Commuting and hill efforts

On August 17:th I'm participating in one of the worlds biggest mountainbike marathons: Cykelvasan. When they opened their registration they sold out in ELEVEN minutes. That is 12000 registered participants in eleven minutes!

I finished in 35:th position last year and I have the intention to try and be a bit higher up in the results this year. It's a superfast and easy course so there will be large groups staying together. First of all I need to get in a fast group (aiming for the first group...) and then I need good legs for the sprint to the finishline. 

Because I'm having my focus on road cycling, these last weeks is where I try to become comfortable and fast on my mountainbike again. I had my focus on mountainbiking until 2011 so it's nothing I'm new to, but the guys who allways ride their mountainbikes have an advantage. Because the course is so easy, road experience is good to have. In fact, you can ride the whole course with a cyclocross bike. If it weren't for the rules that forbid cyclocross bikes in mountainbike races...

To get some miles on my mountainbike I did a three hour ride to work last Friday. Started at 5.20 am and had a fantastic morning on some of my favorite trails.

Yesterday I was out doing some hill efforts. Actually felt quite good! I did four climbs that lasted about 4-5 minutes each. Today I will do an other hard session on my mountainbike and then I will go back to my road bike for the rest of this week. Got a SWE-Cup race in Kalmar this saturday so I really need to keep my road legs.

A weekend with two races

On Saturday we did a race called Ringenloppet. A roadrace with crosswinds on a 11 kilometer long lap. A total of 154 kilometers, but I was only racing 111 of them. It was a hard race and only 28 of the 81 who started the race finished it. My legs were empty when I decided to call it a day, but for the first time on a race this year I felt that I had the power to really participate and be a part of the actual racing in the front. All the other races this year I have started and finished races, but always with the feeling that I only could fight to stay with the peloton. This saturday was different and after taking an easy first lap finding myself in the third group after the first long crosswind section I told myself to be in the front during the second lap because the bunch would probably split up again. There were gaps also on lap 2 but in the beginning of lap three I was in the front with some other strong guys and we were going so fast that our front group came down to 10-12 riders. I spent two laps in that front group and when the bunch caught us I knew that an other group would probably get away in the next crosswind section. I tried really hard to get back to the front but I was the last guy who didn't make it to the front group. That group stayed away for the rest of the race...
After 10 of the 14 laps my legs didn't wanna race anymore. When I was dropped by the bunch it was about 25 riders big. So a lot of guys had to quit before me. Although I Did Not Finish, it was my best race so far this year.

One of the reasons to DNF was that we had a race on Sunday as well. I could have done the 154 kilometers on Saturday, but then I would have had nothing left for Elisedals GP on Sunday. Sunday's race was a fast criterium. 35 laps and 58 kilometers with an average speed of 45.9 km/h. Legs didn't like what I was doing in the beginning but with seven laps to go I attacked. No big move, but at least I was in the race again. The last three laps I only tried to stay near the front. Comming in to the last corner I had to brake and lost some speed there and finished in 19:th spot in the 59 man strong field.

Next race for me is SWE-Cup Kalmar GP in two weeks. A crit race in the city of Kalmar, I'm hoping to have the same legs as I had this saturday, otherwise it will be a very hard day.

Race tomorrow

SWE-cup road race tomorrow and I arrived to Lund in the south of Sweden less then an hour ago. 14 laps on a 11 kilometer course with crosswinds is what's waiting for us. The best Swedish riders and some of the Danish teams will take part so I'm expecting a very hard day in the saddle.

One of the pictures are from my ride this morning, the others from our EIGHT hour roadtrip...

One year later...

Time flies.

I'm still riding my bikes. Mostly my Bianchi Sempre road bike. Started a new road team in the club which I'm still the chairman: Falu CK. This is seven out of the nine guys in Falu CK Elit, I'm the second one from the right:

We're no top team, but we got one victory in a national race and a couple of us have taken some points in the SWE-Cup.

I also started a series of local road races for this season. It's ten small races that I organize to let road cyclists from our area practice racing. It's not easy when you are fresh to cycling to get out and do the big races, so this is a opportunity for them to learn what to do in a race, and when to do it.

I got a new personal sponsor! Bianchi Sweden and Sony Mobile are still my partners and this year Mitsubishi Sweden is helping me. Big thanks to all of you! This Mitsubishi Outlander is what I'm drivning 2013:

Hopefully it won't be another year until I post something here. I've been pretty active at Instagram and that has inspired me to open up this blog again. So until next time: ride safe!