Keegan Swenson & Jason Sager in a dead heat.

Last year’s event raised around $28,000. The totals from this year’s event have not yet been announced, but since fundraising will be ongoing throughout the entire season, it’s certainly not too [...]]]> Yesterday was the 2nd Annual UTCX Cross Out Cancer event at Wheeler Farm; which is simultaneously a difficult and glorious event for everyone involved.

Last year’s event raised around $28,000. The totals from this year’s event have not yet been announced, but since fundraising will be ongoing throughout the entire season, it’s certainly not too late to continue to donate, in one of the following two manners:

1. Donate through Livestrong/Lance Armstrong Foundation
2. Donate through the Huntsman Cancer Foundation

Yesterday also marked my first laps on a cyclocross bike at a cyclocross event in at least 3 years; I forgot how much it hurts my back, but I also forgot how enjoyable it can be to snake through winding singletrack on skinny tires. Oh sure, “real” cyclocross doesn’t have singletrack, but Utah prides itself on being different, which is one of the main reasons why we opt not to become a USAC-sanctioned event; it gives us a lot more flexibility on how we design our courses and run our events … but that’s a discussion for another post.

For now, I’m hoping my back settles down enough for me to get out on the road bike for a few miles today. It won’t be long before winter hits us, and snow and ice on the ground keep the bikes off the road, and skis strapped to my feet.

When I first found out that Burke Swindlehurst was putting together the Crusher in the Tushar, a half-road, half-dirt climbing sufferfest at altitude, I knew immediately that this was going to be an event in which I had to be involved. I’ve written in [...]]]> They came, they saw, they got crushed (and crushed in return).

When I first found out that Burke Swindlehurst was putting together the Crusher in the Tushar, a half-road, half-dirt climbing sufferfest at altitude, I knew immediately that this was going to be an event in which I had to be involved. I’ve written in the past about my admiration for Burke, both as a professional cyclist and as a person … he is quite simply one of the classiest people I have ever had the pleasure to know, and it was my pleasure to volunteer to assist in anyway that I could.

Originally, I anticipated helping out with the timing and scoring of the race, but in actuality most of my pre-event involvement was tweeting about the event and general enthusiasm … before helping out with registration check-ins on Friday night night. My reward? The best seat in the house for the race itself, riding shotgun in the lead vehicle with Burke.

A beautifully crisp and cool morning greeted the field in Beaver, a small town in soutwestern Utah settled by Mormon pioneers in the 1856, just west of the Tushar Mountains, and birthplace of Butch Cassidy (notorious outlaw) and Philo T. Farnsworth (inventor of the television).

In attendance were 180 enthusiastic (and somewhat nervous) cyclists on a wide variety of bikes, ranging from cyclocross bikes to both rigid and full-suspension mountain bikes, geared and single-speed, with flat bars, drop bars, and even a few bikes with mustache-bars. Most of the field was from Utah, but the event attracted riders from all over the country with a few riders coming in from the low-lands in Southern California, New England and the Mid-Atlantic region to tackle an event that never dipped below 5900′ in elevation, and crested above 10,000′ as it approached the finish at the Eagle Point Resort on Mt. Holly.

Amongst the starters were Tyler Wren & Nick Frey (both road professionals for Team Jamis-Sutter Home, but racing off-road for Nick Frey’s Boo Bicycles), BMC’s Jeff Louder (racing as an individual), mountain bike legend Tinker Juarez (Cannondale), professional cyclocross rider Tim Johnson (Cannondale-Cyclocrossworld.com), Paul Mach (Bissell Pro Cycling), former road professional Todd Littlehales (Rapha Racing), and multiple-time Canadian Olympic team member and medalist Clara Hughes (Right To Play).

After a short neutral roll-out, racing began in earnest as the road kicked up on the outskirts of town as the riders entered the Fishlake National Forest with an attack by Boulder, Colorado’s 38-year old Benjamin Blaugrund (Team Juwi Solar/First Solar) who quickly opened up a sizeable gap on the main pro men’s field. It seemed as if the rest of the field were happy to let him go as an unknown sacrificial lamb. Little did they know how strong an impression Blaugrund would make.

Back in the main field, Nick Frey moved to the front and and put the hammer down, and the main chase was soon whittled down to less than a dozen riders, including Tyler Wren, Tim Johnson, Tinker Juarez, Paul Mach, Zack Vestal (VeloNews), and Utah riders Jeff Louder, Reed Wycoff (Contender Bicycles), Jake Pantone (Roosters-Biker’s Edge), Evan Hyde (Realcyclist.com), Nate King and Dave Harward (both Canyon Bicycles). In this lead chase were 4 mountain bikes (Louder, Mach, Jaurez & Harward), 7 cyclocross bikes (Wren, Johnson, Vestal, Wycoff, Pantone, King, Hyde) and 1 road bike (Frey).

Shortly the pavement ended and the gravel climb ended, Frey peeled off the front, his main job for the day of getting the group down to a manageable size for teammate Tyler Wren completed, at which point the remaining 10 riders settled in for the long climb ahead. Unable to hold the pace, Harward, Pantone, and Hyde soon faded, reducing the chase to 8 riders, with Blaugrund still off the front with a lead of about 1 minute by the top of the first climb.

On the steep descent into Junction, Wren, Louder, and Johnson opened a gap on the rest of the chasing group, but Juarez, Wycoff, King and Vestal were not far behind. Unfortunately, Johnson flatted and lost contact with the elite group when he stopped to change tubes (as this was a self-supported race, no outside mechanical assistance was allowed). Coming off the dirt descent, the riders still had a few miles of paved road to go before beginning the return loop down Highway 89 from Junction to Circleville and beginning the return climb.

Reaching speeds that must have been in excess of 60mph (as we in the lead car had to hit 80mph in order to get past them), Louder and Wren caught and passed Blaugrund while the remaining 5 riders in the original chase regrouped as the road began to flatten out. Blaugrund and Vestal soon put in an effort and bridged the gap back up to Wren and Louder, with Wycoff, King, Juarez and Mach working together about a minute behind as the riders turned off the pavement again to begin the return trip. With Mach leading the effort, eventually all 8 riders regrouped as the road ever so briefly became paved again as the road turned left to begin the return ascent up State Road 153 to the King of the Mountains point.

Once again, on the long climb, riders began to fade and lose contact; first Vestal and Juarez, then Nate King, followed by Reed Wycoff and finally Paul Mach, reducing the lead group to just 3 riders, Juwi Solar’s Benjamin Blaugrund, Tyler Wren, and Jeff Louder. About half way up the climb, once again Blaugrund attacked and opened up a 15-second gap on Louder and Wren, which he managed to hold all the way to the summit to take the KOM prize, as Wren experienced a bad patch and was only able to sit in as Louder paced him up the remainder of the climb.

Once the three riders passed the KOM point reaching the turn off to the finish at Eagle Point Resort, with a little more than 10 miles to go, the three riders regrouped in a gentleman’s agreement for a quick nature break on the rollers; once all business was completed and the three riders were back together, Tyler Wren (recovered from his previous troubles) punched it on a short, steep rise with about 6-7 miles to go and opened up a gap on the chasing Blaugrund and Louder.

Meanwhile, back on the climb, unbeknownst to us in the lead car, Zack Vestal was riding himself back into the race, overtaking Juarez, King, Wycoff and Mach.

By the time the road turned back into pavement again for the final 3 miles to the finish, Wren had opened the gap back to Louder & Blaugrund to over a minute and continued to increase his lead to take a solo win at the inaugural edition of the Crusher in the Tushar in an amazing time of 4 hours, 27 minutes and 4 seconds.

As the clock continued to tick back, what did we see in the distance? A solo rider with followed by two others … Zack Vestal had put in an amazing effort to not only re-contact Louder & Blaugrund, but to pass them and hold on for 2nd place 2:44 behind Wren, while Blaugrund (who would have won the prize for most aggressive rider, had there been one) held on for third at 3:14, and Louder faded to 4th at 3:48. A little less than 4 minutes would pass before Paul Mach crossed the line in 5th to round at the long podium at 7:32 behind Wren.

Of the top 15 riders, 10 rode cyclocross bikes, 4 were on mountain bikes, and 1 (Greg Gibson) finished the race in a strong 14th place, 35 minutes behind Wren on a road bike, with 28mm tires.

Nick Frey suffered a double-flat at the near the summit of the first climb, accepting mechanical assistance at the first feed, disqualifying him from the final results, but allowing him to continue for a finish time. After 2 more flats on the first long descent, Frey abandoned the race, turning around and riding a flat tire back to the summit and finish.

Clara Hughes (Right To Play) dominated the women’s Pro/Open field, finishing in 5:21:12, with Rachel Cieslewicz (Church of the Big Ring) finishing 2nd at 21:10 and Tana Stone (Contender Bicycles) rounding out the podium at 21:32 behind Hughes.

Boo Bicycles had a excellent day, with Brad Cole winning the single-speed competition on a Boo 29er with a belt drive in 5:12:50 (the 16th or 17th rider overall across the line), taking the win by 30:03 over second place rider Brent Cannon, with Cutthroat Racing’s Steve Wasmund taking third at 46:38.

Many thanks to Burke Swindlehurst for putting on such an incredible event and allowing me to experience it from the vantage point I had. Many more thanks to Eagle Point Resort, RealCyclist.com, First Endurance, all the rest of the sponsors, and most especially to the Beaver County Sheriff’s Department and all the volunteers for making this event possible.

Official results for Pro Men are as follows. Complete results for all finishers available at Race Day Timing.

Monday is the last day of what is technically still autumn … with the winter solstice (and thus, the [...]]]> Another ‘cross season come and almost gone … tomorrow is the last race of the 2010 Utah Cyclocross Series (or at least, the last race in which participants can gather points towards the series title).

Monday is the last day of what is technically still autumn … with the winter solstice (and thus, the first true day of winter) happening on Tuesday.

And I seem to be the master of stating the obvious … but I haven’t posted anything original here in weeks, and just felt like I needed to write something about things ending and new things starting, but I’m really drawing a blank.

So what’s next?

Continuing to ponder the mysteries of my life … skiing as often as I can, riding my bike when the weather is good, and come spring, learning how to fly-fish. What more can anyone do?

Another video from the inimitable Sam Ray from this past weekend’s penultimate UTCX race for 2010, held at Fort Buenaventura in beautiful Ogden, Utah. You could tell which riders weren’t going super hard, because they were the only ones that managed to stay semi-clean. Everyone else, especially Kevin Hulick (the eventual winner), was caked.

If you missed the ride, but still want to donate money … or even if you just feel like donating more, head on over to the Utah Cyclocross Series’ donation page at Livestrong.org and DONATE!

In the first announcement of the day:

Neal [...]]]> At least, that’s the most reasonable assumption, since neither rider tested positive for any performance enhancing drugs, and were banned based on other evidence … and it is pretty well known that Joe Papp provided USADA with a list of his customers during his own doping investigation.

In the first announcement of the day:

Neal Schubel, a 45-year-old masters racer from Saginaw, Michigan, has accepted a two-year suspension from competition after the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency found that he had purchased and used synthetic erythropoietin EPO.

According to a USADA announcement issued Wednesday, Schubel’s suspension began on November 18, 2010, the day he accepted the sanction, but his results have been negated all the way back to August of 2006. Schubel readily admitted the violation when confronted with evidence in the agency’s possession.

Under UCI and USADA rules, Schubel is also required to return any prizes earned over that four-year period, but a review of his results posted at USA Cycling’s website suggests that he needn’t worry about that aspect of the Doping Code.

via Michigan masters racer suspended for EPO use – VeloNews.

The last sentence in the above article is simply classic, and you really have to love the pop-up text when you hover over the link (which I dutifully copied from VeloNews). It’s definitely illustrative of how ridiculous it is for a masters racer to take performance enhancing drugs …

And in later news, which seems to be quite a shock to many based on various reactions in the Twitterverse:

Boulder-area racer Charles “Chuck” Coyle has accepted a two-year suspension after the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency found that he had purchased and used synthetic erythropoietin (EPO) and insulin growth factor (IGF-1).

The 38-year-old Coyle was a part owner of the Boulder-based Hüdz-Vista Subaru cyclocross team and has been an active road, track and `cross racer for 20 years. Following the announcement of Coyle’s suspension, he relinquished his share in the team.

Team owner and director Lance Johnson said that Coyle has now been fired from Hüdz-Vista Subaru and pointed out that the suspension relates to events that can be traced back to Coyle’s involvement in another team and should not reflect on the character or policies of Hüdz-Vista Subaru.

Coyle’s two-year suspension began on Wednesday, when he accepted the penalty after investigators presented evidence of purchases of illicit performance-enhancing drugs dating back to June 13, 2007. Under UCI and USADA rules, Coyle will be required to return any prizes earned since that date.

As was the case with another suspension announced Wednesday, Coyle’s case did not involve an analytical positive test, but was based on evidence of purchases of illicit performance-enhancing drugs supplied in other investigations.

via USADA announces another cycling suspension – VeloNews.

I can understand (but not condone) the temptation for an up-and-coming pro to start doping … I can understand (but not condone) a pro rider who is trying to stay at the top of his game to dope. I cannot understand what drives a 35-45 year old never-was to dope his way to mid-pack (or worse) finishes … it’s a waste of money, and riders like that are a waste of space.

For [...]]]> You know you don’t really want a week off between cross races … you’d have to do stuff like CHORES! or spending time with the FAMILY? It’s time to get the chamois clammy … it’s time to roll in the mud and sand and dirt and grass and snow. It’s time for Clammy Chamois!

For more details, check out the Clammy Chamois Cross blog/website at http://clammycross.blogspot.com/ … and the absolute best part? I’m not officiating (under semi non-mysterious circumstances).

Oh wait, it’s in Utah County?

Will there be beer? There have been rumors on the down low, but no guarantees! It’s supposed to be a great course, at Art Dye Park (on E 550 North approximate 1000 North … see map below) so check it out anyway. It’s nice to see some other enthusiasts picking up the promoter mantle, and who knows … maybe someday there will be competing series like there are in other states, where the competition between the two series makes everything that much better.

View Larger Map

Go … have fun … it’s what it’s all about … even without beer. I know it can be done. (although I’d prefer it not be).

Masters A: This race was a two-man race from the get go, [...]]]> Men A: The 4-man battle between experienced pros Bart Gillespie (Revolution Racing), Jason Sager (Team Jamis), Alex Grant (Cannondale Factory Team), and rising Junior superstar Keegan Swenson (Cole Sport) came down to the last lap before the decisive attack was made …

Masters A: This race was a two-man race from the get go, with Art O’Connor (Church of the Big Ring) and Thomas Cooke (X-Men Racing) battling out for the championship …

Women: will be posted later, I hope, once our esteemed filmmaker finishes editing …

Many, many thanks to the City of Ogden and the Mt. Ogden Golf Course for allowing the Utah Cyclocross Series to promote the State Championships in such a beautiful and challenging location, and to the Ogden Standard-Examiner for a great write-up of the event.