Before the morning tour our leaders, Mark and Sam, go over basic safety guidelines which we practice while out on the route. The lessons include: hand signals (turn signals, slowing, cars up, cars back, etc…) how to manage railroad track crossings, where to ride in the traffic lanes, when to call out obstacles in the path and other safe group riding practices.

L to R: Mark, Leslie, Katie, and Justin (background) have just safely navigated over the railroad tracks on the River Road.

The Saturday Morning Casual rides start and end at Wild Trak Bikes. FREE is the cost with 9:00 am being departure time and rides lasting around one to two hours group depending. They are open to all cyclists regardless of age and skill level with families encouraged to come out and enjoy riding with a group.

Kevin and Sam riding past the Piasa Bird

The route always includes great views of the scenic Mississippi river and surrounding bluffs and local attractions. We look forward to spreading the word about cycling safely in our area. Any Saturday you get the chance come out and have a ride with us.

Watch the weather to see if you should show up Sunday morning:  http://www.weather.com/weather/today/Alton+IL+62002 

Watch this website for updates on a new scheduled River Road Clean up day should we have to cancel on March 21.

Link to 81 mile route: http://www.mapmyride.com/ride/united-states/il/alton/133126705473623392

Link to 50 mile route: http://www.mapmyride.com/ride/united-states/il/alton/814126713501350062

The Gordon Moore Park Race was to be the crown jewel of the PCX Series for 2009. We laid the course out on a beautiful fall day with leaves blowing about, perfect temperatures and sunshine everywhere similar to the race day forecast. Beginning at the Muenstermann Pavilion the start straight headed east along the top of the hillside before dropping into the valley that would be traversed multiple times during a lap. Atop the hill on the other side was a series of switchbacks including off camber corners before straightening back out and heading back towards the pavilion. Riders zoomed past heading across the valley again into a bananna shaped section that was on the furthest hillside. Upon completion of this technical climb riders were sent through the valley once more, through a chicane, and into the hill-climb to barrier leg busting section.

This was the toughest part of each lap. Should it be ridden or ran? We will let the racers settle that during their respective heats.

5k Runners were challenged by the hill on each of their three laps. We had a runner  familiar with top honors  in the women’s run series take the win here as well. During the men’s race we saw two guys battling the entire race at the front. At the end the podium was filled with new faces all happy to have completed the entire 3 mile cross country race.

Riders toed the line next. Turnout was great and we had many good battles throughout the cyclists portion of the Gordon Moore event. This series was a great success! Thanks to all that came out and participated. We enjoyed hosting riders at each one of our events and will look forward to doing so again next ‘cross season.

Link to pics: http://picasaweb.google.com/eville.mike.d/20091107PICXIVGordonMoorePark#

Hasta la Vista! Round 3 of the Pride Incorporated Cyclocross Series at La Vista Park was the toughest course so far. Overall the circuit was SOFT due to the 2.5 inches of rain we had in the days leading up to the event. From the paved starting line riders made a left turn into the grass leading along a ridge which put them into the front section of the course covered in zoysia grass. This was difficult, to say the least. After a few switchbacks in the front we went through an opening in the tree line which led into an uphill across the pavement and into an open field of freshly mown grass on top of, what seemed like, a waterbed. Into the run up / barrier section left down the grass highway and a u-turn onto the slightly up hill pavement toward the finish.

A tough course and tough competitors. Women’s classes were stacked at this round! We had ladies from Team Revolution, Velo Force, Mock Orange Bikes, The Hub and Wild Trak Bikes. The Women’s open class joined the Men’s B race on the starting line to make up our largest group of the day. Spirited competition was a positive outcome of the event! Everyone  that participated came away feeling proud to finish. Spectators were gathered on the bleachers near the finish line cheering as riders went past, if they weren’t chasing their favorite rider around the course to give encouragement.

The youth run and youth CX were quite a hit. We had 6 runners in the quarter mile run (4-6 year olds) who gave it their all. The half milers (7-9 year olds) were represented well also. Each race was close, even the Youth CX race which had two competitiors being chased / encouraged around the track by their “coaches”. The 5k run was three complete laps on the challenging cross country course.

Thanks again to all that came out and helped put this event on. Having my entry form filled out at sign up, from being a past competitor, was the biggest help and made me feel more welcome. Thanks to Pride volunteers. Laying out the course we had a Village of Godfrey employee follow us around on a lawn mower to cut our lanes out of the open field grass. After the legs and lungs heal we hope everyone had a good time.

The final round of the 4 race Pride CX Series will be a beautiful course in an open setting on November 7th at Gordon Moore Park  http://riverbender.com/entertainment/index.cfm?redir=details&ad=311&cat=40&scat=0&srchby=b&pg=1

Link to Pics: http://picasaweb.google.com/eville.mike.d/20091024PICXIIILaVistaPark?feat=directlink#

Is this a Sponsorship?

 Wild Trak Bikes night’ers made a strong showing in the dark. Riders participating were: Mark, Andy, Hannon, Scooter, Justin H, and JJ.

The next day, Sunday, was round 2. We had a different group of day’ers, along with another strong heckling section in the barriers. Course was longer (Thanks to the set up crew) with two paved sections, a wooded area, and a tight technical section before the finish. Thanks to all that helped put this event on.

A water bottle cage? In 'cross? Apparently even Scooter gets thirsty

We sure had fun!

Link to pics: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gopate/collections/ , http://www.ficksphotos.com/ficks.fp?Selection=viewGalleryList&catSelected=105&year=112

Link to event schedule: http://bigshark.com/page.cfm?pageid=700

Round two of the Pride inc CX series: http://www.prideincorporated.org/PICX2_New.pdf was another successful event! Wild Trak Bikes Course Setup Team dealt with adverse weather conditions on Friday before the event while setting stakes and stringing rope. It had rained the three days before the event, which made marshmallows out of the ground we were to be racing on. City of Godfrey took great care of us. They had a 20 x 20 tent for us to use, paint to mark start and finish, volunteers brought us the stakes and made sure we had all that was necessary to put on a good race. Thanks to them.

The course was in an area about the size of three soccer fields. We really had to pack the lanes tight to fit the 1 mile course in the field we had to work with. This made for a tight, technical, fun course that was a joy to race on. Included were plenty of switchbacks, 180 degree turns, sweeping corners, a roomy start / finish straight, a turning barrier section and a nice paved path to relax on.

Turnout was great! Almost 100 participants showed up to duke it out. This was the first venue to host a children’s run and a youth CX race. These two youth events will be gaining popularity and be included in the next two events starting at 11:00am. We had drawn spectators from the soccer games and the corn maze to the race which made for a nice cheering section. This also spread the word to our community about cyclocross and just cycling in general. The turnouts will continue to grow and racers will continue to be challenged by our innovative course designs. Thanks to all that came out and participated.

Round 3 will be October 24, 2009 at La Vista Park: http://riverbender.com/entertainment/index.cfm?redir=details&ad=306&cat=40&scat=28&srchby=b&pg=1

Link to Pics: http://www.ficksphotos.com/ficks.fp?Selection=viewGalleryList&catSelected=105&year=112

Link to Results: http://www.wildtrakbikesracing.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=345&start=10

WOW!!! What a day! Our first try at putting on a cyclocross race was a great success.

We tried to think of everything, everyone worked really hard, the weather was beautiful, and we had a lot of spectators. There were maybe 15 runners and 40 cyclocross racers but we had lots of competition–MS 150, Tour of MO, Bearcat Herman cross, Castlewood mtb race, and about eight other runs.

The runners and bikers appreciated our hard work: on Friday morning Jason laid out the course; Pat Sr., Pat Jr., Ric and Sam hammered stakes, stretched rope and tied it. Miraculously, it was all still there on Saturday morning. We finished laying out the course, set the traffic cones, set up the tent for the wheel pit and set out the barriers (after the run.) Pride set up registration and food concession. Justin W set up the sart/finish line, PA system, etc. http://stlbiking.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=18612&st=30

The results haven’t been posted yet (See http://prideincorporated.org/) but  the Wild Trak Team was well represented. Justin Holden, in his very first cyclocross race, won 2nd in Beginner/Cat 4. A heroic effort! Grant, Pete, and Scott W. were not far behind.

Holly got 2nd in Beginner/Cat 4 and Kate got 3rd. Two strong efforts. Leslie made a brave effort, too.

Cat 4 included Steve, who got 2nd, and Mark who made a strong showing in Cat 4 even though it was his first-ever cyclocross race.

The most exciting event of the day was the Cat 3/4. Hannon, Andy and Ian started back in the pack and it started to look pretty sketchy. Ian lost a chain on the run-up after the first barrier but made a determined effort to finish. Then Hannon started to do some work. He battled with a rider from Mesa, finally opened up a gap and finished a strong 2nd. Meanwhile, Andy was grinding away, moving up and, at about 500 meters, was in 4th and gaining. We were yelling like crazy; we didn’t believe he could do it but we were wrong!  He caught the same Mesa rider on the last turn, sprinted all out and beat him by a wheel! Righteous!

Scooter changed classes several times but two guys finally showed up for him to race with. He finished a determined 3rd.

After the race we assembled our wrecking crew.  Holly, Andy Hamilton, Scooter, Justin Holden, Debra and Patti from Pride,  Chuck Mayden along with juniors, and even L.A. aka Pepperoni all helped with the tear down efforts. With most of us staying until dusk.

All in all, a great day for Wild Trak.