Holidays!

So yesterday we had our last little local race. After last weeks one, I was full of high hopes, but my legs did not want to cooperate. It was a hard lap, lots of short climbs and no place to recover. Even the short pieces asphalt were down the hill, so spinning like a mad man.. I finished something like 10th out of 35, which was OK.

And now, holidays! One week to go and then we migrate, like 50% of the Dutchies, to France. Not sure which bike to bring, yet, but it will be good for sure. I hope you all will have a good holidays, hope to see lots of you at SIS or the Worlds SS!

Bergrace Oosterbeek NL

So we have this race series by an independent race organizer, and he happes to have the 4 best race courses of the entire country. I missed the first one because we wanted to do a touring trip that day, the second race was at the same day of a family meeting, but this 3rd race I was free to go. After receiving de Fathers days presents of the kids, mommy took of with the kids for a horse jumping race, and I  prepared for the race today. There are 3 races during the day, one 150 minutes, then the 75 minutes followed by a 105 minutes race. Normally I do the 75 minutes race, short and intensive, but as I wanted to get home in the afternoon again today I took of for the 150 minutes.

As I did not do to much training lately my goal was to finish. Which I did. I  took of last en after the first climb I could pick the right pace and do my thing. I was lucky enough to have one of the guys supporting a friend who kindly offered to hand me some drinks and food during the race, so I could keep going without getting of the bike to pick up bottles and bananas. It turned out I started at a perfect pace, slowly passing lots of riders and at the end finishing 89 out of 143 starts. Of course I was lapped by the fast guys, but I was very happy with this result.

 

Picture by Sikke @  http://www.sikkemtbfotos.nl

Short track racing in Dutchie land!

My new hobby is short track racing…. Not because I like the short, high intensity part of it, but more because my training intensity is at a historic low…

We have more and more people joining the singlespeed way of riding, resulting in more small, club or internet forum based singlespeed races. Good thing about these is that it is easier to finish on the podium, which was the case with a small race we had at a local club in Ede, Netherlands. Omthe short but very fun track we did a 75 minutes race, which was just short enough for me to finish on the second place out of 20+ riders.

A few weeks later, in the same city, we had a street race, with a very(!) nice course through city centre and some surrounding parks. With lots of small stairs, sandy corners and a very gnarly climb my Big Apple equiped 1×9 Singular wasn’t the best choice for the race after all. Singlespeed would have been better, although I am not sure I would have been able to keep my third place on my singlespeed. The high temperature, fast start and twisty, very technical course made it a very hard race, short but intensive. But hey, podium again, in a year I have been riding half the distance I did last year (or so), so why complain?

So what’s next? Some local races the next few weeks, holidays in France (the Ardeche), then SIS, SSWC Ireland and Eurobike. The next few months will be fun!!

Looking forward to meet quite some teammates again at SIS, let’s smoke some kiddy wheels up there!

Jelle

Follow Phil at the Divide!

For all people interested in the wanderings of Phil in the new world, here some links:

http://tourdivide.org/

The tracklogs:

http://trackleaders.com/tourdivide

A forum thread with some pics and the start vid:

http://www.bikepacking.net/forum/index.php/topic,836.80.html

That for a starter, later more on his position in the race!

Lowlands Racing

June will be racing month here in Holland, at least, for me!

After the Euros in the UK (sorry, ‘forgot’ to do a proper write up for that, but I wasn’t first and there were lots of sheep involved) it was a little slow at the racing front, very busy doing what I like second best, and also less riding as I hoped..

After a nice tour ride last Saturday, topped of with a Alley cat in hilly Arnhem, last Wednesday was the first race in our annual local pre-summer competition, and it was fun as always. I got in third of the non licence riders, after a steady first place in the last years races. To bad, but still it was a great race. Short lap, but some nice technical parts, steady climbing (ask Singular Sam, Holland is not flat 🙂 ).

This Sunday we will have one of our Bergraces again, the course that was used for the 2005 Euros singlespeed, with lots of climbing, some very nice stairs (one walking up, one flying down!!) and lots of enthousiastic people cheering the riders. Weather looks like a friendly 23 degree sunny day, so perfect for some biking fun!

First race, one lap to far..

Well, you may have read it in Dave’s report, did finish, but wit a terrible last 1.5 lap. Last year I started fighting the cramp monster with the powders and gels, which worked well over the year. This year I took what I took last year, drank a lot, but ‘forgot’ to eat. Well, I just did not find the time to eat, as the pace was (to?) fast, and i had to keep spinning my 39:21 gearing to be able to hold on to the guys I was riding with.

The plan was to get to the front fast, find a fast group to ride with and just see where it would go. Actually I felt quite good, passing lots of riders in the first 3-4 laps, and keeping a good pace, riding at around place 100 of the 260 rider field. I was aware of Dave behind me, but that never made me ride different, as I was confident of myself… Untill the feeling we all know started in my left upper leg, which immediatly made me drop from the group while starting to empy a gel and my Camel bak. To late. After some slow riding and a ‘Snelle Jelle’ I started to recover but then I already lost about 30 places, and 4 minutes in 1 lap on Dave. Gladly I made enough time on the next singlespeeder, so I managed to finish as 3rd singlespeeder.

I was happy with my result, learned my lesson again, and found out I am fast enough and have a good base for the rest of the season. Road season will start again wednesday, time to log some more K’s!

Big respect for David, riding the way he did and then riding home, head wind and on that tiny gearing through the Dutch plains..

New Member!

Hi all, with this post, or link to my page @ the BWR Europe website, I’d like to introduce myself to all people out there.

My name is Jelle Tienstra I have been promoting the big wheel thing for quite some years now and I hope with my membership of Big Wheel Racing Europe I will help to make more and more racers aware of the possibilities of 29-ers.

I will also be a sponsor for the team with my site and shop @ Singlespeed.nl .

Here some more info on me!

For 2010 I will participate in the National Bergrace Offroad competition, some local competitions, the Dutch and European Singlespeed Champs, Schlaflos Im Sattel and I hope some Marathons in Germany and Belgium. I will ride the races on a Singlespeed 29-er, first on a Gary Fisher Superfly (pic below), and later, when available, on a Niner Air9 Carbon.

The first race will be this weekend, so a report on that later!

Hope to see you all out there at some event or just in the wild!