Seven Springs, PA

The team showed up with three riders for the second stop of the Gravity East Series at Seven Springs Resort in Pennsylvania. The course was fast and fun with only one truly technical area - a jagged rock garden that spanned only about 50 feet.



The rain rolled in after practice on Saturday afternoon, which took care of the dry, dusty corners. By race time on Sunday the course was tacky and smooth, with only minimal mud to deal with. Nick had a fall in the rock garden, which left him with a sprained ankle and no way to pedal through to the finish. Ross and I slipped by without injury and completed our runs at 2:39 and 2:29 respectively. Ross raced CAT1 which netted him 20th spot, while I competed in CAT2 and found myself in 1st place.



It was a successful weekend and certainly an improvement on the GES stop #1 at Massanutten.

Hey man your ankle has a baseball stuck to the side of it...

Oh yeah, that, it is nothing really... 

This is after 12 hours of icing when the swelling went down tremendously.  It looks like I am out until the end of summer...

...Jason

2010 Cap2Cap

With the conflict in dates today between the cap2cap and Hilbert #2, I decided to stay close to home and ride in the cap2cap with Mason.  Mason has ridden on the road with me plenty of times before, but not for 25 miles.  She just turned 11 last month, so we decided that the 50 miles would have to wait until next year.  We got up early and cheered (and rocked the cow bell!) for the century and 50 mile riders.  It is amazing how much the cowbell adds to the spirit of cycling.  Then it was time for me & mason to head out.  Craig joined us as he had unexpected obligations come up which forced him to ride the 25 miler instead of the century.  He was the first one back out of any distance, but it was with little fanfare as I do not think anyone expected someone back so soon...

Adding a little lube to Mason's chain before we head out.  It is nice that the ride leaves pretty much from our doorstep.  One final pose for the camera before we head out.

Then we lined up and were off for our 25 mile adventure.

I think the three of us stood out within the 25 mle crowd...  We did have a lot of fun along the way with some of the participants doing their best to keep up with an 11 year old.  It was a lot of fun.  Sometimes we would get passed on the flats, but then on the uphills I would grab Mason's seat and we would drop the hammer, passing everyone right back!  Mason was great on the ride, she never once complained even though we had terrible headwinds.  A couple of times I would put my hand on her back and we would spool it up to around 22 mph.  Even with my assistance, I could tell she was no longer in her comfort zone.  She was trooper, though.  Our bars would be 2-3 inches apart and she held steady like a veteran rider.  It is great to see how far she has come along on the road bike.  Her skills and focus seem like they improve with every ride.  Everyone was super supportive of her along the ride, complimenting her and then being amazed that she was just 11.  We ended up finishing the 25 miles in 1:45, which is 15 minutes quicker than I expected to finish the ride. 

Here we are crossing the line.  Mason loves this picture because she claims to have beaten me to the line.  One of our many 'sprint points' along the route.  We came in to a ton of cheers, which was pretty cool for Mason. 

We were all smiles after it was over.  It is nice that kids get such great support from the cycling community. 

...Jason

Massanutten Yeeha

Hmm...how can I explain it?

Friday's practice was going perfectly. My tires were hooking up on every corner, I was feeling confident and fast. Each run was increasingly better than the last and I was really settling in well on the new bike.

On my fifth practice run I came screaming through the first rock garden and set my sights on sprinting out of the first "bump garden" - a field of small, but awkward and sporadically-placed rocks. As I'd done in previous runs, I started to mash the pedals in order to "ride the rear wheel" through this bumpy patch. Unfortunately my front wheel smacked a rock just as I rose the the front of the bike to apply power, which threw my weight forward and sent me flying over the bars.

Some people say "face first" to describe any over-the-bar fall, but this time I mean it. I landed "face first" in the rock garden and have the stitches to prove it. Oh yes, somehow I busted my face despite wearing a full-face helmet and goggles.



I was carried off of the trail and transported to the hospital where they cleaned up my face and stitched me up. Everyone there was amazingly helpful and one of the eye-witnesses to the crash rode to the base to find Rachel and tell her where to find me at Rockingham Memorial Hospital in Harrisonburg.

It was a rough way to start the season and I hope that it's my only BIG wreck of the year, much like the Snowshoe wreck of last summer.

In true idiot-fashion I claimed to feel "much, much better" the next morning. I still wanted that run, even if it was going to be slow. The rest of my body was sore from the fall. My right knee was swollen, my right hand had two jammed fingers, and the rest of my body had scrapes all over it. Still, I insisted that I'd take it easy and just try to make it down safely.

I carried a bag of ice on the lift in an attempt to loosen up my jammed fingers enough to grab the handlebar and brake lever and committed myself to a slow and cautious run. I made it to the bottom [eventually] and my time put me in the middle of the pack, 16th out of 30 riders in CAT2.


I found this photo on Sempertubby's Photobucket.

It seems that I was hardly the only person to go down, even if I was known as "that guy" for most of the weekend. I was topped on Saturday by the US phenom, Neko Mulally, who broke his wrist on that morning's practice run.

There was, however, some good news to report from the weekend. The event was very friendly, fun, and competitive. We met a bunch of great people over the weekend and got to see some of our friends do quite well in the first race of the season (for this region at least). Neko's brother, Logan Mulally landed first place in CAT1 Junior. Jason Memmelaar showed well with a second place result in the Pro category, complimented well by his teammates Gavin Vaughan (4th in Pro), Chris Higgerson (18th in Pro), Alex Moschitti (21st in Pro), PJ Mihalick (3rd in CAT1), Alex Couture (12th in CAT1 junior), and Dennis Yuroshek (1st in open). Our camping neighbors, Ryan and Becky Gardner did well too. Ryan put in an amazing run of 3:31:73 to place second in CAT1 and Becky put in a time worth 3rd place in women's CAT1. Trevyn Newphyr from Snowshoe secured 5th place in pro with a time of 3:21:27. Our friend from Ohio, Thomas Herman, grabbed fourth place in CAT2 despite catching traffic on the course and losing crucial seconds. Butch Greene of Asheville and Life of the Butch scored big time this weekend with an astounding 3rd place in Open, not even two full seconds behind Dennis Yuroshek. My teammate, Ross Ciminelli, stepped up big time and entered CAT1. He put in a respectable time of 4:00:57, which correlates to about one month of shit talking since he beat me by twelve seconds.

Chaching

You've got to love free exposure.

Happy Easter

I just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Easter.

The Hopkins family eggs, 2010.

Thanks Steve...

Thanks for reminding me that I should have ridden more than twice during March...  that and showing me your home trails York River & Freedom yesterday. 

...Jason

Mean Todd Green

OK, so two posts in one night.  This one does not have as much to do with racing as it does with teamwork. 

This past weekend, our condo at Rocketts Landing was featured in the 2010 Richmond Loft Tour.  I had a lot of work to do in order to get my place ready for the tour and almost made it...  I was running behind schedule making a loft for Mason out of some old heart pine beams which were salvaged from one of the old buildings at Rocketts.  I had dreams of getting this done before the tour and needed some last minute help.  This is where Todd comes in.  I call him around 4pm on Friday and ask if he wants to lend a hand.  He asks what time and I tell him to come over the my buddy's millwork shop at 11pm for the late shift (Gepetto Millworks) - Matt Wiley from the team owns it.  He responds by asking if he can come around 8:30, if that would help more.  Of course it would, I was way behind schedule but still holding out hope.  I also inform him that it would be extremely helful if he could throw some scaffolding on his truck becuase it would hlep  with constructing the loft.  So Todd shows up and we promptly ask if he has ever used a skilsaw, which he says "sure I have".  I am pretty sure he was not expecting this.

There are not many people who will step in and rock the 16" skilsaw!  He was ripping boards like a pro.  We did not get the loft up, I pulled the plug around 1:30am to focus on my interior doors.  Todd stayed all night and the doors made their way into the loft around 5:30am at which point I installed all seven of the doors in an hour!  I am telling this story because it is friends like him that make up our team.  He did not hesitate to lend a hand at the last minute and work all night until 6am the next morning.  I do not think the doors would have been complete without his help.   He has already said there is no way he is not going to be there to set it up!  Here are the completed doors made from reclaimed heart pine with a single polycarbonate lite and stainless steel hardware. 

THANKS TODD, YOU ROCKED IT OUT BRO!!!

I even got compliments on my 30 minute - I am tired of my bikes leaning over - bike rack.

...Jason

A New Season

Wow, it has been a while since anyone has posted on the site.  It must have been all that riding we were doing all winter... no time to post. 

First off I would like to welcome some new people to the team this year.  I am always stoked when someone asks to be on the team.  We have a great group of friends who enjoy riding and racing together.  So welcome to:

Jeff Plassman
Matt Juaneza
Tom Haines
Paul Leeger
Dave Ezzell
Matt Wiley
Andrew Smolak
Ross Ciminelli
Jake Meyers
Nick Jacob

This cover both our MTB & DH Squads.

The season officially kicked off tody with the "Ride the Ridge" race.  I have not heard from everyone, but I do know that we have notched our first victory of the season.  Congratulations to Jeff!  Todd came in behind him for 2nd place - great showing for our sport vet guys.  I will update once I find out how the women and expert riders did.  

Once again, welcome to the team and good luck throughout the season.  Here's to a strong year, lot's of group rides and a whole lot of fun.

...Jason

Props to Joe

I ran across this the other day on http://xxcmag.com/site/eMag.html. Roger reminded me of it today, so I thought I would post it for everyone.

I will try and post about the Tidewater race with Joe soon.

Jason