2015 Radness in Review

I may have overcooked myself a little - I haven't ridden a bike since I rolled across the lot to pack up my gear after Limestone at the Kiln on December 13th. It was an awesome weekend of racing with Solstice Cross the day before. There are killer race reports somewhere in those two days but they'll never get written. I woke up the next morning with no interest in riding my bikes or writing about them. So I guess that's what it takes to burn myself out...eleven and a half months of training and racing. I'm out for CX Nats next week and I don't mind - I'm done for the year and I'm full up on racing. 

My blogs and race reports are usually pretty long. To quote Travis Harnish, "I think blog is misleading. It should be renamed Tales of Radness: A Compilation of Short Stories by Joe Bothell." So with that in mind I am going with photos and captions for the 2015 Radness in Review. Still plenty long but more pictures, less words! Happy New Year everyone!

Some of us escaped the cold  in February for a trip to Arizona to ride mountain bikes. Second year for this trip. Yeah...Sedona!

Bike Line bad asses in the A-Z. KOMs were taken.

Unless you are Cimini, Arensberg or Neugebauer you should probably never call your rides epic. But we had a couple epic rides including the Pickett Post Trail, 5 hours, 5700' of climbing.

AZ roomies Shindler and Pasley. Tober MIA that day.

Back on the east coast I was hitting the weekend road rides as often as possible. These rides are really hard. Chuck and Blair taught me how to paceline one day. Pacelining with Chuck and Blair hurts. A lot.

Cowboys from Hell
In April I finally got to put the winter training to the test. Ben, Paul and I won the 13-hour Baker's Dozen 3-man "Geezer" class. Hoping to defend in 2016.

Finally, the first MASS race of the year at Fair Hill.  I came out swinging with the hole shot.

Got the win that day.  I had never won any kind of individual event in any category. Coach Nick was waiting at the line and snapped this pic. I can't begin to describe how stoked we both were after 4 months of hard training. 

French Creek was up next. I blew apart after one lap chasing Chappy.

And then Greenbrier. Werner keeping the heat on...

Found my way to the top step one more time at Ramsey's Revenge. A non-MASS race but stacked all the same. Chap would own me for the rest of the season... he was training through on this weekend so I got away with one.

I had been taking classes at Drexel for several years...  picking up where I left off many years before. I wrapped up the B.S. in March and this showed up in the mail during the summer. Whew. Felt better than winning a race!

Chappy wins the MASS CAT 1 40-49 series! I hung on for second. Congrats to Nick Morell for a great season as well.





Racing with Tyler. Family vacation in OC Maryland between races...

And just like that it was cross season. Cross clinic at Granogue...

Talking it over with Coach Nick at first cross race of the year: Cross of the Corn.

Granogue...broke my chain second lap and called it a day but I believe this day may have been my top form all year. So it goes...

Skipped HPCX and West Chester #1 for a weekend in NYC with Jenny.  It has been noted that I am batting way over my average in the beautiful wife department. So true...

Swashbuckler. My first top five in a cross race. A good day for sure.

West Chester is much closer to work for me so I started hitting Rustin for cross practice this year (instead of Skyline with the Newark DCCoD crew).  This was Black Friday cross... Pope Cross was another good one at West Chester.  Thanks to Bob Reuther for hosting all the practice sessions!

A rare moment leading Kelly Cline. I finished one spot behind KC four or five times this year and never in front. I was hoping for a top ten in a MAC race this year but it was not to be. Still a super solid year. I was in the mix with some fast guys!

After Limestone, racers old and new took a few laps around the pump track. I overheard Selene Yeager laughing about the 68mm carbon rims on my B bike as I rolled off the track.

A big group of us masters racers wound up gathering around DLowe's car. Werner had this holster belt full of minis and we all toasted the year and downed a whiskey shot. I snapped a pic of Werner but all I got was my thumb. If anyone has a pic of Werner's shot-slinger belt...post it up!

The  Masters 45+ crew at Limestone. Good group. Fun CX year.

Spent the last couple weeks of the year hanging with this dude. Good kid! Peace all...