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!’