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12 Hours of Cranky Monkey - A Race in Four Haikus

I

An hour gets longer
every year. Where is the thunder?
That was Joe Fo — bye.

II

What strange beast took down
Mathias? Six miles is past.
It’s time to smile.

III

Let it flow, faster.
Get past the bunny girl now
before the downhill.
IV

Who added the hills
to this lap? When will that twitch
cramp? Not now, I — ouch.

Four for Four at The 12 Hours of Cranky Monkey

Four DCMTB/City Bikes teams toed the line to race at the 2nd annual 12 Hours of Cranky Monkey this Saturday and all four walked away with top-3 finishes. The race, promoted by EX2Adventures at Quantico Marine Corps Base, took place under brutally hot conditions, from 8am to 8pm on a fun 11 miles of trail at the base.

Mike Klasmeier, Ilana Knopf and Raul Rojas took First in the 3-person Co-Ed category with the team of Michael Mathias, Lynne Oliver, and Mark Drajem close behind in 3rd place.

Taking 2nd place in 3-Man Masters (35+) was the team of Marc Gwadz, Tom Vaughn, and Chris Clarke in a fight that went right down to the last lap. In 3-Man Expert JJ Foley, Alistair MacDonald, and Joe Foley took 2nd place behind a fast team from the Bike Lane. The expert and masters teams both finished in the top ten overall with 11 laps each.

Thanks, once again, go to all of our 2008 sponsors: City Bikes, Merkle, Whole Foods P Street, Continuum Solar Energy, SRAM, Serfas, Deuter, WTB, and Looking Glass Lounge.

Starting Fast at Wednesdays at Wakefield

DCMTB/City Bikes took home three victories this past week at the kickoff of the annual Wednesdays at Wakefield race series at Wakefield Park in Annandale, Virginia. The series, promoted by the Potomac Velo Club, is a summertime tradition in DC and looked forward to by many local racers.

Mike Pearce started the evening off on a high note by taking 1st place in the Singlespeed race. Last year Pearce won the singlespeed race 3 out of 4 weeks to win the series by 42 points. Also competing in the singlespeed race were Dave Vannier, who took home 15th place, and Jake Danoff, who had an unfortunate DNF.

The successes continued into the 2nd wave of racing with 2 more victories. Lynne Oliver stormed to victory in the Women’s Expert race, winning by a margin of over 4-minutes to her closest competitor, and DCMTB/City Bikes newcomer Alistair MacDonald took 1st place in Clydesdale. DCMTB/City Bikes clydesdale mainstay Joel Gwadz wasn’t able to make the race this time around, but we’re looking forward to a showdown for DCMTB supremacy between the two in upcoming rounds.

In the sport classes, Jennifer Wills took 3rd in Women’s Sport, and JJ Foley took 11th in Men’s Sport. In the Men’s Expert Class Tom Vaughn took 10th place, and Joe Foley took 19th place.

12 Hours of Lodi Farm

by Mike Klasmeier

It’s hard for me to personally overstate the drama that was the 2008 12 Hours of Lodi… Weather threatened, Kent was out then in, teammates were dropping like flies…

On the grenade I jumped, volunteering for the first lap. Kent and Matty allowed me to set the strategy for the race: double laps for one full rotation then back to singles for the rest of the race.

I lined up for the pre-race meeting towards the beginning of the prologue loop from last year (hint, hint). Another quick parade loop through the singletrack was announced and I was in the cat-bird seat. I allowed a skinner-lookin’ dude to get in front of me as a way to show others that I was in the front and solidifying my #2-into-the-woods plan.

We cruised through the end of the course for a solid 1/2 mile prologue then past the start finish. I was #2 into the woods. After the beginning of the first section of trails (before the field traverse), I took a few wrong turns (bad course markings) and I managed to stay in 8th by the end of the first lap. Tom ‘Young Buck’ from Family Bikes and Mikey ‘Cargo’ Pearce came by me as did a few other studs. No worries, I had another lap to catch somebody. The course was very different at the top and in the middle. I was lost as usual and confused, to be sure. Lodi has some turns in it, if you didn’t know. I passed two people on my next lap and came in a little before 2am in 4th overall, second Expert.

To sleep…

Through the night, we went back and forth with the Troegenator’s team. Their ringer was going against Kent and kept catching him, which is crazy because Mr Baake is quick.

Through the final set of laps, we were behind them. Matty went out a few minutes behing the Troegenators. Matty was riding HARD! Roid-rage hard. He was the only guy coming through our campsite HAMMERING! That boy is dedicated. Matty made up the time plus some (hard to do on that course) and he handed off to me with a 2.5 minute advantage. I climbed into the hurt locker that was inside the pain cave at the urging of my wife (’leave it all out on the course!’) and DRILLED myself into the ground. I was tired then pushed harder then pushed even harder… I knew I had to kill those little hills, the only straight-aways in the course. Susan was at the end of my lap with the kids, urging me on. I came in to the start/finish fast and handed to Kent, managing to blurt out ‘GO! GO!’ The kids were stoked.

Kent Baake HAMMERED his lap and stayed out in front of Zach from the Troegenators. We managed a win. Zach came in hard and tired. We got him some fluids and did what we could to make him comfortable but that kid REALLY pushed that last lap. They were hard to beat. I would have been fine with losing to those guys. Great guys…

I would like to nominate Matty as MVP for the race. Inspirational… Between Susan’s words and Matty’s determination, I couldn’t slow down. Our last three laps were 50, 50 and 51. Fastest lap of the day was 49.

1st overall, first expert. My immense respect for our dcmtb team continues to grow, especially Matty, Kent and Mr Fastest Lap, Mike Pearce!

Oh, and ‘70% chance of showers’ in Spring in the Mid-Atlantic region means cloudy, dry and WONDERFUL weather… Pics to come later… GMR’s pics here.

Of course, this brief race report leaves out the car battery going dead at Giant, Jeremy waking up crying in the car, the red ants, camping near the Family Bikes kids, trash-talking with 51-minute Young Buck and the kids ‘falling’ into the river butt-first while laughing.

At the end of my last lap, I got stung twice by a bee that flew down my jersey and was lodged betwixt my base-layer and jersey. That explains this picture from Gary Ryan. It was my last and fastest lap at 50 minutes. Here’s the shout-out for Mike ‘Fast-Guy’ Pearce. Damn singlespeeders…

‘Freight train comin!’

DCMTB.com/City Bikes Enjoys Success at Baker’s Dozen

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Matt Donahue
DC Mountain Bike Team
captain@dcmtb.com

Leesburg, VA – 21 April 2008 – Darren Biggs of dcmtb.com/City Bikes made plans to arrive at the race a day early to ensure a prime campsite location for the rest of his team members set to arrive on Saturday morning for the 11am start of the second annual Baker’s Dozen 13 hour mountain bike race hosted by Plum Grove Cyclery.

‘I wanted to make sure we had a location big enough for my dcmtb.com teammates,’ Darren said.

18 members of the District of Columbia Mountain Bike team made the trip out to race in Leesburg under picture-perfect conditions.

‘The weather turned out to be perfect with strong sunshine in the morning followed by a nice breeze and some clouds to cool things off,’ said Kent Baake, a dcmtb.com racer and member of the 3-person Men’s class team Solar Ring Blingers.

‘We had no idea that the race would be as successful as it turned out to be,’ said Plum Grove Cyclery’s Rob Harrington, the Race Director for the event. ‘We’ve had incredible support from the race community and we are excited about 2009!’

With over 375 participants registered for the event, the Baker’s Dozen represents one of the largest mountain bike relay races in the DC region. For an event only in its second year, the success is a testament to the quality of the race organization and the course itself, an exciting combination of logs, rocks, drops and fast corners.

‘Our team had a great time out there and managed to secure third place behind our other 3-man entry,’ said Matty Donahue, also of dcmtb.com. ‘There’s nothing better than racing with, and against, your friends!’

Members of dcmtb.com/City Bikes secured 1st place in Womens Solo, 2nd and 3rd in 3-person Men, 3rd in 3-person Open and fielded additional teams including the duo of brother’s Joe and 19-year-old JJ ‘Prince Harry’ Foley.

The City Bikes Mountain Bikes team is a grass-root team of urban mountain bikers. Since 1997 they’ve been ripping it up on the mid-Atlantic race scene! But they’re not just about riding and racing, over the years the team has put in hundreds of hours on behalf of bicycle advocacy groups in Washington, DC. Sponsors include Merkle, Continuum Energy Solutions, Whole Foods, the Looking Glass Lounge, Deuter, Serfas, SRAM, WTB. Check out www.dcmtb.com.

Since evolving from an old gas station in 1987, City Bikes has made thousands of people happy with their bike - for fun, fitness and transportation. City Bikes’ vision is for Washington DC to flow freely with the clean, friendly motion of bicycles. Check out www.citybikes.com.

2008 Roster & Races

The DCMTB/City Bikes Team has grown for the 2008 year. The many members who were team in 2007 have put in the effort and have moved up to the Elite level. 2008 for DCMTB/City Bikes, looks to be filled with new goals, The Mid-Atlantic Cup, the 24 hour U.S. Relay Campionships, Along with local favorites. DCMTB/City Bikes is celebrating 10 years and here is a look at the last year or so in pictures Enjoy!

2008 DCMTB\City Bikes Priority Calendar *

Mountain
Leesburg Bakers Dozen April 19th
Greenbrier Challenge April 27th
12 Hours of Lodi Farm May 3-4
24 Hours of Big Bear June 7-8
12 Hours Cranky Monkey June 28
Cranky Monkey Wakefield July 27
Cranky Monkey Fountain Head Aug 10
Cranky Monkey Quantico Aug 24
SM100 Aug 31

CycloCross
Ed Sanders CX Sept. 28th
DC-CX Oct. 26th

Road
RFK Crit May 25th
Giro di Coppi July 19th

* For Priority Races there will be at least 50% of the Elite Team at these races.

2008 Roster

Elite

Team

Club

*New Member This Year

Congratulations Marc!

BIKEREG.COM MABRACROSS DECLARES ITS CHAMPIONS

Wittwer, Shogren and Gwadz win Elite Crowns

Press Contact Information: BikeReg.com MABRAcross Cyclocross Series
Ken Getchell, Media Director: kenmacpr@yahoo.com; 610-397-1950

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

December 19, 2007, 2007; Conshohocken, PA, USA: The BikeReg.com MABRAcross series celebrated its most successful season ever in 2007, with average attendance at each event growing by over 20% for the fourth consecutive year. Excitement is already building for 2008 as at least two new races, DCCX and Rockburn Cross, are expected to join the series next year.

Of course, cyclocross is all about riders, and the most successful riders were the new Elite Champions: Greg Wittwer, Betsy Shogren and Marc Gwadz. Shogren and Gwadz won three races apiece to dominate the Elite Women and the new Elite Masters classes, respectively. Meanwhile, Greg Wittwer took the opposite approach and used consistency to squeak out the season title from Wes Schempf in the last race.

It was a season of transition for the MABRA men as, for the first time, world-class professional talent started lining up next to the regional stars. Former Italian National Team member and newly-crowned Verge MAC Champion Davide Frattini (Colavita/Sutter Home presented by Cooking Light) opened the season with a win at the season-opening Charm City Cyclocross. Wes Schempf (C3-Sollay.com), the 2006 Verge MAC Champion and BikeReg.com MABRAcross runner-up out-dueled mountain bike superstar Jeremiah Bishop (Trek/VW) for victory at the Ed Sander Memorial, while Bishop scored the victory at the Tacchino Cicliocross in November. But local talent Wittwer (FORT Factory Team) snookered all the outsiders by quietly scoring points in nearly every race. His third place finish on Thanksgiving weekend clinched the BikeReg.com MABRAcross jersey with just three points to spare.

While Wittwer won with quiet consistency, his FORT Factory teammate Betsy Shogren dominated the Elite Womens series standings to win her second BikeReg.com
MABRAcross championship. The three-time Verge MAC champion had previously dabbled in MABRA races. But the rapidly growing profile of the series, and its proximity to her home in West Virginia, made the championship an enticing target. The BikeReg.com MABRAcross championship capped-off an excellent year for Shogren, who also scored a perfect score en-route to victory in the pro/elite division of the heavily-attended West Virginia Mountain Bike Series and set a new course record while winning the Wilderness 101 ultra endurance mountain bike race.

Like Shogren, Marc Gwadz (DCMTB/City Bikes/Metro Gutter) scored three victories to win the new Elite Masters crown. Like many series in the East, the huge number of Masters participants was threatening to overwhelm courses and organizers. But unlike other series, MABRA elected to have their Elite Masters race for a full 60 minutes in conjunction with the Elite Men. Gwadz was a busy man this Autumn as, in addition to winning the series, he was also the promoter of the first year DCCX race on the grounds of the Armed Services Retirement Home. The DCCX was the first sanctioned cyclocross race ever held within the limits of Washington DC and Gwadz aspires to have his event join the BikeReg.com MABRAcross Series in 2008.

Other riders to win BikeReg.com MABRAcross Championship Jerseys were:

Randy Root, of ABRT/Latitude in the Cat. 1/2/3 Masters 45+ division
Nunzio Dibiasi of Yellow Breeches Racing in the Masters 55+ division
Eric Linder of Hunt Valley Bicycles/Marathon Roofing in the Mens Cat. 3/4 division
Sam OKeefe of C3-Sollay.com in the MABRA Junior (U18) division

OKeefe also led a contingent of no fewer than seven BikeReg.com MABRAcross regulars who stood on the podium at this past weekends U.S. National Cyclocross Championships. Joining OKeefe (4th in the 13-14 age division) as National Championship podium finishers were:

Rob Lea, 2nd 65-69 age division
Wes Schempf, 3rd 30-35 age division
Mark Kutney 2nd 50-54 age division
Fred Wittwer, 1st 55-59 age division
Alicia Styer, 3rd 10-12 age division
Gunnar Shogren, 3rd 45-49 age division

Full standings for all classes in the 2007 BikeReg.com MABRAcross Series can be found in the cyclocross section of www.mabra.org. The Mid Atlantic Bicycle Racing Association would like to thank BikeReg.com for the continued support and streamlined registration for the ever-growing rider base in the MABRA region.

Capital Cross



This was the final race of the season for most of the team. DCMTB / CityBikes had a good turnout at the race. Marc Gwadz coming off his Marbra champinionship win where he was 1st for the Mabra series 35+ and 1st in the DC/Maryland in his age group. Marc was racing masters, but with the MAC confrence being UCI most of the masters that usual race elite raced in the regular Elite masters catagory. Marc still had a solid race, but one of his mabra rivals got the best of him again. From Marc,“I was in a 3 person group with berni shiao- we were able first to distance ourselves from a large chasing group (Chris scott, Roger Masse, Randle Root, etc), then on the last lap I made a push to drop the others as we hit the berm before the dam. Mike Birner fell off the pace but Berni Shiao counter-attacked got a couple second gap on me with 1/4 th lap to go and held it the line.” Chris Clarke was racing the Masters B race with Mark Drajem. Mark and Chris both road some smooth races and were competitive out on the circuit. Chris felt his legs were a little sluggish and he summed it with,“It’s hard to believe I could get so old without realizing I was so slow.” Ilanna Knopf was able to withstand the cold and finish Top 10 in the women’s B field. In the Mens C race there was the DCMTB / CityBikes Trio of Loren Mcwethy, Kent Baake, and Darren Biggs they had all registered the day of so had to start at the back in about 60th position. There were three different stories brewing there, Kent riding the mt. bike with cross tires doing his first CX race, Loren the young buck coming into form and riding his new $$$ cross bike, and Darren deciding to race at the last minute on pure skill, not his form. Kent was the only racer in the C field to go over the log on the run up. Doing that got the crowd fired up, so he went for broke and tried to bunny hop the barriers which wasn’t as successful but got the crowd fired up none the less and he achieved his goal of having a good time. Darren got a fast start and Loren was able to bridge to him and the DCMTB / CityBikes Duo was able to drop two pursuing riders. In the finishing straight Loren was about 200yds in front of Darren, and Darren was able to catch Loren at the line. Some might say Darren punked him, but Darren believes he gave Loren a lesson on always finishing strong even when you think you got the gap :-)
For More details on Darrens race and Pics check his blog

Elite Masters
13 Marc Gwadz

B-Masters
12 Chris Clarke
32 Mark Drajem

B-Women
10 Ilanna Knopf

C-Men
7 Darren Biggs
8 Loren Mcwethy
14 Kent Baake

Tacchino Ciclicross

This past weekend the DCMTB \ CityBikes team went out to Leesburg to challenge the other local teams in some cross racing. The Tacchino Ciclicross race course is unlike any other in the area, with no pavement and some longer hills makes it a power course. The coarse felt faster this year with our over all dry conditions.

Marc Gwadz who had raced on Sat. at the Wayne Scott “not dead” memorial had an ok race on Sat. - with all the turns it was hard for Marc to tell how good his legs were. Marc put in a good effort and ended up 7th in Elite masters, 4th in the 35+ subgroup in a pretty tough field. The following day at the Tacchino Ciclicross Marc got real good start in the fast elite field- w/ Jeremiah Bishop, Sundt, Greg Whittwer stacking the men’s field. Gunnar always flies off the start line, but this time he biffed at the early set of barriers. he took out someone behind him- who fell right in front of me- I slowly wrangled past him as a bunch of guys flew by. I was still fairly far up in the pack, but got passed by a fair number of people as the laps wore on. Gunnar got passed me then dropped me. and root reeled me, sat on my wheel for a while, then slowly dropped me. I was riding pretty good, but my legs probably weren’t 100% after a couple weeks of spotty training and a head cold. late in the race. I was able to pass a few tiring A riders, and fought to keep a gap on chris mcgill, who kept yo-yo-ing up on the long climb then losing ground onthe twisty top sections. Marc was third in Elite Masters, but Gunnar and Root are in the 45+ subgroup so he picked up a lot of pts in the 35+ series.

Mike Scardaville, Matt Donahue raced the “killer B’s” and had constrasting days. Mike seemed to be enjoying himself on the course and seemed to be staying nice and consistant out on the course. Matt went out a little quicker and I think all his time preparing for the DC-CX took its toll on him with him being in the pain cave for most of his ride. Mark Drajem raced in the Masters B race and really rode a consistant tempo was able to hold off people trying to catch up to him. Illana Knopf worked like an animal out there and in her own words”it was hard, that’s all! :)” Jake Danoff once again said forget about those small junior fields and raced with the CAT 4’s and said that he started out pretty good but after 2 laps he was starting to feel it. Jake was able to finish mid pack which is a good result. Darren Biggs was looking forward to the race, and was able to be the prime attraction for the race announcer, where Darren was chasing the two leaders for the whole race, but ended up placing 3rd in front of a charging Ryan Bannon from Bike Lane. For more details on Darren’s CAT 4 race check his blog The Bike and More.

Master Men Cat1/2/3
3    Marc GWADZ(1st 35+)

Men 35+/45+ Cat3/4    
22  Mark DRAJEM

Mens Cat3/4
15   Michael SCARDAVILLE   
17   Matthew DONAHUE

Women Cat3/4                            
8    Ilana Knopf

Men Cat4
3    Darren BIGGS
32   Jake DANOFF

Tacchino Ciclocross 2007

Member Bio: Lynne Oliver

Age: 33

Years Racing: 2

Mountain Bike Category: Expert

Favorite Race: Tidewater Challenge

Bikes: Yeti ASR,  Seven Sola,  Seven Alta

2008 Goals: Finish top third in expert races, do a 24 hr race, improve technical skills, get faster!

2007 Highlights: 1st Marysville, Fairhill, and Fountainhead sport women, upgraded to expert in August, 1st Monster Mash expert women, 5th Tidewater Challenge expert women

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