2012 Keller Rohrback Road Race Results

The itemized (meaning by USAC Category) results are now online. Results by race should be up at WSBARacing.com soon.

Enjoy this video in the meantime.

2012 Keller Rohrback Road Race

One more PruDog race to go -- this weekend is your standard fare Road Race. No Dirt! And Mark Franks rejoiced. Also, this isn't the exact same course we did last August. We will not be doing the 5 miles through Ohop that started at the hairpin and ended with gasping riders clinging on for dear life up 161 into town. There is only one, relatively mild, climb. So suck it up.

Live Blog Post Game

I am going to try to live blog the Eatonville Road Race but fair warning -- it's actually kind of hard. Not describing the race but figuring out who is who. The biggest challenge was describing what happened and then figuring out who was doing what. SO be warned -- I'll try to capture your moment of glory but it will be error riddled!

MNK live blogging

11:15 Big lead group. Ross Gilbert sitting pretty. Suck it!

11:19 third lap underway and the lead group is down to Ross, Benjamin Storrar and two other riders with several chasers. Both groups and solo. Ride in groups!


11:25 Tactics -- Alki Rubicon is slowing the lead group down so that a team-mate can join up. Let's see if Ross punches it on the Mur to end that game.



11:28 Hitting Sector of Sufferring and Alki is still chasing the lead group to help his team mate. Ross is driving.

11:30 Not to be a homer but f&^k you Rubicon!!!!! Yah, they are both in the lead group. Lead group is Chris Cumminhgs (MotoFish), Ross Gilbert (Keller Rohrback),Storrar (Old Town Bicycles), Aaron Erbeck and Hahn Rossman (Alki Rubicon). Chase at 2 minutes with HSP, Garage and Alki chasing but way off the pace.

11:37 Erbeck (Alki) has cracked and is falling back to the chase. He still has 2 minutes but with 6 laps to go it'll be hard to hold on. Main chase is Jason Connell (Apex), Bart Sanderson (Blue Rooster) and Chad Sullivan (Apex)



11:47 Kelly wants Vodka. Why doesn't anyone bring us Vodka???

11:49 You know who probably wants some Vodka? Everyone coming by with 5 to go on the lap board. Brutal. Here goes Motofish and Apex.

11:50 Leaders coming through -- Ross has been dropped? I am guess a flat tire. Alki is driving but doesn't know his team mate is trying to come up. No Ross yet.

11:51 Well Ross is going to be lucky to finish in the second group. Bad luck!

11:52 Chase group is coming in hard.

11:59 Ross is here. He wants everyone to know it's really hard on the Mur. Aaron is now 4th on the rode.
Ed


12:03 2 laps to go for the leaders. Will my battery last or will you have to wait to find out what happens? So exciting.

12:11 my money's on OTB. Ross agrees. Alki looks tired. Motofish is the joker

12:17 OTB does the deed! Moto 2nd with Alki 3rd and 4th

Kermesse QA: Three Questions for the better half

Our Q&A's have been male dominated lately. Time to let the Ladies speak! Here's Heidi Fischer and Emily Nervin on behalf of the superior 51% of the population.

PruDog: Rumor has I decided to put on a bike race in early February so that no one would show up. I even added dirt just in case. Yet I had to do a second race to handle the number of riders who wanted to do it. Did you know what you where getting into????

Emily: I had no idea what I was getting into, after the first practice Lap I was thinking to myself "oh my god how am i ever going to race on this stuff and maintain any physical stamina"... in my case the answer was.. I wasn't.. the off road section proved to be so difficult that it sapped any chance I might have had to do the road portion of the race.

PruDog: Other than Sanicans, what was the biggest difference between your prerace expectation and the actual experience of racing a Kermesse?

Heidi: I thought it would be more similar to a road race rather than a cross race. I was worried about getting dropped since that the field was essentially all men, but that wasn’t the case at all. There were plenty of men I was able to hang with. Since the course was so short you saw a lot of the other racers. The race was definitely a lot harder than expected as well; think 1 hr and 20 min cross race effort... Very few places to catch your breath.

Emily: the lack of... tact... that the off road section held for it's victims. It was just a rocky mess better suited for Mt bikes. (ed note -- I think she means the course but the lack of tact comment may be about me.. not sure!)

PruDog: Did you have any problems? Special equipment?

Heidi: I was lucky enough to not have a mechanical free race. I have to thank my mechanic for thatJ I raced my cross bike with road tires. I ran pretty high tire pressure to avoid flatting. With the amount of large rocks on the dirt section I’m very glad I didn’t ride my carbon rode bike. Some cushier bar tape or better gloves would have been nice. My hands took quite the beating.

Emily: to the bike no, I feel it was the best I could do for the mixed conditions, the fault was mine own for not understanding the pure amount of effort it would take to ride off road. I'll be trying to increase my endurance a little but with such a short time to prep, it will be another suffer fest for me I'm afraid.

PruDog: What advice would you give women racers interested in doing Kermesse

Heidi: It’s a fun way to start the race season without having to do a 60 mile road race. The course definitely had some challenging rocky parts to it, but once you are in race mode you don’t think about it too much and focus more on catching your next person. Having cyclocross and mountain bike experience is a big plus, but not essential. Oh, and make sure your water bottles are tight in their cages!

MNK is coming

Compared to the build up of the Andy Salmon Kermesse, the Mashel Nisqually Kermesse has been super quiet. Mostly because I've been working hard and distracted. Also because me crew is so good I'm not spending a ton of time near my laptop where banging out a annoying hilarious post is easy.

But the show is almost here! So just to make sure the questions are answered:

1. Yes it's on! Like Donkey Kong.
2. It's hard.
3. We're doing the same inner loop as Ronde Ohop, more or less. Detente is trashed from the ice storms and we don't have the time to clear it for use. A bummer because we really wanted to do the additional 2 miles of road/dirt but we'll try again soon.

Epic Results Fail: No One To Blame But Myself Edition

PruDog has failed you. Get used to it!

The good news is we have all the results and had them ready to post to USACycling at the race.

The bad news is that I thought they were ready to go after the race! One detail was missing -- we hadn't corelated the race numbers (results) to rider names (start list) yet. I have the results but not the start list, which is down in Eatonville.

I blame the after race celebration at Bruno's



We will be getting the list today and should have results posted here tomorrow and uploaded to WSBA / USAC within 48 hours. The better news is that we will have GCRacing doing results next weekend so results will be up super fast and we will also upload them to USAC day of -- so we will go from late and lame to rockstar fast.

So what is a Kermesse like?

This video sums it up. This is near the end of the Sector of Suffering -- this is a intermediate sector of dirt.



Good times!

ASK Post Game Teaser

Just like the super bowl ads here is a teaser for the ASK Post Game report.

Tomorrow is ASK. You will be sore.

Tomorrow is the big day. ASK or bust, baby! The weather looks great and the big news is that the race is sold out.

Now, if you did not pre-reg but wanted to do this insane awesome race, good news. We're running a spill-over second wave at 11:30ish (start depends on the end of the first race). Length will depend on turn-out so if you want to do it let me know ASAP (in comments is ok but put your name) and make sure you're registered by 11am.

Looking forward to tomorrow.