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Showing posts from October, 2008

Wicked Creepy Cross Race Report

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Whew. You know it's been an ugly week when I can't get Sunday's report up until Thursday. I actually considered skipping this report entirely, but blogging is like bike racing -- once you drop out once, it gets easier and easier each time after that. All you people with dead blogs out there know what I'm sayin. So, Wicked Creepy Cross! Last year's course was totally awesome so they brought it back virtually unchanged. In fact, the only thing that changed was the sand pit -- last year it was pretty short and pretty hardpacked. This year it was twice as long, with a 90 degree turn, and an inch of rain overnight turned it into a wet sand pit . You might think that a wet sand pit would pack down and become a piece of cake, but you'd be wrong. Dead wrong. This was without question the hardest sandpit I've ever faced. Normal, dry sand is light and fluffy. A motivated rider can plow through it at will, churning through it a flurry of flying sand, like a

Double PSA

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A quick midweek post while I'm attending a conference ! PSA #1: There's a Wednesday night training race at Harvard these days. I don't really get into the whole training race thing, because MORE INTENSITY isn't exactly what I'm after when I'm doubling up every weekend. But a lot of people love that stuff, and someone sent me a cool graphic, so check it out: PSA #2: Northampton Verge is pre-reg only. This is a calculated move on their part, I guess, because knowing the entire contents of your race fields before the day of the race is a good think. On the other hand, everyone who makes the reasonable assumption they can reg day-of gets totally screwed over. You might argue that everyone who is serious will prereg to get a good callup, which means you forgot about people with series points or in the UCI categories. Personally, I think it's kind of a dick move, but whatever, it's their race and they can do what they want. The important point is, i

MRC Cross Race Report

MRC Cross Seat Cam Lap 1 from colin reuter on Vimeo . After a few rides with the seat cam, I've been getting a variety of jokers mugging for the camera while staging/riding behind me. Hey man -- whatever encourages people to get behind me. Saturday's MRC cross race in Wrentham had especially good seat cam potential because no one fast preregistered , gifting me an ill-deserved front row start spot. Adding to the excitement was a $120 crowd prime (preem? preme? I hate spelling that word) for winning the first lap. Two years ago I saw Mark McCormack and Justin Spinelli have a huge crash going for the crowd prime here, so knew it was going to be exciting. My plan was to get off the line as fast as possible and see where I was after half a lap -- then, if the front seemed reachable, go for broke. Much to my chagrin I lined up in the deepest sand available on the front row, and it looked like I might not get an opportunity to ruin my race on the first lap when I started

MRC Cross Race Seat Cam Crash Video

The seat cam jinx continues. I'll elaborate later, but other than a taco'ed front tubular (it really sucks to be my mechanic ) everyone and everything was ok. MRC Cross Race Seat Cam -- Crashing Out from colin reuter on Vimeo .

Oh dear

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I'm kind of wishing I didn't click the confirmed riders link on this one.

More Canton Videos

I put the rest of the Canton footage up. There's not too much excitement there, although various people you might know get some extended face time. I added the "script" after each video so you can jump around to whatever you want to see... and I also edited out the sections with no one behind me. Lap 2/3 cast of characters : Josh J Soren Klingsporn (DKNY crash dude) Pete bradshaw (Hybrid bike dude) P-V-B Todd Rowell (crashed in front of me) Scott Dolmat-Connell (Metlife dude) Laps 4-7 cast: Scott Dolmat-Connell Pete Smith (Cambridge bikes) Cort Robbie King softpedaling (Rite Aid kit) Robbie King smoking us Brian Hughes (blue fastsplits kit) Guenter Hofer (at the very end) I'm in Toronto this week, the flying home to race on the weekend, then flying to Los Angeles (out of Albany so I can race Wicked Creepy ) for the next week, then back for the Noho VERGE. This will be by fifth week on the road in the last 10. So I'm just saying, if my form falls off a

Canton Cup Race Report

Canton Cup 1/2/3 Men Lap 1 from colin reuter on Vimeo . After spending 4 hours Saturday pounding stakes and carrying barriers around at Canton, then riding a few hot laps, you might think that gave me some kind of advantage, physical or psychological. But you'd be wrong, because I'm a weenie, so I was physically beat and mentally scarred after realizing I spent an afternoon building a course that was horribly suited to me. "It's like a mile of pavement per lap!," I whined. Still though, it's a bike race, and my mental state had actually come around quite a bit by Sunday afternoon. It was cold (40's) and windy (gusting to 40s?), and I decided this would be a good race to practice "riding smart" or "riding in a group" or whatever you want to call the sort of mid-race cooperation I normally ignore. We had 40 or so racers, great turnout for a non-Verge elite race, with a good range of skill -- from Jesse Anthony, to some chill bro

Let's do it Internet!

Hi Internet. I need a favor. So part of being on a team is that everyone once in a while I have to "contribute" to the "cycling community." We all know this is stupid, because really -- screw bikers. I can't think of any reason why I should help run a cross race, can you? Anyway. Saturday I have to go help build the Canton Cup course. My primary function will be to talk people out of anything resembling a straightaway ("why not put the finish line in a chicane? seriously, why not??") and dump water on the corners when people aren't looking. This is all well and good, but it means I can't go race at New Gloucester on Saturday. Here's where the favor comes in, internet. I need you to go race for me . Because this race rocks, and lots of people should be there. I was hoping to be part of "lots of people," but I can't. Here's some incentive. Pro 1/2/3 Elite Women 45 minutes 1:00 PM $25 $500/8 Pro 1/2/3 Elite Men 6

Gloucester Day 1 Race Report

Somewhere in the mess of seat cams and sliced tubulars I never really got around to writing up the race report. You might think to yourself "isn't 25 minutes of video enough of a race report?," which means you're new around here. We can easily supplement that with 1000 or so words! Plus, the seat cam doesn't actually give much perspective on what's happening to me , since as everyone knows the race is in front of you, not behind you. If you watch the lap one video you'll hear a LOT of metal-on-metal slapping when I start, that's the sound of me missing the clip-in about 8 times and even slipping off the pedal once. That's why people started going around me. What happened was that they gave us the 15 second warning, then Ryan started yelling, I got distracted and then the whistle came super early. It was the least prepared I've ever been for a start... live and learn. Anyway, once clipped-in I was in full afterburner/panic mode so I got b

Gloucester Day 2 Race Report

The course was toughened up for day two, thanks to more sandy corners and a gnarly runup. After a confidence-boosting 9th on Day one. I thought I could hang with the lead group and was determined to stay in the first five wheels on lap one. I got a better start, but not as good as someone toward the center of the line. Ten seconds into the race they started cutting to the inside, which made James Tosca drift over into my bars, then off, and then back again. His rear quick release was heading for my front spokes so I did a *tiny* brake-tap while sprinting to let him get by... Bam , rear-ended, James Patterson from UVM's (I think) front brake (I think ... watch the video) slices my rear tubular and that's the end of that. It was 0.8 miles to the pit. Running 6-7 minutes just to maybe not finish DFL did not seem worth it. I jumped the fence and headed out on the course to scream at people I usually race against. Warning : Video contains profanity. Gloucester

Gloucester Day 1 Laps 2-4 Seat Cam

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The setup. Photo by Ryan K . Featuring Colin Murphy: Human Yo-yo. Also starring Brian Lawney, Todd Burns, Ryan Rumsey, with brief guest appearances from Hunter Pronovost, Sean Mannion, Don Snoop, James Patterson. Some highlights are the lap two sand pit (which I should not have ridden), and the lap four crash. Gloucester 2/3 Men Seat Cam Lap 2 from colin reuter on Vimeo . Gloucester Day 1 Seat Cam Lap 3 from colin reuter on Vimeo . Gloucester 2/3 Men Seat Cam Lap 4 from colin reuter on Vimeo .

Gloucester Day 1 Lap 1 Seat Cam

I'm still trying to figure out what to do with 1.3 GB of seat cam video, but here's lap one, tentatively titled "Gloucester Lap One: The Pat Goguen Story." Gloucester Cyclocross Seat Cam from colin reuter on Vimeo .

Miscellany

Got a bunch of assorted stuff kicking around. Might have reached the blog-able threshold... 1) Where the hell are Eco Cross results? I realize I might be biased , but I'm not the only guy out there who craves results after the weekend. There's a reason crossresults traffic is out of control on a Monday. I'll try not to get into trash-promoters-without-understanding-anything mode here, but the last step in running a successful race (from a racer's perspective) is getting results posted in a timely manner. Somebody is dropping the ball, that's for sure. 2) I have a new bike . This was made possible by the good folks at International Bikes , who moved this carbon fiber, Rival-equipped machine into my price range. I will try to repay them for this generosity by winning some races (ha!), or at least crashing with my jersey logo prominently displayed in front of Richard Fries. The bike is so radically different from the old compact-frame (not that there's any

Eco Cross Race Report

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The weekend of October 4th/5th had a strange feature to it for an October weekend in New England -- only one cross race. If you wanted to race Saturday, you had to drive to New York. If you're a small promoter going up against an established race , or a great race in Maine going up against a great race in Connecticut , Saturday would have been a great way to snag a good turnout. It's kind of a shame that there's not an organizing body that helps promoters schedule this kind of thing. I'll bet you an entry fee the Downeast CX guys did not intend to put their race up against Mansfield, but they probably had to commit to the venue before schedules were posted. But let's not get too off track here. Sunday I headed to the cape and eco cross as it was the only show in town -- and I wasn't the only guy with this idea. The Cat 4 race was something like 80 riders, big enough they had to split it in half. Playing the role of "gas money" was Ryan K who ma

What the Myerson

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Where the hell is my confirmed riders link?! Half the fun of hitting refresh frantically at 9:59 is rubbing my front row start in other people's faces. NOW WHAT AM I GOING TO DO?!