Titties and Beer

Few things could entice the instincts of a bike-racing beer-snob more than a competitive event held in a microbrewery.

The views from my trainer

So, with much fanfare and local media hype (including a reporter for WBUR/NPRs 'Only A Game'), the 2nd annual Harpoon Ale indoor time Trial was held at their Boston brewery this past saturday.

The riders were instructed to set up their trainers for warm up in the warehouse area, which, as the pictures above show, is lined with racks of freshly bottled beer on pallets, 24 feet high, ready to ship.

Now, I'm not a huge fan of Harpoon ales. I think they fell into that American craft brewed trap of trying to out 'hop' the next guy. Sam Adams is guilty of this too. I like the Harpoon UFO (a very good, but not great hefeweisen), but their standard bearer IPA isn't very well balanced IMHO. Many will disagree, and that is your right. It's a subjective critique on my part. However, saturday they were offering a newer (for them) beer on tap. A nicely balanced and full flavored red ale of the Irish variety, called the Celtic (that's Keltic, not Seltic). Also of note is a new beer, the UFO Pale Ale. It was very good as well, though not as good as the Celtic, without the hop heaviness prevalent in most of their other beers. I recommend both of them if you're not into this hop madness.

Still, the allure of beer and bikes was too hard to pass up. The competition area is actually at the end of the final packaging area, where the cases of beer loaded onto the aforementioned pallets.

Pictures Here.

Since the race was on saturday this year, it promised to be a bit better attended than last year. This year, they had the open class, an elite class that had professional/sponsored riders, a clydesdale class (200+ lbs), and a veterans class (50+). By the time everything was done, they had 270 preregistrants and 268 starters. I'm not an elite, I'm not 50, and I'm way under 200 pounds.

I have details of my race below, but I though I would go into a secondary reason for my participation - the entertainment value.

I like going into Boston. There's a certain eclecticism about a city where half the residents between september an may are college students. That demographic usually promises interesting entertainment, as hanging out any weekend night in Harvard Square will show.

The first notable occurrence was the cold. I'm sure it never got above 20 that day, and I'm sure it had an effect on spectator attendance. The warehouse is only heated to prevent it from freezing the beer, so it can get cold. It was probably in the 50's inside. This pretty much dashed any hopes for hot chick sightings. Granted, there were quite a few attractive women competitors there. I mean, I really didn't expect to see this:

Or anything like this:

but I really thought I would see something like:

(I do luv a tattooed hipster chick)

and I would have paid extra for this:

But, between the cold, and the lack of hot chicks in cycling in general, I was somewhat disappointed.

The Masters men was a gentlemanly affair, with most of them knowing each other and competing in an almost victorian sportsmanship. Very cordial, congratulations all around to each other regardless of their performance.

Contrast that with the next heat - an open event - predominantly a younger crowd from the boston area, with full entourages of young urban hipsters and young professional hipster wannabes. This dude was typical:

Note the boxers in the jeans. I wrote in my last blogpost, that I don't think he brought a change of clothes. This would mean going back out into the cold winter air with soaking wet boxers and damp jeans. mmmmmmmmmmmmm, comfy.

But this heat was rowdy. Most of the spectators had already been there an hour longer than planned because the heats were running so late, and they passed the time at the taps. The room was packed to the point it was tough to maneuver, much like a packed bar. People were yelling, screaming, patting the target of their support on the back during the race, spilling beer. Think of the theater scene in "the triplets of belleville", without the cigarette smoke.

They had a Clydesdale division - all I can say is, those poor bikes. I'm amazed at how thin aluminum tubes can put up with that much stress. Some of these guys were sustaining over 400 watts. Yeah, I know in relative terms it ain't a lot, but in absolute terms, the forces those bikes and trainers were being subjected to....A word on fashion for the less-than-svelte male: Bibshorts, HRM chest strap, and manboobs are _not_ a pleasing aesthetic. It isn't _your_ nipples I'm interested in seeing poking through mesh suspenders, those aren't the titties that made Titties and Beer famous. I was going to get a picture for this post, but I couldn't. I just couldn't.

By the time my teammates arrived for their heat - supposed to start at 8:15 - the bathrooms had been used by literally hundreds of people. They wisely made one of the womens rooms into a mens room, but you now how accurate men with beer are. I'm just hoping they got to clean them before Monday morning, when some hapless woman had to hit the can before having her coffee. I know what it looked like when I used it, and they were open for another 4 hours after that.

They has a Team heat also. They had one team at each of the three 8 person stations, and then turned on the drafting feature. This ostensibly lightens to load when you get within a certain number of feet 'behind' another rider. The problem here is that none of the athletes had ever done it before, and they were all trigeeks. TRi-geeks can't pack race, with a few exceptions. They don't know how to ride a wheel, and don't know how to pace in a group. Now, it took a good 15 minutes to get all the bikes set-up and calibrated, then they had to explain how the drafting worked. well, half of them didn't understand the drafting concept to begin with, and once they explained how it worked, they had to explain how to read the display to note your position, and your distance to the rider in front of you. This took another 15 minutes. I'm thinking they need to scrap that idea for next year.

Local Blogging Legend Thom P also ventured into the cold january evening to race with the elite field. Well, he _is_ sponsored after all. I guess once someone starts giving you bikes and clothes to race, you should damn well be racing with the big guns. Thom got there early enough to prepare for his heat at 9 PM, but they were almost two hours late, so thom proceeded to drink beer for 3 hours. Now, thom brought his new 29r single speed (NOT fixed gear) - 32x17 (I may have that wrong, but not by much). He obvious only intended to work on his aerobic capacity, since there's no way in hell he was going to generate any power even on the hill with a gear that small. But then there was some mechanical issue. I had heard he needed an 8mm hex key for something, but over on his blog he talks about the skewer not fitting in the trainer. I don't know what he was running for a skewer, but it looks like a quick release from the pictures, and they had an extra skewer for each station just in case this problem came up. Instead, he decided to borrow a road bike. Thom hates road bikes. He rode 90% of the course standing up, and taking beer feeds. Even still I only beat him by 30 seconds. You suck.

Last year, I did the TT on a lark. I found out about it and registered last minute, so I hadn't done any focused training. I rode a 52x16 fixed gear (NOT a single speed freewheel), and did ok. This year, I had a target established, worked more focused workouts into my regular training, and planned ahead.

This year I chose a 52x14. The 'course' is to simulate the last 8 miles of the B2B (brewery to brewery) charity ride that harpoon sponsors every year. The actual course is mostly flat with a hill at the end - something like 3/4 mile @ 5%, and a downhill run to the finish.

If you've ever used a computrainer, you know that the hill simulation isn't all that much of a simulation. Essentially, the computer just loads the mag trainer a bit more, based on your body weight and % grade. This still favors the power riders, which I'm not. I was thinking that using the 14t, I could maintain speed through the flats at a lower cadence, lug up the 'hill', and really wrap up the spin on the downhill. That's pretty much what I did last year, and it seemed to work, but I still could have used more gear at the end, which was part of the reason for using the 14t this year.

You're probably asking yourself at this point what sort of malfunction I have that would lead me to choose a fixed gear. Two reasons:

A) I like fixed gears. I think they're cool. I'm comfortable spinning and I think it's good training. Others will disagree with that last participle, and to that I say 'fuck you you fucking fuck'.

2) I know I stand a spanish climbers chance of doing well at paris-roubaix here, but I like having a mid winter competition goal. Besides, it makes me feel good to beat the majority of the riders on a bike they're afraid the ride.

Truth be told, I'm kind of glad I really have no potential to be in a leading position. They had the leaders sit in a platform, with a sign in front that said Harpoon Hot Stool.

Can I just say, I really don't need to be sitting in box labeled 'HOT STOOL'?

This year, the first 6+ 'flat' miles went as well as I had hoped. I kept a good speed and cadence (about 90rpm/25mph) up the the 'hill'. The 14t was just too much, and I ended up working it so hard to maintain any kind of speed that I really couldn't spin it up on the downhill. One of the drawbacks to the computrainer is that once your speed drops, the load becomes unrealistic. I think it becomes more linear with a higher low-limit, rather than exponential. At least that's the way it feels. I've been riding fixed gears for over 20 years, so I think I have a great deal of experience to make a qualified judgment on the subject.

Also, the downhills are _quite_ unrealistic. Once again, I think the calculation is off, and it doesn't
simulate low-loads well at all. The average geared riders should easily be able to maintain 40 mph on the downhill, but I saw very few over 35.

A point on system calibration needs to be made here. Since the computer calculates the load based on your weight, it's pretty crucial that the weights are entered using the same reference i.e. scale. Last year, they had a bathroom scale that weighed about 8 pounds heavy. This year, same scale. This wouldn't be an issue since it affects everyone, except that;

They stopped using it half way through the night.

My weigh in was 156. I've never weighed over 155 in my life, and I know I don't now. There are three scale I use regularly (1 at home, two at work), and they are within 1 pound of each other. This off-season I've tipped at 151 once (after xmas gorgefests, three days in a row), and generally hover in the 147 range. So now, the later riders we being _asked_ what their weigh is. I can imagine the number of people that answered that honestly could number less that the number of beers in a case. So now, not only were us earlier riders being weighed heavier, but later riders were, with few exceptions, entering lighter weights than what they were. Hell, I'd
like to say I weighed 140. So lets say, a guy tells the tech he weighs 140 when he's really much closer to my weight. I get plugged in at 156 - there's a 16 pound differential. Tell me how that affects the loading on the 'hill'.

End rant.

Anyways - results:
* 21:37 - 25 second improvement over last year
* avg speed 22.2
* 270 avg watts, weigh in of 156 lbs - 3.80 W/Kg
* overall place 75/232
* Taking the elite riders out of the results: 53/218
* a 45+ analysis 11/39, better than I usually do in road time trials

I beat all of the women this year too. The results will tell you that Karen Smyers (pro triathlete) did a time of 21:04, but that was actually her team time (from the team heat). Her individual time was actually 21:43. Hey ya gotta have goals, right?