The Common Cyclist

Doper

2012-02-16T15:39:00.000-08:00

Not too long after the race, a rumor went around that the winner had tested positive. Velonews confirmed it, but USADA didn't release the final suspension (probably due to B-sample testing & other procedures) for quite a while. Some said he tested positive for weed. I was guessing something like DHEA, or Geranium Oil. The guy's apology sounded like maybe he thought it was unintentional - and I was feeling sympathetic, pending details. There's lots of bad shit hidden in supplement and convenience store energy drinks. And what was the positive test finally for? It was for Efaproxiral.

That's not weed, motherfucker. It's a fucking cancer drug. That shit doesn't contaminate your Rock Star, your whey protein, or your sushi. Efaproxiral has apparently been around the doping circles for a while, and is also known as RSR13. While the Wikipedia article says it hasn't been proven to enhance performance in humans, PubMed has a little article outline describing detection methods saying it has been proven to raise VO2. There's a reason they give that shit to cancer patients: those folks are usually anemic, damaged by disease and heavy-handed treatment, and need a boost just to function.

So I got beaten by a real, solid doper. The for-real, needles-in-the-ass kind. Cheater, thief, and for all I know stealer-of-girl-scout-cookies.

So I got 4th. 6 guys went to the line, I crossed 5th, 1rst was struck from the books, I move up a spot. Justice done? No. I got cheated, as did others, and there's no fixing it.

You can take the doper out of the results, but you can't take him out of the race.

Three of us went over the crest of Awbrey Butte together in the finale of that race, with the rest of the field good and dropped. That included the doper. I attacked the other two, and when I got brought back there were 5 guys on my wheel, not 2. The other 3 came back from being dropped, not something you usually expect. But it could happen. The doper played a role in getting them back. Take him out of the race, and it's 2 chasers. That makes a big difference, in bike racing. Take him out of the race, and it's 3 to the line, not 6. Maybe the other 2 catch me anyways, maybe they don't. Maybe the Oregon guys, Scott and myself, go 2-3 instead of 5-6. Maybe we go 1-2, or 1-3. There's no way to know, but it wouldn't be the same finish.
In my head, I know that it's impossible to play that game. You have to take the results as they are, asterix and all.

So there I stand: cheated. USA Cycling cancelled the category for next year. By the time I'm eligible for the next one up, I'll have kids. There's no second chance.

Fuck the dopers.

Boom goes the bicycle

2012-01-10T10:09:00.000-08:00

A moment of distraction, a slight drift, a parked vehicle. Boom goes the bicycle.

Total damage: destroyed right Campagnolo Veloce shifter body, cracked and bent right fork leg, smashed helmet, torn jacket, scuffed saddle.

Oh, and a short trip to the hospital for some x-rays, confirming no broken bones but nasty deep bruising and a shoulder that is immobile for the time being.

I'm just glad this was the winter bike, and it's January, so there's lots of time to fix it.

Portland, you need this

2011-12-11T11:08:00.001-08:00

Leather beer can cage holding a pint of PBR. It'll match your leather ear plugs and bird tatoos as you strut your car-free stuff... except during the 152 days of rain, when you drive like everyone else.

PDX Love/Hate

2011-12-06T16:59:00.001-08:00

I complain a lot about moving to Portland. It's a big city and I'm a small city guy. It's not as bad as Seattle, San Francisco, or any other big west coast city, but it's still a big city. The riding is good - for a big city. Which means that compared to Eugene or Corvallis (or even Salem), it pretty much sucks. The bike commuting is decent - except that it's soaking wet in the winter and the sheer size of the city makes biking from, say, Sellwood to NW PDX just a miserable affair. You may not get run over, but you'll be riding for a good long while.

The racing culture up here is strange as well. Portland is well known for being a bike Mecca - and it really is. There are bikes everywhere. There are more bike shops than you can shake a stick at, and there are thousands of riders who kit up every weekend in their best team kit and go pile on the miles. But at the same time, there's this really weird sort of vibe to it - it's clique-ish, kind of stuck-up and a touch inauthentic.

Here's a little list of my likes/dislikes with Portland cycling:

Like: Bike friendly coffee shops. Like the Ugly Mug in Sellwood, on my way home - just lean the bike against the window and go inside. Or Marsee Baking, where I have wheeled my cross bike inside while getting a bagel and coffee.

Dislike: Coffee shop rides all winter. OK, one or two are nice, but you won't find fitness at 15mph all winter while talking about racing. I miss the CSC rides in Eugene - hard endurance and race up the hills if you want to. So I go ride above conversation pace alone.

Like: Plenty of other people to ride with.

Dislike: No real open group rides, like CSC. It's all just team rides, emails every week coordinating events, negotiating pace, etc. In Eugene, it's just a matter of deciding if I'm going to the 8:30 Sat/Sun CSC ride or not, and seeing who shows up. No BS. Anyone who wants to ride hard can, and anyone who wants to sit in can. All are welcome. That doesn't exist in PDX, and they are slower for it.

Like: Races are closer.

Dislike: Portlanders still don't like to travel. Dorks. OBRA Championships had less than 30 guys this year.

Like: I always get a team to show up at PIR. Biggest OBRA race I ever did: PIR, with 120 guys. Wait... considering the above, that's kind of lame.

Dislike: PIR. Seriously, people, get over it. Y'all take some stupid risks considering it's the second-widest race course in the US (20 man pile-ups on a Tuesday night? Really?). You guys also treat it like a championship race, which it isn't. There's some serious negative racing out there. It's a Tuesday. It's for training. Ride your balls off, people. It'll make you faster for when you go race out of the city limits... oh wait, you don't.

Like: Saltzman road gravel climb.

Dislike: Everyone's obsession with gravel, Flanders, and talking about how Belgian it is to ride in the rain. No, it's not. It's Portland. And Belgians don't have bird tatoos on their necks, so get over it and go ride somewhere you won't find yourself changing a flat in 38F rain. You're not Belgium, Portland.

Like: Skyline road. The easiest way to get into "real" riding (i.e. not braking for lights ever minute)

Dislike: Skyline road. It's the easiest way out of town but I seem to ride it so damn much that it gets old. I want five more Skylines, going out in multiple directions.

Like: Springwater Corridor. OK, so I live right off of the corridor, but this is a pretty sweet trail that takes you straight out of town or along the water north and south. It's a relatively quick way out - except of course that it's like 12 miles until you are out of the city, and even then there's traffic.

Dislike: Sellwood Bridge. Just google it, along with the word "collapse". Bloody stupid, and you have to ride on the narrow sidewalk or dodge traffic.

Like: My team. Good guys. Funny. Race hard. No excuses.

Dislike: Rapha. Not the team, the company and everything it stands for. It's like W+K decided to design a bike company. Get. Over. Yourselves. Black shorts and pink stripes never made anyone faster. And stop talking about coffee like you have a fetish - we all like the juice, etc etc, go ride your bike.

Like: JVA, aka "Jen Voigt's Army", and more specifically this: http://internationale.teamjva.com/ since it's the anti-Rapha. This is awesome.

That'll do it for now. I've got to kit up and strap some lights on for the half-hour-plus commute home. Because Portland is awesome like that. But it at least gives me some time to consider how I'm going to crush all fools at PIR next season. Maybe I'll tell the wife that the commute was "epic" and "Belgian" before chugging some beers and drifting off into sleep, dreaming of birds who make fair-trade espresso.

Who wants to do some base miles?

2011-11-21T11:26:00.001-08:00

EUG > PDX

2011-11-17T16:30:00.001-08:00

Sigh. For as wet as Western Oregon is, I had it better in Eugene. Looks like a short window of opportunity is coming up - commute time.

Negative, my good man.

2011-10-31T21:32:00.001-07:00

Good, I was afraid the WADA code contained a limit on allowable levels of awesomeness in the blood.

Apparently not.

Premium Suck - or, Death of a Fad

2011-10-08T22:07:00.001-07:00

Columbia Pictures gets ahold of it and a million hipsters sneer. Time to go ride unicycles, children.

... AND that's a season.

2011-09-21T12:33:00.000-07:00

Well, April to September is quite a jump. It's all of the bike racing season, in fact. What happened?

Some crits happened. I won one, to my great surprise. Like every one of the very few W's I've ever posted - it was solo. Because if even a newbie Cat 4 Jr woman had been on my wheel, I probably would have lost. Yes, the sprint is that bad. Yes, I work on it. No, I'm not improving.

Lots of PIR happened. Lots. It wasn't that much fun. Well, helping some teammates win a few times was fun, but often it was boring. So I started doing the Monday Masters races - which was fun. Old guys are slower, and I'm young for an old guy, so I attacked a lot.

Elkhorn happened. My favorite stage race. It was a small field this year but some good horsepower, and I managed to attack the remainder of the pack in the 1rst stage to roll in for 4th behind the 3 leaders. Then I did the worst TT of my life, dropped to the bottom of the results page on GC, and phoned in the crit. On the 4th stage I again attacked the remainder of the pack near the top of Dooley Mtn to come in 4th behind the 3 leaders. Hmmm. Something is off there. But, my teammate Josh destroyed everyone in the TT and held on to a good GC position so for having just a 2 man team in the race, we had some solid results.

Masters Nationals happened. I got 5th in the TT, which was nice, but then got pulled for doping control, which was a new experience. The whole process could be the subject of another post, but since it's a TT and you don't know how you did until well after everyone finishes, I had already gone back to the house and showered, peed, etc before checking the results. So it took about 80minutes to produce a sample, and I barely eked out the required 90ml. I do mean barely. It was like right at the line, thanks to some hard work on my part, and I got the stink-eye from the doping control people for such a meager sample. But they let me go.

The Nationals road race also happened. I got 5th again. And this race I replayed over and over in my head wondering how I could have won it. It blew up on the last lap and I rode into contention, over Archie Briggs (a bastard of a hill) I came across in 3rd with a decimated group behind. Somehow it turned into a group of 6 going for the line and the sprint sucked.

And that's it. All of it. So I stopped riding, started eating, drinking and sleeping in.

Good times.

Tuesday in PDX

2011-04-06T07:08:00.000-07:00

This is what Portland bike racers do on Tuesdays: loops at PIR. It's sort of a Thursday Nighter / Greenhill Crit combo, only without any rollers and with more people. We averaged just over 26mph in the 1/2/3 field, which isn't all that fast even with the winds, when compared to Eugene races. It is far more fast/slow/fast/slow. HPC got our man in the 3-up break to take all the sprints and win the final, and I played the team card all night until Yann and I sat up before the last turn to let the sprinters take over. Good times.

The season has been a non-starter so far. Between getting sick 3x, going to Hawaii for 10 days with the wife, horribly crappy weather even for an Oregon winter, and working, I went from being on par with last year by late January to not riding and feeling like I just had an off season. The rebuild is going slowly - And since Oregonians don't do road races into the summer that means there's about 2 months of good stuff left before it all turns to crits and stage races. Doing PIR 2x a week and riding Skyline after work should do a decent job of getting the speed back - but the lack of fast group rides around here is a real downer.

Pappa Hemmingway said it best

2011-02-11T13:09:00.001-08:00

Why hello, shadow

2011-02-09T12:55:00.000-08:00

Good to see you. The Vitamin D is welcome.

It feels like spring. That may be a bad thing, if we pay for it later, but right now I'm happy to be fenderless and warm(ish).

A few weeks ago I rode down to Eugene with Quinn, who suffered a bad day with 50 or so miles to go. It was pouring rain for the first part of the ride and, predictably, my silliness led to illness and the next week was a total write off. And the following week was nearly so as well - while the symptoms were pretty much gone in my daily life, on the bike I was still crap. JR did some hill climbing intervals with me and kicked me around like I was a Cat 5 on knobby tires. But then a long weekend off the bike and some good R&R put things right - it's as if I woke up and lo, it was springtime - with new legs, good weather, and a much better attitude. Of course - fitness still tanked from two weeks of junk, but that's not insurmountable.

What is this round curvy bit called?

2011-02-04T14:09:00.000-08:00

Nutella VS Peanut Butter - an old post revived

2011-01-24T09:25:00.000-08:00

Did you know that today is National Peanut Butter Day? It's true. And since Peanut Butter is a staple of the cyclist diet, I thought it would be worth reviving a three year old post comparing two spreads that provide so many calories to hungry cyclists: Nutella VS Peanut Butter. The showdown.

Original post here.

Nutella VS Peanut Butter
The Ultimate Face-off.

Peanut butter has long been a staple of the American diet. The peanut butter and jelly sandwich is the quintessential American meal. Athletes too have discovered the values of peanut butter as a delicious, healthy, energy laden food which can be eaten on or with a multitude of other items. What peanut butter is to America, Nutella has long been to Europe. Consisting essentially of milk chocolate and hazelnuts, it can be found on breakfast tables all over the continent, it comes in little packets to be spread with bread at hotel buffets, and has been used as a mid and post-ride recovery food for years. It is only relatively recently that Nutella has been commonly available in the US, and that peanut butter has been available in European stores. Globalization has finally put both products in our cupboards at once. And thus we are torn: which is better? Which is the PRO food to eat, which is the SMART food? Does it matter? Will I be judged by my choices? It is time to duke it out and settle it for good, which one reigns over the stomach of the common cyclist? There is only one fair way to settle it. We will compare the two products across a range of criteria, and score them both on a scale of 1-5. Highest total score wins. It's a straight up Face-Off.

The Contestants

There are many brands of peanut butter available, so we have chosen the most worthwhile competitor for the Nutella: Adam's 100% Natural Peanut Butter. Now, Adam's initially requires mixing, which other brands don't but I believe this will not grossly harm the product's chances.

Nutella Website http://www.nutellausa.com/

Adam's Website

1. Presentation

As the saying goes, we eat with our eyes before we eat with our stomachs. Yes, presentation is key. While the perfectly smooth virgin look of any freshly opened jar is a delight to behold, we have to go with Nutella on this one for the totally PRO white top and matching label. The perfectly sized jars also imply rational serving sizing, as opposed to the commonly available massive tubs of peanut butter which are just so white trash. The Euro takes the first round.

Peanut Butter 3
Nutella 5

2. Nutrients

Here we have some interesting numbers. Both listed serving sizes are 2 tablespoons. Nutella registers 190 calories per serving, 100 calories from fat. Peanut butter reads 210, with 150 from fat. However, 21g in the Nutella serving are sugar, versus just 1g for the Peanut Butter, and although sodium is much higher in the PB (120mg versus 15mg), protein is also higher (8g vs 3g) and thus the calories from Peanut Butter are probably of slightly higher value than those in Nutella. Neither, however, is particularly full of carbohydrate, and both are primarily fatty foods, and high calorie. Fool yourself not.

Peanut Butter 3
Nutella 2

3. Spreadability

This one is close. On room temperature breads, both spread about evenly, with maybe a slight edge going to Nutella. On toasted items, however, the Nutella becomes slightly more fluid and glides across your piece with the ease and suppleness one expects from an Italian product. Peanut butter lags just a little behind, but is by no means a difficult spread. Still, the Nutella is just so smooth...

Peanut Butter 4
Nutella 5

4. Bananas

Ah, Bananas. The cyclist's favorite food. Full of fibers and cramp-defying potassium, it is a common post-ride snack, often spread on the spot with either Peanut Butter or Nutella. Here, Nutella's spreadability becomes a liability. Peanut butter has a little more heft to it which allows it to stick to a slippery banana. There are not usually unsightly drips, but rather clean scoops balanced perfectly. Peanut butter has an edge, on technical merit alone.

Peanut Butter 5
Nutella 4

5. Bread

This is a difficult one. Bread's neutral background is a perfect complement and vehicle for a large expanse of flavors and savors. Both Peanut Butter and Nutella do well with this one. It is hard to think of a bread style that does not work for either - and any bread which works with the one works equally well with the other. I will have to call this one a tie.

Peanut Butter 5
Nutella 5

6. Bacon
Yes, bacon. There are few things more decadent than a piece of toast, spread with Peanut Butter, and layered with a strip or two of bacon. The combination of salts and fats, especially while still piping hot, is incredible. Try it. The chocolaty Nutella comes in far behind on th this one - Chocolate and Bacon just don't mix.

Peanut Butter 5
Nutella 1

7. Honey

Peanut Butter - Banana - Honey Sandwich, Nutella - Banana - Honey Sandwich, or just Peanut Butter & Honey on Toast, Nutella and Honey on Toast. Wonderful, warm, sticky, messy, sweet goodness. Both the Peanut Butter and Nutella score highly in combinations with Honey. However, the sweetness of Nutella is just a too much sweet when laid on top of sweet honey, here, Peanut Butter edges Nutella slightly for it's more subtle sweetness and nice balance of saltiness for the sweet & salty combo that is warm breakfast perfection.

Peanut Butter 5
Nutella 4

8. Cookies

Peanut Butter takes this one. I have yet to find a pleasing purely Nutella flavored cookie recipe. If one is available, however, do send it this way. Nutella can be mixed well to create a moist chocolate cookie, but it looses the creaminess and the hazlenut flavors in the process, and. Mind you, they are still delicious. Peanut Butter is a very common cookie ingredient, but a tricky one to work with due to the interesting ways in which it changes the consistency of dough, and a chewy Peanut Butter cookie that retains the full Peanut Butter flavors is a challenge. Of course, the Nutella fans will tell you that cookies are for the fat Americanos, and that Nutella makes wonderful Biscotti. Bull.

Peanut Butter 4
Nutella 2

9. Tortillas

Both items spread well. Neither resists the wrapping process nor spreads excessively once wrapped, and they do not create a mess inside a pocket. Like bread, both flavors are well born by the blandness of the tortilla. Bananas, honey, or other items can easily be added to the tortilla to create a more complex culinary experience. This is a tie. Tip: Avoid the tomato flavored tortillas.

Peanut Butter 4
Nutella 4

10. Straight from the Jar

This is the ultimate test. Armed with a spoon and a jar, and possibly some espresso, which one would you prefer to assault? I think the winner is clear. Peanut butter's heavier texture makes it much more difficult to process in direct form. It sticks to the mouth and the usual saltiness requires more liquids to compensate. Nutella, on the other hand, is a touch smoother to ingest and chocolate's undeniable love affair with coffee is hard to ignore.

Peanut Butter 2
Nutella 5

Totals:
Peanut Butter: 40
Nutella: 37

And by a whisker, Peanut Butter takes it. Yes, versatility, perseverance, and the need for no special treatment, allows the old PB to nip the proud old Euro PRO at the line. There is just no denying a winner across a wide range of challenges, versus a specialist, no matter the hype.

The Tweed Ride: Civil War reinactment for cyclists.

2011-01-19T20:29:00.000-08:00

The Tweed Ride.

Seriously?

Fashion riders. But with a dash of irony added to the narcissism. Like hipsters for hipsters.

I saw a dude on Skyline the other day with a wool jersey, no rain coat (it was pouring out), and a courier rack.

He looked cold.

Should have had some Tweed.

Portland bike lanes - meet the bike lane guy.

2011-01-04T10:52:00.000-08:00

Everyone is familiar with the bike lane guy. You know, the white street painted stick figure hovering over two circles that insinuate that he's riding a bicycle. The bike lane guy lives in the bike lane, letting us all know that this traffic lane is for cyclists.

Most cyclists who live in or commute through a city see, oh, dozens of copies of the bike lane guy every day. This is him:

When we see the same thing over and over - a stick guy on a bike in the lane ahead - our brains start to bybass the actual observation of the image and start to just assume what the image is, what it represents, and assign a value to it - i.e. "bike lane guy, therefore this is a bike lane". So we miss the subtleties that we otherwise would pick up on while looking at side by side images of different bike lane guys.

Here, the bike lane guys is obviously in more of a hurry than the one above as he leans forward slightly:

And here we find bike lane guy sprinting to make an intersection before a red light, or something like that: and judging by the splat on his head it probably isn't going very well.

Now, bike lane guy can get positioned several different ways. I'm pretty sure I've seen bike lane guy in a bike lane recumbent position, and anything in between forward to the racing mode above.

But now I have to ask, how many people noticed when bike lane guy put on a helmet?

Or when bike lane guy, who usually rides left to right across your path, decided to turn himself around and head into the car traffic on your left?

Now that's kind of strange. But since bike lane guy is, afterall, the product of a stencil, it's pretty easy to flip him around and spray him onto the road the other way.

Then bike lane guy changes helmets. Did you notice when his brain bucket got a little more rounded?

Or what about when bike lane guy, who obviously is concerned about the clumsiness of a full sized bike in a city full of alternative transit options and office buildings with limited covered bike parking, got himself a little 20" wheeled Bike Friday?

Then there's the poor bike lane guy who came in the three-piece stencil variety, and got laid on the ground with a little too much paint and suffered a few bumps and bruises:

Although most of his brethren came out OK.

Sometimes bike lane guy is subtle. For example, this bike lane guy traded his old bulky helmet for a svelte new one, with some serious ventilation:

And every once in a while, bike lane guy likes to give us a smile and let us know that bike commuting is not only good for the environment and your health but also fun:

Of course, bike lane guys would be lonely without bike lane gals:

Who might think that they are princesses of the road:

And sometimes bike lane guy decided to do some decidedly silly (and dangerous) things, such as roast marshmallows / play drums while riding:

In downtown Portland, serious businessmen also commute by bike and the bike lane guy respects that:

Although you have to wonder what a Texas Longhorns fan is doing in Duck Country:

Or if Pinnochio really rides a bike:

Or if playing a trumpet while riding is a good idea at all (one nice feature to bikes is how silent they are - this defeats the purpose):

So there you go. Bike lane guy is everywhere, right under your nose, changing outfits, changing stripes, changing colors, toying with your eyes. Remember to give him a nod next time you ride over his head.

Miracles of Technology

2010-12-29T12:53:00.001-08:00

Santa was good to me this year: a shiny new Garmin Edge 800 now sits perched on my stem. This little baby can do almost anything. Any data you can think of, it can display, however you want. On multiple pages. The touch screen works easily with thick gloves on. A swipe of the finger changes pages. It's a cinch to create a route on mapmyride.com and upload it to the device, then just follow the color screen navigation around backroads in unexplored countryside, avoiding the worst traffic, and going new places.

Technology is amazing. It's a freaking miracle.

The more we have, the more we rely on it. And we forget what technology won't do: it won't do your homework for you. And it sure won't pedal your bike.

I uploaded a route yesterday that took me from SE PDX out to Gresham and then through Sunny Valley (hah - big lie) and back to the Springwater Corridor trail. 42.05 miles exactly, predicted by the Garmin. And since the weather was crap, I took the fixed gear. One great thing about GPS devices is that you just drop them onto any bike and away you go - no magnets, wheel size changes, just click and go.

So I did. And, 20 miles later, I realized the two failures of technology: it didn't tell me that I would be going over some short steep hills, it merely informed me, while I was climbing in my 44x16, that the pain I was feeling was inflicted by an 8% grade and that I was now 100m higher than I was 10 minutes ago. Great. I should have looked at an elevation profile before picking my bike. And no, the little miracle of technology wasn't going to help me schlep the bike over the hill. That job still belong to my legs.

I was blinded by technology. On the other hand, I knew exactly where my dry clothes were waiting.

Early Morning

2010-12-14T09:24:00.000-08:00

I forget sometimes how much I enjoy being out the door in the dark, on the road before anyone else, and getting a ride in at the very start of the day. Last week I went down to Eugene for a couple of days to finish off some moving, and rode before dawn for a pair of peaceful 3-hr rides - just me and the wild turkeys - that put me home right about the time most people were starting their day, with time for a stop at Hideaway Bakery for a hunk of coffee cake and a large cup of java.

CX Nationals - the elites

2010-12-13T12:29:00.000-08:00

Katie Compton is a bad-ass. She had a bad start, rode through everyone, and when she and Gould had a big gap on the rest of the world, she turned up the gas until Gould blew up. 7 in a row, done.

The men had a drag race on their hands. Watch Trebon toss the Rapha guy's bike at him after they all go down in a pile on the first lap.

And finally in the Baller category, how about this guy, who finished 7th in the Elite race while racing on a single speed?

Dear Portland Drivers

2010-12-07T20:19:00.000-08:00

Putting your cell phone in "Speaker" mode and holding it to your chin does not count as "hands-free".

Thanks.

TCC.

PS this goes for the rest of the country as well.

It's pretty when the rain stops

2010-11-24T09:05:00.000-08:00

Looking south from the Steel bridge last week, at the start of what turned into a 5 1/4 hr ride.

Of course, this week, after a few days of liquid sunshine in 40F temperatures that made riding outside an act of lunacy, the rains stopped and the mercury went way south. Now it's 20F and Ben and I are about to attempt an outside ride. It's an act born of frustration, optimism, and maybe more than a little stubbornness. But at least it's not raining, right?

The chicken goes what? Cheep Cheep Cheep.

2010-11-18T14:04:00.000-08:00

This just shouldn't happen. Something is seriously wrong with our educational system - not only did someone misspell "cheap" but a series of people failed to catch it in the production and delivery of some pretty basic marketing copy.

I know it's not directly related, but basic failures in English don't give me a whole lot of confidence in, say, the care in handling of my food. The only time I want to hear "Cheep" in relation to my chicken is while it's still kicking - and I prefer not to eat it with feathers on.

Boom, Winter is here.

2010-11-17T18:50:00.000-08:00

The lady B and I had a coffee date in Sellwood this afternoon so I decided to put that in the middle of a nice bike ride and show off some spandex to the customers at Marsee Baking. It took about 5 minutes for me to turn around, go back inside, and grab a heavier coat, tights, and second pair of DeFeet wool gloves. Holy Cold and Wet, Batman. 44F with solid rain and gusting winds is a whole new wardrobe and a world away from 44F and partly cloudy. Especially once the rain finally creeps under your jacket collar, down the back of your shorts, and through the seal at the top of your booties.

Riding in Portland itself is just not all that much fun. Sure, it's ranked as a great city for bicycling, and it is - a great city for bicycling. It's still a big city. And big city riding always kind of sucks, especially when the weather turns bad.

So today, when Trimet Bus #2833 pull a jack-ass-in-a-sportscar move and tried to pass me quickly on the left on Barbur drive and then cut across the bike lane to get to the right turn lane without waiting to be clear (or waiting 3 seconds for me to get far enough forward that he could cross safely behind me), after I spent hours pounded with rain and repeatedly forced out into traffic due to large wet leaf dumps in the bike lane, I threw up a hand and cursed city life.

There are two major threats to riding in SW PDX in the winter: drivers, and leaf piles. The drivers are what they are - most good, a few bad - and that's a constant. The leaf piles I just don't understand. It appears that the official road cleaning policy here is to let leaves and junk get good and soaked for a few weeks, and then hope that enough cars drive up and down the roads to cut a few nice tracks down the middle for traction. Combine that with vegetation so overgrown on all the road edges that most turns are completely blind, and you have an exercise in bike ninja skills just to get through some of the neighborhoods safely. Especially if some antsy driver behind you decides to floor it.

All in all, this town is great for commuting by bike - compared to other big cities. It's even great compared to most small cities outside of the PacNW since at least around here the idea of non-motorized transportation is taken seriously. It is also not fair to hold PDX to a Willamette Valley small town standard - you can't cram 2 1/4 million people into the Portland–Vancouver–Hillsboro Metro Area and expect Eugene-Springfield type traffic conditions. But still - I expect my taxes to buy me civilization. Roads swept clean every couple of weeks and safe, courteous public employees are pretty important parts of a civilized community, at least in my eye.

Keep it safe out there.

A milestone in PDX riding

2010-11-10T16:55:00.001-08:00

I haven't gotten a flat in almost two weeks.

The last time I was in Eugene, I stopped by Paul's Bicycle Way of Life to see Matt and gripe about the excess of junk on big city roads, and turned me to some Bontrager Race All-Weather hardcase tires.

And... no flats since. This is a small miracle. For some reason I had seemed to pick up every staple, glass shard, and razor-sharp rock available and the recent rain hasn't helped much. Riding through Tigard, Beaverton, and this side of Portland has forced me onto heavier roads like Beaverton-Hillsdale Hwy and Scholls Ferry, which inevitably have that triple-whammy, flat-inducing combination of "junk-pile" next to "wide-spacing-drain-cover-wheel-trap" with "soccer-mom-on-cell-phone-in-SUV-next-to-you". Multiple times per ride. So through the junk I go. Eventually it catches up to you.

It's almost enough to make me take up driving. Almost.

Pennyfarthing - Boom

2010-11-04T12:01:00.000-07:00

Hey Portland: Try to out-hipster this.

Love,

The Common Cyclist

Blaise rides Alder to 24th from alexander hongo on Vimeo.

No English Majors Here!

2010-11-02T21:07:00.000-07:00

I was just riding along, out by Sherwood, when some of the local farm marketing caught my eye. Drawn to local business, and especially food, the friendly signs drew my attention and soon got me excited. But any member of POEM would have soon been heartbroken...

Yes? Local? I like crafts. Especially local hand-made ones. The artsy kind. Go on...

Collectibles? How could I not like antiques? Maybe there is a rustic kitchen utensil for sale. Those are so cool! Tell me more!

Gift items? You sell more than apples at this farm? Yes? I can do my Christmas shopping early! Yes! Yes! I want to know!

AARGH!!! NO! NO! FAIL! ENGLISH LANGUAGE FAIL! MY BRAIN IS TRYING TO ESCAPE MY SKULL!!!

Seriously people, what are our schools teaching these days? It's not THAT hard... .

What women think

2010-10-26T10:54:00.000-07:00

Like most good cyclists, certainly ones worth their shoe covers, I take to touting the health and environmental benefits of cycling to anyone who will listen. In particular, being a man who commutes (when appropriate) religiously by bike, I do my best to convince those who aren't yet annoyed with me that riding a bicycle to work is a noble and worthwhile endeavor. And, like most good women, certainly ones who try to keep men on bicycles around, the lady B. has gotten on board with the idea or will at least try to convince me that she's giving it her best shot. This, of course, just got me all enthused so I mapped out the "best" route to and from her job and convinced her to ride with the promise of an escort. In the rain. 11.5km. 45min either way. Traffic. And a steep stairstep climb known as Corbett St. Which, of course, seemed fine to me on my road bike. Without a daypack full of work clothes and rain gear.

What B. didn't know about our commute is that, like Mel Gibson in "What Women Want", I magically developed the powers to hear her thoughts in my head while she pedals her bike. You may call it reading body language or facial expressions but I really do hear the complete sentences, complete with tone of voice and and bad language. I recorded her thought monologue for the entire 45min. I present it to you here:

Look at these bike clothes.
Why do cyclists wear this stuff?
My shoes look pretty. I like white.
Oh I guess we are going now. It's cold out.
Are we there yet?
This is silly. But he looks so happy on his bike.
He should ride more, I like it when he is happy.
He should spend more time with me, I like it when he is happy.
That car is not a very pretty color.
I am hungry.
Are we there yet?
Do these pants make me look fat?
I like men in bike shorts.
Oh wait where did he go?
Oh good he is waiting for me at that light.
Maybe I had better ride quicker.
Why does he have to keep riding away? What is he doing?
Are we there yet?
Oh no this is the part where we have to go up that hill.
Which button do I push to go into my easy gear?
Nope, not that one.
OK that one.
Damnit why isn't he riding with me?
He looks so good in bike shorts.
I can't ride this hill.
This is ridiculous.
This is stupid.
I am hungry
OK now I am mad.
He should be riding with me.
Don't you dare push me I am going to make this on my own.
Go away.
Come back here.
I am going to walk now.
Say something sweet or else I will get mad.
Don't tell me I'm almost there I can damn well see for myself that I'm not.
I could have been sitting in a warm bus right now.
I think I am going anaerobic.
Does he do this every day?
This is a lot of bike riding. It's been like 20 minutes.
I bet he rides at least an hour a day. That seems like a lot.
Why did I have to date a cyclist?
These people are crazy.
I could have dated that Foosball player.
We could have spent evenings spinning plastic people around on sticks.
That sounds like fun.
It's freaking dark right now.
I can't even see his bike shorts.
I hope this light keeps working.
He had better appreciate me for commuting on my bike.
I am doing this for him.
He better cook dinner.
Oh good I made it to the top.
I wonder how many times I have to do this.
What did I sign myself up for?
Are we there yet?

PBR doesn't suck

2010-10-25T12:20:00.000-07:00

Just to follow up on that last post - please note that PBR does NOT rank amongst the 50 worst beers in the world on ratebeer.com - but Michelob Ultra, Coors Light, Bud Light, and other American faves do. Take THAT, rednecks - not only did hipsters steal your trucker caps but now their cheap working class beer outranks yours. Watch out - they are coming for your camo next. What'll you do then?

Yep, I'm poor.

2010-10-21T10:45:00.000-07:00

Not ashamed of it, either. Cut off the UPC code, sent a copy of the receipt, filled out the rebate tag. In the mail. The $4 I get back in 6-8 weeks should buy me another sixer of PBR right around Christmas.

Ssshhh, I'm riding.

2010-10-19T13:50:00.000-07:00

One of the quickest and simplest ways to get into halfway decent riding from where I'm at in Portland is to head out Scholls Ferry Rd towards Sherwood and get into the country roads away from the main arteries of north-south traffic between Beaverton, Tigard, Wilsonville, etc etc. It's a bit ugly, as most of the riding here is, for the first 30-40minutes while getting out of town, there's big intersections and stoplights at maddeningly close intervals. Once you get out, though, there's an OK network of roads to pick your way around on, if you figure out what goes where and how to avoid riding down the worst of the busy roads.

Even when you end up out of town, though, you realize that the definition of a "quiet road" changes dramatically depending on what your baseline expectation is. Nothing exemplifies that more than the a routine event on any longish bike ride: a sudden need to urinate and a desire to find a quiet spot to do so where you are unlikely to see a car while you take care of business. Now, around Eugene that's pretty much anywhere. You just pull off, take care of it, and 9 times out of 10 there's no car in sight when you start and none go by when you finish. Not so around here.

Last week I rode out and tried a few different loops before ending up going out to Sherwood and finding my way though the tiny downtown looking for a promising pavement upon which I could stand and admire the local greenery while contributing various salts and minerals to the soil. This was not an easy task. In slight desperation I ended up climbing Ladd Road and finding a little turn-off from there where I could relieve myself in peace, and while I stood and observed how the blackberries were unfortunately past their prime I had a sudden realization: I had found silence.

Yes, just after the top of this hill, far out of my way and nowhere near what would be considered a "short spin" from SW Portland, I had finally found silence on my ride. Not the absolute kind of silence, mind you, but the kind of silence that you get when all human noises are removed and just the normal sounds of a planet going about its business remain - wind, birds, etc. For two weeks I rode with the sound of cars in my ears, even on the quieter roads, for a car was seemingly always in sight if not actually passing me on these quiet "country roads". Everywhere seems close to some relatively major thoroughfare, and if you can't find the privacy to pee you certainly can't find relief from the noise of traffic either.

Even looking out from the top of a hill, on the quietest road I had ridden on in my short explorations, it is not possible to escape the feeling that my post was a mere oasis, and that any direction would inevitably drop me back into cars.

By contrast, I was lucky enough to do two shortish rides around the lower valley this weekend, one in Eugene and the other around Corvallis and Philomath. In Eugene, Azul and I went climbing in the south hills neighborhoods and found what would pass for supremely quiet roads up here. We did some loops I used for standard training when I was short on time - Timberline, McLean, Chambers, Lorane, Blanton, Crest, Willamette. No cars brushed me or flipped me off or tried to right hook in front of me. It was amazing. Then, riding on Willamette at about 50th St, I noticed something else that I hadn't experienced in two weeks: animals. Two nice bucks, one fat doe, and dozens of turkeys. We used to see animals on every ride in Eugene. The most I have seen here is roadkill squirrel carcasses, and the occasional suicidal live one.

On Sunday I explored some of the small roads through the hills near Corvallis and then ended up riding down Hwy 34 a ways to get some steady state in. Again, it was quiet. I saw a few cars but nothing you would call "traffic". They gave me lots of room - they had lots of it themselves. I saw more animals. I stopped and took a leak. No-one drove by and saw me. I saw some forest, some timber, farms with goats and squash and cabbage and not just big "Pumpkin Patch! Corn Maze!" signs. I saw back yards open to the road. I didn't get a flat. It was very, very nice.

Lawyer Up!

2010-10-11T17:10:00.000-07:00

There is a group ride on Mondays and Thursdays that leaves out of SW Broadway and Yamhill called "The Lawyer Ride". I think that's because it was started by R. Thomas, Esq, back in the day, but I suspect that a fair number of the gentlemen who show up are also in the legal business. I heard about the ride yesterday and went down to check it out this afternoon, having heard the ride described as a quick one.

First, I have to say that it's sweet to see a real group ride happening, an all-comers type of thing that leaves at 12:15 sharp and regroups when needed. It's a bit like a mini mid-week CSC ride, which is the weekend event down in EUG. And these guys don't mess around - there was some serious bike bling being ridden through PDX traffic this afternoon. Check out exhibit A:

Yep, that's a BMC "somethingorother-machine" in full race mode - Edge carbon wheels on DT 240s hubs (cost more than my whole bike collection), full SRAM Red including cassette, carbon SLR saddle, head to toe Rock Racing kit - I was very nearly intimidated.

Next, I have to say that these guys are a little bit crazy. The "route" is a climb up out of town at a chatty pace and then two laps around some road, I think Fairmount or Fairview or something, followed by a ~4-5min climb. They regroup after each lap and before the climb. The laps are, basically, sketchy. It's blind corners, some double-apexes, have leaves and stuff on the roads, and are tight. They start out in a double paceline and then sort of race it in the second half. The twists and turns are such, though, that it's not really possible to drill it full gas. You kind of have to float through and someone eventually just gaps people off to get off the front. I did a lot of jumping and braking as I constantly came into the turns too hot for my comfort. It was fun, but I wouldn't do it in the rain.

After the ride Ben and I rode back to NE so I could borrow his PowerTap hub tool and replace the batteries in my unit, then I rode down to SE to see if I could figure out a better route from there to here - SW, by Alpenrose - for potential commuting. I rode the three routes that seem to be feasible. They all have a certain suck-factor.

As before, getting from Sellwood to SW is not very fun. There just doesn't appear to be a good way to do it. Any way you go is uphill for a good chunk, which is fine since that's a problem of geography more than anything. I went through the cemetary off of Hwy 43, which was pretty, but requires crossing heavy traffic once and the gates close between dusk and 8am. No dice. Going up Corbett is about the best way from a traffic perspective, but it has 20%+ grades. Not fun on a commute, if you have a pack, rain clothes, and a 39t small ring. Then I went and figured the way back if I take Barbur, which isn't awesome either because of the heavy duty traffic, despite the apparent status of Barbur as a main cycling thoroughfare from downtown to SW. And, of course, while grunting up the hills to get to Barbur heading home, I flatted. Thanks, PDX.

I took the wheel off, inserted my spare tube, tried to pump and found the valve stem just a hair short to properly seal on the frame pump as the DT RR1.2 rims are a few mm's too tall. Great. So I pulled that tube out, sat with my $1.99 patch kit and an extra handful of minutes of my time, and patched the original rubber. Not so happy.

I finally made it back on the Beaverton-Hillsdale Hwy, and TT'ed back towards the house. Speeding home on the slight downhill at about 30mph, I passed that most ignoble of all PDX commuters, the hipster on the fixed gear. This one at least had a front brake, I noticed as I went around. He was certainly giving it though, apparently in a bit of a hurry. And passing this creature triggered its competitive instinct has he (unbeknownst to me at the time) gave chase. Hipster took the lead for good when, as I stopped at a traffic light, he flew through the intersection's red light about 15s later and very nearly painted the front of a school bus a brand new color. Way to represent the cycling community.

That dude should come on the lawyer ride this Thursday. He's going to want one if I see him between now and then, because I might be tempted to U-lock his skinny jeans to his frame, and his frame to the nearest water tower.

Dear Google: I can't do that.

2010-10-08T14:21:00.000-07:00

I know the bicycling directions are in Beta, but really? Straight through houses?

PDX - WTF?

2010-10-05T07:46:00.000-07:00

The first rides from the new base of operations (right around the corner from Alpenrose Velodrome) have been ... less than satisfactory.

Monday's ride consisted of exploring SW PDX/Tigard/Beaverton and inadvertently doing big loops as I dropped onto the occasional terrifying road when, say, a bike lane suddenly stopped on a blind downhill single lane turn and I found myself committed to the flow of traffic. Or when I somehow wound up in downtown, and had to alternate bike lanes and full-traffic lanes, at the start of rush hour, to get my butt back home. In the last 7 years, since I first moved to Eugene, I could count on one hand the number of rides where I returned more stressed out and pissed off than when I left - Monday was one of them.

Tuesday was another.

I took a good look at Google Maps before heading out, with the intent of riding out to Forest Grove, which really looked like it should have been 20 miles out, 20 back, and maybe 5 miles of loop out there to see the town a bit. So I followed the main roads that appeared to be safe, and despite a fair amount of traffic actually made it out OK... eventually. Not only is there more traffic at any one time than I would see in my neck of Eugene on any day, except maybe if I tried to ride West 11th, but the scale of things meant that all of those stoplights, stop signs, and general traffic-related events took a hefty chunk out of the ride. That, and of course the inevitable massive-staple-to-the-tire routine that happens when you ride on crap roads for miles and miles.

I'm sure there's a better way out West, on back roads and such. But it's not intuitive and getting lost can put a serious dent in your afternoon.

Eventually I got out and decided that 90min was more than enough in one direction and that I needed to head back. I ran into a kind professor from Pacific University who was commuting home and took me on some back roads to drop me off on Hwy 47 back towards Hillsboro.

This was the part of the ride where, for 20 minutes or so, I got up some false hope about finding nice quiet roads to train on, relatively safe from cars, with blackberries and apple trees and green grass waving in the wind. Sure, 10 of those 20 minutes we rode around a big cloud of smoke emanating from a burning vineyard, but that's just a sure sign of being in the countryside. Right?

So, I headed back. Which turned into a complete crap-show. A wrong turn, dwindling day-light, and general frustration landed me in the town of Farmington, where my cell phone, my sister, and Google Maps informed me that I had gone the wrong way down Farmington Rd for several miles and had overshot my turn to home a long ways back. I headed back, lights now flashing, until the vanishing bike lanes and heavy traffic had me pull over and call for a ride home. Departure time: 2:30. Return time: 7:15. Total ride time (while moving): 3:40. Stoppage time: stupid. Plus, I had meant to have dinner on the table by 6:30 - which meant I wasn't the only grumpy one, and rightfully so.

So I think that I need a GPS. Well, I need the $450 that an Edge 800 would cost, more specifically. ANT+ reception of my PowerTap and touch-screen color mapping? Yes please. Maps and a good sense of N-S-E-W orientation just aren't going to cut it out here. I'll need some actual direction, and a reference for when I am looking for shortcuts or the quickest way home.

The disheartening first rides were saved when former Whitman rider / Rubicon-Orbea fast man / next year's neo pro / Quadzilla / bad-ass Ben Chaddock took the lead and we rode from his place in the Rose Quarter out past Troutdale, on old Hwy 30 up and up and up until we sat somewhere high above the gorge where, finally, it seemed like we had gone for a real bike ride and not just a glorified urban commute.

On the road

2010-09-02T11:51:00.000-07:00

From boingboing. Fitting, since I traded the former for the latter this month and indeed grew fatter and poorer. It's about time to embrace my inner urban cyclist and don the plad uniform of Oregon bicyclists and get my butt moving again, if only to and from the coffee shops.

August is gone, in a whirlwind of motion and motors. All the gradual house-sorting and purging accelerated into a mania as we packed up and moved out mid-month when I got a lease signed on it starting September 1. A planned trip to Yellowstone and a two-week road trip brought the move-out deadline closer than anticipated but in the end it was good to get all that done with and hit the road, with no bikes in tow, to explore the west.

You can put all romanticism aside in the mental imagery of cruising the West in a sedan full of camping gear and home-made venison jerky. The reality is that there is a stark contrast between the idyllic imagination of Western history with cowpokes, Native Americans, bison, grizzlies, etc and the beat-up pick-ups that spit black smoke in the back country, the sprawling strip malls, obese travelers and fast food-joints, land abuse and tourist trap towns. Then there's the fact that life in the Old West never was as glamorous as our collective memory would have it. It's always been a dirty, mean, hardscrabble place to scratch a living from dry land far from major routes of commodity transportation. Nowadays there's a lot of signs for Meth treatment, tired towns clinging to existence more out of habit than practicality, and agribusiness overpowering the smaller operations to bring us cheap food-like products to our pervasive super-stores.

But once you get beyond the human condition in the Old West, a road trip is undeniably an enthralling experience. Yellowstone hot springs, Teton mountains, Sawtooth mountains, all amazing sights. The best part of the whole trip came after leaving the traffic jam and display of human mental debilitation that was Yellowstone National Park, when camping was no more complicated than turning off on a random road headed towards public land and driving until an amazing campsite appeared, usually by a small stream or in a clearing with a view of the local geography. Just being a few minutes off of the main road meant that anything from moose to mule deer and quail would saunter by the site in the late morning and early evening, sometimes stopping long enough to eye the campfire suspiciously before strolling off.

Crossing back into Oregon still felt like a relief. Going over Santiam Pass in the rain was like coming home, leaving the dust and sunburns behind it's time to get urban again and get life, part II, underway. Now I just need a job.

Being done

2010-08-09T13:54:00.000-07:00

Cascade was unspectacular. Perhaps the 20hrs of riding the week before were too much, perhaps I just peaked somewhere on the Thursday Nighter that week and my body shut down. Who knows. At any rate, it was fun lining up to an NRC race and stressful as hell in some parts, but it sure opened the eyes to the differences between "elite", "really elite", and "totally pro" levels of riding. It was awesome and I'm thankful to Rubicon for giving me the chance to ride. I flatted out 22k into the first climb up Bachelor on the Friday stage, and didn't get myself off the road quickly enough and got a slow wheel change, involving a broken skewer, a poorly fitting wheel, and general chaos and bad luck. In the ensuing 117km I failed to catch back up to the UHC driven Pro/1 field (imagine that). Time cut, and fined by some dumbass official for imaginary drafting and "mixing in" with the women's breakaway (neither of which was possible, I was well behind their cars plus out in the other lane the whole time), so it was a miserable day. So it goes.

Saturday I just did a slow 3hr ride and watched the crit, then hung up the bike for four days. When finally I got back on the bike, debating my racing options for the rest of the summer, I realized that my body was pretty much shut down. It's been a long time without a real break from either racing or training, and the whole body felt heavy and tired. The power is still there, but the good feelings just aren't.

The Tuesday crit has grown, it seems, over the years, and we now get a regular ~30 guys lining up and on a good night the wind blows hard from the North-West so that splits happen, breaks go, and pegging the pace in the gutter on the home stretch can do a good job of putting the hurt on the unwitting racers and set up a nice counter attack for a long breakaway. It's generally fun, and I love to race it hard. The more laps the better, but this week was only 30 laps and no-one gets sufficiently tired in 30 laps for the hammering to really split things up. I raced with less enthusiasm than normal and when the 3-lap-to-go flyer got brought back, I sat up on the back. My training journal entry for Tuesday reads "crit night. kind of dumb." And that's it.

Yesterday I almost didn't do the Thursday Nighter. But I rolled out anyways and couldn't make up my mind if I wanted to try and race it, or follow wheels and see what happened in the sprint. We started slowly and made it up over Welders as a group at the fairly pedestrian average of around 35kmph for those first 15 minutes, picking up on the hill but just bumming around until then. Right after the backside of that a little group went and I made the split second decision to jump on it, and away we went: Mark C, Rob, AP, Billy, and myself. A group that, if we put out heads down, should by all measure be able to ride clean away from the regular group. And that's what we eventually did, rolling 45kmph for the rest of the ride, though AP turned off at Briggs (resting for the State RR). My whole body felt like crap though the power was easy enough. I started with 20-25s pulls then started doing 45s turns, and as we picked up the speed in the last 25min or so we left the main group far, far behind. My breathing was easy, there was no pain, just Watts. Nothing happened. We kept turning and Sprinter's Hill felt like a cruise. Rob led it out at about 48kmph and ramped it up to 53 before the sprint, and I hit 62kmph coming from third wheel to take my first, and probably last, Thursday Nighter of the year.

It felt easy, I won a sprint (!!! - though that was possibly the best group of non-sprinters I could have asked for), and the form is definitely there. But form is fickle, and as any cyclist knows, sometimes very fleeting. Form seems to reside all through your body, from muscles to the nervous system and into the psyche of the cyclist. Some days the muscles are primed but the messages to go don't seem to get through from your brain stem, and some days your brain isn't in the right place to want to go. I cruised up McBeth and down Fox Hollow after the ride and stayed in the little ring all through town, feeling not tired but kind of empty. Not the usual post-ride kind of empty either, as I was hydrated and fed and well awake. Just the kind of empty where bikes took a backseat to the rest of life, as I thought about housework and job applications and my impending move up to Portland. When the garage door opened I looked at an empty hook on the ceiling and almost hung the race bike up on it.

It's been a few days now, and I haven't felt like riding yet. I did weed the yard and drifted the McKenzie with Matt to toss leech patterns at stubborn steelhead. In another month I'll be stalking birds and getting excited about my big game tags. Sometime in October I'll want to train again, but until then, I'm merely another recreational cyclist out for a spin once or twice a week when I feel like it.

Delta, Weekend, Cascade

2010-07-18T17:06:00.000-07:00

That's how July ends.

Delta was fast. Ben snagged the prologue win over Svein Tuft by a fraction of a second and made everyone sit up and pay attention to the reason the Kiwis call him "Quadzilla"! My own time was 10s slower, which would have been 23rd - but for my dumb-ass letting myself get flustered and missing my start time by a couple of seconds to be given a 20s penalty. Not that it was going to matter as GC wasn't my job, but still - total Cat 5 move. Next start time is getting sharpied onto my hand, my top tube, my helmet, and maybe my water bottles.

The crit averaged 30.5mph which is 3mph faster than any other race I've done, and while I wasn't physically in trouble I was simply stuck in the field. No moving. Fitness was not the issue, but skill - how to move through a field that is screaming down the straights at 32-33mph consistently and raging through tight corners. Hats off to the boys in yellow who took cash and contested all night. Not much help was I.

The road race, 140k of it, was different. We did 4 laps of a circuit in North Delta then did a longish windy transfer over to 10 laps of an 8k finishing circuit in Tsawwassen. Quinn attacked at the flag drop, and I followed the next move that bridged up to his little group and thus Rubicon had 2 men in the main move of the day, which was 10 total. Quinn sat on for the most part and I just rolled through, keeping it going and letting Quinn rest his legs for the pain that was to come later. My chain began to fall apart with 3-4 laps to go though so I had to pull over in the feed zone and go find a chain tool in the team trailer (took my chain apart with no tool - three of four corners where the pins pressed in to one link were cracked and gone), and ended up riding in alone one lap down, while Quinn did his job and broke up the break so that it would get caught and the three sprinters we had in the field could take their shot at the line. However, Zac Bell rolled out of our break and hung on to win by a couple of seconds, but we still put Ben in 5th on GC and all in all had a good day. I had awesome legs and did a good ride, which was redemption for sucking in the other two events. Motoring is what I do, and it's good to be able to put that skill to use for a specific job to help a great team do their jobs - which is to make us all look good, raise awareness for LiveSTRONG, and get kissed by the pretty ladies who think we are fast.

So now, with 19hrs stacked into the early part of this week, I'm hoping the legs come around again since Tuesday evening will mark the start of my first-ever NRC race, and what a start it is: The Cascade Cycling Classic, which pretty much looks like the most brutal race I would ever dream of starting. Cruise on over to the CCC website and take a look at that stage information - it's ugly. Only the crit shows any flat ground. Suffering is the name of the game, and when the Pro's are throwing down I'm going to be waiting for the calls of "gruppetto!" after I do my job and bring bottles to our GC guys in the 95F heat for as long as I can. I just hope this race is civil.

Life is good, life is... ridiculous

2010-07-09T11:29:00.000-07:00

Nationals hosed my legs for a couple of days. I think the heat drained all the minerals out of my body and there was a bone-deep kind of ache going on long after the rest of me felt pretty all-right. Still I tapped out 19hrs, the most stress of which was loaded into a few solid rides built around the Thursday Nighter and then later the Firecracker Crit on the 4th.

I rolled home after the crit and parked the bike, scoured the fridge quickly for some grub, and hopped into the shower. Ten minutes later I got out and smelled a faint smoke/burnt rubber kind of smell, which was really weird, but people barbeque this time of year so I wasn't too worried. I checked that I hadn't somehow turned on the stove or that the electric kettle wasn't somehow cooked out. Nope, all good. Then, standing in my towel, I noticed a bunch of cars parked out in front of the house and so I took a little peek out the window to see what was going on. And what was going on was some serious 4th of July action: flags, smoke, firemen, chainsaws, crowds, and very nearly a cooked dog as the house across the street and one-over was literally on fire:

Yep, in the short time between me getting home and getting out of the shower, the fence next to that house had caught fire (guess is that a firework landed in the bark-o-mulch) and completely burned down while catching the house itself on fire, and the fire department showed up and cut holes into the roof which let out the more enormous plume of grey and brown smoke. They stripped the siding off one side, rescued the dog, sprayed water 60ft into the air as they hosed down the rafters, and generally put on a good show. This was far better than the evening fireworks at Alton Baker, although much scarier to think that it could have just as easily been the house next door to me, or for that matter, mine.

Tuesday I had an interview in PDX and spent the whole day up there visiting family after business was taken care of and also decided to stay and cut my teeth on my first ever trip to PIR for the Tuesday night series. The crits in Eugene are 25-30miles and 15-30 guys, this was 40 miles and 75 riders on a windy night and a twisty race track. I got there late (Portland traffic = suck) and got almost zero warmup. We rolled out slowly so I attacked the first time down the back straightaway. Rubicon's Taylor came up, then eventually Austin, Roman, and Ben C making 3 yellow riders, Austin and me. And we went 46kmph for almost the first half hour, and Taylor eventually had enough, then Ben, and Roman Austin and I kept the pace up all the way to the end. We put 3 minutes onto the field and had them in our sights on the home stretch. Awesome. I don't know if the field have ever been lapped at PIR but I think it needs to be done - that would mean gaining 4 minutes in 40 miles. We were ridiculous. I bombed the sprint but ended up 2nd due to the strange points thing - not having realized all along that we were getting points (3 deep) on the bell laps. Oops! Not like I would have wanted to be losing sprints to Roman every couple of laps anyways. It worked out. Hella fun. And made my butt super sore from going hard on no warmup.

Thursday morning I drove back up to Portland to meet up with the yellow squad and take a trip up to Vancouver, BC as a guest to race the Tour de Delta with them, part of the remnants of BC SuperWeek. We've been put up in host housing and I have had the distinct pleasure of listening to a bunch of Kiwis make fun of Canadian accents - which means I have no idea what they are saying but it sounds funny as hell.

Delta is a short 3k prologue, a crit, and a 160k windy hard road race. Sounds great, right? Right. Except that we found out this morning that the crit is in fact the Canadian National Championships. WHAT?! Well that just upped the ante - especially since Ben, our Canuck, is now completely jacked on the crit. Oh, lord. This is going to be harder than I expected, and I expected it to be hard. I had figured I could survive the crit and hopefully help the boys do some good in the RR, but since this is a sprinting type of team this crit is now the Real Deal. And I am afraid that I am going to Suck. Well, I'm strong enough to come through OK, but a National level crit is not exactly the kind of thing where I am going to do much good. So we will see. I skipped the US Natz crit on purpose, and now am entered to the Canadian Natz crit on accident. Hah, the irony of that.

Well, at least I got to wear a clean new pair of shorts and if I can do any good at all, even for one lap, it will be worth it.

70 miles of glory...

2010-06-28T10:30:00.000-07:00

Then, 11 miles of hanging on, and 19 miles of dragging to finish.

The early break went at the gun. I was in it. Kennett, Reeb and I took off, were joined by 9 more after a half lap, but then it got all weird and people were sitting in, not working, etc etc. Maybe 5 guys were consistently turning. On the second time through the feedzone four of us just rolled off... and we ended up out there for 70 miles, 4 1/2 laps, pushing and pushing and baking in the sun. Like I said to my very surprised support crew (i.e. family and lady) in the feedzone on the first lap - "why the hell not?". I went to Nationals and raced my bike ... and it was awesome.

The race, in images:

http://www.cyclingnews.com/races/usa-cycling-junior-u23-elite-road-national-championships-cn-1/day-6/photos/128050

http://www.cyclingnews.com/races/usa-cycling-junior-u23-elite-road-national-championships-cn-1/day-6/photos/128051

http://www.cyclingnews.com/races/usa-cycling-junior-u23-elite-road-national-championships-cn-1/day-6/photos/128052

http://www.cyclingnews.com/races/usa-cycling-junior-u23-elite-road-national-championships-cn-1/day-6/photos/128053

http://velonews.competitor.com/2010/06/news/michael-olheiser-wins-usa-cycling-mens-elite-road-race-championship_123546/attachment/roadnatz_roadrace_breakaway

Elite Nationals Week

2010-06-21T10:18:00.000-07:00

In the spirit of racing 100 miles around the Aubrey Butte course in Bend and getting my arse handed to me Sunday, I concluded a 23hr, 604km training week that involved the season's first McKenzie Pass with Dad (not a hard day, but a long one), four days of 4+hrs in a row, close to 20,000 ft of climbing, an "off" day working and visiting in Portland, and of course getting soaking wet in ridiculous late-June rain at the start of a long ride on three occasions.

The human body is a strange machine. Mine responds really well to volume, when I have the time to do it. My longest week in the last month - maybe more - was 15 1/2hrs. Add half-again as much and I am flying at the end of it. During Sunday's ride, wrapping up my biggest week since spring break, I still managed a solid 20min TT effort (in full rain gear) in the aero bars kicking along at my best-ever Coburg TT power but 10bpm lower HR - and the legs felt good. It's coming around.

Wednesday I took off for the east side of the hills with bikes, camping gear, and a very rough gameplan for hitting up Nationals and enjoying the hell out of Bend. After a good night's sleep in an actual bed, thanks to some generous parents of a friend of a very nice lady, I went on over and got my butt kicked against the best amateur TT'ers in the country on the Skyliner++ course - 12k from the start to the turn on Skyliner, 56x11 style descent, then a 10k lollipop loop on a hard rolling course that killed me. Starting first in the Elite Men's group, I opened the steady state motor and did a strong climb and descent but suffered like a dog trying to punch those rolling climbs and keep speed down the back sides. Fun stuff.

Thursday night we drove out Hwy 242 and camped under the stars with a big-ass campfire and wicked good campfire pasta - garlic, salami, tomato sauce, whole wheal spaghetti. And a bottle of wine. Can't beat it.

Friday morning, back up the pass - from the snow gate. In the sun. loosened up the legs and grinned the whole way up.

Friday night I avoided the mayhem of the Elite crits downtown and instead sat in the grass reading my Michener and watching the NWX crit - a great race since they make a real block party of it and there's a good crowd that you can really work and put on a show for. Feeling good, I decided to do the 8pm 1/2 race since it was a small group and a nice course, I could make it what I wanted and not blow my legs up but keep them fresh. I rode up to the break, took 3 of 5 primes in the race (first went to a 2man break early, last went to the pack), and just drove the break most of the race since Broadband had 3 guys in it who were determined not to do anything, Sagebrush had 2 and only 1 working, and I would always rather drive it than get caught. I turned the screws, had fun, and came out ahead on the day (money back, massage, beer and pint glasses - love small local races). The finale was predicable, but I got the announcers and the crowd going by playing the showman, taking primes, and generally riding aggressively. That's always fun.

One more day to sit in a coffee shop, watch the US-Ghana game with Lenny later this morning, ride a loop of the Road Race course, then line up and get my butt kicked by the Elite Men, the real Cat 1's in this country, around a tough hilly course. But I should get a pretty good tan.

Off, Monkey, Off

2010-06-11T13:27:00.000-07:00

And USA Cycling approved the upgrade today. HUGE sigh of relief. Followed by immediate ordering of a new race license, and registration for Elite Nationals in Bend.

Cat 5 to Cat 1, before I turned 30, with 3 actual years of good training (2007 after I quit coaching until now). That feels good. So good.

And then it left again

2010-06-10T10:45:00.000-07:00

The Tuesday Night Crit, for the second week in a row, turned into a soaking wet ride. This week some 31 guys showed up in the 1/2/3 training race and we went 44kmph for 50min in pouring rain under black skies. It was windy enough that on the headwind stretch I was seeing 400W get me 39-40kmph and nothing stuck for all that long. McK and I had a nice go of it for maybe 1/4 of the race.

Wednesday was looking promising in the morning and the ride to and from campus was warm, humid, and generally promising for a dry ride. So, of course, I procrastinated - and while the TT bike and I rode 5 minute intervals up and down Fir Butte, the wind kicking around from all sides like a gang of pre-schoolers in a group tantrum, the western sky turned completely white. It was one of those walls of water that comes down in fine, dense drops, penetrating every seam and crack in the raingear. A literal wall of water. I watched it approach over the course of an hour or so, each time I completed an interval I debated running from the storm to go finish on the home trainer, and each time I decided "No, I'm still OK". And I was still OK all the way through - until of course suddenly I wasn't.

Starting the last interval, headed south, the big car-wash in the sky opened up and before I had finished the 5 min rain had snuck under the collar of my jacket and by the time I got back to the end of the Amazon bike path - not more than three miles away - every item of clothing was waterlogged.

So, for the second day in a row, I got home and stood in front of the washing machine in my garage, stripping naked to throw 20lbs of soaking wet apparel into the "delicates" cycle.

This Is Not OK.

It's June. I know the rain is "warm". But there shouldn't be any rain to begin with. This is our three months of glorious dry warmth, being eaten away by more penetrating precipitation than we see on any given day in January. It is almost summer. Sunshine is not liquid, and if this crap doesn't stop I am seriously tempted to hang up the wheels until it does, because I am done.

yes, it's here - the real june.

2010-06-07T16:19:00.000-07:00

some games thing in the middle of oregon

2010-06-04T20:21:00.000-07:00

Doctor says...

2010-05-25T20:22:00.000-07:00

Doctor: Wow, you have really good lung function. 118% of the predicted value for someone your age, height, and gender. Of course, you're an athlete. OK now go ride your bike for a half hour let's see what changes.
Me: Sure thing, Doc.
(30min later)
Doctor: Hmmm well it looks like your exhalation has dropped 3% or so over baseline, that's short of Asthmatic by the usual standards but often in athletes it takes longer to really show - but wow your inhalation figures here are way off. Let's do a little laryngoscopy to check that out.
Me: Ummm... OK whatever you say.

(5min later)

Me: (Coughing, Sneezing, Eyes Watering) Holy Jay-sus what the F*ck was that about!
Doctor: I just shoved an 8 inch tube with a light and a camera up your nose and down your throat to take a look at your larynx and see what is up. You have more mucus than I have ever seen. I can't even make out your vocal cords. That's probably what's been bothering you.
Me: What can I do about it that doesn't involve a tube up the nose?
Doctor: Here, try a Neti pot and some Flonase. Meanwhile go get a needle shoved up your arm to do a blood test for allergies, in case that's what's causing all this mucus. Like I said, that's a crazy amount of mucus, man. It's amazing you can breathe.
Me: Awesome. Great. Where's the door?
Doctor: Straight ahead. Oh, and here's your bill...
Me: (blinking) Holy Jay-sus!!!!!

And that didn't even have a happy ending ... now I feel like someone Rufied my nasal spray. What happened and why is there a tiger in my bathroom?

Enumclaw

2010-05-24T10:50:00.000-07:00

Looong drive up to Seattle to crash with Jordan from UW (thanks man!), then race Enumclaw. Saturday morning TT - did a mediocre ride and that was that. Then I drove around and sat in various places doing school work until the 730pm crit.

The crit... was a sh*t-show. The rain started dumping down, cold, during the cat 3 race and those guys were sliding all over the road. The downtown course is an 8-corner, figure 8 type of thing with manhole covers in just the right places and a few bumps that make it pretty safe if you pick your line well, but sketchy when guys touch their brakes in corners or move a few inches off the line. So I was on the fence about trying to finish and after the first pile-up on lap 2 or 3 I thought "this is pretty dumb" and stuck to the field until 10min were up, then let go and rode around just hard enough with some other guys to make it another 10min and then sat the hell up. 25min ride, pretty chill, totally safe, and no issues. Now, purposely getting pulled is a bit controversial as a strategy but the way I look at it, I'm not in GC contention, I've got no-one to work for and bike racing isn't my job, so what would the purpose of finishing be? All I really wanted was to get through and ride the road race.

The road race was a blast, but selective and hard. It was basically on flat roads with on longer climb, a flat ridge up top, and a high-way descent. And some wind. I think we rode 50-54km/hr until the base of the climb on the first of five laps. On tight, one-lane country roads some of which had no centerline so the moto kept riding next to us honking and yelling. Then we hit the climb, and McKissick and some others set sail and people started blowing up all over the place. It regrouped, then went at a more reasonable pace for the next four laps but still kept spitting guys out the back every time up the climb until the final field had maybe 40 riders - we started with 93. Then the finish came super fast again on tight roads back to the crit course and I just rode in. All in all a good race though I didn't do so much.

Campagnolo drivetrain, Shimano 10 wheel - no pulley.

2010-05-20T10:46:00.000-07:00

That's the underside of a Campagnolo Daytona 10spd derailleur. A little creative bolting makes it now work beautifully with a Shimano 10 speed wheel (I don't own Campy cassettes or wheels). Since a Campy cassette is wider than a Shimano one, and the derailleur correspondingly travels further between shifts than Shimano, I had to increase the leverage of the cable over the derailleur to reduce the travel just a little bit until it matched up. A few minutes with some washers, a 5mm Allen wrench and a small pair of pliers tweaked the rotation of my little clamp until the shifting was spot on - or at least pretty dang close, which is just as good since all derailleurs have a little float in the top pulley anyways to compensate for misalignment.

And voila. Not very hard to do, takes only a little adjustment to dial in. One could conceivably sell special-made clamps to do the same thing, now that Jtek isn't making their pulleys anymore (which work really well - I have one on my race bike for the same purpose).

Oh me feel so clever right now.

Holy Asthma, Batman

2010-05-18T21:20:00.000-07:00

This lung thing is still around and it's really weird - some days are fine, other days air just doesn't go in. Today I was breathing so fast while putting out so few Watts that I actually cramped up my side in the TT - totally bizzare. Last week, no real issue. So I've got a date with a pulmonologist to get it sorted out and get me a TUE for Natz for whatever they end up giving me.

At least I can say I seem to have the aero thing almost settled - given the watts being way down I'm still riding well over 28mph with no troubles so a little visit to analyticcycling.com gives some positive drag numbers. Now if the O2 comes back in next week and the watts go where they have in the past - it'll be quick. If not, so be it.

And, I registered for the Mutual of Enumclaw today to go explore Washington racing and get out of Oregon - I had no desire to try and three-peat the TTT or do circles around the Volcano at Mt. Tabor this weekend. I'd rather do a stage race that just might suit me if all goes well - nice flat hard TT, a crit to sit in on, and a road race with a solid rythm climb to decide the final day. Fingers crossed I get my crap together and perform decently.

Silverton: 95%

2010-05-17T10:40:00.000-07:00

That's how I'm feeling: 95%. The missing 5% is anything and everything involving accelerating my bicycle. Endurance is back, sustainable power is back, lungs are almost back. I can grind a big gear again, close gaps, ride fast. I just can't dance on the pedals and match surges anymore. So Silverton was all about getting gapped off my groups, and grinding my way back on. Three times: on the second climb headed towards the back of the course, on laps 2, 3 and 4.

Lap 2: I'm right at the front when the hammer goes down, I can't match the jumps, find myself behind the 2nd group on the road, with 20-some guys ahead of me and the race blown up. Uh-oh crunch time. Keep grinding it out, end up pulling away from the couple of guys I was with and riding on to the back of the 2nd group. Then jumping away from them and bridging solo to the break of the day. Nice, except that it took way more energy than it should have.

Lap 3: We've caught the two early solo breakaways, now there's about 12 guys in the lead group here and some silly beggar throws down an attack. I'm gapped big-time along with maybe 3-4 others. I just keep grinding along at the same pace, Carlson and I trade turns ride ourselves back to the group again.

Lap 4: The beggars do it again, and I go right off again and there are 5 guys ahead of me and I'm alone. 2 guys up front get their own gap and they are gone. Browning comes up and we pull ourselves through the 20" gap to the 3 guys left ahead of us and we all stick together until the line. Where I promptly get gapped when they all sprint. Damnit. It's worse than usual, like any fast twitch I ever did have all atrophied and died. Sad. Those are kind of useful in bike racing.

Recombobulation

2010-05-11T15:49:00.000-07:00

This sign hangs just past the X-Ray machines in the Milwaukee airport. This is one of the first signals I have ever seen that the TSA actually “gets” it.

I used to think (and have stated) that TSA stands for Thousands, Standing Around. And every time I go through security at an airport I see both silly letter-of-the-rule applications and failures to follow their own policy (in 4 flights no-one asked me to open my metal coffee container, which is x-ray proof, but they did give a teammate grief about his 8oz of hummus. He was let through.)

Now I almost think that there is someone out there who gets it.

What I don't get - if you can be discombobulated, and you can now also be recombobulated, what does it mean to be just combobulated, period?

Post-Race

2010-05-09T15:30:00.000-07:00

Saturday night - banquet. Listened to John Burke tell us how awesome Trek is. Wondered why my teammates here picked the clothing that they did.

Sunday - rode to Waterloo. Saw the Trek headquarters. Saw all of Waterloo in about 8 minutes and failed to find anything but some cheap bars. No coffee, no outdoor seated anything, no nothing. Lots of houses for sale - if it weren't for the great Trek Bicycle Co headquarters there couldn't be much there, as even the dairy cows were looking for work.

Crash Fail, Tire Fail

2010-05-07T13:38:00.000-07:00

Sort of. It all started with a sketchy descent in pouring rain and people's carbon wheels (including mine) not braking a well in the wet as they do in the dry. So I battled up front from the gun and took the safe position rolling down the hill. But a crash in the pack on the first kicker of the day left me in a ditch pointed the wrong way and overgeared, I got going again and chased back on at the bottom of the big climb and everything exploded. Then I flatted out of my chase group. And Shimano had no more wheels, and no-one would give me a ride ("There 'might' be a broom wagon" the Shimano guys shouted from the back of their warm SUV with a spare seat - there wasn't) until Lenny's Dad found me and helped me get back to the van.

That's OK though, there's three more days of riding around here and plenty of coffee shops. Not to mention a mid-western brew or two to try out.

Madison

2010-05-06T12:45:00.000-07:00

Dave and I went for a shake out ride this morning in Madison. We did a nice 38mi loop, after bumping around through town and ending up at some Trek concept store where a nice guy named Bryan directed us to Old Sauk Road, which we proceeded to ride around and make a loop out of in America's Dairyland.

After catching the morning rays and waving at the cows we found a little coffee shop to sit in and do our school work for a few hours, then when I asked the cute little redhead behind the counter at 530 as they were closing if they sold their day-old pastries, she said no, but she would be happy to give me a bag of rolls and cakes and biscuits that they just pulled out of the counters, no charge. We each walked away with a paper bag full of comfort that will get us through the week.

I am definitely going back to that coffee shop tomorrow.

Madison, Wisconsin. This is a town I can get behind.

Kind of funny

2010-05-05T14:16:00.000-07:00

... to be riding 27mph, nothing hurts, HR is low, but you just can't push the gas pedal any harder. Like being stuck in 3rd gear. More than a mile an hour slower than my 40k speed last year, 30Watts below threshold, heart rate ten beats low. Easy, just not fast.

That's the first Coburg TT in a nutshell. Good news is, the lungs are clearing in a big way, bad news is, I'm feeling 90% strong. Good news is, that's better than three days ago, and miles ahead of 5 days ago, and a light-year ahead of a week-ago. So on that trajectory, all should be good for Collegiate Nationals on Friday.

Sure hope so... 8,000 ft of climbing in 70some miles, but at least that's my only race and I get to spend another three full days doing long rides and sitting in coffee shops / breweries in Madison and wondering how I got so lucky.

Results? Meh. It's about the good times.

When a finish is a triumph

2010-05-01T17:00:00.000-07:00

The lung infection thing kicked my butt this week. I didn't ride until Wednesday, and that was a disaster where I began to feel bonked (though I had just eaten a good lunch) about 20min into the ride with David and Azul, and proceeded to absolutely suffer. Feeling completely weak, having a hard time breathing, my HR was depressed yet I could barely ride a steady wheel. Thursday was better, and I ran into the Thursday Nighter that started off "club pace". So I barely hung on over Welders while they were going far easier than we ever race it on a Thursday.

Friday was much better though my legs felt terrible, so I decided to give the Roubaix a go today for the heck of it. I already was on the volunteer list for the afternoon, so my AM race was comped and it was looking to be a warm day. And, surprise surprise, I finished with the pack, despite my legs hurting at every effort all day. They felt like they had a four day training block in them. But the lungs worked and I got almost all the air I needed, so I just rode it out.

The next two days will be embarrassingly slow coffee rides to try and wash the soreness away. Then the first Coburg TT, two more days and a plane flight to Madison, and then Collegiate Nationals. Hopefully this will all be nothing more than an unusual taper and everything functions properly in Wisconsin.

Yep...

2010-04-25T16:19:00.000-07:00

Woke up and couldn't get a noise out of my throat for several minutes other than expectorating. Once a sufficient amount of green crud was out, I could speak again, of sorts. Ugly. Not racing was right, though incredibly frustrating.

Not having ridden today, I do plan on riding this week, despite the illness. Big hours. Training plan has been revised as such:

Monday, 1230pm: Ride to Hideaway Bakery. Eat pastry. Read a book. Ride home.
Tuesday, 10am: Ride to Hideaway Bakery. Eat pastry. Write case notes. Ride home.
Wednesday: Recovery day. Possible easy ride to Hideaway in the early morning (10ish).

Sounds tiring. I'm sure I can tough it out though.

Toughest Man Alive

2010-04-24T18:54:00.000-07:00

Cherry Blossom hasn't been so hot. I woke up sick Wednesday at 4am and have been going downhill ever since. Yesterday's first stage was fine, and I just finished in the pack. Today though I was struggling to hold position and missed some gaps, but ended up rolling in a group that finished ~30th places - except that I hit a rock with 50k to go and tore my nice Continental Force tire. No wheel car in sight. Some nice people up on the hill that I walked up to offered me a tube, but that wouldn't help. I waited for other fields, and the rest of the 1/2's eventually went by in small groups. After a good long while, I just hitched a ride back to the start with the good samaritans instead of waiting any more and doing 50k in the Gorge winds alone, way, way behind the last guys on the road. The crit wouldn't do me any good and the TT is pointless at that point anyways. Better to go sleep for a few days and get healthy again. This is the first time I've been sick back-to-back like this in a long, long time, too - after spring break's illness this is just frustrating as hell.

But the story of the weekend is James, from Lifecycle. He raced in the 4's and was involved in a massive crash on Stage 1. It sounds like the 2nd and 3rd guys in the front group crossed wheels on a descent and took out 20-25 guys or something. James went down. He cracked his helmet pretty badly, got massive road rash, and broke several fingers and messed up his wrist. He finished the race, riding another 25 miles. Mike and I were at the finish as he came in and he told us all about his crash. We asked him if his hand was messed up, since it was swollen and bleeding and his fingers looked like he shoved them onto a belt sander. He nonchalantly said:

"Yeah, looked down and these three were pointed off to the side like this. I pulled them straight so I could keep going."

He had bone chips in his wrist, broken fingers, and clearly dislocated knuckles. He pulled them straight and finished the race. No big deal. He was worried about having busted his new helmet. Shattered bones? Eh, 'tis just a flesh wound.

Watch out for that guy when he upgrades. He is tougher than nails.

Table Rocked

2010-04-18T21:31:00.000-07:00

No pictures. But there were some Guinea Fowl by the side of the road for 2 or 3 laps. Really, really big and fat ones. They looked delicious. So did the herd of elk by milepost 85 on I5 on our way back up. Mmmm. That reminds me that it's turkey season - anyone have some private land they don't mind me shooting a 12 gauge on? I'll bring the carrots and potatoes if you have a crock-pot.

Table Rock RR was warm. Sunny. I got a tan. Matt got in a break for a very long time, I patrolled the sharp end of the main group all race long, closed some gaps and got on some wheels but tried not to ride on the front. We didn't go very hard most of the race until the last time up the 5k climb, then we went kind of hard, and the break got caught, so I got to play at the top. Created a 10 man selection in the headwind and then ended up somewhere in the "sprint" up the 1k climb at the finish. Throwing down on a hot windy climb 60-70 miles into a race - reminds me why I train all winter. Exhilaration in the acceleration, bike racing rocks.

Sunday the UO team went out to ride Mt. June and the 39x23 sucked at the bottom. 5+hrs on the bike after Azul and I took off on our own and short-cutted our way home via hwy 58 - we got more tan. The lines are coming on. Eugene has three seasons: Winter, Wet, and Nice. Nice season feels like it's just about here. That's when we forget that we ever rode with fenders and dig the sunscreen out of the depths. The miles pile on and the gardens start to grow and we get skinny on fresh veggies and long hours, wondering how we ever survived Winter. I did just over 400 miles this week - and it feels so good.

Yes, we have no Onions

2010-04-13T20:02:00.000-07:00

We went to Walla Walla last Friday and I didn't even buy any onions. Or eat any of the "famous" Walla Walla Sweets. No, I brought all my own food and bought no more than coffee in that little town in the windy, rolling hills of Washington.

The collegiate omnium this weekend was different than usual - instead of RR, TTT, and crit, it was road race, TTT, and circuit race - the latter being on a rolling, windy course that made the race more than just a series of sprints.

The road race went 5 laps around the racecourse for 75 miles through the rollers and had only one climb on it, a ~1k feedzone climb. But being out in the exposed eastern part of the state, the wind picked up and made the racing interesting.

UW brought the usual crowd of 8-9 racers in a pack of 25-30 and with those kind of numbers, it's hard to fight back. They can pretty much put enough guys into any effort to make it hard for even strong individuals to tilt the race out of their favor. And you have to expect to have at least a couple of them in any break, which is what happened when a break of 5 - 2 UW, 2 Whitman, and me - got away on lap 2. It looked like a good move as that meant that about half the remaining field would be shutting down anything behind us that threatened to catch up. Sweet. Then a lap later some horsepower bridged up when Jake from WSU came across with yet another UW - Davis from Eugene - on his wheel. So now it's 3 UW, 2 Whitman, Jake, and me. We get 1:30 on the field, then 2:00, then UW sits up and announces: "We don't like it".

WHAT?! So we've got a high horsepower break, the field behind us is probably being neutralized by four different schools with my 3 guys sure to be jumping on everything that moves, Whitman and WSU's guys doing the same, and ... drum roll ... the 6 UW guys doing what they always do, and now the UW break is playing silly beggars and trying to get caught by a group that is trying hard not to catch them. Picture that one for a minute.

Well, hauling those guys around in the wind is silly. So Whitman and I had a little chat and agreed that we would prefer to make UW hurt if possible and not to chase each other - so then we spend the next lap alternating between attacking the bejesus out of each other and sitting up. That hurt. It just drained everyone, and Jake just sat there watching us brawl.

Just past the start/finish with 13 miles to go, I rolled off the side of the group and David immediately jumped on my wheel. The rest of the group let us go. So I gave it some stick, flicked the elbow to have Davis come around, and he did. We had a little talk, and to his credit he recognized that working a little was better than getting dropped if his boys weren't going to reel us back. So that's what we did and we went over the feedzone climb, powered over some shallow rollers and turned right onto a false flat downhill and crosswind stretch. That's where Davis cracked.

The kid is built like a pencil and he was sure trying, but I couldn't wait for him and when he fell off, I knew it was TT time. 8-9 miles to go and the guys behind us could see Davis fall off - and Colin from Whitman later told me that was the first time the 6 of them all agreed that they needed to ride. And ride we did - I turned the last corner at 5-6 miles to go straight into a headwind towards the finish with a 31 second gap, and 6 guys doing a team time trial behind me (poor Davis went backwards through them). I felt strong pushing over the initial rollers but the last few k's were all flat and unsheltered, straight into that Walla Walla wind. Oh the burn. I was dying, but so was the chase, and most of those 31 seconds were given away on the home straight - but not all of them. I had just enough to celebrate while the group started to sprint.
Photo credit Blair Ryan - thanks Blair!

Will from the U of O came across next riding ahead of the main pack with Brian from Idaho - the field sprinted some time later.

We got rocked in the TTT, but no matter.

The next day, we hit the 3 mile loops of the circuit race hard. Finishing on top of a short but steep hill, it was bound to split up the group, and that is what it did. Will and I got into the "break" of 10, and with 3 or so laps to go he got off with a little WWU guys and I spent the rest of the race shutting everything down. 4 UW, 2 Whitman, Jake, and some others - I got on every wheel that moved and Will stayed away, just visible up the road but not getting any closer. And Oregon took another W when Will came around his breakaway companion at the line.

So not a bad weekend, and worth skipping King's Valley and the Icebreaker. Because not only did we get to throw our arms up, but 6 hrs of riding in Walla Walla did a damn good job on starting the season's tan. And let's face it, a win is nice, but a tan is a must.

Mmmm - Meatballs

2010-04-04T18:23:00.000-07:00

There was some collegiate bike racing going on this weekend. First a crit around downtown Salem, in the wind and rain, then a TTT somewhere out who-knows-where in more wind and rain. Today was 6 laps around Hagg lake. I had plenty of go-juice but zero pop - still not firing on all cyclinders after being ill. It's annoying.

But rather than write about any of that stuff that is totally irrelevant, check out what was hanging out right at the entrance to the park, behind the parking permit kiosk:

Now while some people see that as a herd of cow elk, which is not incorrect, what I actually see is this:

Pass the ketchup.

Lots of Carbs

2010-03-28T18:12:00.000-07:00

Piece of Cake, not so much. Wind, rain, and a not-really-completely-flat course awaited us in Amity. Matt, BVB and I were late thanks to the Google, and basically just kitted up and lined up, Matt and I representing for bicycleway in the 1/2s. I wasn't at the front anyways (Matt was) and I missed my clip-in, finding myself on the back on little roads with no shoulder and raging wind. Once we turned onto the course everything instantly blew up. It went ballistic. I looked up and saw carnage all over the road ahead. Not only were we going mad fast in the tailwind/crosswind alternations, but the field and just shattered into medium and little groups with individuals being spat out the back of every one of them. Bad, bad thing to see from where I was. I thought I could see Matt at the sharp end though, so that was nice.

For the next 20min or so I fought, clawed, and brawled my way from group to group and man to man, working with some while they had the gas and jumping them when they slowed, to get up to the next group. Went straight by plenty of them. Traded turns with a couple of similarly minded guys until Team O's Jim and I finally fought back to the 2nd group on the road. At this point, I saw the little "break" of 7-8 up ahead and Matt was definitely in it. The 2nd group wasn't working so well, but when they did I passed on the pulls as there looked like a chance some of the stronger guys might bring back the front group if the leaders messed around, which would not have been good. But I needn't have worried, and a few miles later, on maybe the 2nd or 3rd lap (kind of groggy) the two HPC guys Donald and AC (2 teammates up the road) , followed by a Rubicon (3 up the road), AT, rolled off our group and right before the tail wind section, when they had 60m or so, I bridged up and we pinned it. We lost AT somehow, plus the rest of the group, and the three of us rolled around and found ourselves completely alone. Donald drove it hard. AC eventually fell apart but had a huge gap to do the last lap solo, and Donald and I rolled in. I picked up a check for 9th. Matt, though, took 4th - quite a payday, too.

2,850kJ work done on the ride, and it turns out I did the whole thing on 1 bottle of water and no food. Oops, not the plan. But since I felt fine the whole time, I would say that my pre-race eating plans seem to be working. And those really just revolve around oatmeal.

Getting bored of my usual weekend ride / pre-race meal of regular oatmeal with maple syrup, I made up some wheat-free low fat vegan breakfast biscuits yesterday and put them down with jam on our way to the race. Major success. There's another batch in the kitchen right now, warm and tasty and waiting for some jam:

3 tablespoons flax seed meal beaten into 3 tablespoons water until sticky (because rice flour has no gluten to stick it all together)
add:
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup honey
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup soy milk + 1 capful apple cider vinegar (this substitutes for buttermilk)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon almond extract (oh yeah tasty)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
mix it all up. then mix in:
2 cups regular oats
1 cup rice flour with 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder dumped on top

Spoon out onto a non-stick baking sheet about 8-10 biscuits, and bake at 350F for 20-22min or until they just start to brown. eat warm or cold, with jam or plain, or whatever suits your fancy.

Spring break, fail.

2010-03-26T19:19:00.000-07:00

Last Friday I woke up sick. Raced on Saturday at the UO collegiate road race anyways, because the weather was wonderful and I held off the worst of it for a little while, and I pulled off 3rd in the 65 miles of rolling course around Elmira - Warthen, Sheffler, etc. The men's A race had maybe 30 guys and 9 of them were from UW - so it was a bit craptastic trying to get a result but so it goes.

Sunday I spent on the couch. The whole day. Bam. Hello virus, let's spend some cozy time together. You bring the ugly, I bring the blankets.

I slowly rode the fixed gears across town a couple of times, with near disastrous results, early in the week. But when it's spring break and sunny and all thoughts of actual vacation related activities (really long rides, daytrips to the coast, random Portland activities, riding in Bend) have all evaporated, then you gotta try something.

Of course, the first day I felt remotely like riding, yesterday, saw the wonderful sunshine turn to lousy rain and wind. A couple of the UO "A" riders and I did some team time trial practice and while it was productive, TTT riding in wind and rain kind of sucks.

Today was finally almost normal. Wake up, drink tea, clear out the nose and throat, drink more tea, watch the rain, drink coffee, google stuff, drink more tea. Find the DeFeet wool kit and the Showers Pass Protec jacket. Make sure the Flaming Lips and Fleetwood Mac are on the iPod. Roll out.

When it's crappy out and I need to fall into a rhythm and tap out a few hours, the best thing to do is to just go and start climbing the various southern hills. Up and down, click into whatever gear matches the required effort and start turning. Click, click, stand on the pedals, sit down, click, click, click. Over the top, spin out down and find another one. Click, click, click. At some point, time stops mattering, and I just ride. Up into the cookie-cutter developments and all the little crests and points and peaks into the clouds and then after a couple of hours, I stop right below the cloud level, look down and feel alright.

And the season starts now.

2010-03-21T09:13:00.000-07:00

Yes, with the Daylight Saving Time change last weekend, we now have sufficient daylight to run the traditional Thursday Nighter ride. It's a ~26 mile course that has a a couple of short climbs, wind, rollers, and a long flat finishing straight. It's the weekly slugfest for bragging rights, an event duplicated in countless other cities and regions to various scales, but never contested any less furiously. Some riders show up with hours already in their legs, looking to top off with some speed, others show up rested and determined to make the break, and others still just hope to hang on over Welder's Hill in the first few miles. When the chips are down, no-one is just out for an evening ride.

View Eugene Thursday Nighter in a larger map

The Thursday Nighter epitomizes why I ride my bike. No race officials, no lead car, no feed zone, no neutral wheel support. No rules but common sense and courtesy - the unwritten rules of fast group rides. Success is measured on individual goals that may or may not include crossing the finish line first.

No-one is ambivalent about the Thursday Nighter.

Rolling down to the church last Thursday was like going home after a long road trip. Settling into a comfortable routine, seeing the regulars who may not have been out on weekend CSC rides but whom you can count on to be on the road on Thursdays. Rolling out Lorane, hitting the first rollers, the familiar pedaling styles of the regulars, new faces, and the racing season in Eugene has finally begun.

Bananaowowowow

2010-03-15T08:56:00.000-07:00

Made the break this time, at last. Sort of started it, too, which had me grinning.

We were doing 7 laps clockwise around Hagg lake this time, which is the direction with a fast descent to a right off-camber turn onto a dam, and a kicker climb maybe 4k from the line. My legs felt fine in the morning but once we got going I felt like complete crud all day, though, probably a hold-over from a 4.5hr ride Friday in which I rode up and down Fox Hollow all afternoon, and got rained, sleeted, and snowed on. I stayed out because my core was warm - but it might not have been that smart after all.

Anyways, Banana Belt #3: by lap 5 of 7 I had followed wheels near the front all day and was pretty convinced that it was going to stay together for a bunch kick to the line, which is never fun for me. So on the dam on lap 5, which was maybe 7-8k from the line and with around 40-42k left to race, I came off of being third wheel and hit it into the wind. The group had started to show signs of being a little tired and since we were strung out from the gentle climb up and the descent down to the dam, plus on the straightaway there it's actually a bit tricky to see what is going on up front, it seemed like a reasonable thing to try. Also, everyone always attacks on hills, so why not try something else? Well, it worked. I went about as hard as I could, and was away with a tiny gap all the way across and got joined by two of the strongest guys in the peloton in Donald and Ryan as we past the next boat ramp, and voila, le break du jour was formed. The turbos came out and by the time we passed that same ramp again 11 miles later, the lead car pulled over and told us we had 2:10 on the field.

2:10 meant we were putting a minute on the pack every 5 miles. Holy crap. It was full throttle, and I was feeling pretty outclassed and starting to crack with a lap to go. Ryan, winner at Sublimity, pressed a lot of the rollers and Donald, Mr. Big-motor-big-legs-big-sprint, looked like he could do that crap all day as we more than doubled the lead again in the next lap. Well, I couldn't do that crap much longer and completely cracked for good on the last hill before the finish. But it didn't matter, the gap was so big (I think I heard it was over 5 minutes - we motored like mad) I could have ridden to the line in my 39t ring and still gotten 3rd. I tried to keep pressing for what it was worth to the line, because I'm paranoid like that, and watched the sprint go down from a handful of seconds back.

For feeling like junk and riding with two of the strongest guys around, I'll take it. If I had been in top form I probably would have finished the same.

So that's it for OBRA racing for me for a couple of weeks. Next weekend is the UO road race on our home course in Veneta, followed by Western Washington U in Bellingham, and then I'll get back to it with Kings Valley, the Ice Breaker Crit, and whatever else is to be done.

And of course... the time changed this weekend. Which means that the Thursday Nighter is ON. Heck Yeah.

Banananananas

2010-03-07T18:51:00.000-08:00

A 21hr week capped off with BB#2, a race series I haven't done since 2007. 6 laps around Hagg lake, a pretty long drive from Eugene to Forest Grove.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, since it was due to way fun times) I'd also had a week of late nights and a general lack of sleep, although riding and recovering was really not a problem, when the 5am alarm sounded and I went to pick up Graham for the drive up, I immediately wondered why this whole thing sounded like such a good idea earlier in the week.

Feeling good, I rode aggressively in the first four of six laps, which merely resulted in my missing the 5 man break of the day that actually stuck. There were some times when I got off with the right people and thought it would go the distance, but no, that failed to happen. Someday the lesson will be learned: don't play too hard while everyone else is fresh also, and pick the moves that have strong guys who haven't also been attacking all day.

Starting the last lap, on the way up the 200m finishing hill, I kicked it a bit and got a gap, taking only Steven from Kirkland with me. We pushed it hard and barely managed to snap the elastic after 5k, when we noticed a group of 5 coming up to us. Steven and I backed off on the climb up the dam and then we had company, and we started to hit it. With maybe 7-8k to go we started to see the pack behind us again and it was a bit of a battle to keep the pace high. I rolled through hard every time we slowed down, worried about being caught and spat out the back. At 2k to go Steven and I rolled away from the others and we went to the line, where I took "best of the rest". The remainder of the hail-mary 2nd breakaway got swarmed on the line.

After a longish break for lunch I did another 2 laps backwards to watch Graham finish. Since I didn't get photos of anything interesting all day, here's the cat 5 men's finish video:

shot in high-res but put into low quality for the web - changed formats a little bit things may be funky.

calling it as they see it

2010-02-28T19:09:00.000-08:00

I don't really have much to say on this one. Except that there must be irony in there, somewhere.

Sublimity is not sublime

2010-02-20T19:07:00.000-08:00

That race was balls-hard.

The field completely detonated - I just read that we had a whopping 16 finishers. Scott tells me there are 1130 ft of climbing per lap. And wind. It's all rollers. It's brutal. I hung on to the front when the chips were down and while the first split of 7 was eventually re-absorbed, we re-split shortly thereafter and were down to 10. A few were yo-yoing pretty hard and one or two seemed to be sitting in - two guys eventually managed to jump off and we never got them back. It was turning into a death march of sorts, and PK was getting perkier as the race went on and started to really turn the screws. A few miles from the end, though, something happened behind me and his front wheel was taken out on one of the final rollers of the day. Some others may have already been off by then, but we were down to 4. I got 2nd in the sprint.

Anyways, we were all channeling the inner Jens Voigt today, and there was definitely some of this going through my head:

Another day at the office

2010-02-16T18:34:00.000-08:00

It started with some VO2 intervals on Hawkins, Blanton, and Willamette. The morning mist and rain gave up and went away, leaving big puffy white clouds and sunbreaks coming through.

Down the back side of Fox, I ran into Mike B and joined him for three of his hill repeats - twice the back side of Fox, once McBeth. Vitamin Sunshine began pouring down from above.

By the ride home along the bike path, a perfect spring evening.

3 1/2 hrs, all hard climbing, legs toast. Feels great.

Pie

2010-02-14T19:53:00.000-08:00

Five guys rolled off the front of the Cherry Pie course in the 1/2's right from the gun. It seemed early. They never got that far, but as it turned out, it was far enough.

As the gap started to grow, I got nervous about it and spent over an hour doing my damnedest to get away somehow. Time after time - something could get out a ways, but if it got halfway to the break, people got jumpy in the pack and ended up bring it back, possibly while trying to bridge themselves. The most promising move had a Team O and Livestrong power rider in it, and we still got caught right at the top of the finish hill at the end of the first lap. Two guys took off right then, as the break was pretty close by then, and made the junction. Then it went away again.

With about 20k to go (of a terribly short 85) I drifed back and rested, then bumped and jostled my way to the front for the finish. Being out of any serious placings it wasn't super interesting, though the short uphill finishes like that are not good for me (never won a sprint... in my life), I went anyways from about 5th wheel out of the last corner and ended up 8th in the sprint. I was probably helped by the Hutch's rider putting his front wheel into a Therapeutic shoe and snapping the valve stem, it helped clear the bunch right behind me as the usual mayhem ensued, although of course no-one encountered any serious trouble such as crashes. No, that happened in the 3's - I didn't see it but I heard a few stories about five figures $ worth of equipment getting trashed. Seriously, guys, stay safe. And if there's anyone who was doing blatantely dangerous sprinting or some such, y'all talk to them until they really, truly get the point. Peer pressure and embarrassment can do a lot for attention to safety.

Great things to do on a Wednesday afternoon

2010-02-10T22:12:00.000-08:00

Did Fox from all 4 sides today: Front, Back, McBeth, Willamette. Might have killed poor McK. But there were some nice views from the top while waiting.

We descended back into town after almost three hours of riding up and down the hills, and found the rain on the way back home. But while we climbed, it was sun, mist, and rainbows. Life is good.

mile 90 and still climbing...

2010-02-07T20:17:00.000-08:00

beats the hell out of football. just an opinion.

roads to nowhere

2010-02-06T16:15:00.000-08:00

... and back again.

Drove up to Portland in a suit to stand around and get depressed at a MBA career fair. Stood in lines. Socialized with other people in suits. Then, went on a wild goose chase around Portland to try and find some specific place my classmate wanted to eat at, which was full. So we went somewhere else, which was also full. Ended up getting noodles after over an hour of screwing around, and drove home.

Got on the bike today for the CSC ride and went to Cottage Grove via Dillard road and Sears. Hitting Lorane Hwy again, the group went right toward town and I went left over Wolf Creek. Joined by Ms. MM, we got back through town and I kept going until I felt the stress and frustrations finally fall away as I fatigued. Over 100 miles and 6hrs+ in the saddle, and it felt great.

hot sauce

2010-02-03T12:39:00.000-08:00

Never a good idea before an all-out effort. I knew this, and yet... it got ugly.

Beers after school. Study after beers. Writing after study. Life is good.

There's a midterm tomorrow, way too much work to be done, and I'll pay for this by working all night, but... I see blue sky outside and it's lunchtime. Time to go ride. There is nothing so important that it can't wait another couple of hours, except for riding with friends. Can't really do that in the dark.

totally random - riding music

2010-02-01T21:54:00.000-08:00

and:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKjkPQnHzPg&feature=related

total Another Cynthia kick this week. it's all over the ipod. until i burn out. seems to be good music for hill climbing though.

go figure.

January.

2010-01-31T18:46:00.001-08:00

This week: 17 1/2 hrs, 310 miles, 12,300 kJ. that's a fair number of french fries.
January: 67 1/2 hrs (4 less than December), 1,153 miles (40 less than December), 45,312 kJ.

It's still mostly steady state, with a little more sweet spot, tempo, and some threshold work. And one good VO2 effort per CSC ride, right now.

I should do more school work.

There appears to be some football on TV

2010-01-24T18:58:00.000-08:00

Judging by Facebook status updates. Which is amusing to me, since I haven't turned the TV on in a few days, much less watched football.

This is what I don't get about football: how can people who have never, ever tossed a pigskin in their lives get so damn crazy about a game? Brilliant marketing, hero cultivation, brainwashing, what? It's not like there is a novelty factor here, like there would be watching, say, bob-sledding at the Olympics once every four years. Football is also extremely inaccessible to personal participation, compared to games like basketball and soccer. It requires a lot of space, a fair number of people even in a pick-up format, and few people seem to play it. Just anecdotally, it seems that more of my classmates play dodgeball at school than flag football. So what is it about this game? It's convoluted, has more rules than most people can remember, has flags on every other play, takes three hours to play sixty minutes of game, and is just generally cumbersome. I don't get it.

I've always been fascinated by watching athletes on TV do something that I could or have personally engaged in - ice skating, skiing, toboggan, running, rowing, swimming, archery, shooting, climbing, cycling, etc. Participation creates context for the viewing and appreciation of the performance. It allows me to put my mind's eye into the action and be amazed by what those top level athletes can do. I used to love watching Paulo Salvoldelli chase through the long Euro mountain passes at 100km/h or Cancellara chase back to the bunch through the cars, because I've actually done something like that, I know the sound of the wind and the smell of brake pads burning. I have felt the tires pushing the limits of their traction in hairpin corners and I've felt that full-body awareness of vulnerability as hard pavement screams by. I've been three feet above the world's biggest belt-sander pushing the limits of a 15lb piece of frail aluminum on two little strips of rubber less than an inch wide each. That, I get, on TV. I can feel my heart-rate climb watching that. I can feel the hair on my arms stand up when a rider pushes through a corner with a sheer drop on one side and a rock wall on the other. The wind feel changes when you brush stationary object like that, and your skin can tell you exactly, within millimeters, how close you really are to the edge as your eyes stay on the pavement in front of you. That I get.

But football? No, I just don't get it.

pray vs plan

2010-01-22T12:33:00.000-08:00

One of the business blogs I read, Seth Godin's, had a particularly well worded post up today: No everything is not going to be okay

I blurted out an "Amen" this morning upon reading.

One word: metrics.

Business, athletics, life, whatever. If you can't measure, gauge, compare - you don't know where you are relative to your goals. the technical term for that is "lost". Which is rarely in the same sentence as "success" with any positive connotations. Do you hope and pray, because knowing might be scary, or do you track, measure, and adjust?

Garanteed

2010-01-21T18:37:00.000-08:00

To improve improve mental health and combat home sickness amongst people of Austrian descent or cultural heritage* - semmel knoedel. Those in the know, know.

*These statements have not been reviewed by the FDA. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, or cure any disease. If you are of British Isles descent, try a warm beer and boiling some vegetables instead, like cabbage. If you do not know what a knoedel is, then inquire to your nearest Austrian but be prepared to pay for the information with a cold Almdudler. If you have no Almdudler for the bribe, then shame, shame, shame on you.

way not cool

2010-01-13T21:14:00.000-08:00

getting punished by a late b-day - by being unpleasantly surprised 9 months too soon.

back to the roots.

2010-01-12T21:44:00.000-08:00

one gear, no bottles, pipe, cap, tall shorts. maybe that's what it's really all about.

throwing down

2010-01-11T21:20:00.000-08:00

Well, four days off the bike did the old head some good. And the legs too, they felt like they were 19 again all week. And I squeezed in 19hrs on the bike, culminating with the CSC ride around wolf creek, a sweet loop which we hadn't done in several months.

I set some good (for me) power numbers on the Sunday ride up the first wolf creek climb - 400watts for 9 minutes, 10min average 387 (the climb was only 9& a little) which is on par with my EC hillclimb profile. Of course, I'm a couple pounds heavier than I was then so that gets diluted somewhat, but still, quite OK for January.

I've heard a lot of comments and warnings about being fast in the winter, every time I've shifted into the big ring on the 'ol cross bike (only a 46t mind you) and broken a sweat on a climb. Things like, "if you're too fast now, you'll peak too early", or "races are in the summer you can't keep that up", etc etc. To which I feel the need to reply: hogwash.

Those statements focus on the results of training, not on the methods used to get those results. And that is where the confusion lies. It's not "being fast" that is a problem in January, it's training as if it was June that is dangerous. If you get faster and faster and set personal bests on nothing but base miles, tempo, and endurance rides, then great, because that's sustainable and sets a huge base for the summer months. If you're doing anaerobic work, living on a diet of VO2, and generally doing everything associated with a peak in fitness, then yeah, you won't hold it through the summer. I generally have little tolerance for the mindset that says that riders need to be slow, or out of shape, at particular points in the year in order to have a good season. No, they don't. They have to make sure that a) they recover from the prior season b) they build a good base of training on which to lay the work that will result in good VO2, anaerobic, and endurance gains in the next season, and c) the peak of their fitness for the year comes during their A-priority events. Saying that you have to be slow in the winter is like saying you have to gain 10lbs every December: it's hogwash.

So yeah, I set a personal best on Sunday - longest time ever over 400W. Yeah I'm "fast" relative to my last years' fitness. And I'll be faster in June than I am now. Will it get results? Who knows, I'm not in control of my fitness relative to others, only relative to myself. I'm also not in control of flat tires, crashes, team tactics, and illness. Results are largely the product of too many externalities to use as a barometer of fitness. But the powermeter and bathroom scale won't lie, and that's what I'll measure training by, thank you very much.

no bike

2010-01-03T21:05:00.000-08:00

just a pair of snowshoes, fresh powder, and an all day romp.

Just Riding Along...

2009-12-29T13:40:00.000-08:00

Discovered after I got home from a 4hr+ ride (including coffee commute beforehand of course) with Matt, involving, let's see, from Hideaway Bakery:

up Fox, down McBeth, up Lorane to Blanton, up Blanton, down Crest to Lorane, up Lorane over to McLean, up that, across and down Timberline, up Hawkins, back down McLean and over Chambers, back down Lorane to Mcbeth, up McBeth, down Fox, up over Dillard to other side and back over again into town. About the last 90 min included sketchy shifting introduced by this nice piece. I'm amazed it held.

Holiday in Iambic pentameter

2009-12-25T20:21:00.000-08:00

The morning woke to a cold winter shudder
Cold freezing fog my lenses did cover
Descending Fox Hollow shivering cold
To visit the family I did go.

Warm cups of coffee and cinnamon rolls
Woke up our spirits as gifts they did show
Themselves from under the tree where we
Sat all around, faces pictures of glee.

Noon came and went, our stomachs they rumbled
Amongst bits of papers torn and crumpled
With purpose then to the kitchen we went,
Shoved in the oven a goose that was spent.

We feasted once more like good people should
To show ourselves that when we could, we would
We tipped back some bubbly and toasted the year
Filling ourselves with good holiday cheer.

Night came too soon as happens in winter
And soon the festive group it did splinter
To home and towards beds that we each had made
All warm and full, maybe in a slight daze.

Pedaling home, feet turning slow circles
Darkness around, nose turning purple
I spied two figures under a small bridge
Like a ghost in the night towards them I slid.

As I got closer I thought I could hear
A sound from under some cans of their beer
Where a small radio broadcasted low
A song about reindeer, frost, and the snow.

Under the bridge with no light and no heat
Two people swayed to their own special beat
Without geese or beds, simple or fancy
Gave to each other gifts of their dancing.

And though we pass as simple observers
Others who live without our fine fervor
Remember that luck is not a birthright
Give thanks to that which keeps you warm tonight.

Are we done yet?

2009-12-14T09:16:00.000-08:00

Cold snap over. Rain back.

The transition brought freezing rain on Friday that started to hit my back as I pedaled home from a long spin and turned the roads into ice sheets by dark. Saturday morning, all ice, no bike, big suck. Warm enough to ride by dark but instead found 2 hrs of mind numbing trainer time while watching "March of the Penguins". Bad idea. Next time I'm watching Kung Fu, Drama, News, Romance, anything but Penguins. Anything.

Just like we've done every damn weekend since October, we rode to Cottage Grove on Sunday. BVB, Matt, Mark, Myself. With the roads mostly clear we looped the loop, uneventul except for a half second of terror when BVB led us through an invisible ice patch at 25mph where I briefly engaged in a fishtail followed by a two wheel slide followed by loudly cursing Winter when the tires hit pavement again and traction returned. Thankfully I was mostly pointed straight when that happened and didn't buck off the bike. That would have been ironic - crashing the one bike I tend to crash a lot, the 'cross bike, on ice, in the first year since this whole riding thing started where I have completely failed to race or even practice 'cross at all.

Spring can't come fast enough.

bundled and padded

2009-12-09T15:18:00.000-08:00

I have sinned... for possibly the first time ever, I intentionally went on a long training ride without a helmet. Left it at home. Ditched it. Not out of some pursuit of Euro-trendiness - it simply wouldn't fit.

10F this morning when I woke up according to wunderground.com, and the web flashed to 8F for a few minutes before I took off to meet McKenzie on campus. On went the knickers, leg warmers, tights, wool socks, double shoe covers, shoe warmers, five layers of base and jerseys, jacket, skullcap, baclava, fleece lined wool hat, glove warmers, wool gloves, lobster gloves. My head gained a solid 4" in girth and failed to fit into my helmet. And dare I say, despite the temperature, I actually overdid it. One of the winter jersey layers came off shortly into the ride. Mckenzie did one better, shaking with cold so much that we had to ride back to his house so he could get two or three more layers on before we went out again.

Fall slid into the Oregon winter with little fanfare but a few weeks of sun and gradually increasing cloud cover. After a couple weeks off and short weeks in October things kicked back into gear right as fall term started to kick my ass, and the CSC rides have been gaining attendance again, at least on Saturdays. It's finally that time of year when the 'cross bug dies, roadies start buying Super Record and pre-season hammers get thrown on the Lorane - Cottage Gove climb.

In fact, from now until March the talk around town goes something like this:

(just for you guys at the CSC ride... you are welcome.)
http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/5800295

a pretty good month

2009-09-01T10:52:00.000-07:00

the close of august wraps up three consecutive weekends of long rides, strong races, and a couple of W's for myself and the midtown direct cycling team.

it started with a ride from waldo to oakridge via cascade lakes hwy, bend, sisters, hwy 242, mckenzie bridge, and the aufterheide. i froze my butt off in the morning, baked in the days, and did a nice little double of 121 miles the first day and 90 the second, to be picked up after lunch on sunday.
not to miss an opportunity, the very next weekend lisa and i joined forces for the co-motion tandem stage race - involving an 80 mile road race on the brownsville loop, the 24k coburg tt, and a greenhill tandem crit.

we put the hurt on in the road race when we hit gap road, and got off with the shepherds and the nick/dan combo from hutch's. the lead built up to be pretty big and when we hit marcola the shepherds turned the screws again and we lost nick and dan. we rotated through all the way until the almost the last 1k on mckenzie view, where lisa and i took the long sprint with a surge from 500-600m or so out.

we had enough of a gap not to worry about the others in the tt, where we opened up the lead to almost a minute, then defended successfully in the crit for a sweet win.

last but not least, the eugene celebration stage race went down this past weekend. we brought a full squad of 6 with the aim of repeating rob english's win from last year - and since this course was tt heavy, it seemed like a good deal.

the mcbeth prologue was solid as midtown took 1-4, with rob taking the lead convincingly.

in the road race, we had a really aggressive first lap. the plan was to put guys on anything that moved and not to work - our two little climbers were 2nd and 4th but staring at a 24k tt, and rob and i were pretty well positioned for the overall. so we covered a lot of moves and it went pretty hard.

towards the end of the first lap on crow road, i hit a rock on the left and flatted my rear tire. marc stopped with me and had his wheel out instantly, we changed it and he pushed me off. i chased as hard as i could until i caught on just before sprinters - marc almost made it back, but on spencer creek it went ballistic again and he lost us. i had just barely made it in time. marc was perfectly selfless and made all the difference - i owe him and the other guys everything after that one.

the second lap was pretty aggressive too, but i tried to stay sheltered and recover as much as possible. on territorial the speeds picked up , and little groups kept taking fliers. then, just after briggs, a really solid group of 3 went off including a gc danger from washington named phil (46" back on rob 17" on me at the time). their gap got kind of big - maybe 20"+ - and then two more pairs went with some strong guys including my teammate david marking them.

as we were strung out and almost single file after doane road, going into the last piece of territorial, i knew that we had to get another guy on that break or bring it back - either rob or myself. i moved along the left side of the pack using the draft such as it was, and then hit it hard and slingshot right off the front to chase. i had it in the 53x13 and sat right on the nose of the saddle just giving it everything i had, again, and made contact with the four up the road right at the wolf creek turn. i sat on for less than a minute and started working with them until we caught the group of 3 ahead of us.

at this point david and i were in a bit of a pickle. if we drove the break and got a big gap, i would take the lead but i didn't know if i could beat phil in the tt or hold the lead. in that case, i could end up 2nd but we could lose the race. if we got caught, at least rob would still lead the overall and probably win the tt too, so that was good, but then we would miss out on stage placings and would have to cover more dangerous moves late in the game. so we pulled through but not enough to drive it hard.

by the last 15k it was clear we 7 would be all alone for sure, though the pack started to close a little, and on pine grove i knew i had to do something. i thought that i could at least get rid of some of the baggage on sprinters. i hit out on the hill and was alone - no-one did anything to try to follow me. i put my head down and tt'ed for all i was worth in my 3rd big effort of the day, and by 1k to go was pretty sure i had it. at 500m i knew it and at 100m i zipped up my jersey, took a last look behind, kicked it once more and then sat up to soft-pedal across with my arms held high and fists clenched.

7 seconds later the 6 break away companions sprinted for 2nd, and less than a minute later the pack charged hard across the line, with rob having gotten a perfect armchair ride for the last 40 miles.

the win put me in the GC lead overnight, but it was always going to be short lived as the margins were small and i was pretty wasted.

rob took the tt convincingly, grabbed the lead again, and i dropped to 4th with blown legs.

we defended in the crit despite a big crash, and another season is in the books.

40km

2009-08-02T21:45:00.000-07:00

Rob took the State TT today, putting another Senior Men's Champ jersey on a Midtown Smoker. Dude went 29mph for 40k - that's blistering.

I put in a solid ride at 52:52 that set a new PR by a decent margin, at a higher average speed than I've ridden for any TT length at all. The Peoria course was all backwards with the headwind on the way out and tailwind coming back, which had me thinking that I was on a serious off day for the first half until I realized that 25mph was not, in fact, due exclusively to my legs but also to some gusting headwind. I didn't look at the clock on the way there but coming home was in the 29-31mph range the whole way so I'm sure the difference in the 20k's was in the range of 3-4 minutes.

On a technical / geeky note, I traded the steel frame in for an aluminum Fuji Aloha 1.0 TT bike. Previously I estimated my CdA on the steel bike at 0.265 and figured a moderately aero aluminum frame would get me down to 0.250. I didn't ride with a powermeter but using that number I get a range of 340-350W to do today's ride, depending on wind etc. So it's approximately correct. Now, assuming I did 350W on the upper end, how slippery would I have to be to gain the 1kmph or so to get close to Rob? About 0.230. Really slippery guys my size would be around 0.220. In layman's terms, quite a lot more aero. Like, more than just using booties and giving the legs a fresh shave. More than taking the gloves off and putting a visor on the TT helmet. Way more.

Dude is fast.

34.2km

2009-07-31T20:58:00.000-07:00

Now, the course map and profile (and signup) said 30k. The start times list said 35k. It was neither. It was 12k up and down Skyliner, and 10k around the golf course.

The legs were good. I went up Skyliner probably faster than I ever have, and downhill as well. I caught the 30s guy and the 1min guy, and the first 24k went by quickly. Then the course swung right and onto the loop by the golf course. We had driven part of it yesterday but not all of it was open - and it was the unseen part that took me by surprise. Twisty, fast, some climbs, barren, some bumps, sweeping turns I couldn't see the exits of, and super hot weather. I hit the rises for what I was worth but felt pretty far from the limit of what my bike could do through the turns and downhills. I have a feeling that's were I lost the most time - a failure to fully preview the course and mark the crucial points in my mind's eye. Still, it was probably the fastest I could go on the day. Next year, it will be faster.

Peoria for the State TT is on Sunday - 11am sharp start time. Tomorrow, a VO2 test at the UO lab and some serious recovery. Time to see where the edges currently lie!

total prediction fail

2009-07-28T13:21:00.000-07:00

Contadoped and Armstrong on the same podium, and the detonation of everyone but the Luxemburgers in the last week. Damn. I'm out some retro cycling parts I put in the pool.

Four days until Nationals. I hope there's a massive downhill headwind.

Friday afternoon, after a 3hr mellow ride on the TT bike making adjustments and trying out the position, I hopped on a plane headed for Cali and a cousin's wedding in South Lake Tahoe. If you've never been, it's a lot like Sunriver, but at 6,000ft, on a big lake, and actually in California wheras Sunriver is just full of Californians. So in that regard, it's actually worse. But when that's where the family is, that's where you go, and weddings aren't about the guests anyways so I'm happy to make the trip.

My flight got back at a reasonable hour yesterday so I got out for a late spin to make the most of increasing shade in the 101F weather. And what a crappy feeling comes from two days off the bike, excessive food consumption and four plan flights. Jay-sus. I'm torn between making sure the legs are rested for Friday, and opening them up. How do you rest after two full days of inactivity without overdoing it? Blow them out good and hard then softpedal for two days? I'll find out.

New Gears

2009-07-19T16:54:00.001-07:00

I just registered for the Nationals TT, which is the Skyliners course from Cascade and HDO with a bonus section at the bottom. Since I spun out the 55x11 at the High Desert Omnium this year, and I'll be rocking a new (marginally more aero) TT bike, I'm now shopping for a 56. 56/44 just sound badass. But at 45mph downhill I might actually be able to stay on the gear.

Mmmm... 56x11. Sounds good.

OK fine I give up

2009-07-10T14:29:00.000-07:00

The French will win a few stages in the Tour afterall. Race prediction are quickly unwinding.

this is why i don't do triathlons

2009-07-09T18:47:00.001-07:00

because i would look terrible tt'ing in a speedo, among the many, many other horrifying transgressions of all that is good and holy to participate in such an event (and forget the running part)

thanks for the photo, doug.

The weatherman was wrong.

2009-07-09T13:43:00.001-07:00

Prediction analysis so far:

Close to the mark, but getting further off. Score a point for predicting Cancellara's TT win (not that the odds were long) and almost there on him losing the jersey in the TTT. But Lance? What a ride.

The little move in the cross winds that left Contador weeping on Sunday is a perfect example of why I tip to Armstrong this tour: he does not make mistakes. Contador does. Think of Paris-Nice (although conspiracy theories abound on that one).

And of course, Voekler just killed my prediction that neither his team nor a Frenchman would win a stage. Bummer. I mean, awesome. Have to love that ride - even if I'm drifting further off the mark.

OK, new prediction: no more stage wins for bbox. And no win on the 14th either, for the French, because despite that being the day earmarked for no radios (hence higher chance of a break succeeding - they really want to win that day don't they?), it will fail. Maybe Devolder takes it from a break, to uphold the Belgian forecast?

TdF time

2009-07-01T12:34:00.000-07:00

Kevin sent out a little invite to a TdF preditions pool, tossing in some bike parts or other schwag for the winner. I was intrigued. Here's my preditions for July:

GC Podium - 1st + Overall Lead, 2nd, 3rd: Armstrong @ 30", Sastre, Andy Schleck
Team Classification - Columbia-HTC
Most stage wins - Columbia-HTC (thank you Mr. Cavendish)
Stage 7 Winner - Contador
Stage 18 Winner - Cancellara
Stage 20 Winner - Sastre

nothing amazing in this prediction. it's kind of staid. but, i do think either armstrong or contador will win and the other will be off the podium having blown up trying to. i give even odds on one of them not finishing. most of the astana guys are smart enough to know that lance is likely to be paying their checks next year, and so i tip towards armstrong to win the astana inner war.

in other predictions:

i give team garmin the most lower run podium spots of the tour, and one stage win to tyler farrar.

i also give cavendish green in paris, andy schleck polka dots, fugulsang the white jersey,

and the most doping positives to team katusha (we will have to wait a few months to validate this one though due to testing delays).

at least one riders from each of the following teams will ring the doping bell: katusha, silence lotto (not counting mr dekker already), fuji-servetto, milram.

scoring zero stage wins are cofidis, bbox, ag2r, and anyone of french nationality (though one will podium on bastille day, aka "drug testing forgiveness day" for the french teams). the break will go to the line with mostly frenchmen and they will all get murdered in the sprint by a belgian. all paris will cry.

half the dopers will be italians.

phil liggett will use his phrase "suitcase of courage" at least once. the rider he speaks of will thereby be doomed and lose the stage.

armstrong won't win a stage. he doesn't need to.

cancellara wins stage 1, wears yellow until the TTT when he loses it to either highroad or garmin, i put money on highroad.

coasting around the high desert

2009-06-29T21:00:00.000-07:00

Man, bike racing has fallen off a cliff. The good road races are all over and I had to miss Salem Fairview this weekend to go to Bend. I lined up for the northwest crossing crit and pretty much just rode around in circles doing not a lot of anything for an hour. Fun, but nothing doing in the results department. I think the brain is not in bike racing mode any more.

Classes suddenly ended and summer rolled up along with a part-time job through the b-school, and the lack of work overload hit me in a slight panic - what the hell am I supposed to do now with all this time?

And yet... there's never enough. The to-do list keep growing with all the crap I put off during the school year - building a fence, cleaning the roof, changing that leaky faucet - and to top it off we're in the middle of summer harvest on berries and other goodies that I intend to stock up on for the next 12 months' worth of jam, pie, and other eats while the getting is good and cheap.

I went out this morning with Lisa and picked approximately one butt-load of strawberries, the last pick of the season for the place out on Seavy Loop. We got half over-ripe and half firm berries, but more than good enough for frozen stock and low sugar jam. Talk about some sweet fruit - the stuff is like a wet candy. That should brighten up a few dark evenings in January.

Soon I'll be walking around the woods with a rifle looking to fill the freezer with meat, cursing the school work load and wondering how I pissed away my summer without either sufficient beer drinking or bike riding.

Time to get a little of each done...

Damn summer is short.

how to stay entertained during b-school final presentations

2009-06-07T20:53:00.001-07:00

TTT #2

2009-06-03T20:16:00.000-07:00

Took home the gold on Sunday. That felt good after the yellow squad kept showing up to our little OBRA races and dominating. 11 seconds is as good as 11 minutes for the ability to stand on top of a plywood podium out in Tangent, Oregon. I'll take it.

This year we went substantially faster than last, due to having Rob English to pull us around. Homie can TT like no other, and that was a good thing since Paul, Nick and I had raced the road race on Saturday and beaten up the legs a little bit. We went flying around the TTT course wondering if it was all going to hold together or if we were going to detonate completely. Luckily it worked out, and I don't think we could have gone much faster.

It did make me think, though... I really should get a real TT frame. I just don't fit so well on the converted steel frame.

The week has been a bust for riding. Wrapping up too many projects, and evening thunderstorms get in the way. Next week, though... 4oo miles, 6 pastries, 21 cups of coffee, 3 fishing trips, 4 naps. Mark my word. I might actually be fast by July.

Top 3 Reasons I Shave my Legs

2009-05-29T14:08:00.001-07:00

1) So I can admire the stringy IT bands when using "The Stick"
2) I enjoy shower time and need an excuse to extend it
3) So bandages stick easier and pull off painlessly. Like all those band-aids I seem to use when I nick myself, shaving.

Hot, Hilly, and Crowded

2009-05-18T18:28:00.000-07:00

Silverton! First OBRA race of the year for me. Hell of a race to start with! I think I heard 81 starters mentioned by an official at the line. It sure looked like it. And 81 degrees, too. And 6,000+ft of climbing over 4 laps. Bleh!

Some stats:

Duration: 3:01:04
Work: 2523 kJ
Norm Power: 299
VI: 1.29
Distance: 112.535 km
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 1122 232 watts
Cadence: 29 193 85 rpm
Speed: 3.6 76.6 37.3 kph

OK, got that? That's the grand total. For the 3 hrs. Now let's see what the hardest hour was... oh look, it's the very first hour of the race:

Peak 60min (258 watts):
Duration: 1:00:01
Work: 928 kJ
Norm Power: 325
VI: 1.26
Distance: 37.675 km
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 926 258 watts
Cadence: 30 183 85 rpm
Speed: 16.6 76.2 37.7 kph

325W normalized for the first hour with 256W average explains why we started to shell guys. That's a decently solid pace. But the first 20min were even the hardest 20 minute of the ride:

Peak 20min (284 watts):
Duration: 20:01
Work: 341 kJ
Norm Power: 351
VI: 1.24
Distance: 11.732 km
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 926 284 watts
Cadence: 31 183 87 rpm
Speed: 20.3 76.2 35.2 kph

20 minutes at 284W isn't bad at all, but normalized to 351 means that, if you weigh what I do, you probably needed to have a threshold power near that number otherwise you were going to be one hurtin' unit, and pay for it later if you hung on. Scale for size, of course, positioning, ability to shelter from wind, etc etc, but that's a good guesstimate.

And what did the very fist climb look like? Like this: 5 minutes at 393W at 27.3km/h (that's a guess on the actual climb time as my PowerTap doesn't do GPS - just picked what was likely). Uphill with wind. That effort started the 20min effort listed above which also started the hardest 60min effort... which is why, after the first two laps, we pretty much had half the field left. Or something like that.

So then what happened? Well, some really fast guys rolled off the front early. Then HP Chiro decided to chase. And chase. And reel stuff in. But not bridge or create big selections. So after the first lap I drifted back to watch, thinking it was going to be just attrition. And it was. And by lap 3, we were all just hanging out playing games.

We played a few different games, which included:

- Let's Guess Who's Going to Chase Now!
- Avoid the Front!
- Let's All Watch Ryan Trebon! (very popular game)
- Attack! (Just Kidding)

Then, on (I think) the start of lap 4, another group got off. I attempted to follow some moves and do some of that bridging suff, since they weren't that far away most of the time, but it never really went anywhere. And everyone was looking a little bit stuffed. So, at the last corner maybe 4k out I kind punched it into the head/cross wind and sure enough, they all let me go. I did an 8minute time trial, or something like that. La-di-da, I got 10th. At least it's in the money.

Le Pissin' Rain

2009-05-13T13:46:00.000-07:00

Sunday TTT: 38F and raining. And windy. With clip-ons on the road bike. I have not been that cold on a bike in a very long time. Owch. Immediately through the finish I got in the car, turned on the heaters, and took off all of my icy wet clothes (yes, they were mostly wool) and sat there in a wool shirt until I could feel my toes again, at which point I put on underwear. When I could use my hands enough to work zippers and buttons, I put on the pants. Then I drove away.

On the plus side, the Wild Boar Coffee in Ft. Collins has free refills on house coffee and does Belgian waffles. So after caffeinated rehydration therapy, I made it back to Denver in more or less good condition.

Of course, the pissin' rain followed us home again. It's off and on a bit, but right now I am ready for some sunshine.

Saturday I went out for a loose spin to Red-rocks Amphitheater, which, if you haven't been, sits in between two natural red cliffs and carries sound wonderfully. Looking down past the stage you can see the city and the high plains in the East without much noise pollution from the town. You sit up in the hills and just kind of observe the plains stretching themselves away. I rolled up there and grabbed on to the guard rail at the top and heard guitar strumming coming off of the stage. The place is usually full of visitors, and completely open, so there were plenty of people around and one guy with a steel radio flyer wagon was giving us his own show. I was kind of digging it until I picked out the tune and a couple of the words - it was a John Denver song. So I left him lamenting about leaving on his jet plane and rolled back down to town.