Photos By Cuttler!

Mr. Billy Cuttler emptied out his camera and sent out some photos of his most recent adventures to Bonelli Park, and Keyesville. Enjoy the pictures, but remember he didn't have much to work with.

Keyesville, 2 Bananas & Stretchy Pants?

Hello everyone,

Well, we had a great road trip up past Bakersfield to the 20th annual Keyesville Classic. We had a group of 7 Chicken Ranchers including Dave Lettieri making his first road trip appearance.

We left at 8:00pm Saturday night and stayed at the beautiful Motel 6 in Bakersfield before driving the rest of the way early Sunday morning. The drive up was relatively uneventful, although we did get a good laugh when we snooped through Brad Brown's cooler looking for snacks and we discovered that all he'd packed for the weekend was a bottle of wine and two bananas.......so we ate the bananas.



When we arrived Sunday morning it was clear and cold. In the high 30's or low 40's. The Sport Class raced first which included Dave, Brad Jellison, Robert, Bill, and Gabe. Dave rode well after sleeping all night and driving all day in his brand new compression tights, or as we like to call them......"stretchy pants". He got 2nd. Robert was apparently day dreaming about male triathletes and went off course.....but still managed to finish 5th. Bill and Jelly had an epic battle the whole race with Jelly nipping him at the line to finish 8th with Bill close behind in 9th. Gabriel had an interesting race. After only 2 or 3 miles he had a huge lead on the rest of his field and appeared poised to cruise to an easy victory. But, caught up in the excitement of the moment, he too went off course and ended up having to DQ himself after skipping 3 or 4 miles from the first lap. He was devastated. So we consoled him by making fun of him and cracking jokes at his expense all weekend.........I think he's better now. Brad Brown rode to a "best ever" 4th place in the Beginner Class. Apparently wine works better than I thought it would as a pre-race hydration beverage............or maybe it was not being able to find his bananas that made him faster? Who knows? I continued my unrivaled streak of 2nd place finishes. But I had to earn it by duking it out with Ron Tekada and Bob Nisbet from the Platinum Team. The three of us were never seperated by more than 30 seconds the entire race. I'm not sure if the fact that I like both of those guys made it more fun or more stressful? Actually, just being near Ron made me feel better about myself 'cause last weekend at Bonelli he beat my time by more than 3 minutes!

After the racing was over we were hoping for a quick awards presentation so we could get on the road and get home A.S.A.P. But then we remembered that this was a Mountain Bike Race and there is no such thing as a quick awards presentation. One of the things I've always liked about MTB races is you don't have to pin a number on your jersey, you only put a number plate on your bike. But they changed that this year at the Keyesville Classic. Not only did we have numbers on our jerseys and our bikes....we also had timing chips on our shoes!.........and the results were still all screwed-up. All the technology in the world can't beat the Red-neck system they use at the NORCAL MTB races. They pin a piece of scratch paper to your shoulder with your name and your class on it, and when you come across the line they pull it off and stick-it on the results board in the order you came in.........simple and brilliant. Works every time. Anyways, we decided not to wait for the awards, but since Dave and I were all cleaned up and looking our best in anticipation of getting on the podium. We decided to have our own awards ceremony on a couple of boulders near the car. The guys gave us official "rocks" from the actual Keyesville Classic course and we stood on the boulders side by side with our arms raised in "almost" victory!

On the drive home we were getting desperate for a place to eat and we almost made things worse by stopping at PIZZAVILLE USA which looked like a converted Turkish prison but Bill Cuttler saved us by yelling "Don't make a panic decision!" and he spotted La Mina Mexican restaurant which wasn't bad.......as long as you're not in a hurry.......which we were.

All things considered we had a great time and got home safe. Is it a coincidence that the two highest place finishers on our team were both wearing compression tights the night before the race? I don't know. But I'm not taking any chances. I'm heading down to Fastrack today to get another pair of "stretchy pants" on sale..........and then I'm gonna stop by the liquor store and get a bottle of cheap wine.......and two bananas.


Matt

John Goodman Gives Up Some Keyesville Photos

One Mr. John Goodman, photographer, cyclist, graphics dude, and all around nice guy sent a few photos over and a link to some of the photos he took at the Keyesville classic today. THANKS JOHN!

Great Job Kimberly and Crew!

Greetings!

In the spirit of Chicken Ranch race reports...I offer this peek at the action from our day at the races. A few of us girls ventured south forthe L.A. circuit race.

There were actually 7 SB area women in the women's3/4 race today--a great showing by the locals!I was feeling quite organized--I even left the house on time (ok, 1minute later than planned) this morning.



However, due to a little time loss picking up Marian (new cat 3 in the area) I was late getting to Olivia's. I knew I was in trouble when Olivia called me on our way there, and there was no salutation to be had, only a terse "where are you." Oops...we weren't THAT late! Anyway, we did finally leave the SB area, after our much needed Starbucks stop.

In Starbucks, I asked Olivia if she was nervous, and got "no....(small pause here), well, only about not getting there in time!" Oops again.

On a good note, we managed to fit 3 people, 3 bikes, 3 trainers, 3 duffel bags o' random stuff all in one small VW Golf! We were probably the only ones who actually followed the directions on the race flyer which said "please prevent global warming and consider carpooling to the race in cars of 3 or more!"Anyway, we did get there, and got out of the car only to be nearly blown over by the wind! Hmmm. It was going to be a chilly day at the races.

Turned out that the riding direction was exactly perpendicular to the wind...pure crosswind the WHOLE course. As I was getting readyW3/4 ,Olivia was following me around like the paparazzi--I felt so famous. Ok..so I could have done without the photo journalism when it comes to changing clothes and applying chamois butter!

On to the race....the race was about as interesting as one could expect from a flat road with a U-turn at each end! There were about 30 womenin the 3/4 race. Susan Farber was also racing for Chicken Ranch, and I had "stealth teammates" Olivia and Marian. As Olivia said...(based on her inability to fit into the new kits), "she is just too big for the chicken ranch britches," but can still be a "stealth chicken rancher." (note--Olivia is a lot smaller than I am...so I'm not sure that this is quite accurate)

And stealth teammate she was! She attacked on lap 2because "the race was too slow" and I got to see who was strong when they chased her down. I was happy to block for her, even if she was wearing the frog colors of Echelon :).

The race really came down to the final sprint. Marian attacked on the final corner, which was too early, but managed to string it out a tad. I had a pretty good wheel going into the sprint, managed to time it better than I have all season,but I still have some work to do.

The wheel I picked didn't quite get me where I needed to be so I had to do some dancing and managed to get 3rd, still accelerating at the line. The rest of the Ranchers...Susan Farber 8th (stealth racer) Olivia Walling 14th (stealth racer) Marian Hunting 18th.

We stuck around just long enough to hear the race results and pick up the cycle computer that I managed to win, and then it was back home,with a nice stop in Malibu for lunch. Good times...next up, San Dimas! Have fun, and enjoy the photos...

How'd everyone else do this weekend?

Kimberly

Testrider.com Does It Again!

You have to see the latest from testrider.com A terrific video of a flying chicken who had the good fortune of riding in the time trial stage of this years Tour of California. The Isaac Bike and Zipp wheel set up made for a very fast bike. Kudo's to Dave, Matt, and especially Ben.

Esquire Spreading The Word

In case you didn't see it, Esquire was able to get this write up in the Newspress Friday!

"The Chicken Ranch Team: Matt Benko set a blistering pace and took second place in the very competitive Expert 40-44 race at Bonelli Park, finishing less than a minute off of first.
Dr. Bob Wilcher overcame a flat tire in mid-race and managed to place second in the Sport 30-34 category.
In his first race for the Chicken Ranch Team, John Nygren pulled off a runner-up finish in the Beginner 35-39 race.
Brad Jellison threw down a huge pre-race pancake breakfast to barely make weight and took second in the 35+ Sport Clydesdale race.
Greg "Wheels" Knowles raced well in the Beginner 45-49 class to make the podium in fifth place, and Brian Bermudes took seventh in his first Sport race in the 30-34 category.
The course was a 9-mile loop with about 1000 feet of climbing per lap."

Platinum Team Photo Sequel

Not only does the Platinum Mountain Bike team have a ton of talented riders, they also have a graphics dept. that is second to none. They have given the due respect any Chicken Rancher deserves for hi jacking their team photo. Ride On! Can you find the Chicken now? ;o)