the zen of cycling

After the Storm Passed

2009-11-05T13:11:00.000-08:00

The 'storm' being the reviews of The Canton Cup Cx. You know that everyone that went there had to blog something about it, and if you live in new england and you read _this_ blog, then you know someone that has blogged about it, if you haven't yourself.

So sit right back and you'll hear a tale.....

Yes, I did the first two-Cx-Race-weekend in several years. I had planned to race canton and Orchard cross, so the night before I called my good friend and way-better-than-me Cx'r Bangin' Billy Bad Balls (Bigring) to see if he wanted to ride down to canton together, since I saw he had pre-regd. It turned out, that very afternoon, BadBalls was out on a training ride, something happened, then something else happened, and BadBalls banged up his Balls, Bike, and Brain. Broke his helmet too. Suffered a temporary loss of vision in his right eye. No cars were involved. Billy was a bit hazy about the sequence of events himself but he managed to convey something about pulling out of his pedal while sprinting on rough pavement. Sounded kind of like a Jens Voight scenario, without the road rash.

So BadBalls said I could have his entries both days. I'm going to repay him in the form of a case of finely crafted Snob Beers. Yes, hes as much of a beer snob as I am.

I was a bit anxious going to canton for a couple reasons. One was The Great Pint Glass controversy of '07 - still unresolved issues there. The other was that I had decided to finally set up my Cx bike for _me_. I bought my Cx bike about 5 years ago, I got it _wicked_ cheap. It's a Bontrager, one of the last of the real hand-mades from bontrager, before he sold out to trek. It came with ultegra 9sp drivetrain and brakes, a USE shockpost, Matrix rims and Vittoria Tigre tires.

I rode it a few times, and immediately swapped out the ultegra for chorus. It gave no tactile feed back from the dual levers on the STI, and the thicker the gloves the harder it was to discern between upshift and downshift. Everything I own is campy anyways, and the idea of the thumb lever for downshifting makes way more sense in a cross bike, no fumbling for the little paddle on choppy terrain while wearing thick gloves.

Anyways, I hadn't ridden the bike in 4 years. It turns out it came with a 110mm stem, and I can't remember if I ever thought I should change it. I rode it at the Velocross, and the inability to slide back on the technical stuff was highly detrimental, so I replaced it with the shortest one I could find - a 50mm.

That's better. Canton isn't exactly a technical course, but it just felt so much better being able to shift my weight further back. I raced the 3/4 45+ and did well (for me). I hit the deck once when a dude swung his bike to the right as I was approaching the run up at the track while I was dismounting. He probably shouldn't have changed his line like that, but then I was coming into the corner way to hot for the amount of traffic that was there. Hey, this is 'cross, a few bump and grinds are gonna happen. I had hoped to stay up with Solobreak, but canton is a power course, and solo has way more power than me. Not to mention, he's still training. I've just been running, and my training for Cx consists solely of going to Cx races. Still, I would gain on him through the winding sections, but he would distance me on all the open stuff. I ended up 13th out of 60something. After the race Solo and I went out for buhrgahs and Beahs at some irish joint in nohwood.

Me rounding the 180 before the pit at canton

Sunday was the Orchard Cross in Hampton Falls, NH. It's about 15 miles from my house, and put on by the same crew that used to put on the Amesbury 'cross race. This was a great course. Old school style. I've always thought apple orchards would make great cross courses and this just confirmed my suspicion. They didn't have to make abstract serpentine tape labyrinths in open fields, the rows of trees made perfect, sort-of natural switchbacks and turns. there was also way more climbing than pretty much any cross course I've ever done. OK, I'm not exactly a prolific 'crosser, but I _have_ been racing 'cross since around '97, so I've seen a few courses. There was a _very_ fast downhill farm road, followed by a similar uphill topped of with a barrier. 1/2 the course was _very_ smooth grass serpentine between the apple trees. There was a several inch deep mud section about 100 feet long with a downhill leading into it. Over all, this was even more of a power course than canton, but some the two climbs on the course balanced out the course for riders like me that have reasonable power/weight against the straight power riders.

I loved the course, and it will definitely be on my schedule for next year. Funny thing is, I didn't do any better than the day before. I got 12th/26 overall, and 4th/6 in the 45+. Well, this _was_ a 1/2/3 instead of a 3/4 like canton. I felt good, never laid the bike down, and could have done another lap.

Me coming out of a 180 into a mud pit at orchard cross

Well, that's it for another lame-assed bloggers lame-assed race report. Now go do something useful for a change.

Fucktitude back in the day

2009-10-30T14:32:00.000-07:00

This originally started as a comment to another blogger commenting on the fuckeditude of fixed gear mtb'rs, but morphed into a blog post.

Fixed gear mtb'rs are an odd bunch, even more odd than single speed mtb'rs. I'm going to relate a 'back in the day story' but first we need to define 'back in the day'.

'Back in the day' wasn't when they had a B cyclocross category instead of the cat 3's, that was last fucking week. Back in the day the only people that had ever even _heard_ of cyclocross were people that had lived in belgium. Back in the day, mountain bikes didn't exist, and no one had a 'cross frame that was designed and built as a 'cross frame. We had road frames that were modified by a local frame builder by welding on canti brake bosses, pinching the chainstays by the bottom braket and moving the rear brake bridge a bit higher on the seat stays. My first CX bike started life as a schwinn letour, circa ~1980.

Back in the day was when guys still raced with toe clips (yeah, 'cross racing with toe clips!). Index shifting was considered effeminate, there were still more five speed freewheels (not freehubs) than six speed freewheels, and you would see an itinerant racer with a set of chainwhips removing the 13t from his freewheel so he could put on a 21 for the putney road race in the parking lot of the west hill shop. The longsjo classic was a one day crit on lower main street (even now, longsjo was a one-day crit longer than it's been a stage race).

Back in the day, we rode fixed gears for early season training. If you didn't have a bike you could leave set up as a fixed gear, you were cajoled into removing your derailleurs, buying a track cog, lock nut, and track chain. This was a point of discipline. No sprinting for town lines in your big chainring in february (they wore ski clothing back then, some guys even wore ski goggles on really cold days, and no one had bike helmets, I remember one brisk morning wearing a ski mask and safety glasses). The idea was to force you to ride for 5 hours in an easy gear to build your base fitness. There's a good reason for junior gear restrictions, the guys from 'back in the day' figured out the damage that pushing big gears did without base mileage without having the help of sports physiology. Fixed gear riding was never intended to be the domain of the urban hipster, once Tullio invented the derailleur, fixed gears became the domain of track racers and spartanites.

Back in the day there was a local bike club called The Sons Of Italy Road Club. You won't find too much about them, they went defunct somewhere around 2001, but they were pretty active in the area in the 80s and 90s. They used to hold an annual banquet in the fall, I could be mistaken but I believe the seeds of NE-BRA were sown here. This was the first time I met Chronoman, he was wearing a nametag that said "hello, my name is Terry Bradshaw". They used to have guest speakers at these banquets, the most notable of whom was Chris Carmichael. Chris talked alot about training, and of course, about his most famous client - Lance Armstrong. I don't remember what year that was, but it was pre-cancer and post world championship. During the q&a, I asked Chris if he thought lance would ever win the TdF. Chris answered 'I think he has the potential. Barring any accidents, yes, I think he will win the tour one day'.

Now, back to where I was heading when I first started writing this epic. Another guest speaker they had was Paul Curley (HEY!). This, if I remember correctly was the last banquet they had. Paul spoke a bit on his rather extensive racing career and then dedicated the rest of his address to his training philosophy. At one point, he mentioned 'fixed-gear' and 'mountain biking' in the same sentence. They served beer at the SoI hall, and I wasn't quite sure that I had heard him correctly. So I raised my hand and asked "did you just say you went mountain biking on a fixed gear?"
He replied "yes".
Again, having made a few trips to the bar, I'm not exactly sure what I said, but I know it was something along the lines of "that's fucked!"
This flustered Paul somewhat, but he continued with his presentation. I'm sure I feel asleep.

Fast forward about 17 years. MTB racing has peaked and declined. If you have a single speed mtb, you're cool. If you have a single speed 29'r, you're _uber_ cool. And, I guess now, if you have a _fixed_ 29'r, you're so fucking cool that thick mud solidifies as you approach allowing you to glide effortlessly through, coors light cans turn blue as you ride by, and hot chicks nipples stand out when you're in the vicinity.

I say this only partially toungue in cheek. Back in the day I was thoroughly ridiculed for wearing black/brown/beige dress socks when arriving for afternoon rides after work, even though I folded them over to resemble 'crew' socks (I remember a clause in the USCF manual as late as 1989 stating "socks will be white, shorts will be black. A thigh panel with the sponsors name will be allowed"). Now, white socks are totally gay, and the uber cool wear fucking argyle.

Now, certain bloggers fully embrace the off-road fixed-gear trend. These people are far more prolific as bloggers, racers, and slackers than I. While I ridicule the off-road fixed-gear rider for coming to the party 20 years after paul curley was using it as a spartan training regimen, I envy them for my inability to jump in with both feet due to pragmatic commitments of my own doing.

I sincerely hope that off-road fixed-gear competition becomes at least as successful as off-road single-speed competition has become. I won't be doing it, I'll have respect for those that _do_ embrace it, but I still think it's fucked.

I hope no one is buyin' this shit.......

2009-10-28T09:10:00.000-07:00

From http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/boonen-says-counsellor-is-helping-with-consumption-issues

"The Quick Step rider blamed his positive doping controls on his drinking; indicating that he drank so much that he did not know what later happened. "I was very drunk. I do not know what happened, but the next day I tested positive for cocaine," he said.....Quick Step later accepted Boonen's explanation that his positive test had come as a result of contact with other cocaine users, rather than direct ingestion of the drug......"Hair samples proved that there was no cocaine in his system for more than four months," said Lefevere. "The amount of cocaine present [at the time of his positive test] was enough to say that there was someone with him who was using it, and he came close to those people.""

Really, a contact high from blow?

Right - Sorry Boom Boom, the only way to test positive for blow is to do blow. Being in the same room with it doen't set off the catalyst.

(posted by a survivor of many a lost weekend)

26 Reds and A Bottle of Wine

2009-10-27T16:09:00.000-07:00

more like 26 miles and a 5K race....well, more like 27 miles, but who's counting....

I had too much shit to do this past weekend around my house, so getting away to maine for one (or both) of the verge races wasn't really feasible. It just so happened that The Cider Hill Farm in amesbury mass was holding the "5K Cider Mash Orchard Run" cross country running race. Amesbury is about ten miles from me, though it turned out the actual race venue was 13.6 miles (hence the 27 miles reference).

The ride there was actually nice, it was relatively warm, and there was a solid southwest wind, so I had a tailwind all the way there. The race flier promised "real cross country". I had thought of riding my bike over the course, but the first thing you see from the registration table was the first climb, up the side of the apple grove, allegedly up an old ski run. I had my road bike, no way I was going to make it up that.

Eh, I'll just wing it. I wasn't here to set a PR. My knee was still acting up from the crash at the pinnacle challenge three weeks earlier. In fact, this past week was the first time I was able to run for 30 minutes without my right knee feeling a severe tendinitis type of pain (A/M/P CL? I dunno, it just fucking hurts). Besides, if I wanted to go for a PR, I wouldn't have ridden my bike over. I've already learned that drains many seconds per mile from me.

Anyways, it turns out we're going over that big hill twice, and we were warned at the line of a long section of deep thick mud - no pr's for _anyone_ today.

It looked like there was reasonable talent there - lots of people in club jerseys, most WCRC. No MVS. Indeed, both Craig Fram and his son were there. Not knowing the personalities, I guessed the race was for 2nd.

The horn went off and it was a mad dash for the 178 runners to get across a short single lane bridge less than 100 yards from the start. I sprinted at the beginning to avoid the bottle neck, and made the top fifteen coming across the bridge. Then next 1/4 mile was a hard-packed flat dirt farm road. Take a right to go between rows of apple trees where we were greeted by the sweet pungent smell of dropped, fermenting apples for another 100 yards. Take left, and start going up

up

up

Very
steep
here,
I'm
glad
I
had
my
New
Balance
M800
cross
country
shoes
with
block
treads.

Seriously, wet grass with saturated ground underneath. Without a good shoe, the only people getting up this without slipping were the most surefooted of runners. The first 100 yards was the steepest, I'm estimating over 15% grade. After that is 'leveled' out to about 5% to the top of the hill.

I crested the top in what I thought was 10th spot. I looked behind me and saw one person. that hill really thinned things out. "Those were people who died". Running down the other side on a farm road, I passed one runner, Kurt Mullen, before hitting the mud bog. First mile in 6:30. Later analysis showed 175 feet of climbing, all in about 1/4 mile (see graph below)

Yup, lots 'o mud. This stuff was more than ankle deep. they had gone though and spread hay, so you sank in and couldn't keep your speed up, but at least you weren't pulling ten pounds of mud out with each step. They had cleverly placed little signs along the mud bogs - "CAUTION, WORM PIT" and "DRY SOCKS?", there were more.

I started to feel the tendinitis in my knee. It was only hurting on the up sections, so I let loose on every downhill and nursed the up sections. Kurt caught me on the up sections in the second mile, and I would close the gap to him on the downhills. Towards the end of the second mile, they run you back and forth between rows of apple trees in about 100 yard sections, up and over a small hill each time. I started to hear cheers for "YEA, FIRST WOMAN" getting closer and closer behind me. Coming out of the grove and back onto a farm road we headed up again. Yup, way up. Not as steep, and this time on hardpacked dirt.

I could hear the woman (later identified as Kelly Jenkins of West Newbury, or as I saw her "The Ab Queen" - her abdominal muscles were simply fantastic) breathing behind me getting closer. I pushed off hard with my left leg and just soft-legged with my right going up the steep climb.

End of second mile - 7:10/11:40. Graph shows 115 feet of climbing in this section, not bad considering I ran _down_ the 145 foot climb I went up in the first mile.

The second steep climb peaked well past the 2 mile mark. The graph shows this one climb to be 150 feet. Kelly didn't catch me before the top, so I pushed the pace back over the top and started to distance her, while gaining back on Kurt. I was way faster than him on the downhills. I caught him through the last section of orchard just as we came back out on the dirt road we started on. I was holding his pace, but it was hard. I was faster than him on the downhills, but he clearly had the stronger uphill and flat pace. He slowly pulled away, beating me by three seconds over the last 1/4 mile. I'm usually good for a sprint, and normally I would have turned it in the last 100 yards, but today I had no lungs left. My legs were good, but no fuel. Kelly came in 6 seconds later.

(clickie = biggie)

My time - 20:20/6:33 pace. Before I saw the course I was hoping for 6:30, because I haven't been running due to my knee pain. So, I'm pretty happy with a 6:33 pace, it got me 11th overall and 4th on the 40's age group.

I'll tell ya, the 40's age group is without a doubt the most competitive. In the top ten at this race there were 5 age group winners and three finishers in the 40's age group. The top two on the 40's got 2nd and 3rd overall. You had to go down to 8th place to get a second place from any other group, Greg Balog got 8th over all and 2nd in the 30's. Craig Fram won in a 17:42/5:42. Just to give you an indication of the toughness of this course, that's the slowest 5K Craig has run this year.

So, now I had to ride 13 miles home, into a headwind the whole way, over the many rolling hills on rte 110 between amesbury and haverhill. I got home just in time to see the Patriots spank Tampa Bay.

Race Across The Sky

2009-10-23T08:36:00.000-07:00

Yes, I went to see it last night.

Let's get one thing straight right away. I'm a lance fan. Not a lance fan-atic, just a fan. I truly appreciate what he's accomplished, how he's impacted cycling in the united states, how he's used his fame and fortune to advance the cause of cancer research, and the inspiration he's given people towards becoming cyclists and getting involved in the LAF. I'm also exceptionally dubious over the doper allegations, and fuck off if you're a lance hater (I have no patience for it).

Anyways, Race Across The Sky wasn't about lance. It was about the Leadville 100, a 100 mile MTB race centered in leadville colorado. Lance won this year, and they decided to use his fame as a vehicle to launch the film. Lance wasn't a minor character, but how could he be? He won the fucking thing, so of course he would be prominent. But shown just as prominently in the film is Dave Wiens, the founder of the event Kenneth Chlouber, as well as Travis Brown and Matt Shriver. Susan Demattei even had a good amount of face time. I make this point to make the distinction clear: Race Across The Sky was a movie about the Leadville 100 that had lance armstrong in it, much in the same way that Breaking Away wasn't really about cycling, it was a movie about a teenager coming of age with cycling in it.

Turn out was good, the theater was about half full. The manager was quite surprised, as he had to come out and help take/sell tickets. When he came out and saw the line at the ticket kiosk he actually said "wow!".

The movie was broken up into 3 parts - two panel discussions, before and after the actual movie, and then the movie about the race.

The panel discussions were poorly edited and hosted by a total putz (didn't even bother to look his name up). The low points of his performance were:

In the first segment - the 'panel' were all seated on wooden stools, the MC placed one foot on a stool rung and broke the rung. They didn't bother to cut away or get him another stool. As the discussion went on, the legs of the stool were noticeably widening as he shifted his position

Second segment - With a new stool, he asked Travis Brown if the fact that Travis was riding a 29er was beneficial. Travis replied "um, I wasn't riding a 29er, I had 26" wheels. My bike had drop bars".

DOH!!!

The panel discussions were in fact interesting - if you're a cyclist and you knew the characters. I wasn't riveted, but light jokes were made (the theater audience laughed several times), and all the participants came off as friendly and relaxed in both segments. What made it difficult was the hacked editing I mentioned earlier. The flow of conversation was disrupted to the point that you felt like you had to mentally shift gears as the topic changed with the camera angle. Clearly, not much skill went into the transitions. The first segment went on too long, and if you aren't involved in sports as more than a fan, it will probably be the thing that turns off the majority of potential viewers. If this ever makes it to broadcast/cable/satellite network, the length of the first panel segment will have the cycling layperson switching over to survivor re-runs ten minutes in.

The movie - Pleasantly surprised to hear Bob Roll as the narrator. I don't know if this was shot in HD, but it wasn't shown in HD. It _should_ have been shot and shown in HD (a big fat fucking 'F' if it wasn't). The motorcycle camera shots and helicopter shots were spectacular. Shots showing the riders at the top of the course (Mount Columbine) rivaled any european racing footage I've ever seen. The footage of the actual race was excellent. Good camera shots, music not too overdone, the editing was done so that you actually felt a sense of the dramatic nature of the event. Little interviews with riders who had stopped for whatever reason, added a good feel to the difficulty, though a bit too much was spent on the people who didn't make the first time check. I suppose it was necessary to show the frustration and anguish of people who were actually turned back because they didn't make the first aid station in a reasonable time, but it was just a bit much for my taste.

Then there were the obligatory racer profiles. One woman racer had been hit by a car years earlier and suffered a broken back (five individual spinal fractures), two shattered legs, massive internal injuries, of course was shown in tears describing her comeback, (as was her husband). Curiously though, only about 30 seconds was spent on a woman racer who has MS (maybe she declined a more detailed interview?). I think that story would have been just as compelling, if not more. Alot of time was spent on Dave Wiens and his family, with his wife Susan Demattei given alot of camera time. If there was any question that this movie was a lance fest, these segments put it to rest. Time spent on lance's personal life or off the bike during the movie? Almost zero (exactly two mentions of his Gfriend and son in attendance with no interview, one short segment of him leaning on his bike and talking about the race). Third place rider Matt Shriver was actually interviewed off the bike as part of the movie, with significantly more time than armstrong.

As the race wore down and the movie came to a close, I would have liked a better choice of music. It was the same cheezy solo piano crap they have every year when they show the end of the ironman hawaii with the late finishers coming across the finish line. That said, I suppose it was a necessary addition to give the movie a slightly broader audience appeal. But you know us racers, we want to see racing. As empathetic as I am to the person just barely making the cutoff, it just isn't interesting to me, but that's just me.

I'm not going to go into the race details - all that information is on-line - except for one thing. Lance gets a flat about 7 miles from the finish. He has no clue how to change a tubeless tire (he admits this in the panel discussion after the movie). He spends his CO2 cartridges just pumping the tire back up then riding as far as he can until it was flat again, and rode the last three miles completely flat. One comment I've read today was "now we know lance is a litterbug". Well, we didn't see lance tossing his CO2 and not picking it up, and in fact the first time he stops to service the flat, he _does_ in fact pick the cartridge up, and Bob Roll even states, something to the effect of 'lance is clearly frustrated as he retrieves the spent CO2 cartridge'. I suppose the comment could have been about whatever happened to all the fuel packages he used - the same argument could be made for _all_ the elite racers. I'm pretty sure they had a crew go over the course the next day and pick up as much as they could. Does that excuse tossing wrappers off the bike? IMO no, but I don't know what they had said about such things, maybe they said "we'll have clean up crews".

Movies like this are necessary. Sure, the editing and directing left a little to be desired, but anything to raise awareness and un-marginalize our sport is good effort. It wasn't a lance propaganda piece, and it wasn't a smaltzy effort by a studio noob with delusions of coppola. It was done by a group of people who feel emotion for the sport and are obviously working towards greater acceptance. I'm sure there are other people out there that feel the movie was expertly edited and directed. I _know_ there are people out there that will lambaste the entire effort.

I'll probably buy the DVD. Hopefully it will be in high def.

Happy Thursday

2009-10-22T07:04:00.000-07:00

So, I figured it out. I lamented my downward trend in my last post. Last night, on the way home, it became obvious.

I don't know how many of you have had this happen - you're riding along, and all of a sudden you 'wake up'. You ask "how the hell did I get here". You can't remember a large chunk of your ride.

That happened last night. I remember riding north on main street in boxford and taking a right on lakeshore rd. Then I suddenly realized I was in haverhill on boxford road approaching chadwick road. Boxford road isn't some straight flat road. It's windy, twisty, and hilly (well, just little short rises).

For the first mile, the road has no flat sections, and no straight sections, and you can see for more than 100 feet in one spot - though even there a small car can be obscured by the dip in the road. Two SUV's cannot pass here without one going off the pavement. Many times I have had to brush the edge of the pavement on my bike for an f-350 (this is farm/horse country) that refused to take a bit of dirt on his right.

Yet this is where I went 'out'. This means one thing - I'm tired. I was looking forward to riding in today, quite possibly one of the last 'shorts only' days of the year. Instead, I'll be taking a nap in my car at lunch. Dreaming of days gone by:

The downward trend

2009-10-20T07:20:00.000-07:00

I'm losing it.

I was riding to work this morning, watching my HR spike as I was watching my speed drop over a small incline. Granted, it was 32 degrees at the start for the second day in a row, and I'm wearing an extra 42 pounds of clothing, but I wasn't overheating, just hyperventilating.

It occurred to me how much work I need to do on a regular basis, just to keep up in the masters. Last weekend was a good example. I "raced" the New England Velo-Cross Challenge, mechanical-ed in the first 1/4 mile, then crashed half a dozen times times just trying not to get lapped. The last crash resulted in me jamming my left rear canti underneath the rim with my right leg on a run-up. I had to deflate the tire and open the skewer to get it free. I DNFd with about 2 to go.

I sense myself getting slower and slower, and I'm not sure why. I did a 5 K road race about a month ago, and had the slowest time I've had all year (including the second 5 k of a duathlon in may). Then at the pinnacle challenge I ran even slower. I _haven't_ been over training, if anything I've been taking it easy for the past few weeks.

That's when I started thinking about the time I need to put in on the bike just to stay with the genetic freaks in the masters field. Freaks like this guy:

He rides a few dozen times a year, and rarely races any more. He showed up Saturday on his old 'cross bike that he hasn't ridden in three years and got 3rd in the master 35+ (ok, there were only like 6 guys, but he was in like second for a long time before he faded). This same guy, at the CX national championships at fort devens in '96 (?) had never raced 'cross before in his life, showed up on a borrowed bike, and got 3rd in the "B" field. He made a comment after wards something like, 'I was wondering when anyone was going to chase the two leaders down and no one did, so I attacked'. Then there was the time in 2001 that he had the flu for a week, was running a fever of 102 on saturday, got up on sunday for a 3 hour drive to race the jiminy peak road race, and got 10th in the masters 1/2/3 (full field, btw). Don't get me wrong, I like the dude, he's friendly, humble, and genuinely a nice person. He's just a genetic freak.

I can train all year, and just barely keep up with guys like him.

So I'm riding to work this morning, numb fingers and toes, wondering why I do it. I started thinking about all the guys I've known over the years that claim undying passion for the sport of cycling, that I haven't seen at a race in years. Of course their excuse is always the same, 'family/job'.

Hmmm....Me too. I have a family, a job, I even own a triple-decker rental in a a city 40 miles away that I have to maintain (it sucks, I hate it, I never wanted it, and I'd be just as happy to let the fucking bank have it, but I have a wife who is deeply concerned about the credit rating implications. She's right, but my emotion of the whole fucking thing is enough to let it go and deal with the fallout).

But I ride, I train, and I race. I can't let it go. When my wife and I first started discussing long term 'arrangements', I made the point clear that the racing will continue. She would have to accept it as part of me and who I am, or the deal is off. I was racing 30 times a year when we met, and our second date was to one of the first iterations of the Watershed Wahoo MTB races in new hampshire. So far, so good. It seems she's glad sometimes to get me the hell out of her face (like that wasn't predictable). However, I get _no_ sympathy for injuries related to bike racing. She's helped scrub out a few wounds over the years, but I better be able to move those 5 yards of loam the next day, whether I'm nursing a case of road rash or not.

By the same token, a rather common critique of my training and racing is "you know, if you took it seriously, you'd be pretty good".

what a conundrum...I enjoy riding and racing so much that accepting it was a prerequisite to get married, but I don't take it seriously enough to really post any decent results. This is true.

Many years ago a local former pro offered to take me under his wing - "I could definitely get you riding as a good cat two". He wasn't asking for money, and I knew him well enough to know he was serious. I didn't take him up on it, because I knew how much work I was already putting in as 3, and I really didn't want to work that hard - yeah, it was the slacker in me. I had a full time job, had been recently married to my _first_ wife, and was enjoying life. I enjoyed getting out on training rides a mixing it up, not worrying about 'training', just interested in having fun. Making me a 2 would have been a _lot_ of work. Besides, it would have interfered with my drinking.

It won't be getting any easier. I'm getting older and I have more non-cycling distractions in my life. But I just can't see giving up on it. I feel it pulling at me in the winter months. I get bitchy when I don't ride enough. I have to keep at it.

So The next time you see me, don't hesitate to yell out "slacker".

(Did you ever feel like you've just wasted five minutes of your life? If you've made it this far, you have a lot more patience than I do.)

The Consummate Pro - Redux

2009-10-14T07:35:00.000-07:00

A Consummate professional is one that seeks to grant their profession a sense of tact and dignity, and to avert conflagrations that would pall themselves, their profession, or their peers.

Matt O'Keefe, in his most recent correspondence to me, has shown exactly those qualities. It is for that reason that I have taken yesterdays rant down, his actions in the Topsfield Road Race not withstanding.

His professionalism can be succinctly realized in the last two sentences of his message

"I respect what you have done for the sport and I hope guys like you rub off on the younger crop. Respect is important, to disagree on circumstances is part of life."

Geeze, doesn't even sound like the same guy, does it......

The only caveat I would add is that, yes, I hope more people participate at _least_ to the level I have * , but I shudder to think future generations might look to me as a fucking role model.

Thank you for demonstrating the dignity worthy of a professional, Matt.

(* I know those who don't know me very well have a hard time believing this, but I _do_ have a rather strong sense of humility. I'm often an asshole, but I'm a humble asshole. I've contributed significant portions of my time _off_ the bike so that others can spend time _on_ the bike, but there are many more that have much more than me. Being involved in local club administration for 15 years, I've seen the _lack_ of participation first hand, as well as the efforts of those who seem to make time out of thin air. However, I've never sought to have my efforts acknowledged with more than a 'thank you' from the people I've worked with, and I'm not looking to change that now.)

Now, everyone, do yourselves a favor and go here and or here, and especially here. It's time we lightened up a bit.

Pinnacle Challenge 2009

2009-10-09T13:20:00.000-07:00

The turnout was light for the double duathlon this year. There were only 20 solo entries, as opposed to 40 the last time I did it ('07), though there were only 23 solo entries last year in _much_ better weather conditions.

This day, the weather looked good, but it rained like a mother fucker the day before, so things promised to be wet, especially in the woods. The major mistake I made in setting up was _not_ considering the wet woods when prepping my MTB. I pumped the tires up for a dry course.

Other than that, I felt good. I knew I wasn't as fit as the last time I did it, but I had been running significantly more since then and was hoping that would translate into a better time: my goal - 2:25. My previous PR was 2:33, but that was with losing a good five minutes from an MTB flat tire, and trying to change a tubeless tire. (tubeless tires are almost impossible to remove, since the seal is achieved by a super tight fit. The only thing that enabled me to continue at all was knowing I would need a tube to fix it (and having one), since getting the tire bead to reseal on the trail is _not_ possible.)

I had big hopes to be able to run a 6:30 pace on the first leg, a road run. All my runs this year have been well under that. Since the 'road' run is really 4.8 miles (as noted here, though it's backwards from the race) a 6:30 pace would get me in the transition area in 31 minutes, and keep me in good contention.

The 'road' run starts out in a dirt parking lot, runs through a stand of trees, across a steep off-camber slope (freshly mowed wet grass, did I mention this is the road run?) then across an ATV bridge, through a lumpy field, then up a steep embankment onto a rail trail (this _is_ the road run, right?). That's the first 1/4 mile. We stay on the rail trail up until about the 2 mile point, where we finally turn onto a pave road. It's paved the rest of the way from here.

As soon as I hit the rail trail, I could hear myself breathing - raspy congestion. This ain't gonna be good. Checking my HRM, I settled into a pace where I could breathe well. I was hitting my target HR for this section, but was feeling slow. About halfway through, I realized I was feeling significant lactic acid buildup in my lower legs. This _sucks_! I've been running about 15 miles a week, entering races, done two duathlons this year, and had nothing like this happen this year. WTF!?!?!

Checking my watch as we got back towards the transition area, I realized I wasn't that far off my goal, but I was working way harder than I had planned. I was thinking a solid effort without red-lining would get me 31 minutes. Not red-lining was the important goal, and pushing as hard as I dared got me back in 32:19. It beat my previous best on the first leg by 20 seconds, but was still disappointing from my goal. I ranked 3rd in my age group for the 1st run (out of 7, yippie....)

Getting on the MTB, I was still recovering, and not well. My legs were still killing me, they wouldn't recover until half-way through the MTB leg. The MTB was supposed to be my best performance. I soon found out today wasn't going to cooperate. this MTB course uses a lot of the same sections that the Eastern FuckTard Association courses here use. It's steep, windy, rocky, rooty, single track (~ 500' of climbing in the first two miles). At first I couldn't figure out why I kept falling down. That is _not_ typical for me. One fall, maybe two, sure, because I'm of the school of thought that if you didn't fall, you haven't ridden hard enough, but I was dabbing and slipping all over the place. Near the top it dawned on me - too much tire pressure. That's how clouded my mind was from the run, It should have been obvious the first time I spun out on a set of roots. The first time it happened I was going up a section of double track where there just happened to be a photographer. I asked if I was the first one that fell and he replied only a couple of guys made it, and I made it further than most. Fuck it, too late now that all the steep up is done. Dropping tire pressure now wouldn't save me any time now and might cause a pinch flat since it was all downhill from here. As I was riding the only flat section on the top of the hill I finally started to feel good. I felt better and better all the way down, and even passed a few people. I blew by one guy on a downhill section of fire road like he was standing still. sweet! I passed as many people that passed me, and from my experience racing MTBs the guys passing me were all _good_. They obviously had experience - and full suspension....hmmmmm.

My MTB fork is in rough shape. It's a good fork, a rockshox SID dual air. But it's beat. The bike is an IF custom deluxe Ti. Damn good bike, worthy of a good fork. I noticed some wear on the right stanchion early this year. I haven't ridden it much, but the times I've ridden it I haven't noticed any problems - until the thursday before the pinnacle. I went out on a 'tune-up' ride and noticed the lock out wasn't working. Next thing I noticed was the fork was riding very hard. I almost got tossed in a couple of section that the bike should have glided over. After the ride, I saw that the travel was down to about 1 1/2 inches, and sticky. Even worse was that the anodization was worn completely off the right stanchion. This wasn't the reason that I kept falling going _up_ hill, but it certainly would have made the downhill stuff more comfortable. I didn't have time to change it before the race, and even if I did I wouldn't have had time to ride it. Not good to try a new fork the day of a race - go with what you know. I ended up with a PR for the MTB leg nonetheless, though it's tough to qualify that. The course changes from year to year, and the last time I did it I lost 5 minutes on the tire change. The first time I did it I got the 3rd fastest time _overall_, and it took be 5 minutes longer. Today I had the 3rd best time in my age group (again) and 7th best in the solos (out of 20). I'm thinking the right tire pressure would have saved me more than a couple of minutes.

OK, back into the transition are. Last year Solo commented on people congregating at the entrance. This year, not _too_ bad, but I started yelling "CLEAR OUT" as I was heading for the mtb to rb change, and still bumped one dude from a team who just got done with the MTB leg and was pretty toasted.

Hop on the road bike, time to eat. This is a fun balance - keep a steady, competitive pace while trying to eat a power bar. At least on the TT bike I can rest on the pads and have my hands kind of free. I kept a decent pace up to the hill (first six miles). One rider came by me pretty quickly - a team rider - and I paced him up to the bottom of the hill (no, I didn't draft). I paced him all the way up the hill but he drilled it over the top and I lost him. A rider on a nice pinarello road bike (sans aerobars) caught me right at the top. The hill climbs 300 feet in .8 miles (~7%), so it isn't trivial. Once I got to the top, I dropped right back into the bars and blasted my way down. I hit 38 mph at one point without pushing too hard and left the guy that just caught me behind. At the bottom of the hill there's a 90 degree left, but the road is wide, and there are marshals. I went way to the right and swooped into the left, downshifting to keep in the 'power band'.

If the road was flat, taking the corner pushing 30 mph wouldn't have been an issue. If I had gotten off the aerobars and rode the bull horns through the corner, taking the corner pushing 30 mph wouldn't have been an issue. But, staying in the aerobars and pushing 30 mph into the corner was an issue. Since my weight was forward on the bike, when I went over the crown of the road leaning the bike, the rear wheel unweighted and started to drift. In a effort to stop the drift I had to steer/lean the bike upright, which set me on a course directly for the trees. The brakes on my TT bike aren't on the aero bars, so now I'm careening toward the trees probably somewhere around 30 MPH, unable to move my hands to the brakes.

Nothing to do but hope.

I hit the shoulder, the front wheel digs in the soft ground, and I launch off into the woods. I hit a stand of saplings which acted sort of like a bungee net, and prevented me from hitting the 2 foot wide maple tree. My polar data - only able to record in 5 second intervals - shows me going from 29 mph to zero in one of those intervals. Laying in the bushes completely upside down, I did a quick check of my limbs, struggled back to my feet, and staggered to my bike. The marshal came running over to help, and after a few seconds of forcing my back to straighten out and checking out the bike, I said to her,"wow, I'll bet that was pretty spectacular", and started to push the bike to remount.

She said, "oh my god, are you ok?"
I replied, "well, there's only one way to find out" and rode off.

I had a trickle of blood from my right knee and a good sized knot popping up on my right shin. My left quad felt like I may have pulled it. I had a spot in the middle of my back that felt like I got hit with a baseball bat, but I was actually recovering, and picking up speed. My breathing was labored from the pain in my back. This section was about 3/4 of a mile up hill, but not a tough grade, so I could still make decent time and not push it aerobically. I could see the guy I passed on the downhill about 30 seconds ahead. I ended up passing someone just before the top of the next hill, but then the guy on the pinarello was out of sight. It's all downhill from here and I wasn't too confident of catching him. Back in the aero bars, heading downhill I got my speed back up to the low 30's and was gaining on someone else. I couldn't believe how fast I passed him, a quick check of my speed at that point shows me hitting 40. At the bottom of this hill, there is a sharp left followed buy a hairpin right. Yes, I learned my lesson. It's better to lug the gear out of the corner than to ride the aero bars through the corner. However, I could see the guy I had passed not to far in front of me as he exited out of the hairpin onto the main road. I caught him about a mile out of the transition area and he said "Damn, I can't believe you got up" as I went by.

So, even with the crash, I was the fastest in my age group, 2nd fastest of the solos. I beat the #2 in my age group by 2 minutes. To be fair, Solobreak won the age group bike 2 split last year, and bested #2 by 3 1/2 minutes.

Time for the trail run. I still felt good, but now I my mind was swirling about the possible effects of my flying wallendas audition. I concentrated on pace. The trail run uses some of the same single track trails that the MTB course uses, except that they use shortcuts - the stuff that's too steep for mortals to ride an MTB up, including things like this glacially deposited boulder:

(Yes, that's Our Solobreak in 2008)

Think of running up stairs for two miles. I was limping slightly from the minor quad pull, but not so much that it was slowing me down - my pace was being dictated by fatigue. I passed two people on the uphill. and thought I would end up running alone for the whole downhill section. I got passed on the downhill by three guys, all team runners. I could tell from how clean they were. This helped me set my pace better. Towards the bottom there is a steep drop off - same as on the mtb leg. I ran down this, and my left leg nearly buckled. I recovered, and was thankful I was near the end. The course ends up on a section of fire road, just before dropping down another small hill into the field for the flat finish. I kept checking behind me. I knew I had something left for a good finish if necessary, but really didn't want to use it if I didn't have to. The next person to finish after me came in over 4 minutes later.

Monday morning: I got no sleep because my left quad pull meant I couldn't shift my position in bed without extreme pain, and I couldn't lie on my back because of the bruise from hitting the trees. My right shoulder had some sort of deep bruise, I can't see it but I couldn't raise my elbow higher than my chest, and couldn't lift anything heavier than a coffee cup. Both lower legs were so sore that I had to walk up and down stairs flat footed, one at a time

As of now, my quad is better and the cuts and bruises on my legs are negligible. I still have a big bruise in the middle of my back which makes sitting for long periods uncomfortable, and I can run with only minor twinges in my calves. I have full range of motion in my shoulder but feel a sting when lifting anything of weight.

The finish? 3/7 in my age group, 6/20 of the solos. I missed 2nd in my age group by 4 1/2 minutes. I'm thinking with the MTB set up right, and not crashing the road bike, I might have been able to pull back 3 minutes.

Well, I have no target events for the rest of the year. I'll do some 'cross races, and I'm toying with the jamestown race this weekend since I'm going to newport ri for the long weekend as my 15th wedding anniversary. They may get closed out because of the bump from the verge races. As of now the 45+ already has 61 pre-reg. I don't want to pre-reg since I don't know if I'll be in any shape to race that morning, and quite frankly if I don't race it I won't lose any sleep. I won't be doing the verge races though, those people are too wound up.

Zen Pulls A Hat Trick

2009-10-05T07:00:00.000-07:00

Not much time right now to get into the nitty gritty details, but I PR'd the pinnacle challenge course, with PR's on each leg of the course as well. The Hat Trick was yet another 3rd place in my age group. This with some MTB misshaps, and a road bike crash

More to follow!

Yet Another Lame Sucker Brook 'Cross Report

2009-09-29T08:58:00.000-07:00

Yes, I know, the Sucker Brook Cyclocross Race in Auburn, New Hampshire is one of the more well attended races in New England (392 starters this day). It's a well laid out course in a good location, early enough in the year that the weather is usually not a deterrent.

I like to take credit for some of the early success of this race. The promoter Jack Chapman is a friend of mine. A few years ago at the first or second running of the event I thought the race was on a saturday instead of sunday. I showed up and jack said 'hey, we need someone with some racing experience to ride the course.' They had it staked out but no tape, so I took a spin.

For some reason Jack thinks I'm a good racer. I know this is because I won the first race in the EFTA series as a sprt vet about a decade ago, and he had the unfortunate task of telling me I was DQ'd because a couple of years earlier - when I wasn't a member of efta and had only done one MTB race all season - I did a race in the expert class.

NHTMF rant -

It turns out they have a rule that if you _EVER_ do a race in one class, you can _NEVER_ drop down to the lower class. I remember that expert race, I got there too late to enter the sport class and had driven almost two hours, so I waited around for the expert race. I hadn't been racing much that year and had no license so I did a day-of. I ended up almost getting lapped and dropped out.

So two years after racing _one_ race all season and not racing _since_ then I'm told I can't _ever_ race as a sport with EFTA again. Sure, force an upgrade after a few wins, but to DQ someone for a rule they didn't know existed when they weren't even a member of the organisation?

Fuck EFTA - should mean "Eastern FuckTards Association".

I've done one EFTA event since then. They had a cyclocross class at the Watershed Wahoo one year and I got second out of about 40 guys. It's the only 'cross race that I ever beat Chronoman and that was because he flatted a few miles before the finish. They couldn't exclude me from that race because they had no category breakdown, and didn't even award prizes. I think I remember it only cost $10, and I wouldn't even have done that except Chronoman knew I had ridden that course half a dozen times and wanted some company and intell.

If any 'friend of EFTA' reads this and feels compelled to comment, this is my pre-emptive response: fuck you you fucking efta fuck.

- end NHTMF rant

So the year I showed up at jacks race and pre-rode the course, I made a couple of recommendations. You know the stairs? Those weren't there. They just had an off camber ride up. I told him to build a 180. Yeah, that was my idea. Now they have the stairs, which is better anyways.

Anyways, The weather was fantastic. Warm and dry. I actually like sloppy rainy courses, but warm dry is a good second choice. I have no illusions that I'm going to podium in a 'cross race. It's not why I do it. I race 'cross because I enjoy the style and I want to support the sport. (another mini NHTMF rant - Yeah, I don't prereg on purpose. I don't mind paying the $5 late fee because I know it helps support the promoter of a class event, so to all of you ignorant fucktards that think I'm a cheap SOB, fuck you you fucking NAV fucks). So I line up at the back because I don't want to get in the way of the guys that focus on 'cross racing as their main sport. It's better training to ride through traffic anyways, and if I ever start seeing myself consistently in the top ten I'll consider pushing my way up to Chronoman at the start line.

They do a great job setting this course up. Lot's of good places to pass, wide corners, nothing you would need an MTB for. If there was any one change I would make it would be just a bit more pavement. So I start off working my way up from the back. There are a few guys I like to mark in 'cross races because I know they race all the time but don't usually podium. Tom Stevens is one, Dave Leedburg is another. I passed Stevens in pretty short order and saw that he was was falling further back with each lap. Leedburg started out behind me, but pretty much paced me up until the last lap, maybe only 10 seconds behind. With 3 laps to go I started doing a lot of trading places with two guys from bike link. It turns out the stronger of the two was Paul Lynch, but he wasn't to quick in the corners. The other was Dan Russell, who was not as fast in the straights as paul but better in the technical sections.

I had trouble in the sand pit. It was rideable, but keeping the bike straight was a problem for me. Here's a good picture of me almost bailing on one lap (though I never did bail in the sand):

And another once I figured it out:

Lynch would catch me and pass me in the straight fast sections (once in the sand as well). I would come back up to him in the corners and technical parts. At one point I finally got enough of a gap where I passed him and left him, but dropped my chain and he came back up to me. He knew he wasn't cornering well though, and twice he swung way wide and waved me by.

On the penultimate lap, I was behind him and decided to draft through the start line all the way until after the stairs. He's a big guy and pulls a decent draft. Russel was behind us. When Lynch pulled off and waved me through, both russell and I went through, then russell passed me through the barriers. I stayed with him then passed him on the fire road before the sand. Coming out of the sand I shifted to get around the 180 on-camber turn (by the ball field fence) but my chain dropped in the spokes. Both russell and lynch came by here, as lynch had used his power through the whole fire road section to bridge back up to us. I got things running again to - you guessed it - draft lynch all the way to the stairs. I passed him on the 180 after the stairs and russell was in my sights. I managed to close the gap on him through the twisty up-n-down and fire road, and passed him just before we hit the sand again. He muttered "shit" as i went by. He latched onto me as we passed the ball field again, and now we were catching someone from the 35+ field. I jumped around the 35+ guy just as we hit the pavement and went into full crit mode, holding off Russell for 15th place (yay! 15th fucking place!). Still, it was fun actually having someone to race with for the last couple of laps rather than just riding alone.

I didn't know who the two bikelink guys were at the time. I saw another masters racer of great repute afterwards and described the guys. He said, 'geeze, that sounds like lynchie, he waved you by? I'm surprised you and your bike are in one piece, lynchie never lets anyone by'. This sentiment was echoed by chronoman, who quipped 'I've seen lynch take on a stand of trees and the trees did _not_ come out on top'.

It was a fun day on a great course. After, I picked up a 24 serving tub of Gu drink mix for $5 (SCORE!) at the Naults table.

My next event is the Pinnacle Challenge, a focus event for me that I hope to do well at.

I'll let you know.

(If you repeated hit the refresh key on that pinnacle link, you'll eventually see a guy in a bright yellow BOB kit coming out of the covered bridge. That's me at the race in '06).

Go Thataway

2009-09-25T11:07:00.000-07:00

I had to get this one up. It's of a construction zone at the rte 125 end of the ward hill connector in haverhill.

Salemfest 5k

2009-09-25T05:48:00.000-07:00

The weather conditions for the Salemfest 5k on september 19th couldn't have been better. Clear blue skis and a bit chilly at the start. I was just on the verge of goosebumps in a technical long-sleeve and shorts before warming up. Registration was in an industrial condo park, on a hill. I was told the finish line was at the top of the hill, and I could see the staging. The start, though, was at the entrance to the park, a good 1/2 mile away,and at the bottom of the hill.

Turn out was light. Coolrunning shows just over 100 runners. I didn't see any of the 'usual suspects', though there were quite a few very fit people, and a number of people that looked like serious runners. The promos for the race mentioned hills. I saw the finish and that was certainly on a hill, and the start took a right out of the industrial park and went up a short steep hill. Once we took off, we hit that little hill, crested it, and started a long gradual downhill. I immediately found myself running in 4th spot. I wasn't pushing the pace, and was actually looking for a pacer. One guy, later identified as craig fram jr. took off (yes, the son of the local legend craig
fram, who was in attendance but chose not to run). He was clearly running a well-under six minute pace...to fast for me. But, the two right in front of me soon dropped their pace and I was running in second from about the first 1/4 mile to about 3/4 mile, when one other runner came by. I paced him for a bit until the one mile marker. I looked back and we had a good 15 second gap on 4th place. First place was long gone.

From the 3/4 mile point to probably the half-way point the course was uphill. Not by much, no way would I call the course 'hilly'. It was enough though, that the runner now in second was able to distance me by a solid 20 seconds by the 1/2 way point. The course runs an incomplete figure 8. We head out pelham road, take 3 left turns and come back out on pelham road and take a right to go the other direction (back towards the start) and predominantly downhill. To make the figure 8 path, we then took a left on commercial drive.

So far, I haven't seen any hills that would be worthy of mentioning.

I'm running completely alone now. Second place is out of sight, and 4th place is nowhere to be seen. Looking at my watch, I'm thinking I should be approaching the finish, but wait, the finish was at the top of a hill.....hmmmm

I come around a right hand bend....oh, my.....yup, that's a hill. I'm guessing about 200 yards long, and at the time I was thinking about 10%. Checking the course on mapmyride.com, it shows 100 feet of elevation gain in the last 3/10 of a mile, with the pitch varying between 6 and 11%. I could see second place almost at the top, where he took a right.

Hills kill me. I'm not sure why. On a bike, hills are my strength. Running, I always lose ground. I wish someonecould tell me why this is. I like hills, I've never seen a long climb and felt a sense of dread. But for some reason, running them slows me down like an extra large philly cheese steak.

I know I'm near the finish, so I dig deep. I get to the top, take a right, and it keeps going up but at a significantly shallower grade. I still don't see the finish, but I keep plugging away. Finally, just over the crest of the hill, I see it, and cross the line in 19:54.

I know I ran the first mile in 6:10. I didn't catch the second mile marker, but I'm sure it was similar or better since it was downhill. My aggregate pace was 6:25. I'm thinking that last hill added 40 seconds to my overall time.

The lesson was learned - preview the course. I'm not sure I would have had a better time if I had known about the hill, but I certainly would have been more comfortable.

After the race, they had the kids races. They set up a 200 yard loop behind the building where registration was held, and had them run laps.

Here's the visual. 10 5-7 year olds, let loose for one lap, while the PA system plays Yakety Sax (aka The Benny Hill Theme). It couldn't have been anymore appropriate. Half the kids didn't know what they were supposed to do and just ran, in what ever direction they were facing when they were let loose - "no, no, tommy, run that way, tommy, over here...over here". It was hilarious.

An Apology

2009-09-23T12:06:00.000-07:00

Over the past few months I have forwarded some inappropriate pictures and jokes to friends whom I thought shared the same sense of humor. Unfortunately this wasn't the case and I seem to have upset quite a few people who have accused me of being sexist and shallow. If you were one of these people, please accept my sincerest apologies.

From now on I will only post or send e-mail with a cultural or educational content such as old monuments, nature and other interesting topics.

Below is a picture of the Pont Neuf Bridge in Paris. It is the oldest bridge in Paris and took 26 years to build. It was completed in 1604.

(yes, I shamelessly copied this from an email I got today)

quad 'cross 9.13.09

2009-09-21T06:12:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I know, this is a week late, so fucking shoot me.

The night after the topsfield road race, I realized I had no clean team gear and had to do a load of wash. I threw in all the cycling clothing I could find, and started the machine. Just before I went to bed, I went to move it to the dryer, and found that the washing machine had not run. After fucking with it for about 20 minutes, I realized that the machine hadn't completely drained from the previous load.

The previous load - my wife decided to wash throw rugs.

The next morning, I woke up and, after mulling the situation over my coffee, figured that lint from the rugs may have clogged the drain filter. Hey, worth a shot, I didn't have to leave for the quad cross race for another two hours, so I took the machine apart. Sure enough, there was a large disgusting lump of lint in the filter, also included were:

1/2 dozen plastic candy wrappers
2 brassiere underwires
about 4 dollars in change, maybe 25 coins.

Well,I had a pair of cyclonauts 'cyclocross' shorts that I had never worn before, and my long-sleeved team jersey that were both clean. This was the kit I should have worn yesterday in the rain. Today was bright sunshine and upper '70s. Whatever....

Thinking the rain would have made the 'cross course a soupy mess, I threw my 'extreme condition' cross bike in the car. I considered throwing both bikes in, but I was running late, and said fuck it. Well, the course was dry. There were two soft spots, both very rideable. Hey, it aint the bike that's gonna keep me out of the top ten anyways.

They had all the masters 35 and older line up at the same time, but then broke us up into 35s, 45s, and 55s, and started us in 30 second intervals. Each field had around 20 guys, so they could have just let us go together,but this was ok too. I'm not the best 'crosser and this would be only the second race I've done in three years - yes, three years. The smaller starting group wouldn't be so congested and picking lines would be easier.

These little local cross races are like old home days. I'm racing alongside guys I raced cat 3/4 racs with in the '80s. We're all older, greyer, balder, some of us fatter. I can see what the attraction is with the jobwifehomecarkidslife set. We talk about old times, tell old jokes about old riders, and rag on the new kids.

Since the 45s group was small, us riders actually trying to be competitive strung out and just followed lines. None of the hard congestion one sees in the 3/4 fields and what we used to see in the masters before they started breaking us out.

My 'extreme condition' bike is actually a Giant XTC aluminum hardtail mtb with a rigid aluminum fork.The bike weighs in at 19 pounds - not too shabby for a cross bike. I'm running continental cross country tires 26x1.5 22/32/42 rings and an 11/21 8 speed cluster. Don't let that fool you, a 44x11 is a pretty tall gear. The issue is that it doesn't handle as tight as the 'cross bike - it has a longer wheelbase and more slack geometry. It's great when the course is a mess since it's way more stable in sloppy stuff, but this course was fast and technical. I could tell the difference in all the little switchbacks how the bike wasn't able to wrap around the corners as quick. It didn't really cost me anything, as I said it has more to do with my fitness and technique than the bike.

I passed a lot of guys, got passed by the leaders from the 55s, but didn't get lapped. I was happy with that considering that the 35s started 30 seconds ahead. I didn't crash, and only bobbled one dismount. I found the strongest section of the course for me were on the uphill sections. When I was in a position to pass people on the same lap, that's usually where it was. I passed a lot of guys that were being lapped, so that was on every section of the course. I can attribute some of that to the bike. That MTB climbs like it has a turbo charger. The geometry and stiffness of the frame just lends it to going up fast, and even though the cornering with this bike is sluggish, I was gaining on people in the corners. I guess that's going to happen when riding at the back, most of the guys are real novices or take it even less seriously than I do.

I never felt stressed or that I was riding over my limits, and ended up 14th out of 30 in the 45s. I'm happy with that since my 'cross training consists of 'cross races. Other than race day, my 'cross bike doesn't get ridden. I've had people throughout my racing 'career' tell me that I could be pretty good if I took it seriously, but there isn't much of anything I take seriously. Not even me.

NHTMF

Not Here To Make Friends

2009-09-17T20:00:00.001-07:00

I'm thinking of changing my on-line nym to 'NHTMF'. Read to the end to find out why.

Topsfield is a fun fast circuit race. Narrow new england farmroads, two small hills (little rollers, right after each other) with the second hill leading into a long winding downhill that's easy to spin-up your 53x12 in a group, a 4.5 mile route that we did eleven and a half laps on. The course makes the race interesting. Lots of opportunities for attacks and breakaways, and this day was no exception. Adding another element was the weather. It was warm and rainy, with intermittent heavy downpours.

I warmed up for the race on my trainer set up under the hatch of my car. It was a good turnout considering the conditions, maybe about sixty, with 45 finishers listed on bikereg.

I had no illusion of placing or getting into a winning break, but hey, I thought, I'll just try shit, stay at the front, see how it goes. So I did manage to stay at the front, and I did try shit. I got off the front a few times in small groups, and once even got out of sight of the peloton. But, like I said, I had no real impetus to go for a good result, and it didn't seem that the rest of my break away pals were too interested either. A few other attempts were made by other guys, and I followed them, but it kept coming back together. This was real racing, attacking and following attacks off the front, not just sitting in the field hoping not to get dropped like the salem/beverly crits. I felt good. Not good enough to go it alone against a pro/1/2/3 field, but still pretty good.

A cat 1 named matt o'keefe (semi-pro mtb rider for cannondale, riding this day in a CCB kit) came by me at one point and said 'try helping out'. This was after I had drifted to the back to rest after an effort. I wasn't sure I heard him right, or that he was talking to me, so I ignored it. With about two laps left, a small group was forming off the front, and I ended up in a line chasing. I was on the wheel of gary apenes (horst) and the gap was closing. Gary took a pull, closed it more, then I took a pull, closed it more, then pulled off. A rider came by, with this dickhead o'keefe on his wheel, and dickhead yells at me "QUIT LETTING THOSE GAPS OPEN".

What the fuck?

This dickhead o'keefe had been riding at the back the whole fucking race. I never saw him at the front, never saw him closing a gap (both times he mouthed off to me he was on someone elses wheel), or even blocking for his team mate in the break. He was hard to miss, being the only rider in the field wearing a yellow nashbar rain jacket. So I rode up next to him and yelled "hey asshole, if you don't like it, don't ride behind me".

Seriously, it isn't my job to make sure he stays in the field.

He countered "you keep letting gaps open up". I responded "dude, I just took a pull and closed the gap then pulled off". He says "you've been letting gaps open all day".

Clearly this idiot had me confused with someone else. I spent most of the race at the front, and only drifted back though the field after I put out a hard effort. So I told him "EAT SHIT". I didn't hear from him after that. You would think that a 38 year old cat 1 would do better than just follow wheels at the back of the field. I wonder who he had to blow to get a cat one upgrade? If his performance saturday was any indication, he had no business getting out of the cat 4 field.

Anyways, during this whole tete a tete, another group had formed off the front that took the last paying spots. I rolled across the line in 25th place after just staying in what was left of the field. It never really rained hard during the race, but never really stopped either. I was soaked and covered with grime.....cool. As chronoman would say, 'today we became bike racers'. Less than 5 minutes after the race the skies opened up in a torrential downpour that lasted about ten minutes.

so, again, I'm thinking of changing my on-line nym to 'NHTMF'. I was listening to a story on the radio saturday on the drive home about these 'reality' show contestants that come out and say 'hey, I'm Not Here To Make Friends, ya know?'. The story said that the first contestant to utter that phrase never wins. This seems to be the story of my life, and saturdays interaction with dickhead o'keefe is merely another chapter.

So, I'm just me, busy being me, NHTMF.

ciao

Topsfield RR and Quad cycles 'cross weekend

2009-09-16T14:27:00.001-07:00

yeah yeah, reports coming......

In the meantime entertain yourself with this and this

So _that's_ how they do that !

2009-09-11T11:48:00.000-07:00

From Cycling News this morning:

It seems JJ Haedo ((Arg) Team Saxo Bank) and Thor Husovd ((Nor) Cervélo Test Team) Are tied on GC at the tour of missouri. This is how far they had to go into the results to figure out who wears the leaders jersey:

"The first place officials look for tie breaking purposes is fractions of a second from a time trial stage, but there have yet to be any contests against the clock at the Tour of Missouri. The next method of making general classification ranking falls on the aggregation of stage placings. Haedo and Hushovd each have one first, two seconds and one third place finish which totals to eight points; again, they're equal.

The third criteria falls to total of stage wins, of which the Argentinean and the Norwegian each have one; still a dead heat. The fourth method of distinguishing general classification placement is the highest placing in the most recently completed stage. Since Haedo won in today's Jefferson City stage while Hushovd finished second, the leader's jersey was awarded to Haedo."

It's ironic that they both ride for teams that were what team CSC from last year split into. Well, the team technically became Saxobank, but many riders left to form what became the new team Cervelo Test Team.

Just in case anyone wondered how they figure these things out.

Fun Time

2009-09-10T10:57:00.000-07:00

http://failblog.org/

Never wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it - George Bernard Shaw

2009-09-03T10:43:00.000-07:00

So, I ran the Thomas Chamberas XC race at Great Brook State park last saturday in the tropical storm. It wasn't that bad really. If I were just outside standing around in shorts and a T shirt, I would have been chilly, but it was warm enough that a simple warm up kept me comfortable. It had rained all night, so the trails promised to be as wet and sloppy as pig wrestling contest. It was lightly raining during the race, just to keep things fresh.

Now, I'm not sure if it's a characteristic about XC races over road (running) races, but the participants at XC races seem to be faster. The morning of the event, I was checking the details on the web, and happened to check last years results. I couldn't believe how many runners broke the 5:00 min pace last year. Well, I know I'm no 5:00 min runner, and have never even broke a 6:00 min pace, but I love running trails. There are so pitifully few real XC races around here that actually incorporate technical running sections, I was compelled. I really loathe the 'xc' races that use golf courses or groomed walking trails. I run the rocky, rooty, muddy single-track trails at the weir hill/osgood hill/half-mile hill conservation area of north andover often. There is actually about 4 miles of somewhat technical single track along lake chadwick from the southern tip of weir hill to the osgood trail head, and I've put together a 9 mile circuit on my mountain bike that doesn't use any trail twice.

Anyways, the turn out at the Thomas Chamberas race was better than I had hoped, maybe 150. Many teams were there, including some sort of navy ROTC team from southern mass. MVS was there in force, and it was nice to see many people I hadn't seen all summer, since I tend to concentrate on bike racing during the summer.

Well, The start was going to be interesting. I couldn't get any assurances from the promoter that the course was actually 6K, so the pace listings was in question. Well see when the gun goes off.

And, the gun went off. The rabbits went out. The hounds chased. And they _were_ fast. I couldn't count how many runners were in front of me, and I went out as fast as I ever had. I held my spot for about the first half mile, then began to fade. I'm not surprised, I really haven't been running a lot, not nearly enough to be competitive. I had forgotten my hrm, so I had no idea what my time splits were. But wait, there were no markers anyways....Gee, how hard would it have been to put up mile markers?

Now, I almost always use electronics in running races, but usually train without. This is completely opposite of the bike. I train on the bike with a power meter and hrm/computer but go commando in races, I don't need the distraction. (by 'commando' I mean with sans electronics, not sans underwear. No, wait, I don't wear underwear on the bike either, nevermind). So saturday I was racing strictly by bio feedback. I've been racing bikes for 20 years, so I know what my body is telling me. After the first half mile, it was telling me "hey, stupid, knock it off". I had to back off the pace.

Then we hit the fun part of the course, the single-track section. For the un-initiated, the term 'single-track' can be interpreted as 'wide enough for one person'. It's roots come from motocross though, where the course is only wide enough for one bike (i.e. a vehicle that can ride in one track), and passing is difficult to impossible. Generally speaking, single-track has obstacles like roots, rocks, holes, and tight turns. This section did not disappoint, and for an added bonus, it was all uphill! This is my element, and I caught up to the line of runners in front of me with ease, and actually had to back off in order to prevent running into the guy in front of me. It would have been difficult to pass through here, not to mention rude. I wasn't going to win this race, and anyone I passed here would have passed me once we left the single track anyways.

Sure enough, once we got out in the open, people came by me again. I held my spot through the next section of technical stuff - more up hill with roots and rocks, but wide enough to pass. Unfortunately, I'm not a very good up hill runner, and the section wasn't technical enough for me to take advantage of, so it balanced out. This lead into the woodchuck trail loop. From here to the finish it's rolling terrain, very wide, not technical, though the mud was everywhere. The only advantage I had was that I run downhill well. I've noticed in the past couple of years that I've taken up running that I generally pull away from whomever I'm with on downhill sections. I held my spot again through these downhill parts, but around the 3 mile point on the course its mostly _up_ hill. Advantage lost. More people passing me.

Coming out of the woodchuck loop, the course flattens, not technical at all. Now I'm with runners more matched to my pace. At the top of the hill out of woodchuck, I get passed by one runner. I pace him until the first section of cornfield when another runner comes by. It's a woman, and she attempts to pass me through a mud puddle.

She slips, and falls on me.
I keep her up, we both barely break stride.
She apologizes, I say 'no biggie'.
She starts to pull away.
I can pace her.....
I do.

We catch the last guy that passed me just as we go onto the short section of pavement. There's a course marshal calling out places, he says '52, 53, 54' as we go by.

The woman starts to pull away on the road and I can't follow.
I stay with the guy we caught.
We get back to the cornfield for the last few hundred meters, and the runner I'm with takes the lead. I let him.
We catch one last guy rounding the last corner.

I can sprint. I'm not going to say I can win any track events, but I've always been able to dig out something decent at the finish. We came around the last corner and I dug in hard. I pass the first guy I was with, then pull alongside the last guy we caught.
He digs in, matching my pace.
I keep up the tempo, he fades.
I'm catching the woman that fell into me......nope, not gonna do it.
With another hundred meters, maybe I would have got her.

There's no timing at the end, No clock. I have no idea how I did. I have no watch. I ask the woman I almost caught, she has no watch either. The time keepers were under a tent at the finish, so I snuk in behind to see if they had any info. They had positions and times, no plate numbers. I figured the guy that was calling out places had me at 55th, and I passed two so I should be about 53rd. 53rd finished in 22:37. OK, do the math real quick

.....uhhhhh.....uhhhhhhh.....duhhhhh

nope.

Brain not functioning on that level yet. I jog around for a bit, stretch out. Go back to the car. Open the calculator on my cellphone. Wait...a 6:07 pace? damn....that's good!

I go back to the timers and ask about the distance. I'm told it's 6k.

"really? Like, right on?"
"no, we're not sure, it's probably a little short"
"like 50 feet, or 500 feet?"

I probably came off as one of the annoying guys that bother time keepers while they're trying to do their job. I made sure there weren't any people coming in while I was pestering him. He was most cordial.

"well, we tried to GPS it, but we kept losing the satellite under the tree cover, we did it a few times, and it kept coming up to really close to 6k. It's not off by much"
"ah, OK, thank you"

I try not to be one of those guys that bug the time keepers. I've promoted enough bike races to see how annoying those noobs who try to grab the clipboard out of your hands are. Hell, it wasn't like me bothering him would change my placing, and he didn't have the order of finish by race number anyways, so I kept it short and polite.

On my agenda for the fall:
1) After all the tress are bare, do the course with my GPS.
2) Send them an email with the info, and suggest that they put up mile markers as well, volunteer to assist with that (never criticize without offering solutions, it just makes you look like a dick).

The results finally come up. They have me 55th, not 53rd. OK, so the marshal that was counting of placings at 1K to go was off. They have me finishing in 22:44, I look over to the pace column......12:37.

12:37?

I look at at the whole pace column, it seems everyone had a pace between 12:00 and 12:59.

The time keeper was right next to me.

"how'd you calculate that pace?"
"finish time divided by distance"
"yeah? so every one ran a 12 minute pace?"

He stopped posting the pages and looked at a few of the sheets, then raised his eyebrows.

"According to this, the entire field finished somewhere between 45 and 50 minutes" I said with a snicker.

He turns and announces to the crowd " ok everyone, ignore the pace column".

Turns out my pace was 6:09. That's very good for me, and is in fact a pace PR. The best I've done to this point was a 6:10 last fall at the TIP 5k in lawrence. So, even if the course was short by 100 yards/meters, that makes the pace still in the 6:15 zone. I can live with that, and quite happily!

A most banal blog post

2009-09-01T09:46:00.000-07:00

Well, I ran the Thomas Chamberas 6k XC race at great brook state park on saturday in the rain. I'll blog a race report later.

For now, I'll relate the activities from the gorgeous new england late summer day we had sunday. bright blue sky, temps in the 70's, no wind. My wife was on a trip with ehr G-friends to NYC, so I dragged my 14 year old daughter out of bed at the crack of noon and took her to boston for the day.

It started with a tour through the north end (the italian section of the city) to St. Anthony's Feast. What the hell is this?

Some sort of shrine with people pasting cash all over the inside. (no, I didn't take the pic because of the woman in the photo, there were a lot more much better looking specimens that I could have taken good pictures of, trust me.)

Anyways, two streets blocked off with food vendors, trinket vendors, and elbow-to-elbow crowds. Too much, and the food wasn't that good. We decided to hike over to Quincy Market.

We went through the Rose Kennedy Greenway, the park created when they tore down the old elevated expressway and replaced it with The Big Dig. Nice fountains, lots of people relaxing, kids playing.

We'll see how long before it turns into a crack park.

Once we got to Quincy Market (A HUGE tourist trap) we caught a couple of acrobats performing, a three piece group consisting of a mom and her two sons (both not quite teenagers) called 'The College Fund Band', then sat for a caricature. I don't get a lot of those 'bonding' moments with my teenage daughter, so I was quite surprised when she suggested we sit for a caricature..._together_.

No, it won't be posted, but I did get this this neat shot of the customs tower while we were sitting.

I have friend, Eamon Coyne, who is a professional irish session musician, and he plays a gig at Mr. Dooleys every sunday afternoon/evening (make sure your volume is down if you visit his link, unless you _really_ like reels). We stopped in and listened for a bit, I had a Guinness, she had a coke.

We chatted with Eamon for a bit during his break, then my daughter asked if we could check out the people and street performers in harvard square. So, it was off to the subway and The Peoples Republic of Cambridge.

The reputation of harvard square did not disappoint. From the artists, to the musicians, to the conservative Harvard types, to the hippies, to the punks, Harvard square is always sure to entertain, especially on days with such magnificent weather. The high point was Dagmar.

Yes, she's wearing dragonfly wings, a leather fliers cap, and goggles. Let me paint the picture with a bit more detail. She had bare feet, day-glo violet tights, light cotton dress, black and gold brassiere, a plum vest with green wings and a green/gold/purple tail attached, leather pilots cap and green goggles.

The odd part was that she was _very_ pretty and had a great beautiful voice. If you visit their link (above) it starts streaming their music. We actually sat a listened for a while, as she had a set of choreographed moves that 'flowed' with their music. I bought the CD, I couldn't help it.

As it became dark, we headed towards central square to catch the T back home. We could have simply got on at harvard square, but it was such a nice night for a walk. I realize these 'bonding' moments with my teenaged-daughter are a rare and precious gift, and I wanted to make it last. She's starting school again this week, and I'm sure by friday I'll have done something to mortally embarrass her.

On Lethargy

2009-08-28T11:59:00.000-07:00

fuck, I'm tired.

I've been feeling tired for a few days now. Since I've gotten back into a routine of commuting and training, I think I dove back into it too fast. I could have ridden to work today, but was tired on the ride in yesterday, tired on the ride home last night, sluggish when I woke up this morning, and I've fallen asleep twice at work today. yeah, I need sleep.

That's too bad, because a ride in today would have made this two perfect weeks in a row. I think I'm going to get up and go to a cross country running race at great brook state park tomorrow - rain or shine. It's a 6 k race, I know all the trails there, and I've never done a cross country race in the rain.

Then I'm going home to sleep.

The ZenBox

2009-08-27T12:54:00.000-07:00

What's Zen Listening to?

I have over 800 CDs I've been collecting for over 20 years now. I've recorded them all onto a few portable hard drives. (redundancy, so I don't have to spend 6 months recording them all over again should one of the HDs crap out).

Should you want to check out the eclectic music lack-of-preference of The Master of The Double X Funk, set up windows IM on your computer, add me as a contact, and you'll be able to see what comes next on the almost 8000 songs in my library.

No, I've never joined or downloaded any of these from a peer sharing network.
Yes, every song here was on a CD purchased by me at one time or another.

So, from Albinoni to Weiss,
from ABBA to ZZtop,
from Adult Contemporary Alternative to World Beat,

I bring you ZenBox

Tuesday Night Fights

2009-08-26T09:17:00.000-07:00

I felt better at last nights ride than I have since the beginning of the year, especially after feeling so useless the week before, but still didn't feel as well as I think I should this time of year. It was a small turnout, and it pretty much stayed together. I went off the front alone a couple times, and ended up in small groups that got gaps a few times. I got away with one other dude who's riding very well this year (he was laid off for two months in may/june) but I ended up getting those dreaded wind cramps again. I surprised my self with a couple of sprints, I dusted the group at one hill sprint and at the finish. I couldn't believe no one went with me at the end. We came into the last corner and I just went, thinking I was going to duke it out with a couple of the other active riders, but neither one countered....strange. One guy mentioned that I took everyone by surprise, but hey, it's the same spot we've been sprinting at since I first started going to these rides like 15 years ago.

I think I shouldn't worry too much about placing in any more races this year, but simply riding to my best ability. I'd like to go into the off season as fit as possible. Unfortunately, there aren't too many masters events left until 'cross starts. The only road events I have an interest in are 1/2/3. I've never been a contender in 'cross, but enjoy it, so I'll try and get a few races in this year. Let's hope for a rainy fall, I love mud!

And you can thank solobreak for this.

The 'perfect' week.

2009-08-21T08:38:00.001-07:00

It's been a while since I've had one of these. In fact, this is the first one all year.

Many years ago a racing friend of mine defined the 'perfect week' as one in which you never have to start your car. I've had many perfect weeks in the past, but not lately. Between the rainy early season we had, and obligations relating to a certain loathsome piece of rental property, I have had none at all this year, until now.

So, counting tonights ride home, I'll have ridden to/from work every day this week, as well as the Famous Tuesday Night Fights in Plaistow, and a few extra miles on the way home last night, for a total of about 160 miles for the week.