MNSCS #2 Afton Avalanche

Sunday's race was another large field,179 in my race.
This is a view from up the ski hill of the start of my race.
I got a poor start and got stuck in a huge bottle neck at the beginning of the single track, while the leaders rode away. After I got though that mess, I started making my way through traffic. Afton is probably the the hardest race of the MNSCS series, and it definitely has the most DNF's.
I ended up 4th in my age class again. It was a good race for me.

Zach, on the other hand, got to watch from the sidelines. Saturday nigh,t I had to take him to the ER to get 5 stitches in his leg and get his hand X- rayed to find out he had a broken finger. He was riding his friend's dirt bike and one of his other friends t-boned him with a four wheeler. He should be good to go in a few weeks.
Our team mate Ben Shocky was also at Afton mixing it up with the rest of the expert racers.

MNSCS #1 Erics Spring Cup

Sunday was a beautiful day for our first race of the season. And it seemed that everyone thought so too, 517 people showed up for the day's races! There were only 189 in our race.
We up graded to Cat. 2 for this season, so the competition will be stiffer for sure.
Zach went off in the wave before me and got a good start.
He held that position through the second lap until he hit a berm too hard and pushed his tubeless tire off the rim and let out all the air. He couldn't get it refilled and had to DNF.
My race went well, I got a decent start and worked my way through alot of traffic for three laps to finish 4th in my age class.

After the race, we ran into our team mate Ben Shockey, and met his wife and son , in-laws and friend Collin. It was fun to meet a great group of people.

Looking forward to the next race in two weeks.

There is one thing better than a Fisticuff

That's two Fisticuffs! Yep,I got mine put together this week. I headed out this morning to join up with local roadie group ride. I was a little apprehensive about joining up with these guys with my single speed and having them on their high $ carbon fiber road bikes. I've never ridden that far on a single speed on the road before( 60 miles) but I've ridden with these guys many times before, so I knew what the pace would be like. After about 10 miles, I was sitting in, no problem. We hit quite few bigger hills and I was able to hang with the front group, no problem! Towards the end of the ride, I had several guys comment how surprised that they were that I was able to hang on a single speed.
I had so much fun on the Fisticuff that it's going to be my main road bike for the summer.

The Fisticuff is ready for action!

We finished putting the Fisticuff together last night and took a couple of pictures this morning.
After the photo session It was time to test this bad boy out.
Zach made a few runs at our cyclocross practice barrier before we headed out for some real riding. We hit the road first on our way to our local trails.. The first thing he noticed was how smooth and stable it felt on the road. When we came to short steep climb, he was out of the saddle sprinting and was very impressed by how solid it felt under full power. Then, it was on to the trails where Zach said from the start the Fisticuff made him feel right at home.

For now, we have it set it up as a single speed and will be switching it over to road tires for most of the summer to train for mountain bike racing. This fall will be switching it over to gears for the upcoming cross season. We don't have much time in on it yet but from Zach's initial impressions, this is going to be one really fun bike.

Brown brings the Snickers brown

The much anticipated Vassago Fisticuff was delivered today by the man in brown. We got it in the stand tonight and installed a couple of parts but didnt have much time for anything else. We have a couple of new parts showing up later this week and we should be able to finish up the build then. So stay tuned we will post more pictures later this week and hopefully some of them will be action shots.

MCF awards banquet

Last night Zach and I attended The Minnesota Cycling Federation's annual awards banquet. It was a big night for Zach, he was named the Minnesota Junior Cyclocross Rider of the year!
Way to go Zach.

What do you do on Sunday night when it's 0 outside?

Well......... you go for a bike ride of course.
Sunday night the cabin fever took over and Zach and I headed out for a moon light ride. The local trails were hard packed and easy to ride. We were only out for about an hour and half, but it sure was fun.