SPREADING THE WORD

Me, Crispy, Mike and Amanda took Katharine, a writer for the Detroit Free Press who did the WAM story on me, out on her first ever mountain bike ride at Maybury! We put her on Amanda's CoilAir and she had a blast! It is so much fun to show new people our great sport. She crashed a couple times but just got up and wanted more. She handled the twisty trail AWESOME. Bill, also a writer joined us for the ride and he was very impressed with Katharine's riding as well. What a great time!!!!!! It won't be her last.
Below is an email she sent to me after the ride.

Bryan,
I cannot thank you and the other Midwest Konas enough for that WONDERFUL experience you gave me on Saturday. It was truly one of the most spectacular days I've had in my life - fun and friendly and exciting and a great workout. I was so impressed with you TKM riders - you're true ambassadors of your sport, and so good at it!

Bill told me he's never seen better mountain biking, and we were both taken by how kind and generous all of you were to us, a newbie and someone who hasn't mountain-biked in a long time. He says you all would be killer in triathlon.

Of course, now I want to get a mountain bike ...

So again, many thanks to you.

And when can we go riding again?

Regards,
Katharine

ADAM WINS THE SUPERIOR BIKE FEST DH

Full results here.

BRENT IS TOP 20 AT LUMBERJACK!!!!!!

Way to go Brent! 17th place in under 8 hours!!!

Full Results Here.

Brents Lumberjack 100 Recap

2 for 2
That's two starts and 2 finishes.
I went into the race looking to beat my 8:32 from last year. Inside, I really wanted to see a 7 at the begining of my final time, but I didn't know if it was possible. I did a pre-ride of the inner-loop on Friday and the trail was in great shape.

Race started around 7am and was slow. I thought it was supposed to be a fast rollout, but I thought it was very mellow. I stayed in the top 20 or so riders and ended up riding by myself for most of the race with a SS'er from MN behind me. I did a 1:50 lap, which was around 8 minutes faster than last year. Lap 2 was 1:54 and I was feeling good, but riding all alone again. Lap 3 came and I was again alone pedaling along on cruise control until I hear a smart-ass comment about my bike come from behind me. It was none other than Lummis coming back from a mechanical problem. I picked up my pace a rode with him for a little bit on the inner loop while passing 3 people. It felt good to open the legs up a little more, but then I decided I was only 65 miles or so in, so I needed to keep my pace a little slower. Two of the riders passed me back a few miles later, but in the outer loop I caught them again and put a gap on them. I did a 1:59, which meant that I had 17 minutes to spare on my last lap in order to beat 8 hours. I knew that all I had to do was turn the cranks and I would achieve my goal. Yeah, that happened, but my mental game went down hill. I was at the point where I was wondering what the hell I was doing. I do not like having an inner and then outer loop go by the pits/parking lot, beacuse there were a few times I wanted to call it a day and go sleep. On the outer loop, I broke a spoke, but easily stopped and twisted it around another spoke before going again. There were a few times I was feeling sleepy tired, but I knew the bugs would kill me. Once I got over that monotonous flat and bumpy section, I was doing much better. I got to the climbs and got back in a rythm which helped. I ended up getting 17th overall in 7:56, 36 minutes faster than last year. I think if I would have had some people to ride with on the last lap, I likely would have been able to keep the pace up. I did get passed by 3 people on lap 4, which costed me places, but that is endurance racing.

Overall, it was a great weekend. A blast. Rick puts on a top notch race and great awards banquet. This is quickly becoming Michigans best race. Sure we have Iceman, but LJ100 is a class of its own. -Brent

Checking in

Checking in again to say hello. From my last post I've had a 7th place (Vet) result in the London Beastway round 4 and a disappointing 26th place finish at the 12 Hour race at Bristol Bikefest. Bristol was an amazing course and the weather was perfect. The course was super fast and flowing. If you add climbing like the Boyne 24 hour course with flowing rocky downhills similar to Pontiac Lake that was the course. The Hei Hei was the perfect bike! Unfortunately we lost a rider before the race and started with 3. Then one of my team mates broke his Specialized frame on his second lap. I doubled up while he tried to get something worked out but it was unfixable. He ended up borrowing demo bikes and rode mine on the last lap but we just lost too much time to the other teams. After riding 3 other bikes though my team mate pulled his best time of the day on my Kona (on his last lap). He was amazed at how much faster it was than the other big name rides he tried on the day. Kona did well at the event winning competitive pairs (Torq Kona) and the competitive team (Paligap Kona - UK Kona sponsered team).

Next race for me is next weekend for a 24 hour race called Mountain Mayhem at Eastnor Castle in Herefordshire, UK . It's the biggest mountain bike event in the UK with 450 teams and 2500 riders in the race. They bill it as the world's largest 24 hour race Yes... ought to be interesting in the woods at night with 450 other teams on the course at the same time. I am not a big fan of 24 hour events but I'm helping a team out that lost a rider. Since it's supposed to be the Iceman of the UK thought it was worth the pain to say I've done it.

http://www.mountainmayhem.org/index.php

Look for me at the Tour de France prologue and stage 1 in London on July 7-8th. I'll ride down to the event and be on the side of the course wearing my KMR kit in case you see the team colors. Back in the states July 9th - 23rd and looking forward to riding with everyone!

Jim

RACE NEWS

Randy took 6th at the Bloomer XC race and is ready to peak! Read about his race and training here.
This weekend is the Lumberjack 100 in Northern Michigan.

FREERIDE CLINIC

Amanda and Bryan helped out at a Freeride clinic today. The idea was to give riders who only do xc rides a taste of basic trail/freeride skills like bunny hops, log rides, small drops and skinnies. It went great and the two of us ended up helping out and teaching the ladies in the group a few things. The ladies who came out were real eager and really pushed themselves to try new things. I always love to see women try hard types of bike riding as its not the norm. Erica and Liz were Awesome!!!!! Of course we showed off our Kona big bikes, gave out some stickers and sponsor swagg and had a real fun day. Thanks to Matt for High Gear Racing for setting up the clinic and having us along.

Amanda demonstrates how to do a log ride.

Some comments from the clinic:

"Bryan - Thanks so much for all of the help today. I had so much fun and rode lots of things I have never even attempted. Some of those log piles were really easy once I tried them. I can tell already I will have more confidence in my riding. I am going to get some knee pads of my own and go back out and finish that skinny Thank you for giving me the confidence and knowledge I needed to try it."

"Bryan, I would like to thank you for your help and encouragement for my first ride on the skinny. It was great to finally be able to attempt to ride the skinny. I have a few scrapes and bruises, but other than that I am fine. Also I enjoyed riding your bike over the rock garden, it looks like I may have to invest in a downhill bike in the next few years. Thank you very much for the gift bag, that was kind of you to give it to me."

"Thanks for all your help and coaching today. You helped Erica (better half) out a ton, especially with the skinny. Your help is definately appreciated, especially since i am an XC guy and it is becoming a FR/DH chick whethr she fully realizes it yet or not. And that isn't something i can help her with. She only started riding last July and i already know her nxt bike will be big travel bike. You were definately a great guy i my books for being so helpful to her and the others."

London Calling...

Well monsoon season is finally over in the UK and the trails are starting to dry out. Good timing as I just was able to pick up the new Hei Hei while in the states a few weeks back and starting to get some races in over here in Europe. The bike is great! I just need to get back in race shape. Finished 9th in last weeks Beastway race in the Vet class. Beastway is a weekly racing series in the London area that runs for a few months. Pretty nice because it runs on Wednesday night and does not interfere with the bigger weekend races. So I'll be at Beastway again this week and then on to the Bristol Bikefest a couple hours away near the border with Wales on Saturday. Supposed to be a great course and a nice weekend long event with camping, DJ, live band etc.. Looks like close to 700 people entered for the Saturday 12 hour race (teams, pairs and solo) that I'm taking part in. I'll be in my Kona colors but riding with a team from the London Phoenix Cycling Club. A great group of people that I ran into over here with 2 competitive male and 1 female team in the event.

http://www.bike-fest.com/bristol/ if you're interested to see what events look like over here. Miss those great Michigan trails!! Don't know how good it is until you don't have it.

ADAM 7TH AT GRAVITY EAST DH RACE #4

Adam placed 7th in pro open at the Gravity East downhill Series #4 race in Plattekill, NY. Adam is just rocking the east coast DH series. More great things to come.

TRY A POLARPAK WATER RESERVOIR

Looking for a new reservoir bladder for your pack?

I tried out the Moflow by Polarpak twice so far and it worked real nice. You pressurize the bladdder with air so the water "flows" out and you don't have to suck the water out. (See their website Polarpak.com)
I don't wear a pack often except on adventure type rides and never while racing, they hurt my back when going all out. The first time out with the Moflow I didn't put enough air in the bladder. The 2nd time I did and how nice it was to have the water come out very easy and a bonus be able to skirt the sweat out of my eye while still riding. I know its not that smart but my eye really burned.

The only thing that might be an issue for me is I normally try to get all of the air out of a bladder before I put it in the pack. The reason is when I wear a pack I usually have photo gear in it and the air can take up to much room.

But like I said I really liked the water "flowing" rather then having to suck. And the bite valve works very easy and isn't to bulky. And you know I think I did end up drinking more since I didn't have to work to much to get the water out like it says on their website. The quick release worked great and was easy to use.

So far I would definitely recommend the Moflow if you are looking for a new bladder.

Also, for the second year in a row I will be doing the WAM 300 mile ride to raise money for the Make-A-Wish Foundation and am looking forward to using the Polarpak gel cooled bladder that is suppose to keep liquids cold. Last year temps hovered around 100 and the Polarpak should really come in handy.