I suppose I should start with the ETC part of the report…

That happened a couple weeks ago when I traveled all the way to Eastern Oregon for the Elkhorn Classic road stage race. The first day was OK, but the CAT1-2 field was riding more like complete idiots and there were several nasty stack-ups including one at 40mph downhill–right in front of me. Luckily, I was able to lock up the back wheel and slide sideways avoiding bikes and bodies by inches. Lovely but brand new tubular was toast! Then I instigated the chase of an earlier breakaway (none of the roadies seemed willing to) and brought the gap back to 10-15 seconds on the last little hill before the finish. With only a couple miles to go the said roadies decided to play games and start trying to win the stage before they actually caught the break. That resulted in them dropping a gassed, yours-truly, but no stage victory for any of them. Dumb!

The next morning was the TT which I did not ride well and lost a couple minutes. Too short, I guess. I was excited to race the Crit that evening but then a thunderstorm passed through making the road slick and wet. Evidently, road events no longer happen in the rain so the promoters canceled the Crit and I rode around town for fun in my skinsuit looking really hot!

The big final stage loomed and after the first stage shinanigans, I decided to race with the GC leaders and wait for the final of three significant climbs on the day to race. Since it was a mountain-top finish, I figured we would still gobble up any breaks. WRONG! The GC boys let a huge break gain nearly 15 minutes and never put their boys on the front to chase. Then in the first feed zone, some moron ran into the back of me bending my derailleur/hanger and rendering me with a relatively gearless bike. Without much spirit left, I finished the race, singlespeeding the final climb. All in all, it was a supreme waste of time and money!

Now on to the important report…

I came home Sunday night and headed up to Portland for the first race of the PIR Monday night Shorttrack series. After a slow start, I picked off the local fodder and managed to finish 3rd. Not bad for endurance guy!

Last weekend was the Oregon State Championships. First up was the Shorttrack event. I started out in the lead but after waiting around in nearly 100F heat for almost two hours (mis-printed race time), I succumbed and ended up only being able to manage 3rd place. Not good and I was also not happy to have such bad vibes a week before Marathon National Championships. Hmmnnn…

That evening I raced the Super D event and wasted all the DH guys because they couldn’t go any faster on the rough areas, and I smoked them on all the little climbs. Nice–first victory of the season!

Next day was the XC event, and since it was supposed to take over three hours, I took it easy at the start. After being fourth place initially, I moved to second place when the Sobe-Cannondale boys crashed one another out temporarily. Soon, the big fireroad climb started and I moved to the front. By the top, I had around 5 minutes, so I conserved the lead and enjoyed the awesome course with seemingly endless downhills and RAD singletracks–eventually winning by nearly 10 minutes over Ben Thompson (Sobe-Cannondale), and Mark Weir (WTB). This netted me my second consecutive Oregon XC title and third in the last four years!

Back to Portland Monday night for shorttrack and another dismal start. This time I was going better and managed to chase back to second place behind local ‘cross legend Shannon Skerritt, but just ran out of time catching him. My homey Steve Carwile (Capitol Subaru) finished third so that was cool, too.

Again, thanks to all of you and next up is Marathon National Championships on July 4th. Looks like a bunch of XC specialists will try their hand at a longer race so it should be fun and interesting to see how things shake out!

Until next time,
EP

First of all, I want to thank each of you for your support again this season! I am happy to say that it has the best ever for me and without out some support I am sure it wouldn’t be happening this way.

I just got home from race three of the NUE 100 mile MTB series, the Lumberjack 100 in Michigan. Unfortunately I just missed victory–again! This time I finished 2nd overall just a minute behind the winner Jeff Shalk (Trek/VW). After an unnecessary early flat, I was able to re-join the leaders and did my best to put the pressure on. However, the frantic chase and a little residual training fatigue caught up to me with less than five miles to to. Jeff was hammering up each small climb (it was Michigan) and my legs finally just couldn’t answer the call. Anyway, I am happy with the result minus the bad luck and I am looking forward to even bigger races in July.

Unfortunately it looks like I will have to settle for 2nd overall in the NUE series. With only two races remaining (for me). It is mathmatically impossible for me to overtake the lead. Not bad, but I want you all to know I was there to win for you!

Speaking of training, I decided to do one more ‘block’ directly following the NUE race in Ohio. 10 days and 50+ hours later I took a few days off before the race. Maybe not a enough, but I think it was almost just right. Now I am in a long taper leading up to the National Marathon Championships in Breckenridge on July 4th. A race I would most dearly love to win!

In the meantime, I travel to eastern Oregon tomorrow to race the Elkhorn Classic road stage race. This should help me start finding my legs before our Oregon State Championship MTB race the following weekend.

Here is a link to a report on the NUE series event in Michigan:

http://www.cyclingnews.com/mtb.php?id=mtb/2008/jun08/lumberjack100_08

I have also attached a couple pics. My apologies for not having more, but my feeder, mechanic, manager, photographer (wife) can only do so much!

Thanks again,
Evan Plews