Cap City Cross

Don't my legs look all ripped while I pick up the remains of my bike after wiping out yesterday? That must have been the only time that I going slow enough for the camera to catch me... right!

Great setup, and good use of the venue... I think i was in the low twenties of about 30-35 racers. Good time, but I can feel the body saying its time to "shut 'er down." We'll see if we can't fire it up one more time and Brookside.


:::tinny out

Gun Club 'Cross

Nice work to John Gatch and the Hunington Bank team for putting on a great race today. It was home grown cyclocross at its best. I think there were about 25 men in the elite 1,2,3 race, and it was really an odd feeling to be racing a "local" race. Don't get me wrong, everything was very well done, but in the last month I've raced 5 UCI level events, so it took a little while to soak it all in. I had a poor-to-OK start, and it was pretty chaotic as things started to stretch out into the singletrack, and then got mixed up again as we entered the sandpits. After a few laps, I found myself w/ Matt Fox of BioWheels and an Alderfer Bergan rider. I was leading it into the sandpits and heard some chaos behind me.


I gunned it for 10 seconds and looked back to find a small gap. I kept the gap for a while and got to see Matt and the AB rider duking it out behind me as the course doubled back on itself. The laps were short, btw 6 & 7 minutes short. I remember looking down at my HRM to see only 18 minutes had passed and about fell off my bike. There was also a hill that we climbed (on our bikes) every lap. It was steep and really rough. This is me at the top of that hill.


This is what that hill felt like toward the end of the hour long race.


Chip got me all hot and bothered about my Darkhorse bretheren coming out to the race at the end of thier ride, but they never showed up :(

So, I was left to answer all the questions about "Where are all the other Darkhorse's?" Where's Dan? Where's Brett? Has Chip taken really up professional knitting after his accident this summer? Is Alex really training for the 2009 World's Strongest Man competition? Did Tank really import 16 year old kids from Perto Rico to play on his Pop Warner football team? Some questions are just unable to ever be answered...


:::tinny out

US Grand Prix of Cyclocross

I know that I am way overdue for a blog about my cyclocross escapades, so here is my chance to play a little catch up. Last weekend was the USGP in Louisville. I ventured down both days to do the sandbagger race (CAT 2-3). I really felt sorry for all the poor CAT 3's as they had thier race bolstered w/ 20+ displaced CAT 2's. We'd all get our jocks handed to us in the elite race, so we pay-it-forward to the 3's. Now that is trickle-down economics! There were a ton of photographers there, but this was the only pic I could find of me. It may because I'm not very good looking, or because my races were at 9:30 in the morning. As usual, I am trying to ingest my bottom lip, this is affectionally know as my "crossface" in my inner circles of friends and enemies. I finished 26/71 on Saturday and 24/80 on Sunday. Champions Park in Louisville is just a great place to race your bike!


Nice work to all the folks in Louisville for a great weekend.

Pecha Kucha

Pecha Kucha is a presentation format developed in 2003 by a couple of architects in Tokyo. It was invented to be an informal way for young designers to present their work in a public setting. Each presenter is allowed 20 images and exactly 20 seconds per image. This keeps the presentation concise and moving and 6 minutes and 40 seconds later the next presenter takes over with no pause in the procession.

At Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects we have adopted this format with a slight twist. Since we are immersed in design every day we use this format as an opportunity to talk about our lives outside the profession. For our most recent presentation, I was selected along with 5 others. I decided to talk about bike racing and my passion for the sport. Among the images shown was this one captured after Hueston Woods in 2007.

October 30, 2008 was the day that Darkhorse Racing to introduced to Seattle.

CycloStampede Photos :: 2008

Cyclo Stampede Photos by our own Mike More.

Thank you Mike!

--> photos <--

Directions to the center of the Cycling Universe:

Use your favorite web service to get directions to Friday's Darkhorse Cyclo-Stampede:

England/Idlewild Park
5550 Idlewild Road
Burlington KY 41005

TTT: A New Form of Pain

As Alex posted, Darkhorse tried to represent on Saturday at the QCW team time trial. I am sure that most cyclists have dreamt of doing a team time trial of some sort, either seeing the teams roll around a race track at the Tour de Georgia or seeing a teams rolling around France in July.

Here we are a few moments before the start.

I rolled w/ the A-Team (try to say that w/o hearing the theme some in the background). Brett, Dan and I had come out and practiced a few weeks back and that was a huge help. An obvious factor in a TTT is raw fitness, but it is rare that you'll have a perfectly balanced team, so communication is key. During our little workout, we had established a basic code for Dan, your going too fast, Nick, stop rocking your hips, and Brett, turn down your handlebar-bling, its hurting my eyes.

Check out Dan- he's busting out his Space Balls Halloween costume early.

One strategy that we implemented that worked pretty well was to have the rider that was in the second position be the "coach." that person could kinda keep the guy out front honest. It seemed to work OK. This would be really fun to do in June when we'd all have a little more consistent fitness. I think we ended up in 2nd place w/ a time of 23:17. Not to bad for a bunch of hacks.

Chip getting the 'Horses in line

Here we are digging deep into our suitcase of courage...


Mike More was strong early, but we used and abused him... Thanks for selling out!