On September 23, my teammate Ryan Eisele and I dusted off our mtorbikes and headed to the Dick Jagow Memorial Grand Prix. The race is held at Washougal Motocross Park. I purchased a new Yamaha YZ450F in mid-August, so I started practicing 45 minute motos again on my mx track. The last mx race I had done was in 2008 and I knew I would be rusty even with a month of preparation. The Dick Jagow race used the whole Washougal mx track and surrounding fields and single track. It was similar to the 6hr mountain bike race that was held there in June–minus the mud!

I decided to race in the 30 amateur class. After a recent tailbone injury and not as much time on the moto, Ryan rode in the Sportsman category. The Sportsman class rides with the Women’s class so he offered to lend my wife a hand if she needed it as she was racing too. The grand prix began with a dead engine start and lasted hour and 45 minutes with the course being about 5 miles per lap. I got off to a slow start and most of the single track trails were extremely dusty which made trying to close any kind of gap on a rider ahead almost impossible. Read more »

Well, it isn’t going to do any good to wait another day to write this report because it’s still going to seem like a mouthful of excuses. So let’s just get straight to the point–I flopped, underachieved, blew it, etc. Yeah sure it all boiled down to the rib injury I sustained last week in Georgia. I had stayed off the disabled list all year and to have it all fall apart just one week before the race I had targeted as my comeback metric was a bitter pill to swallow.

The stage was set for a great race. Less than three hours away in Bend meant relatively painless travel and trails I had at least ridden once or twice in my life. The race had also attracted the strongest field ever assembled for a USA Marathon Championship. This was going to be as good as it got for an opportunity to show off the best form of my life. Then the run-in with the log in GA happened and the tailspin (literal AND figurative) started. As I collected my wits trail side at Fool’s Gold, one of my first thoughts after: “wow, glad I still have a leg”, was: “so much for a good ride in Bend.” Read more »

Watch more video of 2012 Shenandoah Mountain 100 NUE on cyclingdirt.org

I headed east for the Shenandoah 100, but the best made travel plans were laid to waste by a hurricane named Isaac. After a late arrival into Baltimore, I got to bed after 2am. We got up and made it to the venue in time for a few showers to roll through. It seems like nearly every trip I make east for racing ends up a muddy mess! Read more »

When Evan asked if I wanted to carpool down to Jacksonville for the OBRA State XC MTB race I was pretty stoked. It was a new race to try out so we packed up my Subaru and drove to Medford where we stayed the night before the race. Trying to get enough sleep, we woke up last minute and showed up to the venue just about 10 minutes before the race started. I didn’t manage to get much of a warm-up in, but felt great as we took off on the steep gravel road which spread all of the racers out by at least 20 seconds. I had studied the course map online and remembered seeing that my race was supposed to be about 20 miles with over 3,000ft of elevation gain so I made sure to save enough energy so the climbing wouldn’t wipe me out. I ended up missing one of the first turns and didn’t realize it until I was over a mile past it and had climbed an extra 500ft. After turning around and getting back to the race course, I rode about four miles of downhill singletrack along a steep hillside and was real shocked when I heard bells and saw the finish line, as my Garmin only showed 12 miles, two of those being off the course! I asked the promoter about the mileage and he explained that he wanted it to be suitable to all ages and levels which is why he chose to the truncate the course. I was a little disappointed since I would have stepped up my pace substantially if I had known this ahead of time. Evan won the Pro category capturing his fourth OBRA XC title, and I finished 2nd in Juniors. I’m not sure yet if I’ll plan to race next year in Jacksonville again or not.

Ian Mastenbrook

Yeah, I just raced up and around that mountain!

One of last season’s most disappointing races for me was the Single Speed XC Nationals in Sun Valley. With the two year venue cycle, I got another stab at it this year and finished a big geography loop of racing/riding with a stop at Mt. Baldy. The course had been altered significantly (thank goodness) and we rode one big loop circumnavigating the mountain climbing Cold Springs and descending Warm Springs before returning to the venue via the River Run Trail. As we began the long climb to the top of Baldy, Cameron Chambers put the hammer down and never looked back riding his fully suspended SS weapon away from us like a billy goat. I didn’t have the best legs but managed to begin the descent in fourth and moved up from there to finish second. While it wasn’t the win I had dreamed about it was the best I could do. I had been bested by a better man that day and that was still a much better outcome than last year!

Stage One

Howdy from the Kootenay Rockies and the second annual Furious3 mtb stage race. For those of you who haven’t checked this one out, it is a 3 day tour of some of the raddest trails imaginable! Read more »