Gear up for Gearing down?

Sea Otter, Boggs, Napa, they were all just training rides... for what? Cool24. Next weekend we put 7 months of training on the line for single-speed mayhem. 24 hours of non-stop, one-gear, lap after lap after lap! The Mad Cat A-Team is attempting to bring home the first place finish in the 3rd annual Coolest24 MTB Race Against Cancer. We're up against a few other teams and they too are throwing down to bring home the bacon. It'll all come down to laps times, efficiency and smooth sailing with regards to clean laps without "mechanicals" or "physicals". We're putting it on the line, but we're also looking forward to the fun, the community, and hanging out with the team at a race that raises money for a good cause.

After Cool..? hmm. havent' really thought that far ahead. We've got our Gear Swap coming up, family vacation in June, then Death Ride in July and CX training from there on out. I personally am looking forward to CX season. I'm going to train and attempt to do well this year. We'll see what happens. Worse case is that I start off winter in great shape which is never a bad thing.

Papa Gato

Sea Otter is always cold, wet and fun regardless. This year, no rain but extremely windy and not your best camping conditions. Luckily we opted for RV camping this year, and man I'm so glad... RV heaters work great and it's given me an opportunity to read 3 issues of Dirt Rag.

I raced this morning at the BCOD (that's butt crack of dawn in NAVY talk). Placed 12th out of 86 in SS Sport! Probably my best year on SS.

Posting a blog via treo is really just an experiment, and not ideal, but I thought I'd chime in from S.O. for the fun of it. I'll post all the pics upon my return to the cat lair.

Papa

(sent via TREO)

Shippin' Out to Sea (Otter)

IT's the time of year, and everyone is gearing up for the pilgrimage down to the Nation's largest MTB gathering. Fun, racing, product, exhibitions, people, beer and friends. This year, we're motorhoming it so that the kids can come and we can all relax and not have to work as hard.

This week, we also learned that one of our own is shipping out to the NAVY next fall. Having been in the "NAV" myself, I'm excited for him and the adventure he's about to embark upon. It changed my life for the better and I'm sure his experience will do the same. My hat is off to you shipmate!

I'll post a full report on Sea Otter along with pics from the event next week. I might even post remotely from down there if I have time.

Prairie City #3 was tonight and it was fast! 11 minute lap times! Erin (mama cat) took a spill and lost some skin. Bummer timing since we're leaving in the morning, but she'll be ok. I'll take good care of her and lick her wounds just like any old tom cat would. :-)

To Sea Otter with us...

Implosion Imminent

When we bought our first house, I experienced heartburn and stomach problems for well over a month. Probably from the stress. That was 9 years ago. It never went away, just kept quiet here and there for periods of time. For the past 6 months, it's been knocking at my door weekly. Doc's can't pinpoint the problem, can't prescribe anything that works. Now I'm starting to miss work, skip rides, wake up in the middle of the night in pain... life sucks.

Why write about it? Because I've realized that this same problem has also plagued my racing for many years. About 15 minutes into a race, I get the same nasty heartburn feeling and it slows me down for about 10 minutes before letting up. If I could only fix the problem, I'd probably be faster.

The problem is really bad at the moment, to the point where I might bail on the Napa Dirt Classic tomorrow if it doesn't get better in the next few hours. Frankly, it's pissing me off. Can't eat this, can't drink that... Mylanta, Tums, Pepto, Maalox... none of which "fix" the problem. Sucks to be me. Kaiser looks even more stupid each time I visit them.

Any suggestions? I'm thinking I'll just cram a bunch of spicy, greasy crap down my stomach until I implode... then they'll have something to fix.

PC

Boggs III Finale

Boggs is over and the team is back home recovering from what I would consider a relatively huge success. We did however suffer one casualty. Joey Howard crashed at the bottom of one of the downhill fire-roads and ended up getting Medivac'd back to Sac with a broken cervical vertabra. He's going to be fine, but in a neck brace for a while.
A few of us gathered the night before the race and chilled with pizza, fire, beer and tequila for a true, grass-roots, race-prep ritual. The next morning, the rest of the Cat Pack rolled in with red and black a-blazin... ready to rock. And rock they did..

17 MC riders threw down on Boggs mountain, accumulating about 100 laps total amongst us all, some of which pulling in 9 laps in 8 hours with mileage in the 70's! We had Rhonda Figone take 1st place women's Expert, Asa Salas 2nd place Pro and Ken Mederios in 2nd place men's single-speed.

My personal experience with the race was awesome. I raced single-speed sport and pulled off 7 reasonably fast laps (one 49'er) with an extended break in the middle. No mechanicals, no crashes, a few cramps and a headache, but overall an awesome, strong finish. The hills made my bones creak a little, but somehow I kept plugging away tacking on more miles. I actually impressed myself with my ability to pick it up in the end and have some decent laps times for my last few laps. I figured that it would have probably gone the other way around.

Today, a little quad pain here and there, but feeling groovy enough to push the mower around the lawn for a while and tinker on my dirt bike for a bit today. Looking forward to PC, Napa Valley Dirt Classic and Sea Otter the week after. Boggs is truly a wonderful race and an awesome trail that begs to be ridden again and again. Each lap reminded me of the brass ring on a merry-go-round (for those that are old enough to remember those). Good times.

Boggs III pics on Flickr

Papa C.

Off to BOGGS!

The first Prairie City race kicked off with a SUPER BANG last night. Over 500 riders showed up and I must say it was a bit overwhelming, but still fun. Team Mad Cat kicked down with 20 riders on the course and even more trailside for support. Red and Black everywhere! Tomorrow, the Team heads to Boggs Demo Forest for 8 hours of singletrack bliss. We've got about 20 riders heading over to populate the forest with our favorite colors. I'll post some pics all said and done. It's going to hurt, but great for training... It's going to make Sea Otter feel like a trip home from the corner market on Stingray holdin' an icee.
Wish us luck!

Papa Gato