Southern Cross 2015 Race Report: K-Dogg’s Perspective
I just love Gravel people. Lining up this year in a steady drizzle at the base of Springer mountain Georgia was more like a family reunion than a race. Everybody…
Training Ride 101 2014 – Pre New Year’s Knockdown Keport
Reporting by K-Dogg. The limitations of having such an International cycling team during the holidays was apparent, as the Tuesday Night GCX Worlds ride barely fielded three Cycle Logic riders. …
Jingle Bells (Bikes) – an Ode by K-Dogg
GravelCyclist.com isn't liable for any grumpy roadies that may be PO'd by K-Dogg's poem :D Jingle Bells Roadies smell Cross bikes rule the night Oh what fun is it to…
K-Dogg’s Pisgah Monster Cross Challenge Report – 2014
I love climbing. You suffer a lot but it’s peaceful. You can hear birds chirping and the deep, labored breathing of fellow sufferers around you. Everything is in slow motion and downright peaceful. You have plenty of time to pick your line. Nobody flats or crashes going uphill. I would much rather be in agony climbing for hours than experience 5 minutes of terror descending skittery gravel switchbacks.
For the last 3 years at extreme cx races I’ve tried hard to man up and go faster down the cliffs….but every time I get the courage to “let it go”… I crash spectacularly. At 59 (and living in Florida) drastic improvement is just not in the cards. So this year’s counter clockwise route of Pisgah Monster Cross should have been perfect with much more uphill, than down.
This year I didn’t crash but there were two close calls…. at the two exact spots they had warned us about. ” Two point three miles before forest service road bla, bla,bla and halfway between Bubba’s Still Road and Cherokee Revenge Holler.” “These washouts are real wheel grabbers so look for the multiple orange markers on your way down” said Cam.
Right.
K-Dogg’s Savage CX Race Report – 2014
Savage Monster CX, Version 2
“I’d much rather suffer pain than terror in a bike race,” I complained to anyone around me as I yet again clawed back to my companions.
I can throw my 148 pound skeleton up hill pretty well for a 59 year old… but descend like a plucked chicken with acrophobia. 
Plummeting down a 20 percent potholed, washboardy, marble-infested blind corner mountainside is not my idea of survivable fun-though others seem to revel in it. Somehow scores of CX’ers successfully fly past me down these sketchy roads with no problems at all… totally defying the laws of physics and coefficients of friction.
In North Florida we practice on sugar sand and potholed roads, except for the Flappalachian mountains (a geologic uprising between Lake City and Gainesville), we don’t have much to practice serious descents.