Straight from a fellow expert racer! Read the red!

Jacob Huot with the way cool kit. A few years ago he showed up at Maplelag thinking the race was going on but he was a few weeks early. I told him about the race in Jamestown so he went and did that. The spirit of mountain biking. He had some coding on his back. Not sure what it meant. The cheering section on Stairway (which was the best of the year) had the same coding.

Some salmon and corn was the reward for a hard 24 hours of work for three of the team (ole Blackbeard took a few hours off).

The hills were nasty, the rocks were rocky, and the night was nighty.

Big hill and sickness!

Both suck, especially when the pirate crew is slackin'. With Blackbeard on hiatus with sickness and lack of forks, and scraggs just sucking. It wasn't the best for the pirates, untill...... the viking himself pulled it together, Eric the Great pulled through with a win and gave SPH some golden booty that was well needed. With all the riches locked up, its time to conquer a new ship... 24 hours of afton, see you there!

Yo ho ho and a bottle of chocolate milk

Twas a dreary morn as we decided to throw 20 bucks out the window for the River City Ramble. A couple of landlubbers talked me into the TCM so the 10K was the name of the game for Scraggs and I. The race started out good... got slow... then ended better. My pace was a bit like I was walkin the plank (or something else suitably nautical) at times, but with the amount of time I have in, it wasn't too bad. Scraggs race the 10K in 52 minutes. I was 5 minutes back. I think we both could have gone faster, but Scraggs is racing in Mpls on the morrow, and I'm still using the fact that I've had a long running flu....

On other related news, I have to send in my second fork in a week to the dockyards for repair. I'm down to my little schooner only. I bet that it breaks before any one of the lads gets any booty. Except Capt. Job. He needs no help in that search.

Ye ship sank in the muddy banks of R'n' R

Yaaaaargh, was the word of the day, except for one pirate hooker. With the help of Eric ,the ship made it to the bank. With an outstanding second place finish he propelled us into the the banks. As the day went on the search for booty lessoned, with a cracked fork for Isaac and a demoralizing crash for Jake, the ship started to go down. All and all I think we can rebuild and conquer the hills of the Welch.

Tuesday night races have been a hit and miss.... with a few cannonballs to the gut and one in the tire... the SPH crew managed to pull out a 3rd and 4th finish at the gully of white tail. Ole Black had a different story.... the cannonball was the name of the game for he.... as it felt like he not only was hit but had to drag one behind.

Avast ye hearties

Ahoy and avast all ye landlubbers.

Complete and utter domination of the Afton field is the only option (or at least over the comical team of Quattro Stinko). Neut's arms will fall off descending some of the rocky switchbacks of the Port of Afton.

On semi-related matters... is there any chance of new jerseys by the race? Does Neut have one?

On non-semi related matters. Blackbeard is finally starting to get his legs back under him from that 12 hours of crapfest that was Spooner. The race was tons of fun, but kinda like getting kicked in the hoo-hoo-dillies over and over again at the same time. Why are these races so much fun in hindsight, but so much pain and agony while doing it? Me brain must be messed up.

Blackbeard has spoken.

Two race reports from ole Scraggs

So with the drought of racing comes a plether of action. In the last week I've raced a couple times.

1) Fireworks and Criteriums have been this pirates booty for the last three July 4th holidays. Conquered by the last two, one crashing out, the other pulling a pedal, this one turned out for the better. With 20 min. left of the 40min race Ole Scraggs wasnt feeling to good, so I dropped to the back only to find out that the back wasnt to far from the front, at this point we had ripped the field from 46 to about 12. Realizing this I sucked it up and moved back to my regular 3,4, and 5 place riding. When the final bell rang we conquered the last hill, a few more turns and the sprint, leading out was a rider from silver cycling, and the race was on, the pressure was put on by a fellow Rochester rider, not being able to match the power of him I worked my way to a second place, finishing with third place a bike length behind.

2) Now onto July 7th, SPH'ers Scraggs and Blackbeard head out to Spooner, WI. Here stands not only horses and rodeos but our destination, a 12 hour solo race! It started of strong for Scraggs. With 7 laps in the first 6 hours, I held a lap and half lead. At this point fatigue and exhaustion was setting in. I turned to resting after everylap. With the field slowing down I settled into my lawnchair after my 10th lap. With only Blackbeard on my trail and having to do 3 laps to beat me I figured victory was mine. But with his legs matching his beard only Blackbeard would have attepted a third lap in a row to win the race. Thrown off gaurd, I was quick to throw my equiptment together and hop back on and catch Mr. Black. With about a five min gap I started on what would be my fasted lap. With about a quarter of a lap to go it was doom day for blackbeard, I had reached him, now it was time to figure out how we would end this epic race. Would it be letting someone win, a sprint, or just crossing the line hand in hand. The decision was to sprint it out SPH style. with about 200 yard to go the race was on, in the end it was Ole Scraggs with a 2-3 second victory. That ends the recap. YARRRRRGH!