Harlan here in the oxygen starved world of high altitude Breckenridge, Colorado. After the Lumberjack 100 in MI I carpooled to Breck to get ready for the Firecracker 50, which happens to be the 2007 marathon national championship. Coming from sea-level to 9800ft to train and try to recover from a 100miler has proven to be pretty annoying. After a week and a half, of shallow breathing I finally started to feel a bit right, only yesterday.
In order to get a taste of the possible competition and to see a legendary part of CO I went to Crested Butte this past weekend to race the Wildflower Rush XC event. Elevation was about on par with the Breck and after the first 15 min climb I realized my lungs and legs weren't quite ready. So instead of DNF'ing I decided to pleasure pace the climbs and have fun in the Alpine Single-track. The warp-spead switchback decending was incredibly fun, and because the trails were cupped ruts they were a bit hairy. I finished that 3rd from last. Ouch!
SUPER-D redemption!! I always wanted to do super-d's but it hasn't worked out the past two years, since I only had a hard-tail and not many opportunities. But at the Butte I decided to give it a go on the 29er but out of trepidation signed up for the 30+ class. Maybe it was sandbagging but how would I know till I did one. After a lemans start that had me running into the backs of baggy pants dudes I got to my bike third in line and began the fire road descent.
The 29er Deluxe seemed to live for the faux tabletops and narrow single-track. I passed the #2 guy about three min in and then pulled up behind #1 a couple of mins later. He was going just fast enough that when I'd try to go around he could dig a little deeper to keep me at bay. I knew there was one last spot to take him, but it involved a 100ft stretch of a deep grassy and wet line. It had to be one of my favorite passes of all time. Final time?: 11min 22sec.
That gave me 1st in the 30+ but even more surprising was the fact that that would have been good enough for 2nd over-all, just 11 seconds behind Mike West. Top Speed? My computer said 37.3 mph. Next time I'll move it on up.

South Downs Way - Britain Longest Trail - 106 miles, 10,000 feet + climbing in 8 hours 39.

England has had a baking spring.. the hottest April since records begun have seen bone dry trails and full riding agendas. Yet May got us all back - it rained like crazy and for me long rides took a backseat as I succumbed to the weather. Come June and I suddenly realised I had not ridden over 4 hours in a month and I was just a moment away from the first and biggest 24 of the year. I decided to set myself a nice challenge.

The South Downs Way is a classic long distance trail all along the South of England coast, at 106 miles the trail website says that "the very fit, experienced off road cyclist could attempt the trail in two days," perfect opportunity to pop it off in one then! From the statue of King Alfred in Winchester the off-road trail goes up and down relentlessly, through villages with English Tea shops, pubs and gardens and onto great plateaus with vistas down to the sea. The weather was beautiful as I set off solo at around 9.30. It was Sunday morning and Winchester's superb cathedral could be seen as I climbed above the city, its bells chiming. Then the business of the day began, turning legs and navigation. The first part of the trail is really isolated and beautiful and I took it steady. After almost two hours I hit Queen Elizabeth Country Park and the trail headed straight through a massive fair before winding up again into the woods. the sun was beating down now and the legs turning away, I was making good time and feeling good. By 5 hours I was riding past Brighton, my home town, I had that sticky energy drink mouth and headache coming on. It was time to turn on some music and reel it into the finish. The climbs seemed ever steeper and I decided to put the hammer down and put in a good time. Through fields of sheep near Alfriston and over to Jevington I finally saw Eastbourne below. A classic piece of English Seaside, elation and a sense of achievement set in. It was along the front to the pier and time to stop the clock. I felt pretty good and notched up a pretty good 8 hours 39 minutes. Now since the ride I have been looking into the records for both ways. The 212 miles record is held by Cannondale UK rider Mike Cotty at 22 hours 25 minutes, with an attempt to break it coming later this month to lower it further. Looking at that I think a sub 20 with support along the way could be had.. maybe next year. needless to say the Ti Deluxe was mint!

Ian

By Ian Leitch

In a rare foray I decided to do a short race. The Beastway Series is London's only Mountain Bike Series and is a Wednesday evening one hour blast. Running for thirteen years under the direction of the "Structureless Tyranny" each week sees over one hundred riders nose to tail around parks and woodland. This year the venue has moved from the classic Eastway circuit once graced by Eddy Merckx as the London Olympics is taking over the site. The new venue a small country park and zoo - the lap a nine minute twisting loop around steep loose woodland laid out each week by a different shop, team or club. With just ten days before my first big 24 I was there for a bit of a leg tune up, get the lungs bursting. The start involved the usual cheers for the weeks sponsors and then it was go go go. I got a perfect start and hit the first climb leading the bunch. By the top I was rasping for air and took a look behind and to my surpise found myself with a nice gap. The singletrack was superb and having not sat on a road bike for three months my handling skills are in great shape. By the end of lap 1 I was well clear and by lap 3 I was negotiating lapped traffic. Over the next six I found myself smiling away as I took the win by about 3 minutes in an hour and two minutes. The new Deluxe titanium was superb - coupled with my first outing on Stans on my Industry Nine wheels it was silly light! This bodes well for Mountain Mayhem 24 - 150 solo riders are signed up and 10,000 spectators are expected at the World's biggest 24... can't wait.

Photos to follow.

The Fast/IF powered by Lionette's Elite Team headed north into the hinterlands of Maine to compete in the Auburn Race Weekend. Saturday's event was a 60 mile road race on a new circuit with a few rolling hills. The events highlights were, racers no longer had to park on a narrow dirt road a mile from the start and the finish was actually the same place as the start. Go figure.

The venue was great, the sun was shinning, the heat was on 80, and the team was ready. We met for our pre-race talk and I told everyone to do something they haven't done before. That was about it. Get into breaks and have fun. We had about 60 starters in the Pro,1,2 field so we were prepared for some heavy attacking. All the New England Teams, sans Nerac, were represented. The attacking started quickly and repeatedly. FAST/IF pb Lionette's was represented in all the breaks. After a spectacular crash that saw a racers bike hit by a car and smashed into five pieces (he was fine) we started to attack. FAST/IF pb Lionette's riders continuously went off the front and we counter attacked each time they were pulled back. At about the halfway mark I followed an attack off the front. A couple of us got a gap and a few more bridged up quickly. I looked around, noticing that most teams were represented and we had a gap, and yelled at the others to pick up the pace. We quickly pulled away from the lackadaisical field. The eight of us settled into a smooth pace line, increased our lead to over two minutes and never looked back.

No one dared to attack the break until about 10k left when one of the two Kenda/Raleigh guys jumped us. He was obviously trying to set up his teammate, but we slowly reeled it in. On the final up hill, 2k from the finished they attacked again, to no avail. It looked like it would be a sprint. I am not much of a sprinter but I managed to get 4th.

Next stop, Tour of Ohio.

Thanks to all of our sponsors for allowing us to do what we do.

More to come, but IF riders Harlan, Harvey, Jeff and Patrick made it to Ohio's Mohican 100 MTB race on Saturday and brought home a 2nd (Harlan), 7th? maybe 8th for Jeff Wittingham and a 12th for Harvey. Patrick wasn't celebrating a great day for himslef but came across the line despite the rain, heat, humidity and Amish horse brigades.

I should write more about this, and I will, but for now I'm getting a little press spreading the IF word with my legs.