World Championship Dryland in Saguenay/ Canada

some pics:

we tried out the new trail in Pineland, ME where the DESDC has a race next weekend - that trail is just great 15-20 feet wide, no real steep hills no sharp 180, the dogs loved it.

I went out with Luc on the bike, then with Quest, the old trusted puppy-trainer. He trained Wolk, Lobo and Lund on the rig , and than again with Luc, Kaillou, Chinook and Lund.

you see in the clip below how the puppies behave the first 300m, Thanks to Mark for un-tangle them.

Hopkinton 2009

the first little warm up for the season.

1dog bikejoring with Luc.


2dog bikejoring with Kaillou and Lobo.



Lobo created a little bit of a tangle the first 100m. He didnt really understand whats going on but then he was ok for a 10months old.


4dog rig with Luc, Kaillou, Lobo and Lund.
The old guys did their job, the two puppies where a little bit confused and run fast but didn't really pull of course. It was only to show them all of the excitement of a race atmosphere and for that purpose it worked well, good experience for the pups.

The surprise of the day was again Wolk. I did the 1k canicross with him and he not just run great, he did also some great passings. Good job for a 6month old.

Hopkinton 2008

Last weekend was again the NORTHERN NEW ENGLAND SLED DOG TRADE FAIR & SEMINAR in Hopkinton NH. Like last year they had a little dryland race. little in distance but seems to me, every year there are more participants. there was 1 and 2 dog bikejoring, a scooter class, 4 dog and a 5-6 dog rig class and new for this year a canicross. The loop is only 0.8 miles or so. it seems there are some issues to get the approval to cross a road so one stays inside the fairground. But that's ok. I like all the dryland stuff because it simply extends the time to be with other sled dog people and race.
team snowrunner went out in the 1dog with Kaillou, who did surprisingly well (first place), the 2 dog bike with Luc and Quest (second overall), the 4 dog rig with Luc, Quest and Kaillou (third overall). Quest is now in an age that he cant keep up with the 3 (Luc) and 4 (Kaillou) year old. He is now the one who slows the team down. BUT and we will see it later in the snow races he safes so much time because he is an excellent command leader.
Interesting is that team snowrunner seems to have a good pace for a mile. as it was last year there were some pretty good sprint dogs at the start but for some reason Luc and Kaillou seem to beat them over that short distance. the difference is of course that the real sprinters would keep that pace over another 5miles whilst the Sibs slow down. But that's the reason we train for mid-distance, the natural distance for Siberians.
In the clip below you can see the whole race trail and one can also see how Quest (in lead on the left) is always one step behind Luc especially in last third.
Since we went out first there is no other team in sight.



Canicross - mass start -
I chose to take Chinook AND Luc. I shouldn't. each of them alone would be fine but together they act as pack. some of the other dogs growled a bit at Chinook and he growled back so that Luc started to make some noises too. At the start I thought it is better to keep a little distance to the other runners. Half way in the run there was a tangle of two or three dogs and their leashes and runners :) so we took the chance to run on by, had a very good pace and would have passed the two others in front of us but those were the ones who growled at Chinook, so I decided to take it easy and keep back. Not to mention that Ed and his dog Maggie was way in front. :-)




more pictures can be seen here and here

Hopkinton is a good start in the season, we have to thank the organizers. Each year the fair, the seminars and now also the race is getting bigger AND better. People came as far as Ontario!

Sunday, January 13.

last week it was pretty warm with some rain.
I couldn't train at all because the trails, even there is still more than 1foot of snow, were hard and icy. nothing for sledding or skiing or training with the rig.
actually during the intense trainings/ racing season I try to run the dogs at least every three days so that they stay max. for two days in the kennel.
1 week without running and these guys getting nuts and starting to run in the kennel like maniacs.
so I finally changed the tires on my bike to the studded nokian 300 and trained at least Luc and Kaillou on Sunday morning on our back roads.
parts of those dirt roads were completely covered with a sheet of black ice. I never could do that with normal tires.
But the real challenge on our back roads are the free running dogs especially if I run with Kaillou.
this time we encountered 7 of those. not the big ones are tough to come by but these small "fiffies"; so it was a good "ON BY" - yelling - trainings session.









BTW:
That paved road ends up there. everything else is dirt road, hard packed sand/gravel.
otherwise I would dress the dogs with booties.

Video Pineland day2

Here a footage from the "bikecam".
I still have not the right bracket for that thing that's why it is very wobbly. They come out with a bike bracket in two weeks.
I mounted the camera with velcro and a pipe to the fork. but better than nothing.
Watch what happend at the end of the video when Ed Clifford passes us. It was of course at the steepest part of the whole trail.



And here the same run with a "helmet camera".



Edit:
If you have a fast connection and a screen where you can see both videos, let them run at the same time. start the helmetcam 8 sec or so earlier.

Luc and Kaillou in Pineland

Now a short reflection how actually Luc and Kaillou performed in Pineland over the weekend.

We competed in the two dog bikejoring class.

start

flying Kaillou :)

Luc is just great he is focused, he is strong and he has above that speed. He loped almost the whole 2.3miles and was pulling the whole time. He also pulled Kaillou who was “neck-lining” a lot. Luc reminds me on Quest when he was in that age.

I’m not sure if it was that Kaillou missed three weeks of training, that he still suffers from the quills or that he simply is not that fast, poor Kaillou. If the race would have been longer I would have taken of the neck line, but just the 2.3miles that was ok.

The time was 2:30 min faster on Saturday (9:56) than last year and approx. 1min faster on Sunday. That’s a huge improvement especially on Sunday because it was pretty muddy in the woods. Ok last year Luc was just 8 1/2month old and we had a borrowed bike and other issues but still.

The course is an up and down like a rollercoaster and the last 1/2mile are on grass, which is sometimes muddy and wet. So it is a pretty tough course for the dogs. Nothing compared to where we train at home but still tough.

I will also post some videos from both days. I had a camera mounted to the helmet and one mounted to the bike. Let’s see what they look like. It just takes a while to process these video files.

pictures from Sunday in Pineland

Christina Eagle


Marc


Betsy


Ed

and here all the pictures from Sunday.

Pineland, 2007 Down East Dryland Championships

I took a ton of pictures on Saturday.
You can find them here
Since it was very cloudy and overcast I took the pictures mostly in ISO1600 which makes them a bit grainy. But I needed at least 1/640s to catch the movements of the dogs.


Sara Vanderwood in the four dog class.


This picture shows the two fastest 5K-canicrossler in the North-East.
Ed Clifford of Raymond, NH who will be in Italy at the WC in two weeks, and Jason Sperry of Mexico, NY.

More to come tonight.

trainings run with luc

Luc is the first who can train again.

I made it fun for him means I let him run more ore less free. On the leash of course. I pedaled a lot so that he didn't pull that much.

The camera is mounted to the handle bar. Sorry for the crappy noise. It is a new camera, the "gopro digital hero3". I will descripe that thing in a later posting.



Kaillou and Quest still need one more week rest.

ride on top of Mt. Caverly

I went up to Mt. Caverly the other day.

It was a cold and sunny day and so were the views:

Lake Winnipesaukee

Merrymeeting Lake

rattle snake island

uphill was ok but downhill with this two maniacs was almost a nightmare

rooty trail

looks nice - or :).
Approx. 0.5miles uphill with an elevation of 250ft. thats one of the easiest uphill trails around the devils den.
especially if yo discover a gate on the end of that rooty trail with a sign "private road". :)

2 dog bikejoring in Pineland, Maine 2006

The video shows the start end the end of the 2 dog bikejoring day two at the downeast championship in Pineland, Maine in 2006. Both dogs are Seppala Siberian Huskies, 8 months and 2years. Watch the crash after 1:40 minutes or so. Two or three curves after that needle pin curve I had a very nice pace and both of the puppies loped very fast and smooth. I came out of a curve and right there on the left Jean stood there and had a tangle or something else with her dog. I was on the right side but my dogs cut the curve in the inside so they came out on the left – and run full speed in to her dog. It was may be 20 ft behind the curve. I haven’t seen it because I concentrated on pedaling in and out of the curve. So we crashed, the dogs fought, growled and so on. The seat on the bike was turned. Shi…happens. The only bad thing here is that a puppy should have just positive experiences in its first races and he was the one who was growled at and tangled and dragged by the other dog. But it looks like he is strong minded at least as of know. I have to watch him carefully in the next races. Over all it was a very nice weekend!

Training Bikejoring 10/23/2005

bikejoring with my lead dog Quest (the white one) and Kaillou (at that time one year old) You can see early in the video that Quest isn't full running, he still suffered from a surgery in his right shoulder. Sorry there is no sound in this video.