Cross Crusade 2009 #2 Rainier High School, by Greg

We met at Naiqwan's place to convene before the Cross Crusade #2 Race. Dave, Jeff, Liliane, Naiqwan, Danny and I headed North to Rainier High School. The course has a reputation of being the "best" cyclocross course of the Crusade, but it is among my least favorites as far as placing well. The course features an extended climb (for a cross course anyway), that favors the climbing type of rider. It is a fast course, and with dry weather did not have any boggy or technical areas.

Before the race we met Eric Lanners in the parking lot and we set about registering, warming up, etc, Naiqwan asked if I had any leg warmers he could borrow, and I replied "no, but try this..." and had him embrocate up with some good old Mad Alchemy Cold Weather Warming rub. Good stuff, he probably felt it in the shower hours after the race!

I watched Dave stage for the Mstr C race, and he was again slotted to a lousy back position (right next to former Cyclisme racer Darren Pennington) due to the random start draw scheme. Dave rallied hard and passed over half of the field before finishing.

After some more warm up Jeff, Eric and I headed to the start corral for our race. Jeff and Eric are both in the "3" group, who lined up 2 before my "6" group, which was next to last. Ironically next to last is worst, as the last group not only gets a free 6-pack of beer, they also get the first slot at the next race...

Anyway, we start and I slide to the left onto the grass and get past a bunch of guys in the gravel. Then I almost puke on the climb, and just try and go full steam ahead for the race. I got past Jeff at one point, and he jumped on my wheel and let me know it. Jeff expected me to have a good line on a bumpy off camber turn, but I tried it with no brakes and ended up overcooking and bushwacking through the blackberries (maybe you had to be there, it was pretty funny).

Anyway, we all passed a bunch of people, and Eric just missed getting in the points (and future series call-up).

Naiqwan rode with a purpose, and scored a 5th place finish, improving on last week's 6th place. No mechanicals, and clean, aggressive riding was the order of the day for him.

Next week, mud at last.

Greg

Arch Angel...

FLYING!

over

barriers

with

sheer determination,

and

cutting up single track

on skills honed by the backwoood race courses of Oregon MTB racing,

Naiqwan

"Angel"

Pellman

is now leading Cyclisme

into the

2009 Cross Crusade.

While only 13 years old, he is rated the BEST 14year old in the State!

Thats a lot of "13 year old."

In the Oregon Bicycle Racing Association's rating system this 13 year old Junior is leading OBRA's thirteenth ranked team "Word-RCB" into the winter season discipline Cyclocross.

Naiqwan did not just arrive out of thin air.

Originally a new to Portland Arizona transplant, he was led by his cousin Caezar to join a young Dey Shaun Lee out at the Alpenrose velodrome, back in 2007.

From his days towing the disabled back and forth from PSU University to Powell's bookstore, to pacelining at the ghettodrome; then from winning medals at Alpenrose to long drives around Oregon with his men's Mt. Bike Team.

Angel has risen.

But his biggest moves have not been on the bike, but in the classroom and after school. Naiqwan attends the SEI Academy where he is known as "Angel." Once he started attending Tony Hopson's famous school where "Life Has Options," his grades improved.

After school, he gets on his cycling clothes, and is soon met by one of his elder teammates who ride with him across town to homework sessions at the Woodstock Library, with lunch and yard work and yoga at the Atomic Ranch. By being respectful and open to everyone's advice he has pulled the team together.

Himself, for beginners like 40 year old metal worker Fergus Kinnel, he is a fine coach of the many skills involved in getting around the velodrome, but Naiqwan has has also enjoyed receiving excellent coaching and mentoring. Examples include Jake Hasnen on abdominals and strength as well as day to day road training, and Greg O'Brien who has driven him to mountain bike races, paid fees, and taken special care to create the best bicycle possible, despite limited resources.

Cross Crusade 2009 #1 Alpenrose, by Greg

Jeff, Liliane, Naiqwan, DeyShaun, Greg and Danny all piled into the O'Brien mass transit rig on Sunday and headed over to Alpenrose. Csaba got us on the radio and via the airwaves guided us deep into the mayhem to primo course-side parking.

In addition to our car load, about 59,000 other people decided to race cyclocross today. Eric and I were bummed to hear there were no call-ups from early season stellar performances (I was really bummed, as I still have lingering proudness over my 3rd place Saturday at Hood River. So far in my middle aged race career the words "O'Brien" and "podium" are not often heard in the same sentence).

We got over our disappointment and yelled encouraging stuff to Csaba, Dave, and a bunch of other random people on the course. We warmed up, then DeyShaun decided to somehow rip a hole in his tire. Jeff and I did a Nascar style quick cassette swap to get my spare super-trick light-weight Tufo-clad-Mavic rear wheel onto the Jamis in time to roll over to the start. Here's what it looked like for the master B's.

I'm the guy way in the back on the left (right next to Dr. Bob), about the size of an ant on your screen. They stage in 10 groups. The numbers 0-9 are randomly drawn, and you assemble according to the last digit of your race number. The "lucky 6's" that I am part of were the 3rd to last number called up, so probably 75 or so lined up in front of me.

The whistle blows, and we sit waiting for 10 seconds or so until we can actually start pedaling. I found some lucky holes and gained a boat load of spots before hitting the first dirt section. I went back and forth with Tireless Velo buddy/nemesis Mike for a bit. Then we all jumped over barriers. here is what DeyShaun, Naiqwan and I look like doing that:
I slowed down to let this other guy get in the picture too. You can also tell that if you contribute to this blog you get to put in a bigger picture of yourself!

Jeff crashed approaching the gnarly staircase runup and ripped a hole in his skin and his $90 tire, but unfortunately I don't have a picture of that. The cool support crew from Shimano had a spare wheel for him after he ran to the pit so he was able to finish his race.

All in all a great day. Naiqwan was the stand-out, with a strong 6th place finish in the very competitive Junior Men category. Dave and Csaba in the upper half of the almost 200 rider Master C field. Eric and I passed a lot of people in our race but couldn't quite make it into the points. I rode clean, and felt great. Jeff got back on the horse after a crash and mechanical to finish out the race, and my boy Danny managed one full course lap in the Kids "A" field.

Next week is Rainier High School, a truly awesome course. We'll meet at Naiqwan's place Sunday morning to carpool, time TBD.

Brrr, its cold up there!

Snow on Lolo

By Jake Hansen


Supposedly record crowds gathered at Alpenrose for the Cross Crusade.

While the chaos ensued in Southwest Portland, Aubrey Edwards, Randy Word, Stephen Bedford and myself opted for some quiet and stunning scenery along Marmot Rd & Barlow Trail.

The rain held out on us and everyone rode REAL STRONG up to Lolo Pass Rd. Randy and Aubrey bombed back on Hwy 26 while Bedford and I decided to get crazy and tackle the snow.

And yes, there was snow and toe freezing temperatures up at 3400 ft.

I got some pretty high quality pic's from my phone camera of this crazy guy practicing his cyclocross up there too...

Until next time!

Battle At Barlow v.2009 by Greg

I won't be as long winded this time. The length of my race report will be in proportion to my placing. Since I came in 16th, I'll keep it short.

Naiqwan and Marquell joined in with DeyShaun to race the Juniors field. I don't have photos, but you should all be proud of how these 3 represented b.i.k.e. and Cyclisme. They are courteous, competitive, fun loving, and hungry teens. Naiqwan took 5th in his first cyclocross race ever, DeyShaun came in 6th after another dropped chain incident, and Marquell finished in 8th place.

All 3 of them worked hard, and were thoroughly exhausted when done.

Jeff, Eric and I raced in the Masters B race, which is neat because we're on the course at the same time as the juniors. We all had great line ups, and I got off well and was in 4th for a while, then really faded the last 2 laps. Jeff pulled out with 1 lap to go with breathing trouble in the windy, dusty air. Eric also had a bit of a cold and had a terrible start putting him at the back of the field.

With 2 laps to go Eric passed me asking "how many in front?" I answered that I though about 6 or 8 were ahead of me, and off he went. I tried to stay with him so we could work together but I was gassed. In reality I think more were ahead of me than that, but Eric's strength in getting through most of the field and finishing in 6th was very impressive.

Dave was in the crowded Master's C field, and seemed to pick up the pace each time we would all yell and cheer him on.

2 more smaller races (1 here and another here) before the Cross Crusade starts on Sunday with a hopefully muddy Alpenrose.

Greg

It takes a village?

So 

when's 

dinner?

This question has been asked more ardently in these latter days of this Indian Summer

of 2009. Thanks to the migration of the young Memphis man, 

Chef, 

Jay Ferries.

His culinary skills 

have propelled our Team and our vegetable 

garden  into

the social season.

Now stars 

of the 

community

align with 

stars of 

Cyclisme

in the back yard 

of the Atomic Ranch. 

Local business leaders 

like 

Jay Dykeman of "Jay's Garage"

on 7th and SE Morrison and 

Landscape Designer 

Catherine Raschke 

are poppin over for dinner.

Ms. Raschke knows a lot about plants. 

Like Jay Dykeman who sells Bio-Diesel, 

she leads the way in 

appropriate practices for 

Mother Earth 

with her company 

"Herb 'n Gardens."

From the safe vantage point of a dinner table business people, community people, 

friends all around became real Tifosi as they enjoyed a vision of cyclocross demonstrated by Cyclisme's Word-RCB, 

led by Dave Wingard, Naomi Byrd, Stephen Bedford, 

Jake Hansen, and  

Dey Shaun Lee. 

Guests passionately spied through a chain link fence as Bedford and Jake hooked handlebars. 

The Land of Speed

Indianapolis, Indiana.

by

Jake Hansen

My trip to Indianapolis, Indiana was big.

For the first time in my life I motorpaced full speed on the wheel of a motorcycle driven by John's coach Ken Nowakowski (see him and Rahsann Bahati at 3:22 min in here) on the Major Taylor Velodrome.

It's a big wide concrete outdoor velodrome that is much smoother

than Alpenrose.

Although the streets are 6 lanes wide and don't have bike lanes there are some people here who can really ride their bikes.

The Marian College Cycling Team has been the Division 1 National Champions for the last 15 years or so. It should come as no surprise then that the Major Taylor Velodrome (where they practice daily) is a stone's throw across the street from their campus. Nowakowski built them to a Collegiate dynasty over the last ten years.

Almost everyone on the team is as fast as Steven Beardsley, and it is rather intimidating to be hanging out on the infield.

Easily I traveled around this giant flat metropolis on my bike a lot. I made it to Joe's Cycles where I got espresso, and talked about the frames that Joe had just started making.

I rode the length of the Monon Greenway Trail which went due North all the way through Carmel for around 20 miles.

At the Baptist Church, that is home to the North Township, I delivered a letter and b.i.k.e. proposal to two pastors in hopes that someday we can continue our great programming in Indianapolis with a house in close proximity to the velodrome.

I traveled through some of the poorest neighborhoods of Indianapolis where houses are For Sale for a few thousand dollars, no money down. People seem like they are waiting for something cool like b.i.k.e. to come along.