Dad's Day Weekend - Strawberries & Lot's 'o Mud.

Looks like the action was at the Strawberryfest in Owego for the road crew and down to Stewart for the mudders this past weekend.

At Straberryfest, The Ommegangsters represented in various fields with BB Phil showing a top 10 in the Masters field (& congrats to Ommegansters friend & rival Dave F for his Masters win -- hope you slow down for CX). Cory P and Eric G earned top 15's in their field with Chris S holding tough on a course described as either up or down. A brief write-up with results at our friends at http://www.spokepost.com/.

Again the Walker's decided to mud dog it with a mountain bike event down near Newburgh (Stewarts -- same place as Singlespeedapalooza). Jeff did the single speed race & Katina did the women's cat. 1 master race. The conditions were by far the most difficult they'd seen in a while -- the rocks and roots were covered in mud with water flowing down thru the roots, and at times, the stream crossings came up to their wheel axles. Both finished safe and sound, and completely covered in mud. In many ways, it was a race of attrition. Jeff finished in 2nd! (Wahooo!) and his lovely wife Katina ended up 3rd. Great Job All!!

The One & Only Black Fly Challenge

Black Fly Race Report from one of our own PHILosophers -- Skinny Phil:

Warning, this is going to be a long race report and given a lack of oxygen to my brain during the race, some of the facts may be questionable at best.

Eight Ommegangsters made the trip to the Black Fly Challenge this year. Jeff W., AJ, Drumm, Body Builder Phil, Jeremy, Mike (The Red Rooster), Kevin and myself. For those unfamiliar with the BF, it’s one of those races that you talk about all season. Summer, Winter, Fall, Spring, the BF gets brought up on more Ommegang rides than any other.

A bunch of us drove up the evening before, chomped some Subway, watched some hockey and a few of us drank an Ommegang or two. The BF was one of my “A” races this season, so I can’t say that I slept very well. I had a decent finish last year, and anything less than a top 10 would have been a failure this year.

At 6:50 Drumm, Jeff W., his lovely wife Katina, team friend Fizz and I rolled out for some breakfast. The others stayed behind to eat Cliff Bars, drink hotel coffee, or pack a pint of Ommegang via IV. Friends of the team, Jason and Mike brewed up some espresso in an attempt to offset a night of hockey watching and overindulgence.

After a sweet breakfast, we packed up and made the 40 minute drive to Indian Lake. For the uninitiated, BF is a point to point race and alternates direction each year. This year the race traveled from Indian Lake to Inlet. After waiting in the obligatory bathroom lines, we were ready for a warm up. After a decent warm up, it was time to line up. This year there were over 300 racers. The biggest turnout by a wide margin. The first 9 miles was going to be on pavement, which meant a bunch of MTB’ers and CX’ers humming down the road at breakneck speed. It also meant that those that never road race were mixing it up with those that do. The start of this race was one of the sketchiest sketchfests I’ve ever partaken in. I started out in the front of the pack, but quickly found myself drifting back. At one point a guy racing in the actual race T-Shirt and cargo shorts started to weave all over on a small climb and I thought we were all doomed. I’ve never, not even in a local club ride, seen someone ride so poorly or dangerously. I immediately decided that it was time to burn a match and get right to the front. The second I did, I heard a huge crash right behind my back wheel. Luckily only two riders hit the deck, but it was amazing that was all. Finally we hit the dirt. Now it was time to do work. We started to hit some rollers, and began thinning the herd. Ommegangsters were everywhere. It was really impressive to see.

Eventually we hit our first long sustained climb. After hanging on to a few wheels and working my way toward the front, we crested the hill. When I turned around, I noticed that almost everyone was gone. There were only eight of us left, and 4 of us were decked out in Ommegang kits. We kept riding in a fairly unorganized fashion and I kept thinking, 8th place, I can live with 8th place. Somewhere around 20 miles in, we’re heading down a hill and Drumm asks how I’m feeling. I tell him I’m feeling great. He then asks AJ how he’s feeling and out of nowhere Drumroll’s bike kicks sideways and in a big cloud of dirt, he’s off the road. I see him jump right back into the road, so he’s presumably ok. Then there were 7. 7th place, I can live with 7th place.

Unfortunately Drumm never got a chance to get back on. Right after he crashed, one of the guys yelled, “chasers” and all of a sudden we were in a pace line hammering. No small task on rocks and dirt. From that point forward it was all business. On one of the big down hills my left hand slipped off of the handlebars and I nearly yardsailed it at 30 something MPH. After a very lucky save I was refocused in a big way. The next downhill we were probably pushing 40 when we came across a sharp right turn at the bottom. One of the guys up front took it way wide and barely saved it. Jeff W. railed the turn and luckily I followed his line. AJ had let it all hang out as he was rejoining our pack and unfortunately had an outside line when he realized the turn was coming. Another gangster down. 6th place, I can live with 6th place.

By now, everyone other than Jeff W. was looking pretty beat. Jeff is a manimal and pretty much set the pace for the day. Jeff continued to push the pace and next thing I knew, there were 4 of us. Now I’m thinkin’ top 3. This might be the race of a lifetime for pack fill like me. We hit the pavement and another uphill. I’m glued to the wheel of a CRBC guy from Albany. He’s glued to Jeff’s wheel. We crest the hill and I think my legs are going to explode. Then there’s a sweet downhill and a minute to spin out some of the evil in my legs. Next move is a sharp right hand turn at speed onto what turned out to be sand. After some sliding around, everyone keeps it upright and Jeff starts to pull away. I’m in third position and I don’t want to drag the Albany guy back up to Jeff, so I sit in. Then there’s a 1 mile to go sign and it’s all trails to the finish. Jeff had opened up a decent gap, and I felt like it was now or never so I jumped around the Albany guy and got to within 10 yards of Jeff. From there, I just followed his sweet lines and rolled in behind him for second. AJ and Drumm rolled in shortly after and we had 4 guys in the top 10. We ended up with 8 guys in the top 50. Jeff’s lovely wife Katina also came in first in the women’s race and slayed a bunch of strong dudes in the process. Talk about a power couple.

Sadly, team friend Fizz suffered a bad crash and won a ride in an Ambulance. 3rd degree shoulder separation and a scuffed up face. The good new is that chick’s dig scars.

If you didn’t get out there this year, get out there next year.

Results at http://www.blackflychallenge.com/

... and at the races (June 6 & 7)

Tour DeTykes: The Walkers (Jeffina) ventured to PA for the TdT mountain bike race -- part of the Mid-Atlantic Super Series. They noted it was by far the most difficult race course they had ever done -- gnarly, rocky, & relentless -- 20 miles and 4500' of climbing. Jeff finished 2nd with the winner expressing disbelief that Jeff was 46 and riding a rigid fork on this heinous course. The guy who won was 29. Katina recovered from a flat to take the lead in the last mile for 1st!! We're seeing a crazy trend here -- keep up the great results.

BalloonFest: The Red Rooster ventured up to the Cambridge, NY area for some road racing action at the Balloon Festival Classic and to fly the Ommegang colors. The Rooster more or less noted he was plucked, oiled and deep fried by the end as it too was an incredibly tough course, especially after a week of some crazy training antics.

Schenectady 6-hr Mtn Bike Race: Drumroll & Ommegangster friend the Fizzman decided to enter the 6 hr event as a 2 person team. Drumroll found the course to be really tight and technical with his still evolving mtn bike skills. Drumroll was impressed with the Fizzmeister as (1) he set up the best staging/pit area of everyone, complete with a mini-changing room -- and (2) he kept getting faster lap after lap. Only incidents of note was Drumroll's collarbone vs. tree incident (neither cracked but the collarbone looked to fare worse of the two) and Fizz encountered a surprise when following another guy towards a ramp that turned out to be a teeter-tawter and took the (suddenly) elevated end in the hand & chest. Ended up 2nd in the 2-person categories which wasn't bad for a couple older dudes on singlespeeds.

Non-racing weekend report -- a toast to the good guys

In some ways a bummer of a weekend. We (assorted Ommegangsters & various cycling geeks from the area) got together to say good bye and good luck to two stand up local cycling guys. Plain and simple, these are the "good guys", yeah they could dish out the pain on the pedals but in this case, good guy means more that ... class acts and good men either on or off the bike.
Friday eve a decent sized group of us met up near Green Lakes and rode with AJ as our as a send-off for his new life in MD. After the ride we gathered at Skinny Phil's for some grillin, Omme recovery beverages, and good ol' story telling.
Sat eve found some of us downtown at the Blue Tusk to wish Brian H (Dawg) the best as he heads out Toledo way. Good brews on a nice Sat night downtown with good people.
Best wishes guys and there'll be a cold one waiting for ya when ya get back to the 'Cuse.

Ommegangsters Busy Weekend of Racing

The Ommegangsters continued their racing exploits across the region this last weekend of May.

Amish Country PA: AJ jumped into a Cat 4 40 mile circuit race in southeastern PA (Peach Bottom) consisting of a 10-mile hilly circuit with 2 significant hill climbs, two technical descents followed by sharp turns. He held on for 14 of about a 20+ sprint in the 40 or so strong field. He got a little boxed in with about 500m to go but lesson learned for a field sprint that tight and large. "I saw my max HR, a few stars, clovers and other Lucky Charms, maybe even a leprechaun and spent about 40 mins in mid- and upper-zone 5. Even passed a few Amish buggies during the race. I think they were real, though I may have been hallucinating." Results at: http://www.allthatisgood.org/index.php?option=com_results&Itemid=1&task=showResultsAll&raceID=76

Thoroughbred Country Upstate NY: "New Guy" Adam L ventured up to Saratoga for some NYS Crit Champs action. Doesn't sound like the course was terribly rider friendly with unfortunate manhole and pothole locations sprinkled here and there. Throw in a little rain and some sketchy riders and you get to surf the pavement as Adam unfortunately found out. While a little torn up and the bike relatively "ok", Adam will be back at it.

Singlespeed Country Downstate, NY: From Katina .... Ommeganster's Jeff W., Greg D., Karl F. and Ommeganster friends Katina and Fizz participated in the Single-speed Palooza in Stewart, NY (near Newburgh) on Sunday. The course consisted of two, 10 mile loops of rolling single track. We awoke to perfect conditions and were even more pleased to see that the course was in excellent condition. While this was not a highly technical course, it did have plenty of tight single track which forces even the best of bike handlers to stay focused as the course was constantly changing. The pro/expert men started first, and Jeff and Fizz participated in this division. There were no age categories and as you can imagine, there were quite a few young, heavy hitters in the race. There were about 45 starters and Jeff finished 19th and Fizz, 34th. On a less serious note, for those of you who have never seen the start of a single speed race, it's somewhat humorous -- the riders all have one gear and are spinning their brains out, but no one is going any where fast. I noticed that one guy had on a hula skirt, a ukulele hanging off his back, and a beer can strapped to a stick hanging off his handlebars! Gotta love this sport! One of the pro dudes who took a top three spot rode in cut off jean shorts and a hacked up flannel shirt! I was next to go off and will admit that I was extremely nervous as I was riding a borrowed bike (from none other than Anne August, wife of Andy August) and this was my second ride on this bike. The pro/expert ladies field had 8 starters and I was delighted to finish 2nd. Jeff had given me a lot of tips in the car about how to ride this thing and I mentally had to remind myself of his advice throughout the race. The sport division was so large that the race promoter split this large category into two: "NY and north" and "NJ and south" (which I thought was a pretty cool idea). Karl and Greg participated in this division. Greg finished 4th and Karl 14th. Afterwards, Ommegang beer flowed and Greg even gave the promoter beer to pass out to participants during the 'give-a-way' segment of the awards. Promoters blog: http://www.darkhorse40.blogspot.com/ Results at: http://www.darkhorsecycles.com/race-rumblings/70-race-results.html