Dear America-

Thought I could catch you up on the spicy happenings that go down up here in Bellingham. Yes, all the way up here, there are 3 rad racers holding it down by all means necessary. It certainly is a spicy lifestyle. Recently I made tortilla soup, and the recipe called for 1 cup of salsa. I figured that recipes are more… suggestions… so I put in 2 cups. Or more. Of this Fred Meyer brand “hot” salsa. Wrong choice. Usually food doesn’t make me cry. But I was close.  But that’s how we roll.  Spicy.

The three rad racers up here are Steve Fisher, Austin Clevenger, and myself.  Since this is the off season, we have been trying to come up with ideas on how to either keep our competitive drive at the same level, or even become more competitive, in order to prepare ourselves for the race season to come. Austin has taking to picking on the 20+ year olds that work at his dad’s running shoes store. I heard he leaves no mercy on those guys. Watch out in 2009 folks, Austin is coming in motivated, competitive, and strong. We’re glad he’s on the team this year.

Steve and myself have discovered great competition in Xbox games. We hit this youthful hobby like it is the Catalina Wine Mixer. ps. Watch Step Brothers… Our two most played are Madden 07 and NBA Live 2006. We are still rolling the old Xbox, we’re college students I mean c’mon. No high-rollers here. (If anyone wants to donate an Xbox 360, we sure wouldn’t complain). If you noticed that I wrote that last sentence in parentheses, it’s because I was trying to invoke a feeling of intimacy that can be hard to feel in an Internet blog. It’s kind of like I am telling you a secret. That’s intimate. So anyways, when playing these video games, Steve and mine competitive spirits come out swinging like it’s the last lap of a crit in July. So we are raring to race. If you’re wondering, Steve most of the time beats me in the sports games. Which is fine, because when we play James Bond, I righteously dominate. So I guess I am more suave, debonair, and stylish like my man James Bond. Which seems odd because Steve spent an hour trying to match his booties to his gloves yesterday. (Stylish). I just told you another secret.

But believe it or not, the three of us do more then try and gain competitive edges for the season to come. We are all taking classes and boosting our educational spirits and brain sizes. Except I think that Austin’s brain might not be getting much bigger because it seems like his school gets canceled every day. First he claims school got canceled because it was underwater, then apparently the teachers needed a day to converse, then the wind was to strong. But like I said earlier, he makes do in the school of hard knocks by taking no mercy on runningshoes.com employees. All of us have been putting some serious hours in on the bike and enjoying the cold, but sunny (most of the time. Another secret) Bellingham weather.

And a news flash for you Walter Cronkite. Steve and I were visited by, and you could possibly say gifted with the presence of someone who you may have thought to be retired, quit racing, or even worse, became a manager of Performance Bike shop.  But folks, Sean Worsech is none of those. He is more motivated then I have ever seen. Watch out.
I’ll leave you with this picture. Steve has found a new strategy for making long bike rides easy. Find the biggest guy in the group, ride next to him, and disappear in his draft. Steve is the one on the right side of the picture… isn’t he?

Sincerely,
With Love,

Ian Crane

So the big show is all done and the knot has been tied on the bow.

World’s are over and I have returned to the stateside to find that everything is generally the same. I’m glad the world that I have left has not changed itself too much on me.

So, back to Worlds. Hoogerheide is a nice little town and it just so happened that the course actually wound itself through mainstreet, used an overpass, and the street below. It was a supersized flyover, World’s proportioned. I found the course to my liking. It was really fast, with lots of turns and plenty of steep drops to make things interesting. The days prior to the race, the ground had been thawing at around noon from an overnight freeze, so I knew tire selection would be key and I ended up running the tried and true Challenge Grifos and they worked really well. On race day, the course was frozen, but as the race progressed, the ground softened up, but did not thaw and become a slippery mess so that was great.

On to race day. The morning was like any other really and we headed on out to the course the usual 2.5 hours before start time. The course had not changed conditions wise and I was very happy.

At the line, the call-ups were not as great as they could have been. The call-ups are based on the World Championship ranking of the nation’s top three riders the year before, and as we all know, was a learning experience for the majority of us. The last row is a lonely place to be at a large race. This year we had starting lights for the start and that was really fun. It reminded me of a Superprestige which is famous for starting riders using this technique. I loved the starting official saying, “Riders, hold your postition, do not push the line” about three times before the lights went off. I know that I made up at least 4 feet on that starting line grid, a personal best. The start went off well and going into the holeshot, I found myself not in dead last. I finally got my starts semi-dialed! It was crazy going into the first section of field and just before the green flyover, I had to hop a bike from a crashed rider. It just frosts my ass knowing that somewhere out there, there is a photo of me doing this. It was pretty rad. I gained 3 or 4 positions when I did this too, for it had created a bottleneck and this freight train don’t stop for nothin’! Once things settled down, I found a group to ride with and as the race progressed, I made started to make up positions and hunting down riders here-and-there.

                                           Photo Courtesy of Joe Sales

I was feeling really good and I was glad that the engine was firing on all cylinders. Looking at the race laps, I actually got faster as the race progressed. For once, there were no mishaps during my race and I had some fun on the bike. Coming across the line, I felt gassed and finished in 38th place.

I’m glad that there were a lot of supporters out there cheering me on. I definately say that they did help me gain motivation. In the states, the cheering can get a bit excessive, but after a month of racing without any, I missed it. It is easy to slip when you have no one out there cheering you on and letting you know that there actually is somebody out there who cares for you and wants to see you do well.

My parents came out for the race and it was nice to see them after a 35+ days. They are my biggest supporters, and props to CJ out there. He takes super-fanning seriously.

                                   My Pops and I

                                                      My Boy CJ

Thank you to all who helped me out in some way or another this season and I look forward to continued support and racing!

Thanks,

Eric