Singlespeed-A-Palooza - The Day After the Hangover

Now that all the beer cans are cleaned up, hot dog breath is brushed out, dust is our of our pores and blue tape is wrapped up in the garbage bin, we can discuss what an awesome weekend the boys at Dark Horse Cycles put on. If you are reading this you already know how big of an event this is. People travel from all over the east coast to throw down on some of the best singletrack NY has to offer. If you haven't ridden Stewart, you need to get out here. If you haven't raced a Dark Horse event, you really are missing out!

The last two years offered wet conditions and some sloppy riding. This year brought dust from the fire roads. The dry conditions brought smiles to faces and pain to legs. I personally have never gone this fast on my mountain bike before in a race.


The race is ultra competitive with such deep fields. Sure you remember the race and remember the super fast singletrack, but what is more memorable is crossing the finish line and hanging with 250+ like minded people you just shared 27 miles of racing with.

Robin had a mechanical and was the first one to the keg!

The Maddawg himself and Sport NJ Winner Mitch

The Scene

Jeremy, Jay and The Birthday boy

Open Menu Podium with Fred, Utah and Ilya 4th-6th

Bunch of MTBNJ regulars; Martin, Mitch, Dustin, Chris and Jay in Sport NJ

Look at that smile!

Fred and Jake really know how to enjoy each others company.

A Cake presented to Pearl for his birthday from George, Mayor of Dark Horse himself.

Ilya and the rest of the people who stayed around for the festivities got to enjoy some cake.

Team Results

Open Men
4th - Utah Joe
5th - Ilya
6th - Fred
14th - Norm
25th - Jeremy
27th - Iggy
38th - Chris26er
41st - ChrisG
43rd - RobG
44th - Woody
45th - Pearl

Sport South Men
10th - Capers
12th - Matty
14th - Jake
30th - Brad
Some reason Shaggz is not on this list. Will update.

Sport Women
5th - Dana
7th - Patty
DNF - Robin (Bending chainrings!)

Here are all the results, just incase. Throughout the week we will let you know how the races went, stay tuned.

Walter's Short Track Recap

Mooch ST Series

The Short Track series kicked off on March 3 with the 1^st Walter’s No Frills ST race.  The 1.5 mile course located on the Boy Scout property at Allamuchy was the same one used last fall for the premier of short track racing in NJ. After positive feed- back we decided to stay with the same course for the spring series for the 1^st 3 races then use a newly built track built over the winter for the 4^th race. We dropped the Bagels and Bacon title and went with Walters No Frills.  This title reflects our goal going into the spring ST; keep it simple while getting into race shape on the cheap.

(Norm: On that note, we're always looking for new & exciting names for our races. If we do a fall series there may be free pickle juice for all racers.)

The 4 Saturdays in March grew each week in racing intensity.  We saw some excitement over the weeks from the top 3 finishers in the crazy men class , Rob Lichtenwalner, Jesse Epstein and Jonathan Lombardo.  Strong finishes from Ed Ceccolini, Rich Wolter,  Matt Miller, Jonathnan Lombardo and Utah Joe kept the series battle raging up until the end. The last race in the series saw an appearance from Mike Montalbano lining up for the final showdown. Last weeks ST winner Ed Ceccolini (fast Eddy) gave Mike a fight to the finish but Mike was able to pull out a win getting to the line 8 seconds before fast Eddy.

As the crazy men class grew every week so did the women’s and men’s sport class. The MTBNJ ladies were consitant in there races and getting faster each week with Robin Everson, Patty Bender and Mandi Tabbit finishing 1-3^rd in the series. It was nice to see the field grow by the 4^th ST race, thanks for your support ladies!

The silly sport class grew as the weeks went on thanks to William Lorenzo for spreading the word. The first ST race saw 11 racers while the last one was at 60 (Norm: these numbers are not real, no clue where Iggy got them), thanks guys! Congrats to Doug Alpers, Willy and Greg Heller for placing top 3 in the Silly Sport Class.

While we don’t have an official slogan, motto or mission statement for team MTBNJ ,  if we did it would say something like who we are off the bike is what makes us winners (Norm: Actually, I prefer "Beer & ice cream for dinner, thanks!").  At the close of our ST race series I am happy to be a part of a team that made this series a success.  Norm and Matty Bender were instrumental in making this happen as was Chris Ruiz (Norm: Let's not forget his lovely sidekick, Kayla), who came through all aces in the scoring. Carson, Mandi and Robin, with Shaggz floating in between scoring and registration to keep things flowing, handled registration smoothly. Filling in the gaps to take care of all the other race prep was done by the team who came together to make this event as enjoyable to work as it was to race.

We look forward to seeing everyone at the MTBNJ Stewart 6-Pack on July 1!

https://www.bikereg.com/Net/15383

The Misfits at Allaire (by Utah)

So I have been hearing about the awful sand, flat and boring conditions at Allaire for 3 years now.  Frank has been trying to convince me to never ride there as it is indeed not worth the drive.  Well despite the negative reviews I figured I would hit up the Misfits ride and see for myself.  Misfits ride as in a ride for owners of misfit bikes.  Matty B originally organized this ride for all misfit owners as they are apparently some sort of hells angel gang of bikers who wear tights rather than leather.  However, the ride was in fact an all-inclusive and I was not harassed for riding my conformist cannondale.

After meeting up with Luke and Eileen, we made our way down.  Arriving in the parking lot, I was surprised to see it completely jam packed with riders.  I would name names, but there were far too many to list.  The misfit drivers soon came together for a picture

Soon followed by the rest of us….Mitch took the picture, but sadly could not join us on the ride.

So after some social this and that we finally hit the trails with Matty, Frank and Chris G leading the way.  Within a few minutes the train was moving at high speed and we were having an absolute blast.  Cant understand why Frank dislikes this place so much J.  It’s a really nice change of pace from the rocky and technical trails that surround my hood.  I can’t remember when I have been on a group ride this large and seen it move so quickly.  Got to do some quality chit chat with lance, walt, spence, lou and even some james pearl commentary!

Train was crazy long

Our locomotive

James Pearl must be in cross season

Eventually we made our way over to this thing…Luke kept us there for 10 minutes until he cleaned it

Nail it Wookie!

The pines

In total we racked up about 15miles in an hour and forty minutes of moving time which was dam good considering the size of the group.  Cant believe I waited this long to hit this place up, its an absolute blast.  I only wish it was closer to my house.  Great times and a great tour…Thanks to Matty and Frank for the guidance.

After the ride, about 15 went for some post ride refueling..good times!!!