Blake and Sager wrapped up a great week here, with the courses and competitors much tougher than in 2011. Blake finished fourth overall and came terribly close to taking the win on stage 5, while sager won stages 2,3 and 6 to finish second on GC to an impressively strong Stefan Sahm, of Germany.

We’re about to jump on a plane….here’s a video to hold ya over, and keep your eyes peeled to cyclingnews.com’s blog features for Sager’s take on the rest of the race.

For now…we’re heading into stage 3. Harlan’s sitting in 4th, Sager’s in 2nd after winning yesterday’s stage. We’re both dragging from our great idea to race an “opener” marathon in Osorno, but honestly, I wouldn’t have it any other way. What would you do? You’re in Chile, its NOT SNOWING (like at home)?

You’d race your bike, that’s what you’d do.

As we speak, we’re on our way down to Osorno, Chile for the Conquista Volcan de Osorno, and then the Trans

It seemed that pushing CX nationals into January has misled the weather in Madison, WI. Almost a year ago when I found out that CX nationals will be held in January in Wisconsin, I was scared to imagine the weather that will torture all CX racers – way below freezing.

But it looked like fall weather has waited and waited until CX nationals weekend –

highs of 40′s and even 50′s, no snow on the ground or on the forecast, just blue bird dkies and chilly
mornings. That didn’t limit the course to be muddy at all times, since the soil is so wet and moist in
Madison.

Traveling with the Fort Lewis College Cycling Team is luxury – huge team trailer made it all the way
from Durango with all the bikes, equipment, coaches and mechanics. All team members took the
shorter trip via airplanes, and we all met at the Cambria Suites Hotel – which we stayed in a couple
of times prior for road collegiate nationals in past years.

One of my favorite things about cyclo-cross racing is that the course changes so much, day by day
and hour by hour. Every morning the course was totally frozen only to defrost slowly by noonish,
then it slowly became a mud festival – first the peanut butter kind and later the moist-runny mud.
And as the riders are finished making deep mud channels throughout the day, the night would fall
again and freeze the ground, so that the next day’s morning riders would ride solid-frozen mud
channels.

My goals for my race, the Collegiate Division 1 Men, were to finish on the “euro” podium (1-3
position) on a decent day and maybe hit the top step with a great ride. After a pretty lousy start with
great thanks to the official who called up the college start list from bottom to top, I settled in around
top 10 until someone decided to run into my gears and bend my derailleur. Two bike changes later,
I regained my race pace and started picking up racers, spot by spot. I improved my lap times with
every lap, with the last lap as the fastest just around 8 minutes. At the finish line, I came across at
the last spot of “American” podium in 5th place. My other Fort Lewis teammates, Skyler and Eric
finished 2nd and 3rd, plus we filled out the top 10 with 5 Fort Lewis College riders !

As a team, Fort Lewis College tied with Marian University for first place in the team omnium (men
and women), and we were just edged by them for second place by the tie breaker, since they had a
first place at the women’s race.

What now? Back to school, first day of winter semester, and getting a little closer to graduation.
Meantime, I will take a nice break to rejuvenate for 2012 season, which this year will also include
some mountain bike stage racing for me, in addition to the traditional US Pro XCT series.

I wish you all a great successful year and many awesome trails !

Finally. I say that as if we’re ready for it to end…and we are/were, yet it was our best season yet. Wins at Trans Andes and the defense of Rotem’s  national title, a dozen stage wins, top tens in every Pro XCT, a heap of back yard victories for all of the guys and gals in their respective regions – in everything from ‘cross to STXC, Marathon to good old fashioned point-to-point races. Heck, a few of us even hit Premier Elite flying status, and I’m only one trip short of 100k Club, but that’s not going to happen, unfortunately.

Last week at the Palo Duro Marathon, Sager took another V, then, after putting in almost 4hrs on the bike, tackled stage 1B of the day – another marathon of driving, 9 hours back to Durango to join Snyder for the local Durango world CX champs. Snoodles fought it out with the Bear at the back of the pack, and Sager battled the Captain (Ned Overend) for the top spot amongst the old guys (though Sager’s 37 to Ned’s 56 isn’t quite fair).

A few pics from the Utah – CO – TX trip

Quick dirt road ride in southern CO

Parking and racing inside a big hole in the ground, Palo Duro Canyon.

50 miles of this.

Pies for prizes.

Since we lost a camera on this trip (not from the housing, but somehow during the charging process) here’s a vid to get us through this tough transition into winter…its a fav, at least for me.

The last mountain bike race of 2011 season – The U.S. Collegiate National Championships.
It’s been a long season of racing mountain bikes, one to remember for the good for sure.

I’ve been on quite a few new race venues this year – Missoula, Armstrong’s ranch, Slovakia and a
few more. It’s always sweet to arrive at a new race venue and race course that you I have never
been on. It’s like a whole new world of opportunities.

Checking the race course for good new lines that other riders may have missed, “A-lining” a big jump line instead of a B line (Missoula !). Every course has it’s unique flow in the uphills and downhills, and so did the new course in U.S. Collegiate nationals at Angel Fire Resort, New Mexico.

It was a long, snow stormy drive to Angel Fire with the Fort Lewis College cycling team from Durango, a mere 200 miles away.

The closer we got to the resort, we all left our notebooks and reading aside and started wondering out
loud :”how the hell are we suppose to race in this weather?!”.

The first reaction was that we should just have Cyclo-Cross nationals at that weekend, since it’s already so brutal, and instead of having CX nationals in Madison, WI in January (who thought of that idea??), just reschedule it somewhere nice and warm like Arizona.

Knowing the course is covered with almost a foot of snow, I waited until almost all the college guys
and girls pre-ride the course before I did my pre-ride. I really didn’t feel like pedaling through snow…

Cross-Country was the first race day, so there wasn’t much time for traffic or drying out on the course. Our Fort Lewis girls killed it with a 9am start, and crowned Lauren Catlin as a national champ on a frozen course. The guys started at noon, so we had a totally different story – it was a mud-slop-fest. I will never forgot the long brutal climb we did three times, climbing from 8,500 to 10,000 feet, no rests in between, all just sloppy mud and puddles… climbing at about 5 miles an hour it took forever. If I thought that I’m better off running fast some sloppy parts, I realized after 30 feet that I’m totally out of breath because of the high altitude. It’s either riding super slow or walking at “push the grocery cart” pace.

The challenge of the climb was followed by the sweetest snow descending ever, it was somewhat packed, not too steep for the snow, just pure pleasure for your ride-buds ! I had a decent race dealing with a little after-sickness from the past week and finished a strong second place, while we, the Fort Lewis College team, swept away the whole podium taking the top three!

The short track the next day was a simple up and down 1 kilometer loop, ain’t nothing much to it.
Lots of places to pass, no technical elements. So simple make it so hard – because it’s just about
putting the power !

I did my thing and opened strong, fading a little midway my teammate Howard Grotts tagged along with me. The two of us kept a really strong pace, lapping almost the whole field (except places 3 and 4). With the last bits of power I kept my wheels at front and went in first for the last corner and keeping it safe for first place on the line. That’s a 3rd national championship title in a row for me in the last 3 years! In addition to that, Fort Lewis got the 1st place omnium for the championships, what can be a
better way to wrap up my mountain bike season !?

What do I do now?, well, after the hangover and sugar rush from nationals’ party and Halloween
went away, I’m taking some time off the bike completely, back on school work, relaxing and
being lazy for a while before I’m hitting the winter activities that are just on their way – skiing,
snowshoeing, intramural sports etc… some CX too for sure!

Thanks to Chad “Chainsaw” Cheeney for the awesome photos…

Local racing, resting, some training, then a really long and convoluted series of plane flights to get us to the Langkawi (Malaysia) International Mountain Bike Classic.

Results were mixed, Thomas Turner and Blake Harlan starting the week off strongly while Sager was sick, then as Sager came around, TT and Blake started feeling a little goofy themselves. In the end we ended up with top 20′s on the first day, a pair of top 10′s on the 2nd day, then a 5th, a 4th, and another 5th as Sager failed to close the deal on the podium each day. Nice one….

Ride reports can be found here (day 4 &5) and here (day 2&3) and here(day one ) and here…the videos are leaking out as we speak…

We did a little morning TV show bit for the local news about the event. Being on site and camera ready at 5:45am hurt even more.

I ran a crazy setup – 36t single ring with 140mm fork. Sounds like a trail bike, which it is, except its a XC frame and the whole package weighs 21.5 lbs. Which is how trail bikes are supposed to be, right? No compromise. Unless a 1:1 low gear ratio doesn’t work for you.

Its all worth it in the end though, which is why we end up coming back for more…its just a matter of the half-life of the experience’s tough moments!

Kelsy and Blake tore it up and made the rock star podium – literally – in between sets of whatever band it was, I’ve forgotten, but the crowd was the best – lots of tats, mullets, and sleeveless tshirts…and you should have seen the kids’ parents.

Today was gonna hurt. The last day of Breck Epic is a scorcher. The most jeep road of any stage, smooth single track and only 30 miles. Frustrated with yesterday’s stage I came to the start line today to really let it all hang loose, you know giv’r. If I didn’t cross the line blasted, something was wrong and that’s about how the day went. Two times up and over Boreas Pass will hurt, racing over it will really hurt.

The day started with Colin Cares and Lico lighting it up. Soon I was on the chase train fighting tooth and nail for the wheel in front of me. Eventually I couldn’t hold it any longer and got ejected. I rode with Tostado for the remainder of the day and together we rode back up to the chasers only to promptly get ejected out the back. I can’t remember the last time I turned myself inside out like I did the 2nd time up Boreas Pass but Tostado and I really punished ourselves. The pics say enough.

We finally made it to the finish 6th and 7th place on the day and brought Breck Epic to a painful and satisfying end, finishing 6th overall.

The people and racers were a pleasure to share the week with and I’m certain I’ll be back for more Breck Epic in the future.

Thanks for reading,

Blake

As the roughly eight man group took the wrong turn we all rode through a little mud puddle. The difference was that when I hit it my tire abruptly went flat. I knew today was a big day and very important in terms of GC so the pressure was on. I methodically changed my flat (for the first time all year) as quickly as I could, knowing that skimping on this process will simply lead to more flats down the road. In the middle of this process the leaders came back towards me realizing that they had missed the turn, of course I had already figured this out as everyone in the field went roaring by on the trail below. As I hit the air, I reached about 20psi when I heard the heart breaking KAPLOWSKI! I spirits dropped. After soliciting a tube from one person and another Co2 from another I was on my way, DFL.

The fact that I flatted so early was terrible. The field had not split up at all and I was forced to pass roughly 135 riders in less than ideal situations.

Passing on a goat trail at 12,500ft sucks as I felt like astronaut in slow-mo. I didn’t give up all day and certainly Gav’r to the end. The Wheeler stage is my nemesis and every year it takes my soul, so the way I see it when I finally do get this stage right I’m gonna take back a lot more. It’s stage racing and stuff happens but today stung, especially since I flatted on a trail I wasn’t supposed to be on in the first place. Speaking of which, Colin was the leader at the time we went off trail so he owes me a cookie or something, but I owe him a beer because he stuck it today for the W. It’s always cool watching people come back from the dead and Colin did it in style.

Tomorrow is the last day and well, it aint over till the fat lady sings.

Blake