Well Sh*t, I Wanna Be In Fifth

Among other awesome races by the team over the past few weeks, Linda Mattioni took 5th in the Women's 3/4 on Day 1 of Granogue Cross. In the money! (Or, in the free HEED and tires?) Here's her race report:

A repeat photo of Linda from Nittany Cross earlier this fall.

I started 4th or 5th row back next to Nathalie with Mountain Bike pro Kathleen Harding right behind me; her first cross race but she's a beast and I was scared. I'm still not sure how my race-self kicks in just yet, but the in first 20 feet I was kind of asleep and then...the switch flipped and I turned it on up the hill to blow past half the chicks in front of me before the hole shot. That stretch of asphalt with the strong tailwind felt like flying!! 

Coming around the first twisty, rooty section Cati Scheifele (one of the chicks I always have my eye on to stay with/catch) went down and popped her knee right in front of me which made me slow down and almost cry thinking about it but I shook it out of me head and motored on because Kathleen had just past me and I wanted to crush her! I caught up to Kathleen on the next little bit of asphalt and passed her never to see her again. In my dreams it would have been because I'm super fast, in reality: Kathleen had major mechanicals. 

I really, REALLY need to practice running up short hills. I would get to the top of the two run ups and stop...catch my breath...and sloooowly get back on my bike as one or two people passed me. I feel like people watching me are like WTF are you doing?? I would finally pass all of them again in the turns though. I cut it close the tape while they were taking it wide, it amazes me every time that they leave it open for me. I worked my way up to get behind Becca Schepps. I heard someone yell to her that she was in fifth. This verbal cue was crucial, because with all the 45+ women and the juniors, I never know where I'm at. I was like, well shit...I wanna be in fifth....so, I turned it up a notch and I passed her coming out of a turn. I tried to make a final move on the last climb up the asphalt to the finish but I couldn't grab anyone else. So in fifth I stayed.

Nittany Weekend In Brief: Sept 10-11, 2011

Let's see:

Baby Gerry rode himself into a payout in the Elite Men's field. Look, Cyclocross Mag got it on video! Go to 0:14.

Willem, fueled by hollers of Team BT's #1 fan, nabs 5th out of 5371 racers on Day 1. Obviously the Dutch Oven's temperature was set to BROIL.

The killer Bs slayed the huge field (92 prereg'd), scoring a 10th, 13th, 15th, 15th, 24th, 39th over 2 days.

Linda shows the roadies how to downhill your way to a top 15, with Nathalie and Angie close behind.

The Jersey Devil loosened his grip on me this weekend. I went the right direction around the cross course for 8th and 9th! Can you tell by the shocked expression that this has never happened before?

Add it all up, and Team Bicycle Therapy / Melitta is in a strong third (one point behind our Ciclismo friends) in the MAC team standings. Hup hup.

Ketchup.

It has been a while since our last post and a lot has happened. This post will be an attempt at catching up, so it will be a lot of pictures and a few results.

First the team bikes came in nice and early for the cross season to start.

here it is in parts

and here it is all built up. (thanks to my lovely wife for modeling with it)

Then we had a crazy hurricane that produced a little bit of flooding: (these are actually pictures of the week after the hurricane when it rained a little bit more and the river decided to spill over again right after they cleaned up the schuykill banks)

This flooding lead right into the nittany race weekend, which last year was a dust bowl that left every last MAC series racer wheezing for two months afterwards. This year, thanks to irene, we had mud and more mud.

The C's went off first with Anthony flying the flag: check out Anthony SKorochod's cycling captured for some pics of that race and Meisha's race. This is Anthony after the race:

This is anthony even later in the day

Like lipstick on a pig...

This is Meisha aftr the race: (no lipstick on this pig)

Then the lady's went off and every body looked pretty good:

there was Michelle and Linda:

and Angie

and Nathalie

Michelle killed it both days and is sitting pretty in the top 5 of the mac series. (front row callup)

Here's some action shots of Linda (she ain't afraid of no recalled fork):

Dan raced the elite masters race and looked good:

Then again Dan always looks good

Gerry raced the elite mens race for the first time and did great, finishing midpack in a field that included some international stars and J-pow

Here's Gerry getting pinned up:

Some action shots of Gerry:

Then it was almost night time and they decided to have the 2/3/4 rce:

team BT had a great showing:

Mike Miller of the Loam Rangers (or should I say, the Loam Ranger) also participated in his first cross race and killed it.

And we were all left with the beautiful memories of mudand getting clean: cue tommy boy

A short camping trip with the tandem.

About a month ago my wife Jen, and myself went on vacation to the Netherlands to visit my family. We had a fantastic time and one of the biggest surprises to come out of it was an incredibly generous gift from my Aunt and uncle Anke and Reinier.

They gave us money towards purchasing a tandem. As tandem riders themselves they thought that Jen and I could benefit from the "Marriage counseling" that is riding a tandem. With the conversion from Euros to dollars we were able to by one hell of a two-person bike.

Jen found a great deal on craigslist and we quickly got to work logging miles on the tandem almost every day. Usually we do a park loop or two and in the few Weeks that we have owned the tandem I have twice taken Jen out on the hill ride (amazingly we are still married), but we still didn't have any longer rides logged in yet. That was until one of our newest ladies team members, Michelle Lee, had the great idea to go camping. She wanted to go out to French creek state park which is close enough to the city that we could do it by bike. This idea was perfect We could leave right after work on Friday and ride the 50 miles out there and hopefully be at the campsite by sundown or a little after. This was the route we decided to take

Mostly out on the bike path up until Phoenixeville and then up to the park. Nice and simple.

Here we are about to head out from the trellis on West River drive.

Well we made it to the whole foods in Phoenixeville just as they closed at 8 and had to beg our way into their pantry so that we would have something to eat when we got to the campsite. After securing our dinner to the bikes we plotted the rest of our course and headed out as the sun was starting to disappear

After this we didn't get many more shots because it was too dark. We made it to the campsite at around 10 pm and Michelle and Mike made a delicious pasta dinner that had us all filling our bellies with plenty of carbs. We crashed soon after dinner and I hadn't slept that good at a campsite in a long time. Morning came and we were able to take some pictures of our site:

Gratuitous bike shot

Chef Michael after preparing a great breakfast of bacon and eggs

Hungry campers eating said breakfast

Afterwards we packed up and headed out for a scenic ride back.

Michelle had plotted a wonderful route that took us through some of the most beautiful country that Pennsylvania has on offer.

We stopped in Phoenixville for a great little lunch and some beer before heading back into Philly on the bike path.

It was a blast of a weekend and it was only half over at that point. I have to say I was incredibly impressed with my wife, who is not as crazy about bikes like the rest of us are but she still did really well in pushing me along up all the climbs. Thanks again to Anke and Reinier for the wonderful gift that is the tandem.