'm coming for you!
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Monday, April 20, 2009
And they're off!!!
Okay, it was really only one. From the sounds of it the team will be small this year but strong. A few racers like myself are taking a leave of absence from the team this year to deal with other things outside the race circuit. Sometimes you need to step back and make adult decisions even if it means not racing for a year.
So Jeff was the lone Signoutfitter to race this weekend on the trails. He made the trip across state with some of the Team Frasier gang to save on gas. His field was pretty packed. New this year was Expert and Elite did two laps at the Yankee TT instead of one.
Like always Jeff never gloats about himself or dives into every detail of his race. He seemed happy with his results finishing 9th out of 36 with a time of 1:43:55. This race is more difficult because a lot of west siders ride there a lot and we only travel to that trail to race it. We interviewed him this morning and this is what he had to say:
"The trail was fun and fast. Rain was just a light mist, not much of factor at all. Considering the fore casted weather it turned out to be a great day."
Nice work Jeff. Next weekend he will be clipping in for two laps at the Pontiac Lake TT which is the first race in the Tailwinds XC series. Jeff knows this trail well and it plays to his strengths being there is a lot of elevation and he is a great climber.
Tim Storm, long time friend of the team who now races for Team Fraiser, made the trip out to the west side as well over the weekend. He did his very first Expert race and decided to go geared instead of SS. He finished 25th in a field of 39 with one trip over the bars but still finished in at 1:51:33. He is glad he moved up to Expert because a 52 minute lap won the Sport category he would have raced in and he believes he would have been able to match that given his first lap split was a 54. Personally I am glad to see him challenge himself and ride against a stronger field. Good luck this season Tim, you are going to do great.
Tune in next week as we follow Jeff Socia thru another weekend of pain and gain. Look for Hollywood Patterson, Brian "The Wrench" McCabe and Mike "Treeman" Keysear to show up and possibly flex a little muscle in their ranks as well.
So Jeff was the lone Signoutfitter to race this weekend on the trails. He made the trip across state with some of the Team Frasier gang to save on gas. His field was pretty packed. New this year was Expert and Elite did two laps at the Yankee TT instead of one.
Like always Jeff never gloats about himself or dives into every detail of his race. He seemed happy with his results finishing 9th out of 36 with a time of 1:43:55. This race is more difficult because a lot of west siders ride there a lot and we only travel to that trail to race it. We interviewed him this morning and this is what he had to say:
"The trail was fun and fast. Rain was just a light mist, not much of factor at all. Considering the fore casted weather it turned out to be a great day."
Nice work Jeff. Next weekend he will be clipping in for two laps at the Pontiac Lake TT which is the first race in the Tailwinds XC series. Jeff knows this trail well and it plays to his strengths being there is a lot of elevation and he is a great climber.
Tim Storm, long time friend of the team who now races for Team Fraiser, made the trip out to the west side as well over the weekend. He did his very first Expert race and decided to go geared instead of SS. He finished 25th in a field of 39 with one trip over the bars but still finished in at 1:51:33. He is glad he moved up to Expert because a 52 minute lap won the Sport category he would have raced in and he believes he would have been able to match that given his first lap split was a 54. Personally I am glad to see him challenge himself and ride against a stronger field. Good luck this season Tim, you are going to do great.
Tune in next week as we follow Jeff Socia thru another weekend of pain and gain. Look for Hollywood Patterson, Brian "The Wrench" McCabe and Mike "Treeman" Keysear to show up and possibly flex a little muscle in their ranks as well.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Counting down the days
The 2009 Race season is right around the corner. Hard to believe the long Michigan winter is almost over. Just as I knew it would happen, the closer the first race gets the more I miss the training sessions. It's going to be hard to sit on the sidelines this year and not race but I know it's still for the better that I don't. Plus, my training for the 2010 season will be starting up soon. I will say the rest I have taken this winter has done wonders for my body and I feel like I am back at full strength.
One thing I don't miss is the big grocery bills and having to eat something every 45 minutes. I was pushing 4,000 calories a day just to not lose any more weight. And of course it wasn't 4,000 calories of junk food that leave you stuffed for hours. It was calories upon calories of veggies, fruits, chicken, pasta and all that stuff that burns away fast. Then the bill for all the hydration powders and gels to eat while I rode.
To keep busy I have been tooling around at the ramp parks on my bmx bike with my son Ashton. Also I am in the process of building a dirt jumper to use at the Stony Skills Park this year. Can't wait until I finish it. I have most of the parts but need a couple more things from the Captain to finish it.
Speaking of building bikes, I have started to brainstorm about my next race bike and what I plan to build. I am actually tossing around the idea of going with a 29'er. Kona makes a really nice full suspension 29'er frame that I'd love to try out. I am going to have to go take some test rides soon and see what this 29'er hype is all about. This next bike tho will surpass my last build in terms of what I want. The last thought is what to do with my road bike. It's so ready for some love and needs some attention. I keep saying every year I am going to get a new one but somethig always comes up and I end up buying a different bike r a lot of replacement parts for the race bike.
As far as the team goes for this year....not sure what's going to happen with everyone. Jeff is planning to do what's natural for him and compete in more endurance events. He will be going out and doing some 100 miles races this year. I think he's up for it. After racing with him in the 6 Hours of Addison and the Stony Creek Marathon I know he's ready for the jump to the 100 mile races. He'll do well too. The guy is a machine and can hold himself in a zone for hours. When he satrted peaking last season in our Expert/CAT-1 category he started winning the geared races and still making it to the podium in the SS classes. 50-60 mile race days became normal for him and you could see he still had more left in the tank.
I believe Heather and Dawn will be back racing in the Elite/Pro level. I'm anxious to see how much faster Heather will be this year. I haven't talked to her much this of season but the Captain says she's ready to roll. Mike and Brian will continue their quests in the Sport or now CAT-2 category. Brian is actually training this off season and I see him returning back to 2007 form when he spent a lot of time going fast and finishing on the podium.
As for Scotty, Alex the Kid, Goatboy, Amber Alert, The Godfather and Aunt Darlene, I am not sure what their plans are for this year. I hope some year that we'll get back to the 2007 team turnouts. At every race we always had a big turnout and it made race day loads of fun.
So hopefully we'll get more riders back to the starting lines, me included. But until then I'll be quietly training on the sidelines to come back in 2010 right where I left off.
One thing I don't miss is the big grocery bills and having to eat something every 45 minutes. I was pushing 4,000 calories a day just to not lose any more weight. And of course it wasn't 4,000 calories of junk food that leave you stuffed for hours. It was calories upon calories of veggies, fruits, chicken, pasta and all that stuff that burns away fast. Then the bill for all the hydration powders and gels to eat while I rode.
To keep busy I have been tooling around at the ramp parks on my bmx bike with my son Ashton. Also I am in the process of building a dirt jumper to use at the Stony Skills Park this year. Can't wait until I finish it. I have most of the parts but need a couple more things from the Captain to finish it.
Speaking of building bikes, I have started to brainstorm about my next race bike and what I plan to build. I am actually tossing around the idea of going with a 29'er. Kona makes a really nice full suspension 29'er frame that I'd love to try out. I am going to have to go take some test rides soon and see what this 29'er hype is all about. This next bike tho will surpass my last build in terms of what I want. The last thought is what to do with my road bike. It's so ready for some love and needs some attention. I keep saying every year I am going to get a new one but somethig always comes up and I end up buying a different bike r a lot of replacement parts for the race bike.
As far as the team goes for this year....not sure what's going to happen with everyone. Jeff is planning to do what's natural for him and compete in more endurance events. He will be going out and doing some 100 miles races this year. I think he's up for it. After racing with him in the 6 Hours of Addison and the Stony Creek Marathon I know he's ready for the jump to the 100 mile races. He'll do well too. The guy is a machine and can hold himself in a zone for hours. When he satrted peaking last season in our Expert/CAT-1 category he started winning the geared races and still making it to the podium in the SS classes. 50-60 mile race days became normal for him and you could see he still had more left in the tank.
I believe Heather and Dawn will be back racing in the Elite/Pro level. I'm anxious to see how much faster Heather will be this year. I haven't talked to her much this of season but the Captain says she's ready to roll. Mike and Brian will continue their quests in the Sport or now CAT-2 category. Brian is actually training this off season and I see him returning back to 2007 form when he spent a lot of time going fast and finishing on the podium.
As for Scotty, Alex the Kid, Goatboy, Amber Alert, The Godfather and Aunt Darlene, I am not sure what their plans are for this year. I hope some year that we'll get back to the 2007 team turnouts. At every race we always had a big turnout and it made race day loads of fun.
So hopefully we'll get more riders back to the starting lines, me included. But until then I'll be quietly training on the sidelines to come back in 2010 right where I left off.
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