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10/13/08 Race Report: 24 Hours of Moab Saturday morning I woke to even stronger wind and got to the venue around 9am and to my surprise my tent was still standing. The race start was the usual long run and got out on the road quick and was in good position entering the single track with me were Tinker, Eatough, and the new comer Roan Exelby, for the first few miles we all jockeyed for position, then I went to the front to go with a little faster pace after a couple minutes I saw that I was pulling away I kept the pace high and by mid way through the lap I saw I had about a minute on the other guys. I could see them and they were in a pace line so I figured that they would catch me but I don't think they were working together well. |
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9/12/08 Race Report: Tahoe Sierra 100 By the first aid station (mile 41) the lead group was just out of site, going hard on the next downhill I misted a turn and went down for about 5 miles and came to the 79 mile aid station where I was told I had gone the wrong way. For about 5 minutes as I started my climb back to the turn I had missed, I felt like dropping out, but this soon turned into determination to finish. Without the pressure to win I took in the scenery and got to chat with a couple of racers along the way and had a great training ride. |
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| 8/3/08 Race Report: 24 Hours National Championships by Josh Tostado:  This was my first time at 24 nationals the course was much different than what I expected instead of smooth buff single track the loop consisted of tight rocky single track with some fast dirt road sections, hardly any climbing to speak of but all the single track really kept you on your toes.The run at the beginning was ridiculously long but I kept up front and found myself in the top ten right where I wanted to be, Nat Ross was very aggressive on the first lap and started moving up to the front so I stayed with him. the next couple laps Nat and myself traded pulls and kept ourselves in front of the rest of the field. After couple of laps I started to feel good and upped the pace a bit and found myself alone at the front I knew it would be a matter of time before Chris Eatough would catch up, when he finally did we rode together for about 3 or 4 laps, he attacked several times out of the pits but every time I was able to bridge the gap, right before it started getting dark Eatough's crew called him in for a clothing change seeing the opportunity I attacked hard and put couple of minutes into him for the next couple of laps I put more time into Chris then disaster struck my lights went out half way through a lap at about 3:30 in the morning. To get back I had to sit on someones wheel and try and stay with them using their lights for navigation, it took doing this with 3 riders before I finally made it back to the pits. Back at the pits thinking I had done a pretty good job of keeping my loses to a minimum my back up battery for some reason would not work so we tried the back up system and I was missing a Cord , finally I got anther battery to work just then there goes Chris I lost an 11 minute lead because of the lighting problems, feeling a little discouraged at this point I tried to put it behind me and race on Chris and I raced together the rest of the the day and decided together to call it a day on lap 20. On the last lap I had to go pee really badly I tried to put it of as long as I could finally I had to stop Chris gave me a look like what are you doing but it was ether stop or piss myself. I tried as hard as I could to sprint back to him but he obviously sough his opportunity and ran with it, my back had been in serious pain for about 4 laps and on the last lap was becoming a real problem, I had to stop and lay down and stretch it out several people stopped to see if I was OK thanks Frank and Josh for stopping. After stretching the back for about 5 minutes I was able to finish out the race in second place. Huge congrats to Chris for taking the win I was very happy to give him a run for his money he is an incredible bike racer and I feel like I'm right there at the top of the heap. |
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| 7/22/08 Race Report: Breckenridge 100 by Josh Tostado:  I woke up at 4am for the 6am start of the breck 100, the race kicked off under clear skies with a temp in the 40's. The first climb up Breckenridge ski area and then up to some beautiful alpine single track was a nice kick in the teeth to get you going, I wasn't felling great to start but I knew that this would pass and settled into my pace Evan Plews had put about a minute into me on this first climb but I was confident I could catch him on the long decent down to Copper Mountain.I did catch up about halfway down and we rode together until about halfway back on the peaks trail when Evan was having some problems in a very technical section knowing there was more teck to come, I decided to attack and pulled away. After the first loop I had put a gap of about 2 minutes into Evan so I continued to push hard and lost site of him little did I know Evan took a wrong turn and ended up loosing ten minutes I didn't find this out until after the race. Continuing to push hard on the second loop I was felling good and finished the second loop with a 15 minute lead. Evan is a very strong rider so I didn't want to take any chances and pushed as hard as I could all the way through the 3rd loop. Taking the win for the forth year in a row was kind of a surprise but with bike racing you never really know how your going to feel or what is going to happen anyone can be beat on any given day. |
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6/24/08 Race Report: Cowbell Challenge 12 hour by Josh Tostado:  Finally a race with no rain, the course for the cowbell consisted of about 7 miles of single track 4 of it was a fun twisting and turning ride through rooty and short technical sections. The rest of the course was a burned in trail from a weed whacker that outlined the edge of a field, this section was much better than it sounds.They decided to mass start the race it was a furious pace from the gun Brandon and Nat jumped out to the front with Cris, Ernesto, and myself following. After the first couple laps me and Cris had put a gap on the other guys and were riding well together Cris held strong for about 5 hours at this point I could see Nat was about a minute behind and riding strong I knew I had to ramp up the pace a bit. Cris dropped of the pace at this point but Nat was right their every lap, we battled like this for a long time I was pushing hard and so was he something had to give finely I started to put some time into him first another minute then I couldn't see him any more. I continued to push it to the night lap then when I got my lights I got the news that I had lapped him so I pulled up with the win in the bag. |
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6/3/08 Race Report: Mohican 100
I woke up at 5 am to a steady rain in loudonville OH it had benn raining all night but by the start of the race the rain had stoped and it was clearing. The start of the race was straight out of town up a very steep paved road which did a great job of string the field out I managed to stay up front and dropped into the first single track behind about 5 or 6 people. The first couple miles were a mix of fire road, hike a bike and single track, then the fun started the next 20 miles was some great single track fast and flowing muddy and slick with roots and rocky sections. I was in the lead group of five through this section with a blistering pace, when we reached the first dirt road three riders had gaped me and I got caught by a couple more. |
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5/6/08 Race Report: Dirt Sweat & Gears Now to the actual race, the night before it rained
pretty hard and left the course very muddy. The first
lap was a night mare my bike got clogged up so badly
with mud that I actually came to complete stops on the
down hills. When i finally finished the lap I had
lost 25 minutes on the lead so with a fresh clean bike
I put my head down and went to work. The second lap
was a 100% improvement everyone took all the mud of
the course with their bikes. Every lap the course got
faster and I felt great by the middle of the day I had
moved into 3rd place and started to pressure the
leaders I pushed till the end but the first lap
deficit proved to be to much. Tinker won, Brandon got
second and I came in third. |
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4/21/08 Race Report: The Cohutta 100 |
I arrived in Moab on Thursday to set up by myself and proceeded to get sand blasted for about 3 hours of set up time. When I finally got my light weight screen tent up I sat there and watched it get abused by the wind and figured it wouldn't make it through the weekend.
