A Couple More JJM Reports

Jared's been great about writing Cup O' Dirt reports for 2013. I haven't even had to edit them too much! Here's from his last two Cup rides since Triple D:

I got my second metric in for the year! With Triple D, This weekend's ride and CIRREM next week the fact that I will have 3 completed by the end of February is a scary thought. At this rate I won't have to procrastinate! I went out with Matt Maxwell, Andy Zeiner, and Scott Sumpter. They invited Matt and I down to ride from Des Moines to Earlham. I think Matt and I were both excited to ride in a new place with great friends. All and all not much to talk about it. I was checking myself for TI9 and making sure my bike was ready for CIRREM. The bike seems alright for TI9 but I'm not ready for CIRREM! CIRREM always seems like tons of fun until you are out there. Then I tell myself for the week after that I hate that race and I'm dumb to sign up... Needless to say I've signed up the last 3 years. I can't be accountable for my personal actions so I blame Matt Maxwell and the Cup Master. 

To summarize the ride, 66miles with good friends, new scenery and pretty good strength.

CIRREM:

Hello Bike Lovers,
This weekend at the CIRREM bicycle race in Cumming Iowa I completed a metric century on gravel roads. It went well. I really don't know what else to say. For me it was test run for trans iowa. The bike was running well and I felt I was as well. I was amazed how I pretty much rode alone despite seeing so many familiar faces. That's ok! When it was all done we met up at the cumming tap and had a grand old time! 

This is also a good chance to wish my friend Nick Wethington "the Cup Master" happy trails. He and his full time night woman are running off to Montana. If it wasn't for Nick and Matt Maxwell putting up with me in the basement of Skunk River Cycles I would probably not be riding gravel. So thanks, Nick, for introducing me to gravel grinding and putting up with me even when you didn't want to. 

Drew Wilson's 2012 Recap

Drew Wilson had a few more rides to add to his 2012 totals. Once again, he had a great year of riding! Here they are:

According to my last update I had 5 metrics and 3 full centuries in Mid June.  

6/16-  Dirty Benjamin ride/race full century
6/23- Cheq 100 (I raced the shorter metric version) metric
7/27- metric south of Rochester
7/29-30 rode 191 miles over the course of two days hitting Cannon Falls, Red Wing and some of Wisconsin.  1 full, 1 metric.
8/11-13 rode about 250 miles over the course of 3 days starting in Hayward and riding northeast to the Porcupines. 2 full.
8/19- 130 mile ride over much of the same terrain as the Dickie Scramble will be on. 1 full.
8/25- the "mn 24" 6 hour race. 1 metric.
9/7-9- Gravel Conspiracy!  About 300 miles over 3 days.  2 full.
9/22-  Almanzo Gentleman's Ride. Full.
9/29- Heck of the North. Full.
10/6- The Heroic plus 29nsngl mtb TT. Metric.
10/27- Dirt Bag.  Full. 

Tons of long road rides in there that didn't count!  Long gap between 10/27 and Triple D though with no rides over 30 or so.
I guess my total for the year is...  13 full, 10 metric?

Dave Giegerich Crushes Again

I asked Dave Giegerich at Triple D just how many metrics he'd done for 2012. His reply: "Oh, I didn't do too many this year because of some injuries. I think it was like about 50 or so." I think this tells you a lot about how awesome Mr. Giegerich truly is. Here's a brief recap and another image of our Triple D adventure.

Dear Nicholos,
Sorry for the delay in sending you my gravel travel centuries but I had a very serious traumatic occurrence happen to me which left me unable to function up to now. You see on Jan 20^th 2013 I became lost in the deep wilderness of Iowa forest with two other cyclists, at night, and with failing lighting systems. The two other cyclists were the following.  A sir Nicholos Wethington and a Mr. Jared M. 

I have heard from certain folks in the know that this has so affected Nicholos that he is now moving out of Iowa. Jared current condition is unknown at this time 

However back to the Cup-O-Dirt. I went through my riding diary and found a total of 55 Metric Gravel Centuries for the year of 2012. Looking forward to setting and achieving some new goals for 2013. 

Thanks for the Chase
Dave Giegerich

Kurt Sandiforth's 2012 Overcompensation

So, I got an email before ordering 2012 cups asking about a late entry into the 2012 Cup O' Dirt chase. As you can see below, I think this amount of dirt riding deserves at least one mug! Props to Kurt for finishing so well at all of those difficult trail races. Check out his blog for some mind-blowing photos and ride recaps. I've no doubt we'll be hearing from Kurt over the next year!

Hey Nick I found your Cup O' Dirt sight.  I think we share some kinda of connection?  I keep a blog called bike grease and coffee:   pocket-thunder.blogspot.com   and my nickname has been Dirt Kurt since I was a little kid.  Anyways in 2012 I completed the first ever "triple crown of bike packing"  I finished the Arizona Trail race(1st), Tour Divide(3rd) and Colorado Trail race(9th) in a single season. 4000 miles of off road racing in 31 days. I do more centuries on a and off road per year than I can count.  Actually I did more than 6 double centuries last year (not all dirt though).  Ok you get the point. I'd just be stoked on one of your mugs? 

cheers, Kurt Sandiforth  

2012 Rides from Charles Showalter

I finally got to meet the famed Charles Showalter at CIRREM last week. He is every bit as awesome as you'd think he is, plus some. Probably the hardest drinkin', smokin', ridin' fool you'll ever meet. Craig is absolutely spot-on in calling him the PowerGoat! See attached photo of Charles riding motocross. Here's what he had to say about his 2012 rides:

I've been off the radar since Trans Iowa.  A lot went on in my life between May and January, but sadly Cup rides weren't part of it (just two metrics since Trans Iowa).  Here's my recap from 2012, which by my calculations earns me a Cup in the "12+ Metrics" category:

The ones we've already counted:

1/1/12 metric: this was the New Year's Day Hangover Metric with Courtney, Craig, and others riding a modified version of the CIRREM course.

1/7/12 metric: nothing special to report here, just gravel with some CR roadies.

1/8/12 metric: this was a pre-ride of the Triple D course with Dave Giegerich and Craig.

2/12/12 metric: metric with Craig, him on a Pugsley and me on his old mountain bike.

2/25/12 metric: CIRREM.

3/18/12 metric: Craig and I did the "Amana ride."  I originally counted this as a century.  I'd like to switch it to a metric. 

4/28-4/29 five metrics: this was Trans Iowa, approx. 330 miles of gravel.  I originally counted this as three centuries.  I'd like to switch it to five metrics.  

Previously uncounted rides:

4/1/12 metric: Me, Craig, and Courtney rode from Courtney's place in West Des Moines to the Missouri border and back.  It started out as the "April Fools Ride" but by the time we got back we just called it the "Fools Ride" because we were fools for doing it.  It was unusually hot that day--got into the 80s.  We got lost about a dozen times.  We ended up with something like 210 miles, with about 100 of that on gravel.  I'll just count it as one metric because I can't remember exactly how much was pavement. 

9/15/12 metric: This was a pre-ride of Craig's Moonshine Metric course.  We rode it on fat bikes.  I was toast by the end.   

9/29/12 metric: This was Craig's Moonshine Metric.  The weather was perfect, full moon, clear night, lots of fun.  A little dusty, but fun.  

Total for the year:
So that gives me a total of 14 metrics on the year.  Thanks for the chase, it was always fun to have an excuse to ride at least 60+ miles instead of bagging it early and heading home.  And I really like riding gravel.

Charles is probably even faster on a bike than he is on a moto.

Craig Irving Finally Spills It

Well, much like with Lance, we all knew what was going on. I personally saw Craig sneaking cans of unicorn lard into his panniers at the AH 135. I'm going to throw away those CraigStrong panties that I've not taken off for a whole year. Fortunately for Craig, you can dope all you want on Cup O' Dirt rides, so I guess I'll send him a couple of cups for all those rides he did last year. Don't mix your EPO and meth, though, kiddos.

September 8th:  Day two of the Gravel Consipracy in northern MN was 123 miles of gravel, drizzle, endless washboard, an ATV trail that eventually faded into nothingness and a last minute reroute onto pavement to finish it out.  I suffered through some light tendonitis in the ankle most of the day, so I skipped the third and final day to avoid aggravating it any further. 

September 16th:  Pre-ride of the Moonshine Metric course with Charles the Powergoat.  65 miles or so. 

September 29th:  Another excellent year for the Moonshine Metric.  Temps Started off about perfect and dipped to chilly by then end of the night.  The roads were so dry that one of the B roads we hit was a few inches deep of cocoa powder for a mile long stretch.  Finished the night with plenty of food and drink and hung around the fire pit til around 3am before hitting the sack. 

October 21st:  Won my first bike race in over 13 years!  This was my second time racing the American Gothic Gravel invitational and after the early C road I had a sizable gap so I gave it a shot and started pushing it.  Ended up fighting cramps from about the mid point on, but had enough juice to hold my lead.  Not a big field this year, but still very proud of the accomplishment.  Noodled around the parking lot afterwards to kill some time and rack up that last mile point five for the metric. 

December 16th:  Rode my fastest gravel metric ever with the clock sitting at 4:15 when I hit 62.1.  This was no cupcake of a route either, with 3000ft of short, punchy hills. 
December 28th:  Took the start of the Tuscobia 150, but lower back pain was bad enough by the time I hit the second checkpoint togive me enough of an excuse to pull out.  Pretty disappointed that I didn't rest a bit and try to finish, but we'll just chalk that up to lessons learned and future motivation.  Finished with about 64 miles. 

That should bring my year end totals to 12 metrics and 9 fulls, which is a bit wimpier than I was originally expecting.  Still, I had fun doing them and I'll look to better that mark in 2013, starting with the Arrowhead 135.  Have fun out there, folks!

A.J. Turner's Winning Triple D 2013 Report

If you weren't there, A.J. Turner burned up the course at Triple D this year. He and Drew Wilson (another Cup O' Dirt rider) battled for the win, and A.J. used his mad skills to come out on top. Then Adam Blake got him really drunk. Congrats to both A.J. and Drew for their fantastic showing of skills and athleticism at Triple D, and for doing the Cup O' Dirt proud!

So awesome to meet the man behind Cup-O-Dirt this last weekend! I'm determined as ever to get one of these cups this year!
My first addition is, of course, Triple D. 67 miles (As I was told) in about 5.5 hours.
One of the hardest and most treacherous races I've done in a while, it proved to be a great first ride to go in for the Cup-O-Dirt chase.
Ice and very hard frozen fields and single-track made this as much of an endurance race as a technical bicycle abilities test.
No doubt, I had fun and am excited to be back in the chase for 2013.
Thanks!
A.J. 

A.J. kicking ass. Thanks to Martha O'Connor Leigh for taking photos this year (and every other year) at Triple D!

Pat and Charlie Jenkins 2012 Recap

Congrats to Pat and Charlie Jenkins for doing 7 full centuries on a tandem! They each get a cup for 2012, and it sounds like they had a helluva lot of fun riding in 2012.

Here's a recap of our dirty rides last year. Life got in the way the 2nd half of the year, so we haven't been on dirt or gravel since DK. But, we are optimistic that we can change that this year. Definitely let us know if we owe anything for the cups, and/or shipping. I know that stuff isn't free...or even cheap! We DEFINITELY need 2 cups!!!!!!!!!
Charlie Jenkins
Pat Jenkins 

#1) 4/8 - Time to join the fun! Pat (my wife) & I just took possession of our new gravel grinder tandem (Calfee Bamboo). We completed our 1st gravel century on it last weekend: 127 miles (Red River Riot, St Jo, Texas). This gravel stuff is definitely addicting!!!!!!! 

#2) 4/22 - We rode a 130 mile route. Well over 100 miles of gravel & dirt, with a couple short sections of (gasp) pavement necessary to get to the next gravel. This route started in Pottsboro & went west to Marysville & back. These are our usual gravel roads. 

#3) 4/29 - Today we rode 110 miles, all new territory. I think this may be on our list for future riding. We started in Collinsville & went to just east of Forestburg & back. We wanted to get some night gravel in, so we waited until mid-afternoon to start. 

#4) 5/6 - we rode the Cedar Cross 100, in Jefferson City MO.116 miles. Mostly gravel, with about 10 miles of singletrack. The singletrack was a bit much for our "gravel grinder tandem". We ended up walking a bunch. Lots of soft mud & trails too tight to maneuver the tandem through. The gravel was GREAT! Lots of it, with plenty of good hills.

#5) 5/27 - Pat & I rode another "dirty" full century today. 130 miles total, well over 100 miles of gravel with a few pave miles between the good stuff. Today's ride was our last ride before DK-200. It was hot & windy today, and the gravel was loose & soft. Tough day in the saddle, but we got through it. 

#6 & #7) 6/2 - Yesterday we rode Dirty Kanza 200. This completes #6 & 7 Cup 'O Dirt full dirty centuries. This was our second DK. The weather this year was outstanding, and the gravel absolutely perfect. This year we finished just after 10pm, almost 2 hours faster than last year. We made some new friends, ate a little more KS dirt, and had another awesome experience! 

Thanks for doing this Nick! It's a great motivator to "get dirty" frequently! We look forward to many more in 2013.