12 hours of Addison and fundraiser update!

Ok, so I'm still a little tired so forgive me if this doesn't flow or has typo's. The 12 hours of Addison is done and it was s great day and we raised alot of money in 4 days for Aubrey, over $1000!!!!!!!
I did 28 laps which works out to be 154 miles on the bike with very few rest stops.
I thought the race course was longer and lap times would be slower so for those of you who donated money per lap how about just half the lap count, 14. Unless you want to kcik in for all 28, its up to you.
Thank you to everone who donated money. Hopefully it will help a teenage girl have some fun during a tough time in her life.
The race started out with a very fast pace running about 20-21 minute laps. I felt real good the first 12 laps but knew I needed to slow down some even though I was able to get some pulls for the race winner Chris Hansen and feeling good or I was never going to make it all 12 hours. Chris won with 30 laps averaging about 22 or so minutes a lap with very little rest. Way to go Chris and thanks for the pulls and the donations. SoI stayed in the hunt for 1st for about 6 hours never more then 5 minues or so behind the leader. The last 6 hours I faded more and more as time went on. The last 2 hours was real tough. Everythings hurt, I was suffering but I don't quit races. So I finished 3rd out of 8 racers in the solo 30-39 class.
Memories form the race:
Crispy my teammate, friend and Awesome support person not letting me rest much!
Alice, max and Macey cheering me on.
Macey smiling at me and waving as I rode by.
Little Debbie Swiss cakes.
When Crispy gave me a water bottle full of ice cold Coke, that tasted real good!
Bonnie and Scott cheering me on.
The SSE team encouraging me each time one of them passed me.
The bad that skimmed of the top of my head on a night lap.
The Team Treefarm girl riding in a thong. Well over her bike shots.
Lauing at myself for hitting the same rock at least 20 times.
Stopping on my last lap after midnight in the open field to look at the stars.
Justin handing me a chocolate shake when I was done around 12:30 AM. It tasted good!
Wondering why I was going out on another lap at 10 to midnight even though I couldn't get 1st or 2nd. Hey its not midnight, the race isn't over. What one more lap, my pain won't last forever.
I know there is more but I'm tired of writting.
Live Strong!
Bryan

Raising money at the 12 hours of Addison!!!

Hey Everyone!

I am writing to let you know that I am racing solo in a 12 hour mountain bike race this weekend at Addison Oaks. The person with the most laps wins.

More importantly than winning, I am trying to raise some money for a friend of the family whose 15 year old daughter Aubrey was just diagnosed with leukemia last week. Feeling somewhat helpless in the light of a cancer diagnosis, I want to help out by asking everyone I know to donate a sum of money for every lap that I do to contribute to the “Aubrey Fun Fund!”

With all of the family funds going towards, bills, medical expenses, living and transportation expenses--particularly since they live in the U.P. and will be at Mott’s Children’s Hospital for at least a month-- I wanted to start a fund for Aubrey to well, have fun with! These proceeds will be for Aubrey to purchase makeup, clothes, cds, books, movies, pizza, basically whatever she wants to try and feel girly (particularly in light of her impending hair loss) and like a teenager again.

Cancer just plain sucks and I hate it when I hear of kids having cancer so this time I wanted to do something to help the best way I know how, riding my bike.

My goal for this weekend’s race is 10-12 laps. I’m encouraging all donations, even small donations of a buck a lap or even flat sum donations of $5 or $10 to help fund the fun!

While I realize you may have donated to a number of causes this year and probably feel tapped out, the price of one morning’s Starbucks and bagel just might help brighten a teenage girl’s day. So make your own coffee and toast tomorrow and get a buzzzzz off helping Aubrey today!

You can easily contribute online through my PayPal account
Go to: www.paypal.com
My account is bryan@bryanmitchell.com

Or you may contribute by check
(Please put “Aubrey’s Fun Fund!” in the memo area) mailed to:
Bryan Mitchell
21700 Connemara Dr
Northville, MI 48167

Or if you will be at the race stop by the Kona tent with a donation.

I will post the number of laps I did on our team website Sunday morning.
www.konamidwestracing.com

Live Strong,
Bryan

Breathing through a straw in Snowmass

So, I just spent the weekend racing up at altitude at stop #5 of the NORBA NMBS tour. What makes these races in Colorado so hard? There's no freakin' air at 9000+'. I felt like a vacuum cleaner that needed its bag replaced. Actually, I took a lesson from a couple of years ago at Durango and told myself to ride good tempo and refrain from going gangbusters from the start, a sure fire method to self implode in the first half lap of a race. The strategy worked...for the first two laps, except there were three in the race. Lap three was the kind of painful experience where you just want to crawl up into a ball and go to sleep in a nice little cave. I bonked (hard!) knowing full well that I was about a thousand vertical feet short of reaching the top of the main climb, ouch. Help granny help, spin legs spin! It occurred to me that I wasn't taking in nearly enough food or water and the effect hit me about as subtely as a bag of bricks to the side of the head. That third lap I felt like I was riding my bike backwards cross-eyed as at least 10 people came around and from out of nowhere. Yup I was going slow and I knew it. I did make it to the finish but lost buckets of time on that third lap. Lesson of the day from a flatlander - eat and DRINK at altitude. Besides the race, the course was actually good fun. For the most part, it was pretty standard ski resort fare (go straight up then come straight down) but had a good amount of fun single track and variety in a 7.5+mile loop. The downhill half was a good bit of fun too, as always.
Now, I get to breath in copious amounts of good heavy air as I get ready for the upcoming races in Snowshoe and Mt. Snow later next month.

Major Taylor Road Race

Take a good look at this. This is what I raced through today. First it was delayed about an hour waiting for the lightning to clear up. At about 9 there was a break in the weather and we took advantage of it. First lap not to bad. A little slow but that's ok given that most of the roads were still soaked. 2nd lap a group of 3 broke away. I caught up with them and tried to get a good break away going. 2 of the guys pussed out and dropped back. So now it was just myself and this fellow Dan. He and I hammered together for the rest of the lap. Heading out onto lap 3 the peleton started to catch us and we fell back into the pack. Once back in the pack the rain started back up again. This time with a vengenance. I'm talking sideways rain blowing so hard that it's making your lips, legs, anything sting when it hits. Then the lightning starts up again. The chase car falls back and notifies us that this will be our last lap. Well there go my pacing. Through 3 faux stream crossing over the road we hammered. Rught up until the last corner. I didn't take the corner as hard as I would have liked to (as I wanted to be able to race next weekend) but still managed to catch a few guys in the final sprint to the line. Picked up an 8th place and in true cycling form I had the throw across the finish line. Then once we were back to our cars they annouced that because of the shortened race they will be refunding everyones money. That's pretty noble for a race promoter considering all the costs and preperation that has to go into such a large event. So I got to race for free. Can't beat that as I don't think 8th would have given me as much as the entry fee.

Hot Steamy time @ the Ruby XC

Going into this race I thought the river crossings were going to be a pain. One the race was underway though they were a saving grace. Seriously everything I was wearing was soaked through but it was probably a 50/50 mix of river water and sweat. Course conditions were surprisingly good considering the monsoon that swept across the state the day before. Almost everything was rideable except the steepest climb. After the first lap we were running up if for the next 4. However giving the slickness of the mud it made for some real slow going racing along with some of the worst riding I've seen in a long time. Mike S., Jorel H., and myself were all just riding like a bunch of noobs. I was actually laughing a few times when I would just blow past a corner and trail blase through the woods trying to get back on track. Mike set a pretty good pace with super harsh efforts put forth on the climbs in hopes that he would drop Jorel and myself. He and Jorel kept taking turns at the front while I hung in third and watched the show. Unfortunately the uphills don't balance the rest of the course out and Mike started paying for his efforts on the hills by the last lap. I caught him at the top of a climb and managed to finish second behind Jorel. It was a good race but super frustrating as the pace was kept so slow to keep from blowing all the turns. It was defiantly a race of patience over speed.

-Justin

Watching the tour too much...

Well this weekend was my yearly road weekend riding the MS150 to raise money for Multiple Sclerosis. This was my 10th year doing the ride so I decided to do something different. I usually ride a century on Saturday just to get one in the logbook for the year but I've never ridden more than 110 on a single ride.

You know you've been watching the Tour de France too much when you think... wonder what it feels like for the guys in the tour when they ride those 140+mile stages like coming up in stage 17. So I made the decision to do the ride in a single day... how hard could it be? Well when I hit East Lansing at mile 82.5 I started second guessing my decision but my fate was set as I had not brought anything with me for an overnight stay. Note 1/2 way was not at mile 75 since construction had caused a reroute adding 7.5 miles to the ride... make that 15 more for me so my ride was now looking to be 165 miles. Long story, short I pulled back into Davisburgh 9 hours after I left with 158 miles under my belt. Why not 165? That's another story that involves missing a turn and getting directions from a local guy (shooting a bow and arrow in his backyard where I think I heard banjo's playing in the background) on the quickest way to get back on route without mentioning that pavement would be helpful. After cyclocrossing it across muddy back roads Kona style for a few miles I found myself 7 miles ahead in the route.

I originally had some thoughts in the back on my mind about making it to the race today but with what looks like a tattoo of my seat on my butt and nothing left in the legs I thought it best to recover. Good news, I raised lot's of cash for MS can mark my 10 anniversary ride done a day early. Hope you had a great race guys (and Crispy out west... looking for the update)!

Jim (who clearly would have missed the time cut at 9 hours, hats off to the pros)

Crispy Wins DH in Idaho!!!

Well Crispy finally made it to Idaho about 3:00 AM Saturday morning after being stuck in Montana for 2 days. He then had to get up and race his Super D race at 10:00 AM. He took 6th in Pro Mens Super D. Later that day he won his sport DH race. I told him now that he won a National DH race he should race expert DH :)!
Even if it means racing the legendary course at Mt Snow with the famous "yard sale" section. He missed his semi-pro XC race on Friday but since it would have been his first ever semi-pro race the promoters said he could race in the expert XC race today!
Way to go Chris!!!!
Good luck today and in Aspen at Snowmass next week.
Bryan

July 15th...... Glendive Montana

Well my trip was going great as I whipped through the great state of North Dakota. I had just stop in the Theadore Roosevelt Bad Lands national park to look at the Bad Lands. It is a pretty awesome place with high multi colored hills and sharp plunging valleys. The Bad Lands name is truly fitting. Remarkable though. The wind was whipping up from the south and people were stopped letting the wind blow through them. Shortly after crossing into Montana I had some Car Trouble. As in my car would not run anymore. I was just outside of Glendive and turned around and got my car to American Ford. I was supposed to be on my way yesterday, but a shipping screw up has me here instead of in Idaho. I have a race in 4 hours at 2pm, but don't think I will be making that since I am still over 12 hours away. I have super D & DH tomorrow and hopefully I can race expert XC on Sunday.

Making the most of it the past couple of days i decided to ride my bike. So off to Makoshika State park for a ride up to Sand Creek Look Out. Makoshika, is indian for "Bad Lands" and the park starts on the banks of the Yellowstone river and is in the heart of the Montana Bad Lands. The view from the top was amazing and the climb up was difficult. Again beautiful colors pinks, greys, and browns contrasted with the desolate landscape. This park is actually a hot spot for digging up dinosaur bones. I did not see any fossils until I went to the dinosaur museum though on Thursday. I hung around a little bit longer admiring the view, but had to come down because a storm was coming in. The storm itself was nasty with chain lighting electrifying the sky every few minutes.

So two nights spent in Glendive. I hope to be going soon and am anxious to get back on the road.

-C-
7/15/2005

More Trouble for Crispy

Well Crispy just called me from somewhere in Montana and his car broke down! The water pump went out. By luck he was right near a Ford dealer but the part won't be in untill Thursday afternoon. A guy at the dealer was checking out his Konas because he rides and told Crispy about some good trails to go ride. So he is riding right now and will ride on Thursday while they fix his car. He is still a good 10-12 hours from where the NORBA race is in Idaho. So he should arrive there real late Thursday night/Friday morning. Then his XC race is 2:00 PM Friday. Crispy's trips are always crazy. Thing is, I'm usually with him!
Bryan

AGGGGHHHH!!!

I have not even left yet and things are pretty crappy. Last night after I get my Stinky already to go and running better then new and go out for a test ride and to spin my legs. Well about ten minutes into my ride a stick jams in my rear wheel. Gone is my derailleur hanging useless on the side of my bike totally ripped in half. Gone is my Chain twisted and mangled. Gone are the nice straight spokes of my wheels. Not good. I was pissed.

Luckily Continental Bike Shop has new parts for everything I damaged. So that will set me back about two hours. Oh well. I hope to be in Chicago by 5pm and through most of Minnesota by 10pm.

Later,
-C-

Going Out West

I am going out West. Yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Racing Bikes.

I will be in Sandpoint Idaho this weekend and then Aspen Colorado the following weekend. I look to keep the rubber side down in XC, Super D, & Down Hill!

I will let you know how it goes.

Later,
-C-

Stoney Marathon

Just to post a quick update from this past weekend's race activities. A good portion of the team competed and placed very well at the Ford NORBA Stoney Creek Marathon XC. The marathon format saw the (elite/expert) field run six laps of a ten mile course which consisted of a good portion of two-track with single track sections thrown in for good measure. Since the race was longer in format, the expectation was that the pace would not be full tilt at the beginning. Wrong! The pace was high from the gun and didn't let up for the whole race making for some really tired zombified racers at the end. Justin and I worked very well together for a majority of the race and managed to finish 3rd and 4th behind a blistering pace set by Mike Simonson who basically smoked the field. Eric and Dan put in great showings in their races finishing 2nd and 3rd in their respective classes. There was a really good vibe at the venue as all racers enjoyed the new fresh race format. Thanks to the organizers, promoters, and to the once again flawlessly performing Kona Kings which saw us all through to the end.

Later,
-Pete