Roy Does Stuff

Good Life

2012-01-27T15:53:00.000-08:00

After 70 miles and four hard hours in the saddle I stumble in the door. I immediately put a pan on the stove with a pat of butter in it. In the pan go four eggs from our chickens (I like having chickens very much). A muffin goes into the toaster and I grab my new favorite thing, the Oster hand mixermadoodle! I put a banana, a handfull of blueberries, another handfull of blackberries, a few ounces of orange juice and four or five big soup spoonfulls of vanilla yogurt in the mixer cup, jar whateveritis. I blend it up then mix in two spoonfulls of peanutbutter in there. The eggs are done and go onto the muffins with plenty of salt. Then I sit down and eat the whole mess and enjoy the smoothie. Normally this should leave me bloated and full but it goes down and the satisfied belly and endorphins mix and I wonder why the heck I'm writing this instead of lying down for a quick nap.

It's a good life. I wish I could share this feeling with everyone.

In other news I'm behind on a couple of race reports but really I'm becoming as disinterested as everyone else. In the end you just have to race for yourself. A few people may care but mostly everyone is so self-involved with their own racing that they forget to even ask how your race went so I certainly can't expect anyone to read race reports with anything other than a passing glance. And I'm certainly not going to be casting any great impressions with my own mediocrity. So I'll do race reports when something strikes me but I'm going to try to liberate myself from this strange compulsion to report on every silly race.

The good thing, however, about race reports is that at least I write something. I'm sure nothing will come of it but I'm going to try to get back to just writing random shit. No one will read that either so that's fine. I just need to do something with words.

CCCX at Toro Park: Dec 4, 2011

2011-12-14T18:06:00.000-08:00

I may as well finish getting caught up here...

Although I was only racing the 35+ B's and not eligible for a district championship I was still psyched for this race since it represented the peak of my 13 week late season block of training. One thing I decided to work hard on halfway through this season is being less emotional in my racing. From what I've read there's the concept of being a "tilt" player in poker. Emotions get the best of a person -who knows better- leading to lapses in strategy and smart tactics. Result? Loserville.

When I found out about this concept it made me realize I end up racing on tilt all too often. It can be a comment from a competitor, a perception that the race is not fair (external locus of control anyone???) or that your competitors "must be sandbagging" or are riding unsafely. The result is stupid racing, lack of concentration, ridiculous behavior.

So I studied a little and it really helped to re-learn the definition of mental toughness. But mostly I just resolved to be more of a rock during races and not let the emotions tilt me. How have I done? I can say I've improved but I still could be a little more calculating and race smarter. San Ardo is a good example of needing to continue improving (though I still say riding for 60 miles just to sprint is LAME). But the last two cyclocross races were really good examples of how I've developed some ability to brush off either bad luck (two bad crashes in the space of about 40 seconds) or loudmouthed competitors. I think I still have to concentrate and remind myself but I like this taste of an improved mental game.

I didn't expect to have to apply it 100% at CCCX, however.

Sometimes CX means racing against guys who had to borrow their sister's skinsuit for the day...

On three warmup laps I really enjoyed the course. There were many whoops in and around a dry creek bed, some light single track, a "barrier" that I easily hopped 100% of the time and another "barrier" that was very fast (it helps that I'm a dork who thinks it's funny to dismount and leap over 3 foot diameter trees regularly). And there was a rather long runup. My running legs are really good this year so that made me happy.

After an okay (not great, still need to be more aggressive) start I was running somewhere between 7th and 10th wheel. I was following another rider who was faster than me in the open but slower in the technical stuff so we had a good race going and passed a few guys together. On the long section before the runup he got away a bit and I was behind another rider when we hit the sand at the bottom of the hill on the second lap. The guy ahead went down! (note to that guy, shift your weight BACK) I mostly avoided him but the sand grabbed my wheels. I stepped over the handlebars just fine but my bike augured into the sand.

Top of the runup.

In a moment of polite raceriness we inquired about each others health, post crash all while getting up and getting moving. I ran the hill, popped onto the bike (I haven't mentioned this yet but my remounts have been outstanding -for me- this year with very few stutter steps glitching things up) and hit the downhill. "Hmm, I can't shift." Kick, hop, tug on der. cable. "Hmm, I can't shift." I spun out the 42-29 I was stuck in but was quickly passed but 4 or 5 riders. I hopped off and tried to see what was binding but couldn't find it. So I hopped on again and continued the kicking and hopping and the tugging with no result other than managing to get a shift to a 42-27.

By the time I stopped for a third time with no real result I was passed by pretty much the entire field and was really cursing my bad luck. I finished the lap and dug into the third. I decided to just spin whatever random gear I had and just get the best race workout possible. After half a lap or so I started passing guys from my race. So then I decided to keep racing and just do the best I could and, lo and behold, I caught a few more guys. By the last lap my chain had slipped into a 42-25 gear and that was good enough to feel kind of up to speed. I kept digging in and enjoyed the same legs and focus as the Folsom race. I caught three more guys from my race on that lap and, in a moment of poetic justice that I couldn't invent, caught the guy that crashed me out on the last turn before the straightaway. I spun my cranks and held him off.

I felt a little lame sprinting for a backmarker place but I was in competitor mode (a victory by itself given the rotten luck).

I ended up 11th of 20. It's rare to feel that satisfied finishing in the bottom half of a field but I did. Yes, I was super-bummed to have great legs and have the bike be the deciding factor for my placing but on the other hand, I was able to stay off tilt and just find my focus and keep racing. Maybe old dogs can learn new tricks afterall.

PS The sand destroyed my brifter. Now I don't have a working cyclocross bike. I may call it good and end the CX season there. But I seem to still have decent fitness so I may do one more race and just use my mountain bike (boo! hiss! uncool!).


All these pictures come courtesy of the great Stephen Woo http://www.flickr.com/photos/swoo/.

The end. Hehe.

Folsom Cyclocross: Nov 13, 2011

2011-12-08T08:58:00.001-08:00

Almost caught up!

Note: This was already posted in the VSRT forum but I have a compulsive need to be thorough and put everything in the right place.

With only two races so far this 'cross season under my belt (one mediocre mid-field result plus one dnf due to a flat) I headed up to Folsom early Sunday morning looking forward to the rare opportunity to get away for a Sunday race. I was also looking forward to letting the excellent training legs I've been enjoying lately rev out in a race. I even got that pre-race adreneline feeling that only really comes when I anticipate a good race. I also knew I was sandbagging a little bit. This was an actual USAC race so they had racing by categories. Though I've been racing at the "B" level (think Cat 3/4) this was a Cat 4 35+ race and we raced with the E4's all starting together.

I arrived plenty early enough to get five practice laps in. First off the course was a pure joy to ride. My nemesis in 'cross races are those annoying 180 degree turns that promoters use to stretch out small spaces. This course only had one! The course began on a flat-out rolling section with a cute little bridge in there that needed only the shortest bunny hop to get over without ruining a wheel. This led into a mix of sidewalk, lawn and gravel that had a u-turn in it. After that was a fun double-track section with a steep but fast climb then a descent into a sharp curve before another longer short but steep climb. Then there was another very fast rolling section leading into one barrier at the bottom of a hill that seemed to seperate the field between gettin'-it and not-gettin'-it. Luckily I found myself able to run fast enough to remount smoothly and ride the hill, placing me in the former category. Another very fast descent with a brake-free (slight pucker factor here) corner at the bottom lead into a medium length climb that really stung the legs. An annoyingly off camber but wide 180 degree turn was followed by the only set of double barriers. Then a bridge, another double track descent, a short climb into a climbing 180 degree turn then a short section and then a narrow sidewalk next to a fence came before the third and final dismount of the lap to get up a steep-but-short run up. I found this runup to really suit me and I cleared it in only about ten steps each lap and my cheap-o shoes dug in and worked great each lap. After that it was hop-back-on and wide open across the start/finish for another lap.

I was chatting with a guy setting up the course (turns out I was skipping an entire section of the course on my warmups!) and ended up showing up to the start a little late so I didn't have time to ditch my snazzy new Voler leg warmers that I won last Summer. That wasn't a big deal since the temps were still in the lower 60's. Off we went! I started pretty far back in the field but with the wide open section was able to dig in a bit and move up move up move up. I was a little concerned how hard I was pushing but I've vowed to stop these lazy starts that have become habitual. By the time we hit the first technical section I was seventh wheel and we had a nice train going. But, oops! A couple guys stacked it and there was some rearranging. When the smoke cleared, two guys were riding away, two more were behind them and I was with two guys chasing. During that rest of that first lap I really felt I was feeling good and when my partners took their turns at the front, I was cruising too easy.

So at the start of the second lap I decided to bridge across or die trying. I was doing really well until that first technical section. I hopped off the curb then over another curb turned across a sidewalk and entered a gravel section as soon as I cleared the apex I put the pedal to the floor and next thing I knew I was getting up off the ground and remounting as the two guys from earlier were passing. I latched back onto them but realized that, "Snap! That hurt!" We rolled up to the bottom of the turn before the steep climb and suddenly the side of my face was plowing through the dirt and I felt that sick feeling of the momentum of my body pushing against my neck trying to use my head as a tipping point. I bounced then grabbed the bike and was a bit slower remounting and getting going both due to the ringing in my ears and for being at the bottom of a hill. By the time I got my butt up the hill, fixed by brake lever and was rolling again I had lost three of four more positions. I used the next section to try to calm down, figure out if I was concussed and just find my rhythm again.

After remounting on the uphill after the barrier I knew I was going to be okay and just got back to business. Luckily that was the end of mishaps for the day. The course continued to agree with me and the good sensations in the legs ( ) continued so I was able to reel in, work with and pass riders over the next several laps.

Going into the last lap I saw one of the guys from the original triplet of chasers off in the distance. On the fast charging section I thought, "Hey, I've got matches to burn! This is awesome!" It seemed far-fetched to close the distance but I turned it up to eleven and, when he bobbled the uphill remount I suddenly was three inches off his rear wheel. I waited until the longest climb of the race and jumped as hard as I could. I never looked back and just rode the rest of the lap as hard as I could. In the final 30 seconds I started to feel like I was going to throw up and no finish line was ever so sweet to cross!

I finally assessed the damage during a cooldown lap and a BS session with Ray and Jenni Fortner where I found my left hip with a pancake-sized rash (shorts torn), my left elbow already swelling up, both knees bloodied (my brand new race-won Voler leg warmers were both torn!!! ) and my left ankle and right knee both not bending pain-free and feeling tweeked.

But you know what? I don't care! It was worth it!

I simply can't emphasize enough just how much damn fun cyclocross can be when you've got good fitness and the course agrees with you.

PS Was 3rd of 20 and took home a nice pair of socks and some food.

Sacramento Cyclocross Series @ Lembi Park Nov. 5, 2011

2011-12-08T08:24:00.001-08:00

I did this race last year and didn't have a very good time between my own lack of fitness, poor setup (overinflated tires) and a run in with an asshole roadie. This year I toed the line with a large sense of confidence with really good fitness, tires at about 35 frnt and 45 rear and a good attitude to not let anyone else's mouth get into my head.

I had a mediocre start and immediately got caught behind a starting line crash (again!). I really have to work harder on being more aggressive on both the starting grid and the actual start.

A couple minutes into it I was trying to move up through the 180 turns and half a wheel in front of a guy and, as is standard protocol for the guy ahead, took the optimal line without cutting him off. He immediately whined something like, "you're just not gonna give me room are you?" I just replied, "I'm just racing, buddy." and continued on. He quickly burned out and disappeared and I mentally patted myself on the back for ignoring it and moving on with my race instead of getting wrapped up in stupidity.

I felt pretty good and had an okay first lap catching a couple guys and keeping tabs on the front runners and making room on the wide open sections and limiting my losses on the 180's and making room on some of the curb hops and the short runup. But this course doesn't really have very technical challenges so you just gotta GO.

The second lap was going well and I was picking up steam when I felt the rear end squish out in a tight corner. I did a quick rear wheel bounce and confirmed that I was flatting out the rear. A few minutes later I was done since I had nothing in the pits. As I rolled to the start/finish and let them know I was out I thought back and was pretty sure a hard hit on a tree root had caused a pinch flat. So much for the proper tire pressure...

It was nice to have an actual spectator for a change! Teammate Zaf was in town and had dropped in to see what the whole cyclocross thing looked like. After dropping out and getting changed we hung out, watched cheered on our teammate Jim Lund to a 3rd place finish (on a headcold) and spectated at the sandpit where the guys who know how to relax and shift their weight get separated from the guys who, um, go over their handlebars.

I was frustrated with the DNF but that's racing. I kind of wish I'd brought my mountain bike and put it in the pits but it just seems so overly self-important to put a pit bike in for a B race... I guess I should get over getting over myself...

CCCX: Manzanita Park Oct. 16, 2011

2011-12-05T08:49:00.001-08:00

Catching up... I did my fourth cx race of this season yesterday so I'm going to try to catch up here a bit in the coming days...

This was a pretty fun course except for the many many tight 180 degree hairpins. I crashed on one in practice and then followed that up with pretty much having no rhythm on them for the rest of the race.

There was a crash right at the start and I got backed up behind it and, as a result, was either the very last rider through the first corner or the guy in front of the last. Besides tight 180 degree hairpins my biggest problem in cross races is being aggressive and pushy enough to get a good position on the starting grid.

Attempting to give the English archer's salute to Steve Woo. At least it made him laugh.

Half of the course was pretty wide open and I was happy to find myself pretty strong and able to pass and gap riders on these sections. Then I pretty much just held my own on the turns and put the pedal to the metal whenever the course opened up again. As a result I was happy to go from dead last at the start to 16th by the end. I was using this race as a tune up so that was okay but I couldn't help thinking that a good start and my improved fitness over last year would have put me farther up than mid-pack. The main take away from this race was that, though I had definitely revved my motor decently I generally need to dig harder and make myself hurt a bit more in cyclocross racing to get better results. I was really just kind of cruising.

I think I can legitimately "steal" this photo since it was hilighted on the CCCX page...

But I had a good time and saw alot of racing buddies that I've seen recently or not so recently and some people I hadn't seen in about nine years. The bike racing community is such a good one and it's fun like family when you can catchup or just touch base.

Oh and I didn't pop my stitches so that was a bonus.

They did this.

2011-12-05T08:46:00.001-08:00

What did they do?

Only five?

2011-10-09T19:11:00.000-07:00

So I was asked if I was going to blog about how I had a rather undramatic fall during a four and a half hour mountain bike ride and sliced my knee open and had to go get five stitches later that day to close it up. So, there, I just did. Never fun to see the little white bits inside of yourself...

A Post for Me That I Won't Keep for Me: It ain't always all about bikes...

2011-09-16T00:08:00.000-07:00

Before I chicken out and send this to the saved-but-never-posted pile, I'm going to hit "post" and dedicate this one to all the posts I've kept to myself that maybe didn't deserve it.

It kind of bums me out that I don't write as much as I'd like to. I clearly remember when I fell in love with writing. In grade school (I think it must have been 4th grade) we had a creative writing assignment where we had to take a number of classmates and put them into a story that had a particular beginning scenario (I vaguely remember its having something to do with getting lost in a cave). I became completely engrossed in my story and enjoyed the first experience (of many) of having my brain surge ahead of the words making it onto the page. By the time my cramping little fingers made the pencil catch up with my racing mind I was light-headed and hyperventilating. True story.

From that time on I didn't really need school assignments to make me put words on paper. As I grew older it included WAY too much sappy poetry (although I eventually did get a kind of clever little allegory about a girl who trusted her parachute more than me published in the college "black book." *)

When I met Kris I was doing some writing. It was actually a pretty creative period of my life fueled by an abundance of free time (remember free time? no?). I would work hard, ride my bike hard and spend my lonely evenings working out guitar parts or tapping away on my computer. I kept starting stories but not finishing them. I even outlined a novel and wrote a few character-defining sections of it. And I kept wanting to take some writing courses but didn't have the enterprise to get it done. Like my writing at the time, I was dangerously close to stalling out in my life and not getting to where I wanted to be. Luckily Kris and I were flung toward each other like two lumps of clay at high speed squished into each other so thoroughly no one will ever know ever again where one part begins and the other ends.

Then, like most people who collide with the soul they were destined to meld with, life got really busy and writing became a forgotten pleasure. And along with all the wonderful pleasures all that busyness brings, I came off the rails a little and things got a little dark. I started writing as a way to vent and I really didn't like where it was going and what I was reading from myself. But those never-to-see-the-light-of-day bitter ramblings kind of helped me to work out many things that put me back on the beautiful charmed joyous path I'm on now. Thank fate for putting me with Kris and her being so supportive of the second most important thing that came out of that time, falling back in love with being a cyclist -and returning to the world of a racing cyclist at that. But with all that bike riding, writing has taken a back seat again only to surface with race reports and the occasional guilty, "I really should write something" blather.

So here it is almost midnight on a Thursday night and I just felt the need to write an essay about, well, anything. Hell I'm writing an essay about writing for cripe's sake! I guess it's just a part of who I am that I can no more shut off than this damn love of murdering myself over my handlebars or thinking about my son and Kris and having a warm rush of love fill me up. And that, you dark mother fucker, is the hole you were so desperate to fill up.

* It went...
*Parachute You*
If I were a parachute,
then I think you'd jump.
And I'd set you down to earth,
In a gentle lump.

But... and I can't remember the rest of it but the gist was "If you pack me wrong then I'm just some pathetic sap you won't fall for..." Get it? Fall for. Fucking clever shit right there. And it wasn't even remotely subtle since my muse was very heavily into sky diving... I think I caught her doing about-faces and walking swiftly in the opposite direction from me for quite awhile after that.

San Ardo Road Race: 8/20/11: YdoIdothistome?

2011-08-21T08:13:00.000-07:00

Well this is my third time with this race and I seem to get worse every time I try it! In '97 I had a fun looong breakaway and then had enough legs to survive the field sprint. Two years ago I rode too hard and ended up cramping but still was able to spin in the field sprint.

Since this is a race that tends to get a little boring with everyone plodding along for 63.5 miles and then racing the last kilometer, I wanted to try to get a break going from way out. So I gave myself a 20 minute window to try that at the end of the first lap/ beginning of the second lap. I was hoping to get something going on the flat going into San Ardo and then stretch it and get out of sight on the climb and following rollers going out of town. Unfortunately NOBODY wanted to see that happen. I just can't get a grip on negative racing. Do people really enjoy a boring three hour ride followed by a field sprint? (I know I know it's more about racing and results and if you want fun go for a mtb ride...) That's just not fun racing to me. I attacked and counter attacked and counter counter attacked until I was crosseyed but I simply couldn't stretch the elastic. The biggest gap I was ever able to create was only about 20 seconds and I couldn't get anyone else to go. There were a couple people riding hard at the front but no one was attacking.

Sidebar: Attacking: Riding hard at the front is not attacking. Pulling hard and slowly ramping up to speed is not attacking. Generally any kind of riding hard at the front that does not create gaps is not attacking. If there is a rider with two or three bike lengths ahead and you want to make a breakaway you have to JUMP across that gap. If you ride hard across that gap you are only going to pull the pack with you. Now if only the only two or three other animated riders in yesterday's race would read that... Oh and another thing. If you are trying to get a flyer going with two or three other riders you have to share major efforts with those guys for a few pulls. If you let ANY other rider into that rotation you screwed up.

But. whaddiknow?

Anyway. Despite riding myself crosseyed I just couldn't get away. So I settled back into the pack for a 38 mile snooze. Pathetic (both that I couldn't get away and the negative racing in the pack). Oh, and while I'm whining can I just say how flipping frustrating it is to see CAT FOUR racers on deep dish carbon wheels, and $4,000 + bikes? Oh, and the pinnacle of this absurdity is that I finally saw a CAT FOUR racer on Di2. Let me repeat that. I saw a CAT FOUR racer with a $3800 Dura Ace electronic groupo on a $2000 frameset using $1800 wheels. My car isn't worth that much money.

So then we finally sniffed San Ardo in the distance and the pace went up. Surprisingly, I found myself near the front and in good position. I got swarmed a little coming into town but then worked my way back up the side and into decent position on the climb. I was off to the side maybe five wheels back when the rider in front of me (who I had earlier determined to be a strong finisher) jumped hard. I went too but then going under the freeway just before the turn my legs simply quit on me. I sat down and pushed as hard as I could through the turn and to the finish but pretty much the entire pack went by before the finish line came. I don't think I've ever faded that hard in a sprint in my life. It was quite shocking, really. I'm no stranger to going too early but usually I can hold it and scratch something out of it. But this was more like I put the brakes on. I mean EVERYONE had a sprint left in his legs.

Finishes like that really just make you want to hang up the bike. I did everything right in the sprint. Good position. Fought onto a good wheel. But I went too early and didn't have NEAR the legs to get away with it.

Well at least I had a near-four hour drive home by myself to replay it over and over... Luckily it was all vanquished by the time I got home and forgotten after a solid, yet wobbily, afternoon of swimming, hiking and playing with my boy.

Sky Tavern Mountain Bike Race: Aug. 14, 2011

2011-08-18T15:28:00.000-07:00

This was fun race with a nice mix of everything. I raced as a Cat 2 (old days we called it "sport") for the first time since, um, 1996? Of course back then I wasn't racing in old man age bracket but, hey.

My alarm went off at 2:30 AM and somehow I dragged my butt out of bed, showered and was in the car by 3. Fast forward many hours and I was ready to race. I met up with (soon to be teammate) Ray and he talked me through the course as we warmed up on the opening climb.

After a racer talk-to from the promoter we all headed to the start and were sent off in waves. Our wave was the Cat. 2 50+ and 40+. And a wopping six of us took the start. One guy was asking everyone what their age was and I found it slightly annoying but didn't think to ask him his age and figure out what age group he was racing. The promoter did ask a show of hands for the age groups but I wasn't really paying attention so I assumed Ray was the only 50 plusser.

Off we go!

We somewhat slowly took off across the paved parking lot, up a short road and then turned onto a two-track dirt climb that was fairly steep and went for about a mile and a half. About halfway up I was liking what my legs and heart rate were telling me and moved up to the front and set the pace. At the top there was a steep section with some loose dirt/gravel that made traction difficult and could force a hike-a-bike. I was happy to clear it and hadn't looked back yet.

After the climb the dual track continued for another three quarters of a mile with some more altitude gain before heading into the single track. I did look on one curve and was very happy to see only two guys maybe half a minute back.

But then I got clumsy! Unfortunately, the lack of mtb racing and a steady diet of relatively untechnical riding at Del Valle caught up with me and I was struggling to clear easy stuff in the woods. Simple ditch crossings, one or two log hops and very minor rock challenges seemed to cause me to stumble left and right (literally!) and overshoot turns. Pretty shortly a guy in a blue and yellow jersey asked for trail and I gave it to him. I paused to let Ray by but he wasn't there so I jumped and vainly tried to keep up with blue/yellow-dude.

On a rocky dropoff I finally turned from clumsy to crashing and went down pretty gently (though it was enough to pop the bottom of my jersey zipper giving me a distracting wardrobe malfunction that I couldn't correct in the heat of battle). Ray very quickly appeared and I was glad to have him by me so I didn't have to worry about holding him up. The rest of the lap went about the same with lots of clumsy dismounting as I stalled out in mud and sandy sections. I was pretty frustrated and only started to feel like I wasn't a roadie pretender on a very steep decline section over some rocks. "That's more like it" I thought as I cleared it.

The descent back to the finish was a mix of single track and rough fire road and I was doing better.

Past the finish line onto the paved parking lot with a tailwind and a nice smooth time trial back to the start of the climb for laps two and three! Lap two I was feeling more comfortable but never saw a single rider to catch or to have catch me. And lap three was pretty much the same. That last lap was when I finally rode most of the stuff that had been tripping me up earlier. That said, with about five minutes to go I passed a lapped rider just before going from a dirt road to single track section and stacked it pretty good coming down heavily onto a rock and a bush that gave me a couple nice puncture wounds in the leg. On the third lap I was starting to fade and lose motivation. In my head it was just alot of work for second place.

As I finally crossed the finish line, muddy and bloody, shorts torn, and jersey zipper failing Ray (looking altogether too fresh) said, "Hey! I think you won!" Turns out blue/yellow, the guy asking the annoying age questions, was a 50 plus rider. So, yeah, I guess I won since everyone who beat me was in a different age group. I shouldn't qualify a win that way but if that's how it feels, that's how it feels.

The important thing is it was a very fun race, an absolutely GORGEOUS day in the Sierras, a great hangout with friends and mountain bikers and I got to bring home a cute little medal and some shwag. Nice.

Not exactly displaying "look like you've been here before" presence on the podium

Catching up 3/3: Hellyer 7/19/2011

2011-07-31T10:50:00.001-07:00

Started to feel the load of training and probably should have stayed out of this night since it was a rest week but...

Omnium: 4th of 22

Points: DNP: Just couldn't get the legs going and there was some scary riding going on that held me back from getting in the mix. NOT liking racing with new 5's and juniors. That's what's driving me to upgrade.

Scratch: 2nd! I had my rider picked out and was sitting in nice but he went down track behind ten or so riders with two to go and I was losing confidence in him when Super Ted came uptrack and said "let's go." He drilled us around the pack and up to the bell lap and I took over with very fresh legs from that great leadout. I sprinted and thought I had the win but got pipped at the line by the guy I had been marking earlier!

Points: 8th. Not good enough for omnium points and I really had to dig HARD for the crumbs I did get. Definitely stuffed.

Well thanks solely to Ted's great leadout the night wasn't completely lost and I scratched out a couple more upgrade points. I left the track feeling very empty and fatigued, however. Racing four weeks in a row is probably not a good idea.

Then the following Thursday night I went out and played softball and ended up pulling the sartorius muscles (self diagnosed via the interweb...) in both legs and have been hobbling around and unable to push hard ever since. REALLY frustrated by this right now since I've had to skip one big race I was planning for since many months back and am looking at having my fitness peak completely screwed up by this silly injury.

Catching up 2/3: Hellyer 7/12/2011

2011-07-31T10:40:00.000-07:00

Omnium: 5th of 12
Scratch: 6th. Wasted too much energy riding off the front trying to get the pace hot enough to drop the scary riders. Was right behind the sprint for omnium points but couldn't dig enough to move up.

Miss-n-out: 3rd! My best miss-n-out since becoming a four on the track! I had only one goal and that was to get to the front and die trying. Well I went a little too hard to the front and ended up soloing off the front for the first three or four outs. When the pack came I worked the front with Marino and counted laps. With 6 to go I was starting to feel like it could happen and dug in to stay alive for the next two laps. With four of us left I got lucky and was able to box the fourth guy in and eliminate him. But that was it and I was too cooked to sprint with the other two guys for the win. But I was dang happy to not be one of the first three or four out in this, my LEAST favorite, event.

Points: 2nd. I remember winning one sprint and doing well in another and that was good enough for 2nd. Take it.

Another fun night of racing and had a record of TWO teammates on the track with Pres Ted coming out and Jonathan coming out again. Bummer to mess up the scratch race and fall down the omnium but I'll take the single upgrade point and run with it.

Catching up 1/3: Hellyer July 5, 2011

2011-07-31T10:11:00.000-07:00

Ug. I gotta write stuff down more quickly after the races or I forget it. So why bother? I dunno. Compulsion.

Scratch: 2nd of 12
Tempo: 3rd
Points: 4th
Omnium: 3rd?

I remember surprising myself by passing four riders in the last 200 meters of the scratch to take 2nd.

The Tempo was nowheresville for me in the first three quarters then my legs woke up and I scored on the last laps.

I don't remember a dang thing about the points race. But I do remember having good sprint legs all night and being quite satisfied with finally rising above pack fodder and notching some upgrade points.

Good to see Jonathan Quist back out on the track!

Central Coast Circuit Race (#6 ?): July 2, 2011

2011-07-04T15:53:00.000-07:00

Not much to say about this one. I raced in the 35+ Cat 3/4 making this my first "Cat 3" race since 1998. It was a good confidence builder to be able to hang in without ever really getting into any distress. There were a few moments of "asses and legs" but it wasn't the kind where guys are coming around you and you're thinking, "uh oh." The course is fun and looks hilly on the profile but I found the climbs to not be much of a factor. That said, team tactics (and another team's complete LACK of tactics) allowed four or five guys to use the bigger hill to slip off the front leaving the pack sprinting for crumbs.

Jeff Miller's report told me exactly what to do. He sprinted for the last corner, held on and managed second. I saw the way clear to do that but the small pack was spread across the road and I hadn't been bold enough to move up on the descent. One guy did sprint forward to take the last turn (and won the field sprint) but then there was a compression through the corner and I didn't risk it. I cruised up the left side of the road and had PLENTY of spurt in the legs but was boxed in and had to be content with watching four or five guys duke it out while I tried to bulldoze the fading rider in front of me out of the way (mentally, of course). I ended up 10th overall and was the 2nd Cat 4. So a good time, a fast-ish race and a great confidence builder. And, as it turns out, that's my second best result in a Cat 3 race in California.

One big take away from this race is that I've become used to riders on the track riding straight. I must have had to brake to keep from getting my front wheel swept 100 times. I suppose that's my own fault for being such a gutter rider and for not being a little more aggressive, perhaps.

Somehow I always end up showing up to races when Steve Anderson is snapping away. I found him afterwards and said "hey" He hadn't seen me in the race and wondered if he'd caught me. I guess he did!

Hellyer Get Ready for Summer #5: June 11, 2011

2011-06-17T10:11:00.000-07:00

In a fit of ambition to upgrade I decided to enter the cat 4/5 field instead of the cat 3/4 field. At GRFS #4 there were 19 4/5's but on MY race day there ended up being only seven of us. Since that field is less than ten, no upgrade points were up for grabs. But once racing had started and I knew the numbers, it was too late. Fizzle.

Kieren: Racers line up beside each other based on a random number draw, the motorcycle goes by and everyone sprints to get on the motor. After three laps of pacing the motor pulls off and it's a two lap free for all. Or something like that. Maybe it's a 1K free for all? Each heat only has six or seven riders (I know Ted is going to read this and pound himself on the head that I could have such a vague handle on the technicalities of this race but, whatever, go with the flow dude.). Since there were only seven of us there was a heat of 4 and a heat of 3. I ended up in the second heat of 3. The first two riders advance to the final. I gave a 87% effort on my sprint and got pipped for the heat win on the line but securing second was all I wanted. I turned lap cards for other races for awhile until my Kieren final. I was second wheel until the motor pulled off then a couple passed uptrack. In the sprint I could see my way over the top and past to take the sprint and, yay, my legs followed my eyes. Win!

Snowball: The winner on each lap gets points. On the first lap, 1 point, second lap, 2 points, etc. so the last lap 15 is worth 15 points. I took laps 3 and 4 but then Dexter snuck off the front. No one wanted to reel him in and, in all honesty, I think some beginners (I refuse to call them n00bs) got a little confused about the part where there was a race going on. We finally got him back with four or five to go. I took at least three of the last four sprints but it wasn't enough and I was 2nd.

Miss-n-out. I'd like to have this race back. The last place person on each lap gets pulled then the last three sprint it out for 1,2 and 3rd. With four to go I TWICE had my front wheel swept WHILE I WAS IN THE SPRINTER'S LANE. I went into bitchy whiny mode and started yelling at the two rule breakers. The officials pulled me and I proceded to let them know exactly how I felt that they weren't enforcing any delegations for dangerous riders (all calmly and sweetly of course). I'm pretty mellow except when it comes to dangerous riding and then I get a little stupid and self important (I like to think of it as self preservation). I calmed down a bit and had a good talk with the official. I completely disagree with him but he said if I wasn't getting physically pushed into the apron it's my fault for "being intimidated." (Again, he says intimidated, I say safe).

Points (15 lap points every 5 laps): Knowing that my miss and out failure probably lost me the omnium I took out my frustration on the first two sprints, winning them both. I sealed the win with a 3rd on the last sprint. Maybe the officials were mad at me since they somehow scored a three way tie on the first sprint. No matter, it didn't really change the overall results.

So a mixture of emotions to take home from this one. Losing the omnium by one point (out of 22) kind of sucked. And turning into a whining baby in the miss and out wasn't anything to be proud of (though I did make it up to the two guys I yelled at: that's the nice thing about the track is that the shit that happens in the race usually doesn't make it into the pits; at the cat 3/4 level anyway...). I was happy to be able to win track events in each year I've been on the track now. And bringing home a red ribbon always makes the homefront take notice. But in hindsight, I really wish I'd done the 3/4 race. I think I had good enough legs to have been competitive and forth place in that race would have netted more upgrade points than the zero I got in my race. Oh well. More positives than negatives overall.

Hellyer: Funk removal machine. (aka Tues. nite omnium 6/7/2011))

2011-06-10T20:31:00.000-07:00

Let's get it going.

15 lap points (x5): After the first neutral lap the promoters, official and wise bystanders pulled everyone off the track and decided to run two 4/5 fields. Hernando, always the shy one, called everyone to the rail who felt they were faster and more experienced. That ended up being about 2/3 of the original 4/5 field. I was happy they did this. Then there was a race. There was a ridiculous balling up on the backstretch on about the second or third lap. This didn't really relent for another lap so -and I guess you know this is coming if you know me and my track mentality even a little bit- I attacked full tilt (picture found here by Tim Westmore). Unfortunately my full tilt was pretty weak and then I didn't have enough umph to get back into the action after the first sprint. I wasted time and energy chasing for awhile but when the pace didn't slow down after the second sprint I threw in the towel and went uptrack to lick my wounds.

15 (i think?) lap scratch: Not much to say here. I kept my nose clean, stayed about six or seven riders back and then uncorked my best sprint @ the 200 meter line. 5th place.

20 lap points (@5): This was the most fun of the evening since it was fast from the first lap and never let up. That's my favorite kind of track race. It was pretty satisfying to survive the shredding and be one of the last six or seven riders still on the lead lap at the end. Unfortunately survive is all I was able to do and there was no good opportunities to score points. There still aren't results but it sure seemed like the same four guys were scoring on every sprint.

And so, once again, Hellyer turned my attitude around. I was having a pretty grumpy week on the bike but a night of racing and hanging with good folk in the pits lifted the fog.

Middle Age Mediocrity

2011-06-06T22:37:00.000-07:00

The finish line daze of a mediocre 26 year old Cat. 3-->>>>>

<-- The chimp-like starting line gaze of a mediocre Cat. 4 Master.

I have a really good deal at work. My watch goes off at 11:30. I duck into my lab in the basement, lock the door and -like a slow motion Clark Kent coming out of the phone booth as Superman- I come back out 5 minutes later in my bike gear carrying my bike. I swing a leg over and finish putting on gloves and glasses and maybe a jacket as I spin away from my building. About 8 minutes later I'm on my interval course, a 2.25 mile loop that is dead flat and borders the military golf course next to work with no stops and, except for the occasional errant golf cart, is traffic free.

For what it's worth, I began my Build 2 phase today (which is kind of fucking ridiculous since vacation and then work are going to completely destroy all this hard work... ) and so was doing a "threshold" workout where I rode upper zone 4, lower zone 5 for 30 minutes without interruption. If that means nothing to you then let's just say I went out and made myself hurt for 30 minutes. That's "hurt" not "HURT".

So basically it's 30 minutes at a notch just slightly down from a time trial pace. I timed each lap and, on the last lap of five I didn't hold back. I felt good, though the knees were complaining slightly and I had a slightly hard time getting on top of the right gear going into the wind. But it felt good to just crank out the last 20% at a higher level. On that dead flat course making a loop, I averaged an extremely mediocre speed of 23.1 mph. Okay, granted I was on a 15 year old bike with seven speed down tube shifters and heavy wheels and no aerobar but, still...

I clearly remember the first time I broke an hour for a 40 km time trial. It was a fantastic feeling to enter that club. Sure I had teammates who were knocking on the door of 53 minutes but I was in the 59" club and I belonged to the guys who weren't just slapping on aero bars and going through the motions. I could push my body to endure the pain and suffering to propel myself at over 25 mph for over a little under an hour. And it wasn't a fluke. I broke an hour for 40 km time trials at least three times total that I can remember.

I'm certainly not unique in that I raced as a young man, gave it up, then came back. But I don't seem to have picked things up where I left off like many of the other middle-age-crisis racers I know. I'm really scratching my head over it too. The main difference between now and then is that I now train with some amount of regiment. Back then I just rode my balls off every time I swung a leg over. Bike commuting was recovery and everything else was time trialling my regular routes or trying to prove my worth on group rides or pouring every ounce of myself into training races during the week and racing races on the weekends. I never could predict when I'd have a good ride or when I'd be unable to turn over my own feet to make a wheel turn.

I'm not sure what the lesson or message is here. And don't get me wrong, I feel like I'm cheating fate or destiny or something just to find myself at my old racing weight and being able to, once again but in a much more limited way, call myself a bike racer. But the mediocrity gets a little old. Maybe I'm just like Al Bundy sitting on the sofa telling the dog about his former glory. The truth is I was a spectacularly mediocre bike racer as a young man, too. But I always figured some age and wisdom and patience would make me a better racer than that young dumb and full of plumb kid I used to be. Ah well. Youth is wasted on the young, I guess. I have a much better life than he did anyway. I wouldn't really trade. I just want to borrow his legs a few weekends a year...

Mount Hamilton Classic Road Race 2011

2011-06-05T20:51:00.000-07:00

The race was a week ago and not that spectacular anyway so I'm kind of squeezing myself for any kind of a race report here tonight.

There was a 45+ group this year so, with those guys off in their own race, the pack was smaller than last year. But smaller meant faster. I started off smart and got myself up into the top 12 riders or so but it was quickly obvious that it was going to be a repeat of last year. By about ten minutes in I had a very high heart rate and just couldn't find a rhythm and get comfortable. Not too much later I realized some of the pack was slipping by and I was falling back. By minute 18 no one came by me and I looked back and... that was that. No more pack. PATHETIC!

From then on it was just survival. At the top of Mount Hamilton (the top after the observatory not the top at the observatory) I checked my time and saw 1:38, EXACTLY, the same time as last year.

I didn't have the same descending mojo as last year so I just got it done and, for the first time in about 20 times down that mountain, I got passed by someone going down. Ride ride ride. I was caught and dropped by several groups of 4 or 5 riders. I felt I could hang in with them but it seemed like I'd be risking a cramptastic day if I tried so I just let them ride away over and over again.

With about 18 miles to go I was caught up by a group of four riders, two of whom were in my race. We all rode it out together. I asked the two guys from my group if they were racing or just getting it done. One guy laughed and agreed it was survival mode while the other guy just kept quiet. Whatever. I tried to take my share of pulls and lead the mile before the last descent as well as the descent. At the bottom there was an ambulance in the road. I stopped since it was starting to pull out but the other two squeaked in front of it and rode off to the finish. With the ambulance gone, I rolled in and busted their balls a little bit for using an ambulance to shake me (all in good fun).

That was that. Oh, as I crossed the line I checked my computer and saw 3:49. EXACTLY the same time as last year!? WTF!!!??? I guess the difference is that this year I was just riding it. Last year it was a major goal for the year. I had better endurance this year too with no cramping and not the death march feel that last year had. That said, I was pretty disappointed with such a mediocre ride. I resolved to bottle that frustration and unleash it on my goal the next weekend, the TopSport Stage Race. So imagine my added frustration on Tuesday morning when I found out that race was cancelled (with only five days to go??? LAME!).

And so I decided to lead a team ride today and drove my stupid ass all the way to town and did the team ride all by myself and then drove my stupid ass back home (a 90 minute round trip). Grrr. I'm just generally frustrated and riding angry this week. I don't like that.

But on the bright side I had a nice family bike ride in the afternoon. I bought Jasper his first mountain bike yesterday (an 11" frame with 24" wheels) and got him dialed in today so he's not falling over all the time and is comfortable on it. He has no clue about shifting and I have to just bite my tongue since I just manage to piss him off evertime I try to "help" him but it's a beeyootiful thing to see him climb up a hill, turn around and come screaming down with a big old grin on that gorgeous little face. See? That's what bikes are supposed to do.

Modesto Road Race (35+ cat 4): May 15, 2011

2011-05-16T09:15:00.000-07:00

The Modesto road race (which to me seems more like a circuit race) is notoriously FLAT. I recorded a total of 292 feet of climb over 54 miles of racing! I -literally- get more climbing than that over the first mile out my front door. As a result it's a race that's suited mostly to a pure sprinter though a good mix in a breakaway can steal the show if the pack is too lethargic. Team tactics can pretty much guarantee a podium finish if you show up with enough numbers and those dudes are fit enough to control the race and make a leadout train. With just Ted and I, that wasn't going to be our game so our strategy was for Ted to play it like a pure sprinter staying out of the wind and out of danger all day and I would do what I could to reel in breaks. Since I'm not much of a field sprinter type, the plan wasn't so much for me to lead him out as it was to try to be a stinker in the final kilometer or two to try to keep the final pace strung out and fast. It kind of worked out that way.

Most of the race was uneventful. After two laps of gofastslowdowngofastnowaitslowdown two guys finally established a break that, eventually, turned into one guy dangling off the front for quite an impressive amount of time. He was finally brought back (by a flat front tire?) on the sixth lap. There was a counterattack that was nothing but weak sauce but that did string out the pack pretty good. Ted had found the guy he was going to mark in the sprint so, with the pack strung out with 4 miles to go, Ted got on my wheel as if we'd done this sort of thing all the time, and I brought him back up to his mark. I had a head of steam going so I decided to move to the front and do my part to keep the hot pace hot. Really my only intention was to hit the front hard and just keep the elastic stretched but I suddenly had that sinking feeling that no one was on my wheel.

A quick look back revealed a surprisingly large gap back to the pack. "Ah crap," I thought, "Get ready for some hurt..." To add to the benefit of my timing another field passed ours and then me. Oh it was tempting to jump in a cheat a little but I stayed away and they stayed away and I remain guilt-free. Nine minutes of pain, panic and pursuit of glory (haha, as if I didn't know it was suicidal...) found me still solo off the front through the final corner. Past the 1K to go and I was still chugging. But very shortly after that the familiar sound of a ramped up pack with no mercy for the idiot off the front solo ruined my fun. Ted looked good sitting 4th or 5th wheel but, as is typical in a dead flat, dead straight, dead challenge-free sprint like that, luck of the draw spit him to the front too early and he had to settle for 9th. But hey! Top ten is good! I'd take one of those right about now.

Here's the link to Ted's perspective (just substitute "teammate" for "That idiot Roy") http://teddyv.wordpress.com/

Somehow my legs didn't actually explode and I kept them moving to get a 17th (of ~35). So once again, if you split the field size in half, you get my result. But this was a team day so I'm okay with that. In fact it was a good confidence builder to be able to get away and stay away at a crucial part of the race like that. My recovery after the race was very good and I was doing difficult 12x3 intervals on Tuesday and rode 60 miles with 5900 feet of climbing on Wednesday. It's fun to be fit!

Shaking the cobwebs out at Hellyer: May 10, 2011 Edit Blog Entry

2011-05-14T12:08:00.000-07:00

I managed to get my track bike converted from fixed gear road rider to track racer in time Tuesday morning so, with no excuses, headed to the track for some Tuesday evening fun after work. My track "season" ended in a heap of dissappointment and failed goals last year so I spent the winter pondering if I was even going to bother with the track this year. But the Hellyer community is tight and after only being inside the gates for a few minutes I was catching up with racing buddies and sharing "where you been's" with guys who, in a normal crit or road racing environment wouldn't even look down their carbon fiber stem at a muffin racer like me. Dang, to think I was just gonna skip that this year? FOOL!

My goals for the night were to get comfy in the pack, get a good heart rate up and get at least a couple of good sprints in here and there. With a different format this year, I may be able to achieve last year's goal of getting a Cat. 3 on the track but only if I can get my sprint in gear and only if I feel satisfied with having notched either a couple event wins or an omnium win. I really hope I'm not in fantasy land but I was doing it last July and started my track campaign around this same time last year and this year I have a very solid base under me, and a much better training approach. Anyway, I raced three events in the Cat. 4/5 field of 16 racers.

Race 1: Win-n-out (15 laps, winner on lap 15 wins, winner on lap 16 is 2nd, lap 17 1st and 2nd are 3rd and 4th). My strategy was to race for third or fourth. If you go for the win and miss it you end up too pooped to try for 2nd, 3rd or 4th. The 15 laps were kind of hot and I was undergeared so I was only able to surf the back and not move up. On the final sprint for 3rd and 4th I dug in but missed the top two spots. Results had me in 5th, one place out of points - D'OH!

Race 2: 12 lap Tempo (2 points for leader on every lap, 1 point for second on every lap, 5-3-2-1 points for last lap): With a better gear and a slightly slower pace surfing the pack was pretty easy but I didn't seem to have the horsepower to move up without burning too many matches so I just bided my time until the final when I did my only sprint of the race. A pen. velo rider was off the front but I won the field sprint. The results somehow missed this fact, but with only 3 points won there, I was still out of the omnium points so we'll just let that one go.

Race 3: 20 laps points race (4x5): In a points race this short my only hope is to either put all my eggs in one sprint basket or get a good breakaway going and steal points from off the front. I decided to let the first sprint play out and counterattack the sprint if the field bunched up. Sure enough everyone bunched up into the wind on the back stretch so I broadcast my attack by going underneath and rolling off the front. Around the banks across the front stretch and into turn one and I decided to see what happened. Nuts! The pack was off turn 4 and I was solo. I was really hoping to bring one or two guys with me but it wasn't to be. I dug in for two more laps but then was swarmed on the next bell lap. I got gapped in the sprint and almost got back on by the back stretch but just didn't have the umf. I chased for a few laps and then decided I was better off getting back in the pack and working on skills instead of the futility of a solo chase. Back in the pack, round and round and call it a night.

So. Get comfy on the track with the pack etc? check. Get a couple of good sprints in? check. Regain some of my love for the track? checkitycheckcheck. I'm hooked again.

Photos by my buddy and all around great human, Steve Anderson (http://www.flickr.com/photos/youngsloat/)

Mental Toughness (is perhaps what you'll need to work through this blog today...)

2011-03-31T21:21:00.000-07:00

My rest week last week was kind of weird. I backed off too much. I ate too much. I stressed too much. I slept too little. By the end of the week I really felt like I had come off the rails a little bit. So ending the rest week two rides and two hours short of my training schedule just kind of set me up for this week all wrong.

Monday was an off day so that was cool -except I actually felt like riding. Then Jasper got sick and I took my turn at home with him on Tuesday and

couldn't get on my bike. I tried to tell myself, "no biggie, you get two off days this week, you'll just have to get on top of things the rest of the week." But the off-the-rails feelings of frustration were creeping in around the edges stronger.

Wednesday I rode. But I felt horrible. I couldn't get on top of my gear and I ended the ride feeling kind of exasperated. Fortunately, this feeling eased off a bit later on when I realized that the fixed gear I was riding had been a 42-14 that I had set up for roller riding instead of the usual 42-16 I spin on the road. Still...

Today I simply couldn't wedge a bike ride into my work day and the need to get home since Kris is sick now too. Not going to make this week's training goals. Off. The. Rails.

Saturday was going to be my big ride of the week. I may not get much of a ride in at all. Off. The. Rails.

But is this a big deal in the grand scheme of things? No. Is it a big deal for my bike racing plans (hahahaha)? No, not really. As long as I exercise some mental toughness.

I used to think mental toughness was the ability to ignore pain, endure suffering, and tune out my brain to push past my physical limits. I suppose that is one definition but I'm learning now that mental toughness is the ability to realize your limits, whether they be emotional, stress, physical, dietary or viral/bacterial and make the proper adjustments to get yourself back on track.

In literature, the "back on track" is called your Ideal Performance State. So, right now, I need to be mentally tough enough to just not let the missed training days get to me and move forward with my eyes on the prize. And in this case the prize is not alienating my family, doing a solid job at work and not driving myself into the ground. The fitness and performance will still come and I'll be right back on track with training as soon as things mellow out a bit.

Work gets busy. Loved ones get sick. Hey, that's life. And if you let it get to you then you aren't in control. And if there's one glorious lesson I've managed to soak up in the last three years or so it's that this is my ship and I get to steer it.

Damn, I mixed up my metaphors there. I started off like a pothead engineer on a train going off the rails and ended up on a ship sailing it with steely determination (or at least grasping for a mask of steeliness).

"Steady as she goes!"

Working, Training, Sleeping, Building

2011-03-17T22:36:00.001-07:00

Working:

I'm in one of those typical four-weeks-before-deployment last minute do everything meltdown panic phases at work. You'd think I'd be sick of this and find something else to do by now but I kind of like it. I don't like the stress so much but nothing stirs the juices like delivering on time and having a successful field campaign. I probably just jinxed the shit out of myself so I'll just leave it at that. The downside is the distraction from the real things that matter at home. This time around it's not too bad but being gone at work for a few weekends and then going away for ten days isn't such a nice way to treat one's spouse. This one really sucks since Jasper's spring break falls on the week before I go and the last week is usually particularly hard to get away. I'm trying to do the front end work so it won't be too bad (yeah right).

Training:

Ug. I think this will be the first week that I simply can't notch my training goals since I decided to embrace an actual factual training plan. The above work foo combined with rainy weather and the deterioration of my rollers have conspired against me along with an unnecessarily long hard day last weekend that was off the program and a good lesson on why you stay on the program. I found myself walking up from my garage yesterday morning in the rain at 6:15 after having spent 90 minutes on my decrepit rollers wondering, "WTF am I doing?!!??" But I couldn't sleep anyway so it made sense to get up early and hit the garage.

Sleeping:

Sleeping has been weird lately. I've gone through some real lapses in regular sleep in my life but, in general, being fit and regular exercise brings some balance. But that has kind of not been working lately. I either find myself too wired to get to sleep and stay up too late or I am bone weary exhausted, fall asleep too early but then end up waking up at 2:30 to 4:00 in the morning and then laying awake. (Of course I always end up falling asleep 5 minutes before my alarm goes off...).

Building:

One of the things I lay awake thinking about is how to improve my fleet of jalopy bikes. The bitch of racing four disciplines is that I have four times the race bikes to maintain and wish I could improve. If I spring for a set fast track wheels, I have to continue living with 12 year old components on my road racer. If I buy new brakes for the cyclocross bike, I have to keep clunking along with a low shelf level fork that is falling apart on my mountain bike. It never fucking ends! So I decided I'm just going to go ahead and concentrate on one bike at a time. And after careful consideration, I decided my mountain bike is the bike most likely to fall apart. I ebayed, I bike shop talked, I online shopped, and in the end I decided I actually like my Tomac frame so I'm keeping it and tossing everything else. It's going to cost about the price of a new bike but when I'm done I'll have a better component group and wheels than a similarly priced new bike. And I'm thinking it won't be too unrealistic to see the old Johnny T come in under 21 pounds. W00t!

So that is that. Why? Why not?

Zzzzzz: Shh, don't wake the blog. It's sleeping.

2011-03-07T21:25:00.000-08:00

So this is what it's come to? If I'm not race reporting or thinking about racing I don't post diddly-doo? It wasn't always this way. Once upon a time I used this as an attempt to keep the writing gears lubed and there was more substance to it.

It's true! Just look! There's also plenty of pictures of me rocking an extra 50 pounds! Wowzers.

BEFORE... AFTER...

See kids! Just keep riding your bikes and you too can lead a healthful lifestyle driven by guilt, self flogging, pain, suffering, starvation, binge eating, guilt, and heaping doses of self importance.

Where was I. Oh yeah, the blog. When I started out I had the goal of forcing myself to continue a lifetime of neglectfully practicing writing by committing to two posts per week. At some point I grew quite tired of this and when I started riding again, I went through a strange period of posting blogs as if this were a training log. That was even boring to me and that, my fair reader (yeah right, as if that were anyone else but me and I'm not very fair. In fact I can be a pretty biased mother fucker when I really let my hair down. Not that I have much hair to let down. In fact I think cycling has rapidly increased the deforested real estate above my increasingly busy eyebrows. I blame it on helmet usage and clogged pores from too many lunch time rides followed by hasty spit baths in the sink. Did you know I have a sink in my laboratory? It's damn handy. I'm not really sure why they call it a laboratory. I grew up thinking of a laboratory as a room filled with boiling beakers and steaming vials and a monster being built over in the corner. My lab is really just a big room where I spend the day doing shit. Mostly that shit involves wondering how the heck am I supposed to know how to do any of this stuff they think I know how to do? It's astounding really. If they knew how truly incompetent I am they'd probably change the locks and throw away the key.), was quickly followed by a rapid decrease in content and a rapid increase in self congratulatory bragging about my mediocre racing adventures.

You know what? It's almost 10 PM and I have a really annoying date with the rollers for 5:15AM tomorrow morning. See? Bike racing is really healthy. Unhealthy people lay around in bed getting fat and "resting" for their "work" day while us healthy goody goods spend 90 minutes on the rollers chasing an elusive M1 tempo workout staring at a heart rate monitor and making sweat puddles on the garage floor.

I probably should just let the blog sleep. I think I've risked over-sharing enough for now.

Sacto Cyclocross #7 @ Laguna Del Sol: January 8, 2011

2011-01-10T21:43:00.000-08:00

Despite this being the first race of the year it felt more like the last race of last year since it concludes my cyclocross season. I feel good and Kris gave me green light to race the upcoming weekend but mentally I'm done and ready to move onto the last Winter event, the Early Bird Road Race out of Patterson. But I'm getting ahead of myself! Have I mentioned yet that this race was held at a Nude Resort?! I shit you not! Check it out: http://www.lagunadelsol.com/Her

Now I know this opens the door to so many jokes you probably can't decide wether to open with "where do you pin your numbers" and "well that gives a new meaning to 'skinsuit'" but with the race time temperature at about 40 degrees, there was not a saggy naked butt in sight (or pert ones or any other kind for that matter).

Here's my GPS trace from the race (I finally got the nerve to use my Garmin 500 in a 'cross race).

The course wasn't necessarily technical. There were a couple of muddy sections that sent the front and rear wheels in different directions but they were manageable. There were several little climbs. To the right there you can see they incorporated one of their patented "spirals of doom." This spiral was just as endless as the other one but it was broken up by being located over a hill so there was a mix of descending and climbing to break things up. Other than the spiral there was one tight turn into an uphill that was good for creating gaps.

Right at the go I felt pretty good. I didn't start superfast but did alot of passing on the first lap. On the second lap we had a nice little group of five or six of us sort of working together. They seemed to be faster on the long flat sections but I was able to follow wheels and wait for the hills where I was able to climb strong and even accelerate across the tops to force them to close the gap back up to me. Believe it or not, sportsfans, I was the strongest climber in our little group. It's kind of like when Captain Kirk met his evil twin with a goatee or something. On the penultimate lap (No matter how hard I try, that is a term that is really hard to keep out of bike racing reports. I always picture some academic cartoony character with a pencil up his butt declaring, "penultimate" rolling each syllable with perfect annunciation.) Where was I. Oh yeah, on the penultimate lap two guys from our group suddenly grew third lungs and quickly rode away. I tried but couldn't keep their gap small enough and they just rode away. I knew I had two or three guys on my wheel and just ignored them and kept a steady pace on the flats and attacking as well as I could on any little bump of a climb that there was. It worked and I rode the last half lap solo with no one to sprint with.

Most importantly, this was a fun race since there was a good race going with swapping positions and some tactics. Nothing is more fun than having the fitness in a cyclocross or mountain bike race to randomly stick little ten to fifteen kick accelerations in here and there and throw off the momentum of anyone on your wheel.

And yet I walked away from the results a little disappointed! As good as I felt, as much as I felt I couldn't have had a better race and as much as I feel this is close to as fit as I can be this time of year I ended up 12 of 24. I really thought it was a top ten effort but, instead, it just barely put me in the top half of the field. What's a guy gotta do? Oh well. Despite that it was still a fun race and so I was happy to finally leave the Sacto area for once this 'cross season feeling good about a race instead of grumpy.

And just like that, my cyclocross season is over. I'm kind of sad about that but I'm going to resist the temptation to squeeze in one or two more unplanned races. Though I started off way out of racing shape I was happy to finally ride myself into some semblance of form and enjoy some good races there at the end.

Bikewise, my white bar tape has turned brown and my bike is in need of a thorough cleaning, coat of wax and a new set of cables and brake pads. And since I didn't actually get to use this bike in '09 I was very happy with it this year. It's been a really great and reliable race bike. The frame has that aluminum responsiveness and the 1x9 setup running a very wide range with a 42 tooth chainring was absolutely bulletproof. The only thing I was consistently wishing to improve were the brakes but really the good old Onzas did the trick with a little love here and there to keep them lined up. Oh, and typical of a good cross season, my saddle has not survived! The rails are bent, the right side is lower than the left side and the pleather is cracked and coming apart.

Fianlly, I didn't get to fulfill my fantasy of getting a podium finish for the year on the road, track, mountain bike AND cyclocross but I can't complain. I'm really just happy to be out there riding and racing at all.

2010 review part 2 of 2: Numbers... boring!

2011-01-01T00:04:00.000-08:00

Like any good neurotic racing cyclist I kept track of many things this year and the following is what it is. Since the family has all crashed early for new year's and I'm getting nostalgic with old training diaries (the ones I could find anyway) I'll put a few tidbits in parenthesis for comparison/fun.

2010 Hours on the bike = 312:13 "outdoor" + 13:01 trainer + 28:47 rollers = 354:01 (up from 312:29 in 2009 but keep in mind I lost three months of that year to broken wrists so this year is actually less time per month.)

2010 Miles = 5156.0 (yielding a surprising 15.1 mph for the year. Avg of total miles for 1992 to '95 = 7,980 miles. I really wish I could find my '96 and '97 logs. '96 was probably my heaviest racing year and '97 was a high mileage year. I don't even think I kept a '98 log and in '91 I started one up at some point but can't find it.)

2010 days with bicycling of some sort = 206 (up from 175 in 2009 but again, that was a nine month year essentially).

2010 races = 3 road + 1 crit + 20 track + 1 mtb + 6 cyclocross = 31 ('93 = 23, '94 = 60, '95 = 55, 2009 = 18: The bulk of the 2010 races were really weeknight track races and those mid 90's races were about 1/3 mid-week races)

2010 Hilight Results:
1st: July 6 Tuesday Night Track (scratch plus omnium win)
1st: July 27 Tuesday Night Track (points plus omnium win)
2nd: Copperopolis Road Race
3rd: Central Coast Mountain Bike Series Race #6
5th: Klamath Falls Cyclocross
6th: July 23 Friday Night Track Omnium (first place Cat. 4 in omnium)

2010 review Part 1 of 2 (part 1 = verbosity. part 2= numerology)

2010-12-23T15:01:00.000-08:00

Note: This post is just here for me to assess my 2010. It is not intended as entertainment value. If you find it entertaining, shut down your computer and go outside for awhile.

2010 The Bad:
Failed Goals:
-Mt. Hamilton Road Race: On the day of this race I simply didn't have enough gas. I was low on endurance, power, and the only time I could manage a good feeling of racing was on the descents. Where I failed was in simply training poorly. I pretty much concentrated on doing as many 3 to 4 hour climbfest rides and, as a result, did too many of them starting too early and by the time Mt. Ham came along, I was in need of rest and a mid-season break. What I should have done was more specific climbing intervals and a better schedule instead of a sloppy plan that resulted in my peaking two or three weeks too early.
-Track Masters Districts: This weekend found me completely low on energy and having no top end speed and I had a hard time dealing with it mentally since it cost me on the homefront to be gone racing that weekend at a bad time to be gone racing. It's painfully easy to see that very poor planning once again screwed me up. Like Mt. Hamilton I simply got way too fit way too early. Yes, I enjoyed some really fantastic days on the track in July but they left me with nothing left in the tank when the peak was supposed to come. Again, better planning and more specified training (as opposed to just racing on the track every chance I got) would have gotten me to the date properly.
-Upgrade to a Cat 3 on the track: I had good results and definitely had the volume of races but in the end I'm not sure I did the right races and had good enough results. It kind of depends on who you talk to what races really count and I'm generally frustrated with the whole mysterious upgrade process but maybe next year I'll just submit an upgrade request and see what happens - IF I can string some good results together.
-Cyclocross Nationals: This was an easy goal to let slide away. Work ate me up in late Summer and I simply went into cyclocross season too far out of shape and not really motivated for anything larger than enjoying some local races. No big deal. This goal was more of a wish anyway.
-Madera Stage race: No biggie again. If you're sick, you're sick. I was better off to scratch this race weekend than to attempt it on the tail end of being sick.
-San Ardo: Again, it simply did not fit in the schedule and I'm not too burned up about it.

2010 The Good:
-Copperopolis: A combination of tenacity and bike handling experience combined for a second place in a well known local race. I'll take it! To duplicate a result like this in 2011 would be sweet.
-Track wins and places: Winning a couple of races on the track and having one pretty solid Friday night race were definitely good memories to take away from the year. Though my current motivation for track racing is low, I'd like to try and build on that in 2011.
-General fitness: January through the beginning of June I enjoyed alot of really great long days on the bike. The hilight would probably be doing the Mt. Hamilton loop but a ride from my house over mt. Diablo and into Danville was also pretty memorable. All Spring I kept marvelling at my own endurance and ability to tackle long climbs and recover so well. But then Summer came and that all went away. Where??? There is a mild correlation with when I finally lost the discipline to keep a diet diary and gained a modest 5 to 7 pounds back again. Can 5 pounds really make that much difference? Hard to believe.
-Taking third in the only mountain bike race of the year was another surprise bonus. I'd definitely like to do more of those in 2011.

In general I'm pretty satisfied with 2010. Coming off of four or five months off at the end of 2009 I actually had alot more fitness, endurance and climbing potential than I expected. And there were days on the track when I felt I could stay with the hardest pace. I really enjoyed the long points races most of all and maybe finally found my niche on the track. I'm holding back on saying anything about 2011. But I will say this. I intend to be a little smarter about races that are goals. If I expect to do well I have to be a little more serious about my schedule, training methods and planning.

MonkeyCross #4 @ Dan Galvin Park, Santa Rosa, Dec 18, 2010 howzthatforalongtitlewithallthedetails?

2010-12-23T08:15:00.000-08:00

MUD! This was a very fun race. The course wound around the soccer and softball fields and so was mostly on turf. Well it was turf before all the earlier racers churned it into a sloppy, ankle-deep quagmire. Bring it! The course started on second base (there was literally a second base bag right in the middle of the course at the start/finish). There was a mud/grass section that led to a guttercreek crossing that they rigged with some sort of a bridge with some rubber mats but there was a small muddy hill after that that forced a dismount and runup. Pop back onto the saddle and there was a fun little section that wound through some trees and then had a tricky slippery downhill into another gutter/creek crossing (I saw a surprisingly high number of crashes here). A very brief pavement section sent us back into a grass field for more mud and a long slog around the outside of a grassy field. Then there was a deep puddle crossing that led into a fast double track section with some nice watery puddles to hit at "high" speed to try to clean off some of the mud. Then more mud and a tight turn and a strange section of cement that was beside some sort of shallow lap pool or wading pool or something. By the last lap it was VERY tempting to just ride into the pool but that would have made a big mess (I saw pics from the race where someone DID bunny hop right into the pool, haha!). Anyway there was more mud and a big puddle funneling through a break in the fence back into the softball fields. But first there was a double barrier and a long muddy section before the finish line that was best off taken at a run. This all added up to about seven minute laps with about one to two minutes of running per lap. Oh, and in case you were wondering my average pace for the race was a hair under 7 mph! As fun as these races are this ain't track or criterium racing!

Here's some pics so you get an idea...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/32538636@N06/sets/72157625501831851/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrismatthews/sets/72157625642665684/

With all the mud the tactic of the day seemed to pace things instead of the usual sprint start-recover-survive rhythm of a cyclocross race. I had a slow start and was pretty far back but at the first gutter crossing/runup I dismounted, shouldered my bike and passed at least six guys who were either bogged down trying to ride the little hill or were pushing their bikes instead of carrying. I made another couple of passes and by the time we were out into the open field I counted myself as being in thirteenth. That was the way it stayed until the doubletrack section where a few guys passed and we had a brief paceline going (which is just a whole heckuvalotof fun when you're eating rooster tail...). But back into the thick-slow mud those guys dissappeared again. By the time we crossed the pool, the barriers and ran the loong section to the start/finish I had made a few more passes and was feeling really good since I hadn't really dug in to the max effort reserves yet.

The rest of the race had some good racing and I felt I passed and lost more than I got beat. I was trailing one fellow on the last lap by a few seconds and I was determined to beat him. I kept him in my sights. I was riding alot of the mud that he was running and he was pushing his bike not carrying it so I was feeling very confident that I would be able to out run him on the final section since I'm a carrier and you can run a long section faster carrying your bike than pushing it through the mud. My tactic was to get through the barriers, close the gap, shadow him and then sprint past at the finish.

Usually you "suitcase" your bike over barriers. That's just what it sounds like, you grab the top tube and carry your bike like a suitcase. But if there's a running section after the barriers you have to figure an efficient way to shoulder your bike while hopping the barriers. The best way is to just shoulder your bike right at the start but that dismount-shoulder-barrier hop maneuver is a little clumsy. There is a clever trick where you dismount and as you run hit the front brake hard sending the rear of the bike hopping up into the air where you catch it and send it straight to your shoulder. But you have to be already running a step or two and typically the hop over the barrier comes on your second step after dismounting. So if you're going to hop the bike you have to dismount a little earlier and that's where I screwed up I dismounted and ended up trying to hop the bike, grab it and jump the barrier all at the same time. Well two out of three ain't good and I ended up flying over the barriers and very comically left my bike behind on the first barrier! I've seen funny pictures of cyclocrossers leaping the barriers with their bike ten feet behind them before but that's the first time I managed to do it myself. This was so funny I didn't even care that my plan of attack was all screwed up as I reversed direction grabbed my bike and got going again.

But to my surprise, the guy I was chasing down seemed to have had problems of his own! Maybe he fell down after the second barrier or something because he ended up right in front of me on the run. The long minute of running ended with my digging in an sprinting around him at the finish line. I don't think he was too happy about that since I got a pretty half hearted return on the traditional post finish line handshake from him. But that's racin'.

After the race I hosed off my bike and jumped right into the creek to wash all the mud off my clothes, shoes and socks. That's the funny thing about a wet muddy race. Normally you would look at a running creek on a 50 degree day and think, "no way am I getting in that cold water." But if you're covered head to toe with mud and wet and cold anyway it's no big deal to wade right in and stay there just to get clean.

Man racing is SO much more fun when your feeling a bit more fit and fresh and up to the challenge! Coupled with some fun courses it's been great to have this cyclocross season turned into more fun and less frustration! I'll probably only do one more cross race in January then the traditional Early Bird road race out of Patterson before I turn to a more traditional winter base mileage routine for February and March.

So that's the last race of 2010! I'm going to be doing some boring posts coming up evaluating 2010 - what went wrong what went right- and such here as the year turns and then maybe do the usual post of loose goals for 2011.

Thanks for reading. Even if it's just me reading this a year from now! Ha!

MonkeyCross CX at Franklin Park, Santa Rosa: Dec 4, 2010 (B 35+)

2010-12-05T21:17:00.000-08:00

Overnight and day-of rain made for a fun race that was somehow muddy without being too sloppy. The mud was exactly the kind I like. It wasn't sloppy and deep and splattering all over but it wasn't thick like peanut butter either. It was slippery and on many corners there was a very fine line between control and sliding out.

The rain stopped as I warmed up on my trainer and by the time I had my wheels ready and was all spiffied up in my fancy bike racer togs there was no rain. I took more than a few laps around the grass of the neighboring soccer field and was feeling good enough so I watched the last two laps of the C race and the men's 55. My buddy Ray was having a great duel for first place. Just before the third turn from the finish he made a decisive pass and got a decent gap through the second to last turn. I was prepared to shout up a huge congratulatory whoop when horror of cycling horrors the poor bloke slid out in the final turn going down on his hip and having difficulty freeing his right cleat from the pedal as he was passed. He righted his ship and rolled in for second but damn, that was hard to watch. I can't think of anything worse than having a race end like that. Here's the closest I've ever come:

In the Summer of 1992 I had just gotten back to Maryland for my Summer Co-op education term at Goddard. I entered a three-stage race out in Southern Maryland (Patuxent County Stage Race or something or other). On the initial time trial I rode well enough for a fifth and went into the road race stage fairly confident. There was a stiff wind that day and my Arizona mountain legs were more than up for that and the short climbs that peppered the course. With about eight miles to go I attacked into a headwind and took two guys with me. After about ten minutes I started to get frustrated with my breakaway buddies. I yelled at one of them to put in the effort or we were going to get caught. He just turned to me and had sweat and snot and spit running down his face and I knew he was cooked. So I attacked those meatheads and was solo with no pack in sight behind. I clearly remember repeating "out of sight, out of mind" over and over and over as I drove for all I had toward the finish. As I hit the final 500 meter climb before the finish I could taste my first road victory. I'd been close before but this was IT. I buried myself into the red zone but was fading hard just digging as deeply as possible to get to that damn line. TWENTY feet from the line, two guys sprinted out of nowhere and passed me leaving me slack-jawed, cross-eyed and in complete disbelief that I had come so - damn - close. Believe me, patient reader, it is not easy to live in your own head for awhile after something like that happens. The third and final stage was a silly criterium with no technical challenges to it whatsoever and I must have attacked the field every other lap in order to punish myself and exorcise the demons in my head but I was reeled in time after time. I ended up fifth overall in that race but I would gladly have traded in my winnings for having won that road race stage.

But back to the present (wherein I am sadly just a mere shadow of the guy who once could do things like attack a field and stay away for a significant amount of time in a significant part of a race ...).

The Franklin Park course was the most fun CX race I've done this year. After the start was a steady climb that was deceptively hard for those who were either overgeared or picked a slippery line. A surprisingly high number of people actually dismounted and ran this hill. I seemed to have its number and was able to ride it every lap. After this there was a flat section and a steep short climb that was quite rideable. A short descent following that had a tricky right-hander at the bottom. As soon as surviving that there was another two-stage hill. The first part was rideable but the second was not. For me the best tactic seemed to be to just go ahead and dismount on the fast flat part at the bottom and used that running momentum to just go ahead and run the entire thing. (Maybe "run" is overstating the waddling I do while using my bike as a walker: seen over there --> photo by john schmier).

Then there was some more winding around on the same little hill. I found I could ride most of the uphills if there was no traffic and that, ultimately, turned out to be good for me.

On the final time down out of the little hill there was a swooping turn around a swing set (I love cyclocross) with some sand followed by some barriers. Then there was some flat-ish winding through some muddy off-camber turns and then back onto the straight. This ended up being about six minute laps. That's more in my comfort zone. I really think sometimes the race organizers go a little overboard with the courses and ultimately the race suffers with a course that just repeats itself without offering any additional challenges. Maybe that's putting too much thought into it but the fact is that I just enjoy the short technical courses MUCH more than the long flat slogs across the grass that most of the Sacto Series races have turned into.

I had an okay start and headed up the first hill maybe eighth wheel. With the traffic, some of the riding sections ended up being dismounts but when I'm fresh I can handle that pretty well. It isn't until later in the race when I start getting clumsy that my dismounts and remounts get slower and slower. There were some good races for position between three or four of us for the first three laps when things finally sorted out. I was happy to catch one rider before the finish but the last three laps were just status quo. Once the traffic was cleared out and I was able to have clear track to ride the climbs I noticed a very large gap behind me and that's how it stayed to the end of the race. My lap time show that I started to fade with my last lap being very slower. But that was more a function of having no one breathing down my back than anything else. I was very happy to stay on the lead lap and despite a not great placing (11th of 16) felt I rode a good race and didn't feel quite so stuffed and frustrated. Maybe things are coming around? Who knows but it was fun and that is the best thing to report. Ray took some video during my race and it's about as entertaining as watching a garbage truck (with a large ass) work its way down and alley but I appreciate it and the link is ...
http://sharing.theflip.com/session/2d0f3fb94a807b6af3ba1f6481069446/video/35638421

Two more last things that are probably more entertaining than the previous blahblahblah. The announcer was heckling me for being too clean, which is kind of funny since I kept thinking that I was probably trashing my VSRT whites. As you may hear in the the video, they were playing Weezer's Blue Album during our race. Out of nowhere my brain began to sing

oo wee oo I look just like Muddy Holly
uh oh and you're Muddy Tyler Moore

Despite that ending up on an endless loop in my brain I thought that was pretty funny.

Sacramento CX #4 at Lange Twins Winery: Nov. 21, 2010

2010-11-24T21:01:00.000-08:00

With rain Friday and Saturday and threatening skies on Sunday this looked like it would be a muckfest of a race but Sunday turned dry and, while muddy (more on that later) the race was generally clean - all things considered. Here's a map of the course.

The start was at the bottom of a flyover that, I assume, is part of the winery where they must dump grapes into a big two story crusher contraption sort of thing. As a race obstacle it was a steepish, but short climb, with a flat section followed by an equally steepish, yet short, descent. After that was a sweeping left hander onto a short sidewalk and a 180 onto a dirt path. After that was a left hander down into the turf section of the course. With the rains the grass and turf was plenty soaked. But instead of standing mud puddles, the turf soaked up the water and turned into a soul-sucking peanutbutter like consistency that grabbed everyone's wheels and had us grabbing for ridiculously small gears just to slog along. A few barriers and up and down a big berm finally turned into the "spiral of DOOM." It's that cinnamon roll looking part on the map there. In warmup, I could tell this was going to be the most hellish part of the course and it certainly was. Each time through was an interminable spiral in through the lecherous muck searching in vain for good lines that maybe were just slightly packed enough to get through slightly faster. Right when the legs were screaming for a break, a 180 degree turn came and the slog to spiral back out began. Then came more wheel grabbing sections of muddy turf going up and down and around and finally the short merciful section of pavement came to the start/finish and all too soon it was back into the grind.

For once I grabbed a good spot for the start. I launched and clipped in well and had a really great position at around 12th going into the technical stuff. I even moved up a few spots as riders bobbled the first turns. Going into the first barriers there was a slight bottleneck and I got swarmed a bit (got bashed into pretty good too but that's just part of the fun). Coming out I had trouble clipping in and lost a few spots.

That was about as good as my race got. By the first time into and out of the spiral of doom I was falling back back back and getting passed. All I could do was just keep grinding away and shake my head that I simply am not on the same level as the rest of the field. What a frustrating experience to be that overmatched. It's just become a regular occurance this year for my giveadamn to simply quit at that point. I spent the rest of the race just slogging along in no man's land getting passed by most of the 45+ field and the 55+ field to add insult to misery.

My final result was 34th of 40! Ouch ouch ouch ouch. I think that's the worst result I've suffered in the two years since I've been back racing. I really don't know what the heck is going on. I just don't have any horsepower all of the sudden. This wouldn't be a big deal if I wasn't training my ass off lately. But I am! Hell, maybe I'm working too hard and not letting my body recuperate but it doesn't feel like it. When I'm doing intervals I'm getting tired but I seem to be recovering okay. I can tell I'm sluggish in climbing lately too which further adds to the "where the crap did my power go?" equation.

Ah bike racing. It can be a cruel wench when it's not going well. But that's usually the fun of cyclocross where you don't get dropped and spend the day riding by yourself. Or do you?

Sacto CX #3 B 35+ @ Lembi Park: Nov. 6, 2010

2010-11-06T22:07:00.000-07:00

Hard to believe it's November! The weather today was very uncyclocrosslike. Instead of wet, cold and miserable, it was sunny, pleasant and almost too nice to think about racing. But racing was in the plans anyway.

After getting registered and getting wheels in the pit and a brief warmup ride out on the road I did as many laps as I could sneak in between the A racers. The course looked pretty straight forward. The main obstacles were:
- some off camber turns in the grass with tree roots to make it interesting,
- a sand pit with a turn in it,
- barriers at the bottom of a short hill
- and another set of barriers before the last turns towards the finish line.

Most of the course was on grass but there were healthy doses of sidewalk and parking lot pavement mixed in. Heck, here's a picture.

My tires were already overinflated from a warmup/checkup ride on the road yesterday and I made the grave mistake of leaving them like that. I ended up racing with about 75-80 psi front and rear! They felt okay on the warmup laps and I figured the small sacrifice over the off camber and tree roots would pay off on the paved portions. I realized that over-thinking ended up being a big mistake under race conditions when I was bouncing all over the place and having to slow down too much in a few critical corners. It also caused me to crash a couple of times that wouldn't have happened if I'd been running nice and soft... Woops.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. After the A race the course was wide open for practice. I took a look at the barriers before the small hill and determined they were rideable. I was right, they were rideable but on my second time through I endoed and drove my left quad into something and gave myself a heck of a charlie horse (as I right this, it's quite stiff and swollen, o joy). This seemed to shoot my confidence. Where I had been feeling really good up to that point, I ended up performing quite clumsily after that. And my giveadamn seemed to be broken from that point on.

This is one of the worst race reports I've ever written. Disjointed, out of order. Kind of fits how the actual race went. I don't want to get into any other details other than to say that some folks just take their racing way too seriously. Many guys seem to intentionally cut guys off when passing and I got into a verbal altercation with a guy after he swept my front wheel three times in the space of about two minutes. It was stupid but he went roadie-nuts, overreacting and flying off the handle cursing and talking shit and that kind of ruined the day for me (delicate readers will know that I'm not adverse to letting some profanity fly but there's a big difference between "You fucking asshole" and "I was fucked today.").

I ended up something like 25th given my lack of motivation and racing on half of one leg and generally just being a tad overweight and out of shape. Blech. Here's some pics stolen from Shane Huntoon (http://www.flickr.com/photos/liveplayride/). I'm seriously thinking I may need to swallow my pride and enter a race as a C pretty soon. I don't think I cracked the top half of the field today.

Here's the barriers I was jumping before reality kicked in and a standard dismount made 1000% more sense.

Lower lip sucked in, strained neck tendons, yep, I'm having a bad day... Left quad is looking swollen already in the pic, I think.

Normally I would have a shit-eating grin or at least a contration/strained look doing this but I just look pissed off. Not cool.

Sacramento CX #1, Oct 6, 2010

2010-10-28T16:49:00.000-07:00

On the warmup I flatted my front tire. I fixed it then started getting paranoid about my rear tire going soft. I checked it and it hadn't lost any pressure so I lined up to race the 35+B's (with teammates Jim, Rocco, and Scott in the 45+B's behind).

The course was pretty easy. I don't necessarily need a cyclocross course to be full of swamps, alligators, blizzards and bees but I do like a course that challenges my skills at least a little bit. Not this one.

I pretty quickly realized I didn't have "it" on the first lap. I was staying with the pack pretty easily but there wasn't any zip in the legs. I got myself yelled at when there was a bottle neck at the only challenging obstacle on the entire course - a barrier before a stream crossing. All I did was pass the line on the left coasting cowboy style. After dismounting, I cut across the line -without slamming or hitting anyone- at the barrier and passed some more people on the right through the stream. I really don't understand what the complaints were about. This is supposed to be a race, right? These guys would get their asses handed to them in the East (or Europe from what I've heard) where grabbing jerseys, pushing and shoving are all part of the fun. Hell, I had a guy grab my rear wheel and literally pull me back onto my butt on a run-up one time in Maryland.

Anyway, that was about as exciting as the race got. On the fourth lap my rear tire went flat and that was that since I didn't have time at home to put together a spare wheelset before coming to the race. I spent the rest of the race yelling at my teammates and giving up the rest of my bottle.

Not so much fun given the lack of fitness and the flat but still fun. Cyclocross rules!

Klamath Falls Cyclocross (Sep 26, 2010) Race Report

2010-10-28T16:48:00.000-07:00

Okay, I'm probably breaking a record for late reporting of a race no one really cares about anyway but I've been enjoying everyone's race reports so...

September found me driving back from Richland, Washington in a US Government van full of my work. The joy and beauty of traveling for work in this fashion is that I managed to find space to cram in my cyclocross bike. On my trip back I hit some trails in Bend, Oregon and followed up that evening with a quick internet search to see what racing was going on in the area. Lo and behold there was a race in Klamath Falls, my stayover town! Woohoo! My first cross race in two years (I lost the 2009 X season due to two broken wrists...) was going to come earlier than planned this year!

Given the lack of plans to be racing at all, I only had my 40-spoke wheels with MA-40's (and 14 straight-gauge spokes!!!) with fatty 38mm wire bead tires on hand. In other words, I lined up to race with about 10 pounds of wheel and tire! At least I knew my wheels weren't going to collapse...

Racing out of the district is alot of fun. A few sideways glances and shrugs met me as we placed our bikes 50 yards down the field and lined up for a Lemans start. I was the king of the 50-yard dash in grade school so maybe I was a little over cocky when I placed my bike on the absolute outside farthest from the first turn (or maybe it was just lack of confidence and not wanting to ruin a local's day???).

The start went off cleanly and I found myself mid-pack on the first lap. The course was in a local park so was almost all on grass. The first section was a series of 90 and 180 degree turns which some people couldn't seem to get around without slowing down ALOT or skidding out. Maybe my fatty tires helped here. After a section past a playground (where some pretty funny kids were doing some heckling) there was an un-ridable sand section, more grass and a ~1/2 mile uphill on pavement followed by a fast narrow bikepath descent that ended abruptly at a wall with a narrow stone staircase going up about 8 feet. Luckily it was dry conditions or I could imagine easily plowing right into the wall or endo-ing into the staircase. Next there was grass and two more stone staircase sections before a grass false-flat section (easily the most painful part of the course given the running section that preceded it). All that in about 5 minute laps!

After a few good battles won and lost here and there (experienced cx racers will know what I mean here) I found myself unable to shake "Andrew." Every time we went through the sections of cowbells and people yelling in our ears it was "Come on ANDREW!" or "Pass that guy ANDREW!" (me being "that guy"). This encouragement obviously was working for Andrew since I could easily drop him everytime we got out into the less populated portions of the course only to find him panting back up on my wheel just before the cheering sections came up again. I wasn't sure what Andrew looked like since he never failed to just glue himself to my wheel without giving me a breather. I heckled him a little bit and he gave back so it was all in good fun but I really wasn't looking forward to the inevitable final sprint wherein I would probably finally get to see Andrew.

As we went through the start/finish on the bell lap I thought I heard a "Go DAD!" mixed in with all the other "(positive encouraging statement for Andrew at the expense of 'that guy' comments here)" I bobbled the sand section on purpose to line myself up behind Andrew before the paved climb and finally got a chance to stare at HIS ass (that really doesn't sound right at all...). On the climb he kind of blew up and started pedaling squares. Well call me an old softy with no competitive spirit but I put a hand on his butt and shoved him hard up the hill as I said, "Dude, I'm not gonna do this to you in front of YOUR people." This gave him a second wind and he ripped us around the rest of the course and I was happy to ride in on his wheel without offering up a sprint.

Having set myself up as some kind of nice guy let me now say that I did that thinking we were way out of the running for places. Had I known we were racing for fourth place, I probably wouldn't have been as kind. Oh well, it was still alot of fun and I enjoyed chatting with folks after the race wondering either where I was from or why was I in a big Government Van at a cyclocross race...

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. On about the third lap I was passing a guy who gave me the inside line on a squared-off horseshoe turn. Turns out he wasn't really giving me the line so much as avoiding the low hanging branch that I managed to hit with my head at full steam. THAT took a few minutes to recover from while racing!

Back on (the) track - literulz: Hellyer Tuesday Nite Racing Sep 7, 2010

2010-09-07T23:20:00.000-07:00

Despite being three weeks into "cyclocross training" in a base building phase I simply cannot deny the full blown pleasure of getting my hurt on at the track. I especially am partial to the long scratch and points races and that is what Larry Nolan has brought us for the last run of races of the year. So... game on!

40 lap scratch: With a very limited warmup I just hung in and took my pulls. I got gapped with about seven to go and somehow managed to get back on (helped in part by a certain local famous bikeracer with a very familiar tenor ring to his voice) with two to go. I came through and just kept my momentum and just led the thing out for grins. And when the sprint came by I was smacked pretty hard in the face by the reality of just how quickly I've lost all the pop in my legs! But that's okay. I can't expect to be jumping with the track sprints when I've been mostly on a steady diet of running, core strength excercising and doing short-ish endurance pace rides for the last couplaweeks.

5x7 points race: Not really sure how this one turned out but I think I snagged a few points. I kept ending up leading out and shaking my head at how fast the sprints were. But, again, that's not where my focus is right now. What I did get is some great long high-intensity riding in and that's alot more fun to do on the track with a bunch of great people than on the trainer, rollers or some road that's never quite right for the interval I want to do.

Big grinz tonight. I kind of forgot to enjoy the racing toward the end of July. But it's back now. And when I think to a year ago when I had nothing but recovery and running to look forward to, I'm good ol' fashion thankful.

Know When to Fold 'Em: Hellyer Wed. night Track racing 8/11/2010

2010-08-12T20:43:00.000-07:00

I think that my Summer track flurry of racing and digging and scrapping is DONE. Last night I felt pretty wiped in the warmup. With a lack of racers there were only two fields again this week. The 1-2-3-4 points race started off okay and I even went on a flyer on the first lap and held off enough people to score a single point but it was all asthmatic and backwards from there. I came off the track after not being able to get back on the field (even after taking a lap) and told Rick I wanted to jump into the 4/5 race since I was just not up to it tonight. So that meant back to back races but hanging in the 4/5 scratch race was easy enough even though I was just plodding along.

The miss-in-out was forgettable as I pretty much just pulled myself on the first lap after getting taken uptrack by a squirrel looking for a nut...

In the last points race I just kept the pace hot and took all my frustration out on my legs with no regard to the points. As a result there were only four of us left for the last two sprints. The final sprint is the only one I went for and it was too close on the line to tell who got it. No matter anyway.

I was pretty frustrated and finally just realized it's time to call it good. I thought maybe I could keep racing through August and get my final couple of upgrade points but between work cutting off my training and just generally being done with this fitness cycle I'll call it good. I'll likely get back on the track in September for Larry Nolan's scratch/points races and maybe do Friday night racing too if it's going well but after a little break from hard riding I'll probably be working mostly on...

Lost (Last) Weekend: Masters Track District Championship, Aug 7 + 8, 2010

2010-08-09T22:29:00.000-07:00

Of the six events possible I was planning on participating in four. The sprints were not on my agenda, the 3K pursuit was a biggie, the 1K time trial was big, I failed to cat up to a 3 so I couldn't do the points race, there were loose plans to do the team sprint, and we had a solid-ish foursome for the team pursuit. But that's not exactly how it panned out.

3K pursuit: I'll take pity on the two people who might read this and explain that a pursuit is where two riders start on opposite ends of the track and race a set distance (3 km for my event). It's kind of cool cuz the two riders either match each other or you can see one surge and then fade as they race. Look it up on youtube. What sucks in the pursuit is when one rider is so much stronger than the opponent that they actually catch up to them and pass them. Yeah, that's what happened to me... I knew I didn't exactly jump up to speed well (stupidly messed with my handlebar/aero bars that morning without trying out the launch) yet was way too far into lactate burn after the second lap, despite intentionally holding back. After that it was just seven more laps of thinking too much and hurting too much and generally riding a piss poor time trial. In the end I rode something like a 4:18 which was dead fucking last and not even close to the rest of my age group (TEN seconds to the next place and TWENTY THREE seconds off the winner's time - sheesh how humiliating).

I left the track in a pretty dark mood.

Next day...

1K TT: The good thing about this event is that it doesn't really give a mental-case like me enough time to get into their own head and mess themselves up. It's basically: launch, sit down, get aero, then max out your leg speed until either your head explodes off your shoulders or you cross the finish line. I felt like I had a strong first lap getting up over 32 mph by the end. On the second lap I held about a 31 mph pace but then on the last lap I was really struggling and my speed fell under 30 mph when I hit the windy backstretch. And then it was over. I drifted up the bank, then back down and off the track completely spent. At least I knew I threw absolutely everything I had into the effort. But in the end, it was a repeat of the 3K. In my age group there were only about 2 seconds separating the leaders and then there was me another six seconds back (with a 1:22 I think?). I know I shouldn't hold myself up to guys like Michael Hernandez, John Licatesi and John Cheetham but, damn, I wanted to at least be competitive. Too bad, thanks for coming, the exit is thataway...

Between Steve Jones having left to the hospital (to accompany a teammate of his who managed to have a pretty nasty fall during the warmups) and my having lost ALL ambition to compete, I found John L. and Dave Muminski to let them know I was out of the team events. It turned out they didn't seem to be up for it either but I haven't seen results yet so maybe they found someone and rode anyway.

After putting my bike in the truck and changing back to regular-folk clothes I watched all the points races and especially enjoyed heckling my age group during their race. But, dammit, it really sucked watching the points race. Since June I have been working toward getting my Cat. 3 just so I could do that race and to come close but fail and then have such a let down in the time trials, it would have been fun to dive into the points race even if I would have been barely hanging on.

Oh well. The real bummer is that between working and racing all weekend I really didn't have any time at home. Kris understood that it was a big goal for the year and that the work stuff is out of my control but I'd definitely like to have thelost weekend back...

Wednesday Night Track Hellyer Aug 5, 2010

2010-08-07T09:46:00.000-07:00

Freshly discouraged from my July assault on catting up to a track 3 I hit the banks on Wednesday night with the only goal being to fire up the engine and prime the fire for the weekend's masters districts. Part of the problem was the lack of B races toward the end of the month leaving me out of the points on the omniums. But no excuses! Just gotta get faster/smarter/more gooderer.

Points 3x6: Went for the second sprint by leading out the bell lap, got swarmed on the backstretch, then got pushed off the sprinters lane onto the apron and spent the rest of the race angry and following wheels and not recovering well as a deep lung burn set in. Wow. Major lung fire! Not good. Track hack for the rest of the night big time. Guy who pushed me off the track came over after the race to apologize. I was still pissed so I bit my lip but we made up later on.

Scratch 15 laps(?): Follow follow hack hack follow. Finish. Hack hack hack.

Miss-n-out: Dear goodness as if I didn't suck at this enough I got confused about the start. First rider pulled... again. And hack hack hack.

Points 6x7 (42 laps): Followed wheels easily enough. Pace was high but not enough that regroups didn't happen after the sprint. Only scored third on one sprint. Really just played the role of firing up the pace after each sprint (which always makes the guys sprinting oh so happy with you especially when you aren't in the hunt yourself. Hehe <--asshole points for me!).

So, blech. Track hack continued way into the evening and on Thursday morning there was plenty of lung butter to expel. Then I've been kind of headachy and sinusy for the rest of the week. We'll see how that disturbs my districts. Saturday will be the 3Km pursuit. Sunday is the 1K TT and team sprint and team pursuit. I'm on the schedule to do the pursuit against a rider in a lower age bracket so I'm not sure how that works. I guess they just take your time and compare it against the other times in your age bracket. Whatever. It's been kind of tough trying to not feel guilty about racing this weekend with all that Kris has had on her plate with my working extra hours lately. She's been awesome about it, though, understanding that I really only had three races with big red circles around them this year. Now if only I felt like I was up to a good ride this weekend. dammit.

Tuesday and Wednesday Hellyer: July 27 + 28, 2010

2010-08-01T09:28:00.000-07:00

Tuesday night I was a bit sluggish and the legs weren't quite there. I snagged points in the points race and figured I was on the bubble for omnium points but the results were botched and no one wants to fix them so I'm not sure where I finished. It's not important anyway.

Wednesday was tough too with lots of problems breathing all night. I scored some points in both points races but not enough apparently. The scratch race was what it was and the miss-n-out was my typical failure to get out of the sprinting the devil from behind stuff and I was off with six guys still in the race. During the last points race there was a crash when the lead guy in the sprinter's lane decided to go up track at the 200 meter line. I was just coming off his wheel for the sprint and had to go up track too. As did the guy behind me. The fourth guy in line got his wheel swept and went down. He was okay, luckily. But it sucks when someone crashes cuz someone does a bonehead move like that.

I went to the track yesterday to work on team pursuit transitions and starts with one of my partners for the district championship next weekend. After that I did a 1K and two 3K efforts. Ouch! It's hard to time trial for such short distances when I have sooo many road time trials under my belt. The mentality is roughly the same but the effort is WAY higher and painful. I tried to time myself so I have some benchmark times. But they are pretty far off from being competitive. Oh well. Better to be there in the fight than wishing I was there.

Friday Night Track racing at Hellyer: July 23, 2010

2010-07-25T08:59:00.000-07:00

Friday night racing was a blast! A good crowd to heckle and cheer seems to add a few watts to the legs and a higher level of competition added with some out of town racers makes for faster racing too. Then the pits between races are fun too with great camaraderie that pretty much always transcends whatever goes on during the races.

20 lap scratch: It quickly became obvious that the four visitors up from the ADT track were working well as a team chasing stuff down, blocking and generally setting the race up for a sprint finish. I BLEW IT with two to go when the bottom of the track seemed open, I was the first guy coming through and then backed off when it seemed like the two riders up track were coming down into my line. What I should have done was blasted through. Even if they did come down, I could have easily dropped down to the blue line of the apron and let the officials sort it out. What I did do cost me the pole for the final lap (which would have been SWEET) and also screwed up quite a few riders behind me on my wheel. OK. Hopefully next time I'm in that position I'll remember to be in more aggressive and less cautious. ESPECIALLY with only two laps to go.

5x5 points (25 laps): I wasn't able to get up into the sprints one and two so decided my only way to have some fun was going to come if I tried to stay near the front for a sprint and then counterattack. At best I was going to stay away and score and at worst I would be putting a double hurt on the sprinters. After the third sprint I snuck up under the track and when all the spent sprinters were uptrack I attacked and quickly got a good sized lead. I held it until the next sprint to take a solo win for the points. I stayed off the front for another lap hoping the pack would stall again after that sprint but that was obviously not happening as things were stretched out and broken behind. Instead of killing myself I backed off and tried to recover a little since I didn't want to get dropped when I got caught. I rolled in on the back of the pack on the final sprint. So it wasn't exactly a suicide flyer and notching 5 points solos off the front was fun but I'd trade if for having been able to factor into three of the sprints and scoring a little higher...

Miss-n-out: Wow this is my worst event! I was the first one eliminated when I simply had no where to go. The 23 mph neutral lap with no racing laps before the first sprint kind of got the best of my slow-to-start mentality as well.

So, despite the miserable win-n-out and the mental fart on the scratch race, it was a great time. Now if only I hadn't ridden to a 55 mile team ride and notched up 100 miles in 17 hour period I'd probably feel a little more perky today... But it's all worth it.

Tuesday night Racing: Hellyer July 20, 2010

2010-07-22T21:40:00.000-07:00

Lighter than usual traffic (more like, less heavy than usual...) got me to the track with time for a solid warmup this week which I kind of felt like I needed to get the old body going. Combined B and C fields tonight and that's where I ended up.

25 lap scratch race: My only motivation for the scratch race was to try and keep it fast. That doesn't seem fair to the C racers but crashing sucks and slow races induce that sort of behavior so fast it was. There was a cookie prime which I screwed the knobs up to eleven to win (haha, how stupid is that?). That combined with doing most of the work to keep things rolling made me tired for the sprint. I missed the move but almost stole second on the line but third was my satisfaction.

5x8 (40 lap) points race: Not much to say here, no one wanted to help with the pace. Everytime someone pulled off the front and went uptrack, two or three people would stay on their wheel and go up and the pace would slow down again. It got pretty dang annoying to tell the truth. But it was good inspiration to lead out my own sprints and fight anyone off who tried to come around. I don't know what the points totals were but I got the W.

So the third and the W also gave me a win for the omnium! Kris says I shouldn't poopoo my own results and Steve Jones assured me the race counts for upgrade points but it doesn't feel like a valid win when I know how hard and fast some of the B races were earlier this year. But good results are often the result of who bothers to show up and race as much as they are luck and -dare i say it?- getting faster smarter and better at the racing in general...

So Friday night is on the agenda! That will be a good reality check. And fun too!

The Power Within

2010-07-18T08:50:00.000-07:00

On my way to work this morning, I stopped at the grocery store for a few things (my fellow cyclists who cram lunch rides in during the week will understand that you absolutely must have a working stick of deodorant stashed away at work). Typical to an early-ish Sunday morning there was only one checkout stand open and I queued up like a good little boy. An old man's turn came up and the check out lady looked at his "Veteran" hat and asked him, "Army? Marines? Navy?"

The old man replied "Navy." This touched off a conversation about his time in Korea back when that was a pretty crappy place to be which related to the check out lady since her son is a Marine who was stationed in Korea before being sent to Iraq. After a brief and guilty moment of thinking, "Alright, let's go." I realized that I would just have to suck up my impatience and let this one ride. It was important to both the Veteran and the checkout lady to have, what appeared to be, a somewhat mundane conversation about how cold Korea is in the Winter and how hot it is in the Summer.

Meanwhile the lady directly behind me started fidgeting and even emitted an ,"Oh come on." The checkout lady did her best to end things and get back to business as she noticed the line grow and people bouncing in their places. When I came up I had one of those rare moments where I suck up my shyness and just say what I'm thinking. I told her I thought it was cool she took the time to recognize a veteran and give him the time. As she handed me my receipt she said, "Thanks for the compliment, you made my day."

Wow. Really? So she makes the old man's day by opening her mouth and recognizing him and I make her day by opening my mouth and recognizing her small act. Then she kind of makes my day by recognizing my recognizing her recognizing the old veteran. Crazy.

So we all have this amazing power within us to just add a little positivity to the World. This isn't a new concept to me but lately I've been feeling a little pessimistic about our culture and the lost art of politeness and common courtesy. As a person who has had to fight very hard with myself to not be angry and judgemental and has to constantly struggle to not be grumpy and spread my negativity, I get the rare perspective of seeing both sides of the coin. I certainly don't understand why there is such an inclination to be an SOB staining things around me a passive aggressive vibe when the obvious benefits (both to myself but certainly to those within a "pay it forward" relation to me) are right in my face. So odd.

That's it. Nothing Earth shattering. Just the simple message to be nice and spread it around. You don't have to go handing out flowers and hugging strangers but maybe ease off the gas and let that other guy go ahead of you in traffic or hold the door for someone or just go out of your comfort zone and talk to stranger. And to everyone who took the time to drop a "Happy Birthday" on me this week, thank you thank you thank you for taking that time and making my day.

SLLOOOWWW warmup = odd(+) results... Hellyer Wednesday Night Racing, July 14, 2010

2010-07-15T22:11:00.000-07:00

Picture outright stolen from the great Steve Woo, track official, promoter, racer, photographer and blogger and all around nice guy extraordinaire.

Well, back to back track nights are always good for a little pain and suffering all in the name of tryin' to get faster and score a nut here and there. In general I felt better during the day so wasn't too worried that tonight would be a repeat of the dead legs from Tuesday night. Format was four races, Scratch, Tempo, Win-n-out and Points. Like tuesday, there weren't large fields but these are USAC races so they divided by actual categories, and all the 4/5's were together. Which made me feel kind of bad for the cat 5's...

15 lap scratch race: I purposefully left a small gear (well, a 48x15 is small for me...) thinking I should just spin my ass off tonight. BOOM the race went off super fast and I thought, "Oh shit, not again." With 6 to go I couldn't close a gap and went off the back. I stayed on the lead lap but was very unhappy.

14 lap tempo: I geared back up to the usual 48x14 for the tempo and BOOM! The damn thing went off too fast for me again. I went off the back even quicker and did get lapped right at the end. I exited the track very pissed off and discouraged wondering where the hell my legs had gone. Wasn't I winning this shit just a week ago???

8 laps to win and out each lap after: Still stinging and pissed off I attacked in turn one after the neutral lap too catcalls and boos from my dear fellow brethren racers (hehehehe). Four laps down and I was maintaining almost a half lap flyer when the pack finally decided I'd had enough and reeled me in with two to go. RATS! I felt better about at least being an instigator and as I took cooldown circles in the warmup circle I realized I suddenly could barely breath. After a two minute search into the depths of my bike bag I finally found my inhaler and took two puffs. I wouldn't say it was instant relief but the burning subsided by the time the last race went.

36 lap points race, (6x6): The start was weird on this one as there was NO WARMUP AND PRIMES ON THE FIRST TWO LAPS (WTF^2). This threw several people for a loop and the first three laps were chaotic with people all over the track in ones and twos. Somehow, however, it all came together about three laps in. When the first sprint came, I found myself in a good spot and rolled easy across the line for 3rd place points. The rest of the race I found it easy to snag points on almost every sprint and even won one of them in there. As a result I was 2nd for the race after sucking all night long!

And even weirder is that 2nd in the points race was good enough for a 5th place in the omnium. I didn't expect that. I guess the lesson in there is... I dunno. Don't give up? Praise abuterol? Take what you can get? Play to your strengths (points racing has definitely become my favorite track racing and the longer the race, the better). I dunno but add one point for upgrading!

Hardware: Hellyer Tuesday Night Racing, July 13, 2010

2010-07-13T23:59:00.000-07:00

With all the "Somedays your the hammer, somedays your the nail." Tour De France talk I hesitate to use that suddenly overused expression but dayum if I wadn't feeling like a number 16 galvinized gettin' laid into by some waffled 32 ounce true tempered carpentry hardware tonight at the track. Wow, that sentence must be as hard to read as it was to try and write (note I said "try to write").

I was on the fence about whether to do the A race or B race and decided that given my past weekend I would be better off in the B's. What about the weekend you ask? Well Sunday morning I had to move my new washing machine into the laundry room which happens to be up in the attic. I couldn't ring up any help so I lugged that fucker up the stairs all by myself and - as you'd expect from a man of my declining years, messed up my back. No biggie, just a real solid tweak to remind me of my growing-by-the-day inability to get away with shit like that.

So what did I follow that up with? Oh, how about 4'000 feet of climbing over 50+ miles? Oh and did I mention that I didn't get out on the road until 1:30 in the afternoon and it was HOT as Hades in August. Okay it wasn't that hot but I was measuring over 100 degrees on the Garmin.

So flash forward to tonight's warmup and my realization that my weekend kicked me squarely en las nargas and I haven't really recovered. So B race was a good decision only WAIT! Wait for it... Attention: There will be no B race tonight due to low turnout in the C race. So B's can go up or down, choose. After someone had already flattered the hell out of me coming up out of nowhere to tell me they noticed my win last week, I just couldn't go sandbag the C race.

The rest is a hazy blur of pain, humiliation, speed and misery. I went off the back once in the Scratch race and lost count of how many laps down I was in the 60 lap points race. The only thing I can feel good about (other than at least sticking my neck out with the A race) is that I stuck out the points race and was one of the last six people still on the track at the end!

So ouch! But not too demoralizing. I might go back out again tomorrow night but given the low hours of sleep I'm gonna tab up tonight I dunno.

If you're reading this and you aren't me, thank you. Really, thank you.

Tuesday Night Racing: Hellyer July 6, 2010

2010-07-08T19:47:00.000-07:00

Steve Jones stepped up and is promoting a short series of Tuesday night races to fill the gap between Larry's early and late season Tues. night races. The format is similar with a concentration on longer races but only two events per night (yay!). So we had a 25 lap scratch race and a 40 lap points race.

25 lap scratch...
I decided I wanted to race this tonight instead of using it as a high intensity warmup. Start position was good right at the front. I took a hard one lap pull right off the bat trying to get things heated up and it kind of worked as we had a good pace. I think there were was a flyer that got pulled back pretty quickly. With 15 to go I went off the front with one other guy. I though it was a suicide move and we weren't working too well together at first. After about four laps I finally convinced my breakaway partner to take full lap pulls and that worked much better. The pack never got organized and we stayed away. We got caught by two guys with two laps to go but they must have burned themselves up bridging since they were nowhere in the sprint. I led out from turn two at about 85% gas and then notched it up to full blast with about 150 meters to go and held off (barely) second place for the win! Wow! Even a three legged pig gets a little somethin' somethin' now and then.

Points 8x5 (40 laps):
A good stretch and -thankfully- the legs were up for more racing. I was feeling the earlier long break and sprint but was able to consistently snag points and even won one sprint which was good enough for fourth place.

That gave me 6 omnium points total and the guy who was second in the scratch race also came in second in the points race also giving him 6 points. But tie breaker goes to me (I think?) since I had the better placing between us. W00t squared! So I have a valid omnium win to claim upgrade points since there were 13 competitors.

So it's only a weeknight race but it counts!

Hellyer Friday Night Fights (finally): June 25, 2006

2010-06-26T17:51:00.000-07:00

Finally made it out for Friday night racing! It's definitely a notch above the regular weekday races and fun to race for a bigger crowd too. After three hours of driving over to pick Jasper up and then getting down to the track I was a little weary already and only had a few minutes of track time so there was essentially no warmup for me when I took the rail for the 20 lap scratch race. I tried to take a few big pulls and force myself into waking up but the body said, no way Johnny Ray. So off the back I went (for the first time this year!). I hit the rollers and got my body good to go for the 30 lap points race. I sat in and watched the first two sprints then went for the third one, scoring third. Recovery was good and I managed to do the same thing on the next to last lap. So four points scored probably wasn't enough to make omnium points but it was educational to sprint in a different style from what I usually do. Usually I go from WAAAY out - like a 400 meter sprint. Last night I kept them shorter, more like true 200 to 300 meters.

Next was the REAL fun. Jasper raced the kiddie kilo!
Thanks to Garrett Lau for the photo.

The horrible videos are from me (and Jasper in a wierd handoff at the end of the last one which comes off kind of funny to me since it accidentally catches us natural-like).

It got garbled by my crossing my wheel on the rollers but the first rule is "Have Fun." And we did it right!

Shortly after that last video it was clearly time to go so we packed up and didn't look back. I suck at the Miss and Out anyway!

It was a great time and I can't wait for the next opportunity to enjoy a Friday Night at the track. Probably won't be doing the huge traffic headache of going to the track via Livermore, however...

Easiest Race Report Ever: CCCX #6 Father's Day Classic(?)

2010-06-24T21:12:00.000-07:00

With Kris' encouragement to go mountain bike race as a last minute-ish decision I headed down to the always lovely Monterey Peninsula last Sunday for some good clean fun in the dirt. Thanks to the inestimable Steve Anderson, I will let the pictures do the thousands of words they are so famous for...

First there was a start down 1/4 mile of pavement and I made a bored looking face... But actually I was contemplating whether I wanted to be the roadie dork who won the hole shot only to fall all over himself at the first sign of dirt. I opted to enter the dirt ninth wheel.

Next there was passing and riding hard and racing...

Followed by more riding hard and getting passed... Dude on the single speed was waaay too strong.

And yet more riding hard. Check them bar-ends! Probably the only pair in use that day... What can I say? I'm a dinosaur. And they work for me. I really don't fully understand why they've become so looked down upon.

Then my quads cramped up on the last lap and I almost lost a place but held it on at the finish - barely as evidenced by the below thousand words.

Then I washed in two cycles of technu, switched to baggy pants like everyone else and stood and grinned on the steps. W00t.

Pretty satisfied with 3rd of 34 overall and 3rd of 13 in the 35-44 year olds. Now I never allow myself a moment of pride without trying to crush myself in the same breath so I will mention here that I WAS SANDBAGGING IN THE NOVICE/BEGINNER category. But, hey, that's what it says on my license! Definitely want to do more mountain bike racing and upgrade.

And in case I was too subtle with the photo credit they were all by Steve Anderson (http://www.flickr.com/photos/youngsloat/), whom I hope to crush on the track Friday night! hehe...

Wednesday Night Racing at Hellyer, June 9, 2010

2010-06-09T23:31:00.000-07:00

I don't know why I feel so compelled to write about every little race. It's almost like it didn't happen if I don't. Silly. But it's a healthy neurosis. I think?

Tonight was a first! Because of the real race coming this weekend there were no races for the big boys and girls tonight leaving room for us lower categories to race. As a result it was the first time racing against only Cat 4's. I also think this is the first time this year the field size was under 20 guys. Almost felt a little like last year. Unfortunately this is an off period for me so I really didn't enjoy some of the good legs I've had earlier in the year. Scratch, Tempo, Win-n-out and Points races were on tap tonight. I think I've only ever done one other Win-n-out before and this was the first tempo race for me.

Scratch (12? laps): I can't remember too much but there were one or two guys off the front? I lead out the pack on the bell lap but got swarmed for about 6th or 7th.

Tempo (15 laps): I rarely go to the rail as first rider but I did for this race. I stayed there and when we got the bell I drilled it all the way around to win the first sprint. But that was as far as that went. I simply couldn't recover from the effort. I couldn't breath and my stomach went into rebellion mode. After five or six laps I had that familiar sensation of the pack slipping away (what was left of it anyway). I rode with two other backmarkers and on the last lap gunned it and just held off getting lapped at the line. BUT instead of going around for one more lap and going across the finish I went off the track with everyone else and -just like that- lost my points. OOPS! Maybe Steve Woo gave them back to me out of kindness but it was he who pointed out my mistake. It's not like it matters but, hey, I threw up in my mouth to get those points.

Win-n-out (10 laps plus). Just sat in and tried to recover. And that's what happened. Didn't get myself into any of the sprints.

Points (40 laps - YES!): Long points races have become my absolute favorite events on the track. They start civilized but at some point everything goes to crap and you either survive and regroup with the other survivors or you find yourself up at the rail waiting for the pack to lap you. Though I only scored two points the entire race (points were every 10 laps) it was a real fun survival of the fittest knock down drag 'em out. Fun!

So no omnium placing but that's ok. I was really off my game for most of the night until the points race and even then couldn't quite put together a series of good sprints to get many points. Oh well. Still a great way to spend an evening. Except for the weather! It was getting downright chilly toward the end of the evening. Isn't it June for cripe's sake?

Mid-Season

2010-06-08T10:27:00.000-07:00

I guess the middle of the year is a good time to take a deep breath and think a little bit about the season so far - in alphabetical order...

Criteriums: Only did one and didn't take it remotely seriously. But crits just aren't in my field of view these days. Usually it's a long drive for a short race and really I just don't have the pushy riding style to do well in the typical negative racing cat 4 crit. I guess my aggro east-coast influences have worn off.

Cyclocross: There hasn't been any racing (duh) and my bike is kind of torn apart right now anyway so I haven't even done any of that riding.

mtb: FAIL! Haven't done a single mountain bike race or ride even! Geesh. Reality is that I'm scared of poison oak and the stupid month-long energy-draining reaction I always have to it. But I kind of feel like a mountain biker trapped in a roadie lifestyle.

Road Racing: I guess this was supposed to be the focus of my efforts but I've only done three races! Early Bird was good since I was still coming back from the broken wrists and managed to finish in the top third. Copperopolis was a mixed-blessing of a 2nd place finish but in a very small field of competitors. Mt. Hamilton was a HUGE disappointment and I am still not really over it. I really wish I was road racing more since my endurance and climbing are way above where they were last year but it's so dang hard to get away sometimes and not feel like a complete schmuck to the family.

Track: The track has been good this year but I'm wanting more. Hanging in has been easy this year. I haven't been dropped once and that is a small success all by itself since last year I was getting dropped. Not only am I not getting dropped, I was consistently scoring points on the Tuesday night races. But these are only results in weekday races and I haven't really tested myself much outside of that and even in the weekday races I need to be bagging top 5 finishes if I'm going to get up into the A races where I will be pack fodder but feel safer and probably have more fun.

blah blah blah. So I guess the short assessment is that there have been glimmers of improvement in races that do not reflect the big improvements I've noticed in training. Part of the problem with bike racing is that if you don't race very often, you're more likely to have an off day in a race (ahem, like mt. hamilton). I'm frustrated by this result-wise. The strange thing is that while I raced more last year, I felt like I was balancing family and race/training time better. This year it feels like I've been riding more and shooting giant holes in Saturdays and Sundays more than I was last year which is a bad Dad but then I'm not using that fitness for racing. That's not completely true since the track has been going easier this year. I guess I shouldn't do mid-season appraisals when I'm on day 9 of a post-race funk from the race that was supposed to be the day when everything clicked.

So what's in store for the second half of 2010?
-I'm going to try to squeeze in a mtb race on an open weekend in a couple of weeks.
-Return to Leesville Gap Road Race on July 3. That was definitely one of the more fun races from last year and I've got a bug up my butt about Mt. Hamilton that can only be exterminated with another long hard road race. I don't race well in the heat and this is a tough race so I don't have fantasies of a high finish but at least I'm not going to stay home.
-Track: Get at least one Friday night race in (something always seems to come up!). I'm going to try to at least attend District Masters Championship but work is getting heavy and I'm not sure I'll be able to race that weekend or train well leading up to it.
-August will be an off month. I'm not even looking at the schedule. Work will be heavy with some traveling anyway. Maybe I'll do a mtb race if I can find one that fits into the work schedule.
-September is up in the air. We have to get a family vacation in there sometime this year and after August work busy-ness we'll need one. Would be nice to fit a mtb race in. Running schedule will begin along with regular rides on the cyclocross bike.
-September to January. Cyclocross season! Do what I can! Definitely going to do as much of the Bay Area Super Prestige series as I can. IF LARPD series is on this year I'll do all of them I can. By late September, early October decide if I'll try to do nationals.

Hellyer Wednesday Night, June 3, 2010

2010-06-02T23:53:00.000-07:00

The track is like driving in jammed pack traffic except instead of poking along you're all putting the gas pedal to the floor and moving at 80 miles per hour and, by the way, you don't have brakes. Yet somehow it works. You'd expect all kinds of 30 mph carnage but it rarely happens. But that doesn't mean there aren't those "oh shit!" moments. Tonight had more of those than I'm comfortable with. On top of that the Wednesday night races cram four races in and the actual track time suffers.

Kieren: Blah. Fifth in my heat. Realization that the legs are NOT recovered from the race weekend. Congrats, welcome to the next 45 minutes of doing nothing but holding starters.

Scratch race: 12 laps. It was a wierd pace. Semi fast but balled up. With 4 laps to go I finally found my way up to the front. I was second wheel with 2.5 to go and actually feeling good. But the guy ahead faded HARD at the beginning of the last lap and with all the passing over the top I got boxed in. Boy that was frustrating but what was worse was hearing a big crash behind me on the last lap. Not cool. No one was hurt badly, just a bunch of road rash and some sore butts and shoulders tomorrow. Saw more than a few trashed wheels.

Miss-n-out: First guy pulled and it was intentional. I just wasn't comfortable with four or five of the guys in the pack especially with the nerves of the crash still fresh.

Points: 15 laps, sprint every 5. Lots of really sketchy riding again. My legs didn't have any oomph until 4 laps to go when they suddenly woke up. In a totally dejavu moment, I moved up into a sweet position for the sprint and the guy ahead (flippin' Fergus, the one time of the night he doesn't rise to the challenge of a sprint, I'm on him like glue, geesh!) faded and I got boxed in.

So, the usual fun of camaraderie and racing induced adreneline was all there but the length of the races on the Tuesday Nights is better. Too bad those are done for the year until September.

Mt Hamilton Road Race, May 30, 2010

2010-06-01T21:35:00.000-07:00

Jasper's perfectly capturing my post-race feelings about Sunday's Mt. Hamilton Road Race. Therefore I will skip the typical overburdened post full of boring details and sidebars all carefully constructed to leave any reader that actually happens to come here to to think I'm greater than I really am.

Instead just accept the following list of bullets (in modern day powerpointy kind of speak) to represent. The time breaks are very rough.

-Nice ride to San Jose with Carl's wife doing us (being teammates Carl, Glenn and I) a solid and doing the early morning driving.
-Collected numbers, kitted up, warmed up, lined up and rode out.
-o:oo to 0:50; Pack intact going up lower slopes of Mt. Hamilton. Some surprisingly squirrelly riding given the lowish climbing speeds but a pack of ~80 is gonna have that. But, Taleo, really you guys should teach some pack riding etiquette including not passing over the centerline... Anyway, my heart rate just would not come down. My legs felt great by my heart rate was just out of control over 188 for almost the entire first hour.
0:51 to 1:40; Pack breaks up. Survival climbing to the summit of Mt. Hamilton. I pass a few but get passed by more. About ten minutes from the top I burp and end up throwing up a little on my top tube (too much information?).
1:41 to 1:48; Screaming, bombing, adreneline spiked kick ass descent passing about ten guys from my field in the second half.
1:49 to 3:20; Basically one giant, long, depressing time trial where I pretty much catch no one but get caught and passed by many while drinking both of my original bottles plus two more I grabbed from neutral support and, that's it, no more available.

3:21 to 3:21:03; Ride past the mailboxes. Kris is juggling a camera and trying to understand why I'm desperately waving my water bottle up and down and yelling something like, "Wada bodda!? Don't you has a botta?!?!!??" while Jasper lays into a cowbell. Kris does not has a botta and I remain very thirsty but still managed a backwards wave and a "Thenks!" Cowbells in one's honor should never go unrewarded.

3:22:04 to 3:48: Ignore cramping legs, heat, aching body and nagging feeling that I'm being chased to finish off this crappy day. The finish line finally comes and someone in the officials tent calls out "nice job" which is very nice but I don't feel like it was such a nice job.

Result was 47th of ~80 which is pretty much a sub-par performance and I am moderately crushed. This was supposed to be MY race. This was supposed to be the race where I actually peaked, tapered, prepared and all of that good training garbage. But instead it ends up being a below average day at best. I'm always bummed when my body doesn't do what I want it to do but that's usually a result of not really being prepared. Here, I was prepared. I've been thinking about his race for a LOONG time. Just ask Kris. Ever since we moved up here I'd always dust off a bike and get my fat out of shape ass out on the road to see the race go by. Last year I didn't register in time and missed it. And now finally I get to do the race and I show up missing on two cylinders. I'm really trying to remind myself this shit is for fun and to not take it seriously but, dammit.

Hellyer Tuesday again! May 11, 2010

2010-05-12T09:31:00.001-07:00

After a hard week of riding last week that culminated in a 50 mile climb-fest on Friday afternoon, I took the entire weekend off and did stuff around the house and such instead. So I hit the track last night thinking I'd either have sleepy legs or rested legs. Luckily they seemed to be more on the side of rested.

As usual, I used the 25 lap scratch race as a high intensity warmup and worked on pack position and conserving energy. With two to go I was in a really good position but got swarmed a little then lost my nerve, got my nerve back but then couldn't move back up and rolled in around 10th. Hesitiation kills! I know it but I constantly have it get reminded to me.

This year I am really loving the long points races. Last night was 50 laps, sprints every 5. I sat in for the first nine laps conserving conserving conserving. So when the bell went for the second sprint I gunned it and flat out won that sprint. Woohoo! 5 points. Then three guys went off the front with one in no man's land. I sat in for the next sprint and went for the next one (w/ guys still off front). I think this is where I screwed up. There was a break of three off the front and a resulting chase of two guys between. I got confused that the two ahead were the original break so while I spent the next three laps sniping points I was just being an idiot since all the points were up the road. D'OH! Oh well. Somewhere in there I'm pretty sure I scored more points than the original 5 but I don't know. Must put brain and eyes on next time!

I'm noticing some real improvement! Last year was all about surviving and sniping the occasional point toward the end of the summer. This year hanging in is NO problem and now I'm actually mixing it up in multiple sprints and have scored regularly (though I'm always coming in out of the upgrade points -grr). Maybe a track upgrade is in my future afterall??? I sure hope so. I'd really like to get up into the A races where they ride alot smoother and there isn't weird pack behavior.

How to Lose a Race you Should Win by and EXPERT in the field

2010-05-07T09:36:00.000-07:00

Birth of a suicide attack: Wente Criterium, 2010 ->>>>
Photo by BMX and LARPD cyclocross promoter extraordinaire Shane Huntoon.

On Wednesday we had the second annual bike race at work. Last year I sort of messed it up and missed the win by hesitating. This year I'm definitely faster, fitter and more confident.

Now pull up a chair for some old timey Uncle Roy past glamorization... Back in the day, I was a young buck full of piss and vinegar, with loads of free time and more strength in my legs than I knew what to do with. I loved to race my bike and did so as much as possible, logging up to 70 races a year in my peak. But I was dumb as a donkey when it came to tactics. In my head I was Jacky Durand, Massimo Ghirroto all rolled into one attacking, off the front, fighting machine. Dumb dumb dumb. My specialty was attacking, getting caught and then counterattacking my own capture! As a result I would spend most of a race off the front by myself or with one or two companions in suicide fliers that would always get caught.

My second specialty was doing that Ekimov move where you try to attack with 2 km to go and hold it to the line only to be swamped with 200m to go. The drama was high in these maneuvers but the results were nonexistent. Guys who had been around awhile were constantly coming up to me in large training rides, parties or after races and saying things like, "man you were STRONG in XXXsuchandsuchraceXXX, I thought sure you were going to stay away." The intimation was that I was a rider on the up and was headed for bigger things. But I never got smart. I continued to race dumb. Then I stopped racing and I always wondered what could have been if I'd only been smarter.

When I started pinning numbers on last year I promised myself I would race smarter. Nowadays, I make up for that lack of pure horsepower by sitting in, waiting and being smarter. With the exception of the Wente Crit -where I purposefully blew my wad off the front in three separate suicide attacks- I've done a good job of it. Until Wednesday...

I had every expectation of winning the race on Wednesday. I mean, I had already savored visions of obtaining and actual trophy and where I was going to put it and everything. Jasper would think it was so cool that Dad actually won a race and had a trophy and everything. I blew off the little voice in my head saying, "don't count them chickens..." like a sister ignoring the pleas of a younger brother to come play catch in the backyard. This race was MINE.

So about the time I found myself THRICE counterattacking myself into the wind the doubt started to creep in. "Hey stupid, we don't race like this anymore, right? Do you really think you have that much energy to waste? You raced your balls off last night with legs that were already pretty tired... Are you sure you shouldn't just be sitting in and waiting for the finish? You're only dropping half the pack, not all of it..." But there I was, 95% heart rate, a tiny two second gap and caught again and again. Then with the last 2 km into a very stiff headwind I was fading and fading hard. The splintered pack was divided, the top folks were sprinting for the line and I was solo in no man's land watching the three trophy spots sprint for it. Fourth place was my reward for stupidity. No trophy, no win, no nothing. Just a big headache for the rest of the day and one very pissed off me, at me. Ah, what a familiar sensation...

Hellyer Tuesday Night Racing, May 4, 2010

2010-05-04T23:09:00.001-07:00

During warmup my legs were D-E-A-D from Sunday's 4 hour time trial up and over mountains and wind.

During the 25 lap scratch race, hanging in was pretty easy but I could tell I had NO pop whatsoever. Whenever the pack bunched up I tried to get to the front and string things out. A fast race is a safe race and all that. Had no position or ambition for the sprint so rolled in and got taken up track again by someone pulling the plug and not staying on their course. Let the guy know it was bad riding and he took it well. Hopefully I did it in a, "by the way, be safe" kind of way rather than a "BLAH RAH BLAH GRUMBLE POO!" kind of way. (hey, it's late, that's what comes out of my brain through my fingertips).

The points race was off the hook! Right from the go, there was a big split in the pack. Luckily, my legs finally came around and woke up around this time. Unfortunately I got stuck all by myself in no man's land. I almost bridged up to the break and they were oh so close but when I got to within about 20 meters, they gunned it. After about seven more laps of losing ground I eased off and went back into the remains of the pack behind. The break must have been faster and furiouser from then on since guys were getting peeled off and coming back to the pack. Eventually they lapped the field and it was pretty chaotic (in a good way!) with guys up a lap, lots of people down multiple laps and then a few of us one lap down from the break. Somewhere in there I scored points once or twice (or thrice?) but mostly it was really hard fast riding strung out more than bunched up. It was probably the most fun I've had in a points race chasing stuff, sprinting, getting caught out alone, and generally just survival of the fittest badassery. Great stuff!

Wente Criterium, 35+/4: April 25, 2010

2010-04-27T07:32:00.000-07:00

Between work dominating my training time the previous week then working for the Wente Road Race on Saturday and then the Criterium on Sunday I really had ZERO expectations to survive even a single lap.

But I had a good warmup on the trainer (thanks Jim and Zaf!) and took the line with a large group. Not sure what the numbers were but it was 50+ (turns out it was 75, no wonder it was so crowded) I think. Then we were off. Lap one seemed easy. Move up move up move up move up. By that gigantic wide open last turn that leads to the "finish straight" I was at the front. I'm not sure what was going on but the front two guys (teammates - not mine) were really dragging anchor going into the turn. Without trying to be crazy or accelerate, I carried my momentum underneath and into the gutter. I gave a "Comin' up inside. Gutter!" and the two guys started both screaming at me.

Done many crit races guys?

If you are at the front of a large field in a criterium and it's a wide open turn you ARE going to get swarmed like mad if you're going to slow down that much. And if YOU overreact and go wide and get yourself yelled at? Yeah, that's your fault too. With the adrenaline of that idiocy I went off the front briefly but it was very short lived (flier 1!).

Back in the pack I got tired of the hargy bargy in the middle and ended up tailgunning for about ten more minutes before getting bored and going off the front for half a lap through the back sections (flier 2!). But that one didn't work either and the pack was just happy to roll along without any of the teams sending anyone off the front. I'm going to call out Taleo here. You guys have, like, TEN GUYS in the pack and you don't send anyone off the front???

After that I resumed tailgunning. I was really happy to find good legs and it was really easy just sitting in like that.

But it was boring and there was NO way I was going to get involved in that field sprint. So I decided I was just going to do one more full on attack across the start/finish area and try to get my named screamed out by Michael Hernandez on the PA. Flier #3 came after the "last turn". I scooted over to the extreme left side of the road and just accelerated away. Unfortunately, everyone saw the move yet no one was willing to join. WTF!!!! Why the heck won't people go off the front? So between being on the extreme opposite side of the road and wanting to get a good gap, I came up to the start finish off the front and heard, "muffle muffle, ATTACK OFF THE FRONT, muffle, muffle, IS IT?, muffle ROY JOHNSON, muffle muffle" So I don't know what was said but, mission accomplished, my name broadcast. I know that's stupid but it was worth it. The gap held for another 3/4 of a lap and it was fun hearing a few "Go Roy!"'s shouted out while I felt my heart pounding to the absolute max and knew I wasn't going to last long. "She ain't revved til the rods are thrown" When the pack finally came I didn't even try to jump back on. My day was done.

So yes, a good result would have absolutely rocked but I'm no field sprinter and nothing was going off the front at all so it was what it was and I'm happy with going out in a big ball of flames rather than rolling in with the pack. In hindsight, however, I should have burned that last match with two laps to go instead of four. That would have made it more realistic and less suicidal.

So that was the race... Funny thing is that it was only a small part of a very busy week and weekend. But there it is. I just like to brag about the action hero parts of my life, I guess. Trust me, there are some major things I screwed up last week (like being so flippin' busy I forgot my Mom's birthday...) so I'm no action hero.

Wente Road Race Course by jeep_royj at Garmin Connect - Details

2010-04-23T20:48:00.000-07:00

I don't get to race it so I hammered it out today instead. Damn shame can't race it!

Untitled by jeep_royj at Garmin Connect - Details

Untitled by jeep_royj at Garmin Connect - Details

2010-04-23T20:43:00.000-07:00

Untitled by jeep_royj at Garmin Connect - Details

Also Ran... Hellyer Get Ready For Summer April 17, 2010

2010-04-19T09:48:00.001-07:00

Coming off the last two Tuesday nights I had some hope for a good race day but Saturday morning found me with some tired legs and a fuzzy brain. Getting ready to go I was standing in my "garage" gathering and looking for crap when I looked up to see my jeep rolling backwards toward me. I just sort of stood there with no idea how to escape as it filled the doorway and sort of slow motion crashed into my bench and the side of the door. Damage: one tail light (that was already pretty much toasted from wheeling anyway) , a tire mark on the garage door trim and my brain. Not an auspicious beginning coupled with trying to get a moody 6-year old out the door for his TaeKwanDo green-belt testing.

Four races on tap: Kieren, Scratch, Miss-n-out and Points.

Kieren: After a brief warmup, I was happy to feel the legs come around. I took the start too casual and after a lap finally retreated to the absolute last wheel. But I was hopeful since I was behind two potentially fast riders. They both pulled up track before the moto took off and I went with them. As the moto pulled off there was a little bit of a hesitation as I was accelerating and I ended up with my front wheel just slightly behind and down track and got stuck behind slowing riders since I couldn't cross over. By the time I got through that the train had left the station and I briefly had a hope of surging up to nip fourth but that was a fantasy. Dammit! I felt like I had the legs to have maybe sprinted for third or fourth but just didn't play it right and had a little bad luck. Next time: -more aggressive for better wheel -if following riders, get my front wheel uptrack so I don't get boxed in.

Scratch: So having screwed up the Kieren, alot of sitting around and stewing followed. By the time we took the rail for the scratch, I had pretty much deflated my own sails and was kind of unenthusiastic about any chances of being anything but pack fodder for the day (BAD BAD BAD mental game, little Roy. Bad.). Anyway. It looked like MetroMint had the numbers so I went with their first move. We did get a slight gap but it was brought back after a lap or so. After that it was just follow follow follow. I was on a good wheel with three to go but I lost it. Then I moved up for the final but moving up took too much gas and got swarmed and came in with the pack. Blah.

Warming down I heard, "Hi DAD!" and looked up to see Jasper and Kris had shown up (fresh from picking up a new rooster!). Of course about 5 minutes later there was only the second crash I've ever seen at the track and it was a bad one as the C race Miss-n-out had a nasty one that left two people laying on the track for long time and another sitting and very dazed. "Really Kris, that NEVER happens!" In my inexperienced opinion, the accident might have been caused by too large of a C field for that particular race. A very long (and unfortunate-since it was a wait for ambulances) delay followed while the injured were attended to. Jasper and I took a number of laps on the warmup loop and hanged out until Kris and Jasper had to get going (rooster sitting in the back of the car and all that) so they didn't even get to see a race...

Miss-n-Out: With the crash and all the sit-around time, I took the rail with even less enthusiasm than before. I think I lasted about ten laps and it was all playing the devil from the back so I was kind of pooped and basically just let go instead of trying to do yet another sprint up at the rail.

Points: Fast race and it was shortened to only 20 laps with four sprints. No way I was going to get anything in those conditions with the level of competition in the field. The 5-to-go sprint looked doable but I got boxed in and couldn't burn that match. Finished comfortably in the pack. The final was a little nerve wracking since I got pushed up track as a guy came out of the sprinters lane for no apparent reason between turn four and the finish line. If I'd been a few inches further up I would have stuck an elbow in his hip. Just cuz you're not in the front sprint doesn't mean the rules don't apply to you too. This is why I so often don't bother sprinting for tenth. It always seems to be the most dangerous place. Up at the front is safe. The back of the pack is safe. But right in the middle where there is no hope of a good place yet it's fast while riders are falling back and alot of people just stop trying and shut down short of the line while others are (in a fantasy land) trying to sprint up into the places that are already won makes a nasty combination.

I'm not sure how I managed to write so much about such an uninspiring day but there ya are. This week is the beginning of Wednesday night racing but work is the theme of the week so no track this week. Wente is next weekend and then it's back to concentrating on climbing and miles getting ready for Mt. Hamilton road race at the end of May. That said, I hit the climbs really hard yesterday for the first time in quite a few weeks and the concentration on flat speed and track time hasn't seemed to killed my climbing like it did last year. So I'll probably come out for the first couple of weeks of May.

Tuesday Night Hellyer, April 13, 2010

2010-04-13T23:15:00.000-07:00

<--Picture from last week from unknown source via teammate Ted via Hellyer twitter via...?

Fun racing tonight made funner (more fun?) by the presence of Michael Hernandez on the microphone. It was definitely faster this week than last week! Beyond the fun and thrills it was one heck of a good workout. Average heart rate for the 25 lap scratch race was 181bpm w/ a max of 196. The numbers for the 60 lap points race were similar but extracted over more than twice that same time! Max HR was 199 which must have come during the only sprint I was able to go for. I did my usual turn 4 attack and held off all but one rider (a damn junior!!!) to take my only points for the night.

Finished the night by jumping onto the back of the "C" race for another 30+ laps.

I was feeling a little discouraged after the scratch race tonight. I knew what to do but I couldn't make me do it. As a result I was pack fodder at best and only got my nose in the wind once with 6 laps to go. That was my plan but I simply wasn't able to fight up in the front for position to set up for the final. With 30+ riders on the track and several very talented Cat 4's and several more Cat 3's, it's a tough battle. I guess I shouldn't get discouraged, I just need to get faster!

The points race was more encouraging. Again, there just wasn't any hope of trying to accumulate any points with a pack that huge. I didn't go for a sprint until well past the halfway point when we'd dropped maybe a third of the pack already. Unfortunately, my all-or-nothing "sprint" caused me to go off the back. I was stupid here too since a counter attack came after the sprint and somehow I got stuck out in front for an extra lap (DUH!). I punished myself by staying on the black line and trying to not get lapped. This worked for ten laps but that was it. When I got back on, the pack was much dwindled. So maybe I should have been even more patient and struck much later in the race when there were fewer wheels to get around. I dunno. But in all the races last year, I only scored points once. So far this year I've scored in races two weeks running. Of course that only barely raises me above an "also ran" but I'll take it. It's progress and not too bad for an old man (note: I believe getting lapped should have erased my points but I don't know if that's accurate since the A race certainly had VERY lapped riders still contesting the sprints and being announced as being in the running...).

Oof I'm tired. But it's always nice to get the thoughts down while they're fresh. Besides it's a nice wind down and now I feel like I can go to sleep quickly without sitting there spinning spinning spinning in my brain.

Afterthought: Viendo ese foto yo parezco un fokin sapo en la bicicleta. Pues talvez soy todavia el sapo verde (with a red neck) que quiere ser coqui...

Hellyer Tuesday Night Race: April 6, 2010

2010-04-06T23:12:00.000-07:00

Hawt dayum I loves me some after work track racin'. Tonight I was up on the rail waiting to start a race and two old guys in the stands reminded me exactly of the two old dudes up in the balcony on the Muppet Show.

Old Dude 1: Livermore?
Old Dude 2: Isn't that some town back East?
Old Dudes together: Har Har Har Har.

Well at least they didn't mistake me for a Peninsula Velo-ite like 90% of people seem to do with our kit.

Three races tonight! First was a scratch race, second was an inverse win-n-out, and third was a points race. I showed up nice and early and got a really good warmup in. People kept coming in and coming in and coming in! I've never seen near that many people at the track before. It was pretty cool, yet, I felt bad for Larry and the Ref for having to wrangle the mob.

Scratch race: 42(!) people went to the rail for the start and Larry immediately divided the field (phew!) into an A and a B simply by order on the rail. I was a late liner upper so I was in the B. Not much to say about the race. I was purposefully undergeared and didn't have alot to contribute to chase down a breakaway that stayed away for the whole race. No one wanted to work hard in the wind, it seemed. I think I was 8th or so in the sprint, out of points so it don't matter.

Inverse win-n-out: VERY strange format. Race and ride for 12 laps. The winner on the 13th lap comes in 5th. The next lap winner is 4th, and so on and the winner of the final lap is the first place. Strange, no? I had regeared for this race and was ready to compete now. The talk in the pits was that it would be good to have a five or six person break and let them duke it out for the places. So I stayed up at the front for the beginning but nothin' was going and I was burning my matches. I drifted back and recovered in the pack. I moved back up to the front and before we headed into the first bell lap, I attacked from the top of the track and held it around for a 1.25 lap effort that netted me fifth place. W00 h00. I was pretty sure I wasn't going to do higher so it was a good strategy to go all or nothing for fifth.

Points race: 25 laps, points every five laps. I got one point on the first lap. Then two guys went off the front and we were sprinting for the two remaining places on the next three sprints (I got nothin') and then things really splintered and I didn't have the gas to make the front group of four so what was left of the pack just chased until the end. Still, one point is better than par for me.

I'm pretty happy with the first day of the year on the track (well, for mass starts anyway). I was chatting with a fellow after the race and I commented that I thought maybe the B fields were actually slower this year. He said, "No, you're just faster." I'd like to think that's true. Tonight was certainly a good indicator that maybe I can be competitive this year rather than just pack fodder. But then again it always just comes down to who shows up, good old luck and a dash of confidence.

Lucky Penny! Copperopolis Road Race, April 3, 2010

2010-04-04T22:16:00.000-07:00

Well even a blind chicken pecks a kernel of corn now and then.

Copperopolis has a reputation for a mean climb and nasty nasty rough roads. I found that both are maybe over-rated. I think most people who claim this course to be the roughest in NorCal maybe have never done that one infernal section of the Madera Road Race or have never done the Leesville Gap Road Race. The one difference is that Copperopolis only has about one half mile section that is smooth. Other than that, it's rough rough all day long but never reaches the roughest. So if you're measuring unrelentless road roughage, it wins but I still will argue that it comes in third behind Madera and Leesville in sheer ass kickery.

The course: After the start, there is a ten-ish minute ride to the bottom of the climb. I didn't find the climb to be quite so bad as I expected. After the climb there are miles of flat to rolling terrain over bad roads (note I said bad not, oh-my-gawd-how-did-I-not-get-a-flat-or-break-my-frame?!?!?). The other distinguishing feature is a very fast downhill with not a few nasty turns. This is made rather nerve wracking by what is probably the worst and most broken pavement on the course. Yes, this is a scary descent, sportsfans. Keep your eyeballs open, your hands loose and tighten up yer bootlaces cuz it gets a little scary. Then there's a short flat section and the uphill finish which is a big ring grunt of a hill (and that's one lap).

I was in the 35+ cat 4 race "B" field. I guess to make safe and small fields, there were was an A field and a B field with both having only 50 riders. But the race turned out to not fill up so let me stress that THERE WERE ONLY TEN GUYS toeing the line. I'm really not sure why the heck they didn't just combine the A and B fields... Just as we were sent out, one of the packs of backmarkers from the Pro/1/2 race caught us. The pace went up and I immediately completely lost track of who was whom in my race. By the time we hit the feedzone near the bottom of the climb I was convinced that two guys had sneaked off the front already. We hit the climb and I tried to stay third or fourth wheel of our mini-pack. Some guys faded, others came up and so it went until two guys sort of started to get a gap on me on one of the steeper sections (where I purposefully held back a little thinking it was a somewhat longer climb). The two started to get a bigger gap and I began to get annoyed that anyone behind me was just sitting on my wheel and not coming up to help out. I looked back to bitch about this situation only to find that the nearest wheel behind me was a good 100 meters back! Holy crap, I can climb and drop people??!?! When did that happen?

So I dug in and caught the two ahead of me over the top of the climb. Our trio didn't get a very good rhythm going until I convinced them we'd be much better off taking short pulls and rotating more cleanly. This worked well for about 20 minutes until we started catching little grouplettes of the other races and we'd get disorganized or they would suddenly decide the quick exchanges weren't as good as sitting on my wheel over the rollers. (Really, who sits on ME on any climb???) About this time I started to feel the first twinges of cramps in my calves. I had already drained my first bottle and was contemplating getting busy on my second bottle when we hit the nasty downhill. About a minute into it, I felt the familiar heavy impact of my water bottle launching itself out of the cage, against my calf and then skid onto the road behind me. Shit! There goes my drinky. How far to the feedzone?

A quick word about my partners to this point. I'll call the first guy Snake since he was about as sneaky as a snake. He was obviously the better climber of the three of us and also not very good at concealing his ability to go fast, yet suddenly suck lots of wheel and sandbag then suddenly push the pace again pretty easily. I'll call the other guy Big Guy. I can honestly say I've never seen a 210 pounder (not fat, just BIG) with thighs that big climb that well. Think Eric Heiden or Marty Nothstein big. Magnus Backstedt big. The kind of guy where you get down in your drops, look forward and your looking at the dude's seat post binder-blot straight ahead at your eye level. I mean, he was freaking Paul Bunyan on a bike (note: due to my tendency for hyperbole and the oxygen debt I was in at the time, Big Guy may have merely been large.).

We were passed again by the Pro/1/2 packlette on the descent and Snake tried to pull a fast one by mixing in. I wasn't about to let him get away with that and, in fact this blatant maneuver kind of pissed me off so when we got to the bottom, I just sat on his wheel and made no pretense to take a pull. I kept looking back for Big Guy but he had done a disappearing act. He was so far gone I figured he must have flatted on the downhill (or crashed but you don't think of that possibility in race mode).

I continued to sit on Snake, resolved to just stay there since I was cramping up, he was obviously stronger than me and... well, why take a pull in those conditions? I was happy to get to the feedzone and snatched the first water held out mercifully hovering out over the road by the hand of a Velo Promo angel. Immediately after the feedzone and just before the climb, Big Guy showed up out of nowhere breathless and sweaty. Apparently we'd dropped him on the descent and he time trialled back up to us. "Great!" I thought, "I have to survive another lap with cramps, a progressively worsening stomach, and two guys who can obviously take my lunch money." I started doing the complex math to keep my mind off the climb.

Ummm.... 2 guys off the front = third place + these two guys who are going to kick my ass = umm, carry the four, ummm, no don't carry a four. Ummm. Fifth place? Yeah. About fifth place would get me a Velo Promo T-Shirt. Chapeu!

I sucked a monumental amount of wheel for the next however long it was. I do remember pulling through a rotation and then turning to my buddies and saying, "Hey, I'm not dicking around here. I'm toast" (note: Nothing throws off your opponents like brutal honesty) Before the descent, Big Guy made a couple of mini-attacks that weren't very smart. He waited until he was taking a pull and sort of attacked from the front which was painfully obvious to read. That said, those attacks hurt pretty bad. By the time we were in the little climbs before the descent I was beginning to feel like I was going to throw up.

This is when Snake made his move. Big Guy was behind me and Snake just hit the last little roller hard enough to gap me. We hit the descent and I looked back to Big Guy and said, "I think you just screwed up picking MY wheel!" If someone said that to me I'd just shrug and pull a dumb face (or perhaps suggest a dimly lit place to relocate his tire pump). Instead, he looked ahead down the hill like a rabbit staring at a bumper coming at him on the highway. So I put him out of my mind and bombed the descent like a cramped-up and cross-eyed, half-puking madman.

At the bottom of the hill (glad to still be in one piece and hoping my wife continues to NOT read this blog...) I turned to Satchel Paige and Chris Carmichael to get me to the finish. Satchel famously told us all to not look back and I read Chris Carmichael where he said, "You can do anything for a minute." It was more like five minutes but I used the same philosophy. To my shock I could see through my foggy crisscrossed eyes that I was actually pulling back a small amount of time on Snake. But then the 200m sign appeared. I had a brief moment of panic that Big Guy was about to shit on my parade with ten feet to go and it was all over. (note: remind me to write another long-winded post sometime about "That time those two fuckers caught me with about 50 feet to go and I lost the race.")

As my body suddenly felt weightless and my brain flirted with passing out (I'm actually not kidding here, for a change) I once again turned to complex math. Hmmm, fourth place? Maybe? About 50 feet past the finish line I turned around and there was Big Guy. Whoa, that was close. I turned back to shake his hand and offer up the "Hey man, good race." But instead I just kind of half held up my limp arm and mumbled, "Huh meh. Goo ray. S?" In a somewhat more lucid state than I, he explained that he was not exactly a good descender (No shit, sherlock. There is no way in hell he should have lost to me otherwise.). Unfortunately, he was about as confused as I was regarding who was ahead or behind us when up rolled Snake happy, smiling and fresh enough that I would have pimp slapped him if I had the energy to do anything but sit on my top tube cradling my head on my handlebars while staring at the ground wondering if I really was going to toss my cookies (well actually I would have been tossing my pre-race clif shot to be more accurate).

So Snake, all happy and jubilent and effervescent and shit tells us great race. I mumble, "Were there two guys ahead of us?"

"No man, it was just us, one-two-three." Hmm. So (insert more complex math here) that makes me second? Well, dress me in a skirt and call me Nancy! That's a fresh ten dollar bill and a Velo Promo T-shirt (not the one shown on the right but I wish it was)!

I finally made my way back to Carl's van and slowly made my way back from "dizzy and half blind" to merely "dizzy and wobbly." I put normal clothes back on, locked the van and left my bike sitting out for anyone to walk away with. Back at registration I was happy to see Carl standing around since I had left his keys in my pocket and was worried about leaving him standing in the parking lot staring at his van, my bike and wondering, "where the hell....?"

I collected by booty and by the time I got back to the van, Carl had started up his mini-weber and hosted a fun little post-race tailgater (which is a tradition that I think would be most excellent to uphold).

OK. So now I'm not really processing this as any kind of great success... Maybe it's just my sadly consistent ability to deny myself any kind of reward but really there were only ten guys in the race! On the one hand, second is second. And also on that hand, I earned that place with a package of fitness, acumen, bike handling, and good old fashioned mental toughness (and of that I am proud). And also, on that hand, any time I finish in the top fifth of a field, it's a damn good day. But on the other hand, THERE WERE ONLY TEN GUYS IN THE RACE!!! So I'm not saying all of that to incite an "attaboy" from anyone who actually manages to make it through this damn long blather but rather to explain that I may not be all that excited about it.

(But thanks in advance for the "attaboy")

Ride safe! And thanks Carl for the ride and the post-race eats and for not making fun of my ass wobbling and stumbling around after the race!

Eyes Like Glue

2010-04-02T15:39:00.001-07:00

Ever hear a song for the first time and have it hit you like a.. two ton... heavy thing? (bonus if you get that reference...)

I'm on year seven or eight with being rather infatuated with this band and am very pleased that the new Drive By Truckers album is really good. Best since The Dirty South I think.

This song just absolutely positively nails it for me. Not "I like this song" but "Holy crap how did Cooley crawl into my brain and pull that out?!?!!?" where you listen to it five times in a row and still get emocionado.

Eyes Like Glue

I see you watching me
Your eyes are just like glue
Stuck like glue to every foolish thing I say and do
But there's a safer distance still not out of touch
If Daddy's quiet it probably means he's thinking way too much

Someday you'll be a man
You'll have a big old brain
You wont need it but you'll try to use it just the same
But it's like any house lonely people roam around
Wasted empty space a maze with only one way out

Nobody ever told me half the things I'm telling you
Even if they had I'd have had the same look that you do
Sometimes you think it and you want to hear it said out loud
If no one else does then its up to you to shout it out

You'll want to do it all
And you'll believe you can
But when the best that you can do becomes all you can stand
You'll know you're just a man when you feel all the weight press down
Next time you're watching me remember that's all I am now

Lyrics: Mike Cooley / Music: Cooley, Hood, Morgan, Neff, Tucker and Gonzalez
© Razor and Tie Music (BMI)

Mike Cooley - Lead Vocals and Acoustic Guitar / Patterson Hood - Second Acoustic Guitar / Jay Gonzalez - Wurlitzer / John Neff - Pedal Steel

Life is good but still hands you a but...

2010-03-29T10:30:00.000-07:00

Enjoyed an awesome day on the bike last Saturday and, purely as a byproduct, churned out my first 100+ mile day in, um, let me check, yep, uh (Saturday minus June 15, 1996 equals...) -WoW- almost fourteen years. And if you, my friend, made it through that last sentence you deserve a Purlitzer readin' prize.

Really I shouldn't say I churned out MY first 100+ mile day since it was a team effort (ie other people involved with putting up with HOURS of my yackety yacking and dragging my cramping legs over the last ten miles). I surprised teammate Carl by showing up in his driveway at 6:20. My sarcastic tone in emails earlier that week led him to believe I was blowing off his idea to ride in the cold dark to Sunol. There goes my "sense of humor" making a muck of real communication again...

Anyhoo, we set out for Sunol to meet up with more folks. Everytime I thought I knew where Carl was going, he made a right turn and I got all miscombobulated again. But I have 110% faith in Carl's wayfinding abilities so I was no worries. When we were a few minutes from the Sunol train station, I started hearing these strange mystical cowbell sounds from the hill above. Finally, Carl said something like, "That's probably Janet calling." My freezing up-too-early brain took another minute to figure out that was his ringtone. (And to think I used to be a morning person!).

There was no one at Sunol so Carl left a quick message for Janet (ride leader) and we headed down Calaveras briskly at first. Finally I was starting to warm up but the lower and shadier parts of Calaveras had me riding with my hands in my armpits still. Just shy of Milpitas, Carl and I parted and he did me a solid and used his phone to get in touch with Janet. I swooped down into Milpitas and, voila, there were teammates Janet and Ludin and former teammate Allen and Janet was talking to Carl on her phone.

We threaded through Milpitas and the easternest reaches of San Jose and I recognized my surroundings (barely) as we began the looong hump up Mt. Hamilton. As we climbed I finally started warming up and soon enough the effort of going up combined with sunshine and maybe even stellar views over San Jose had me removing clothes and feeling my toes again. We enjoyed a long slog uphill with Allen showing the lungs and legs that won Copperopolis last year and Cantua Creek this year (very humbling!). Janet took it easy on me and climbed with me all the way up. I was starting to feel the effort towards the top but once we got to Lick, a little rest and stretch had me eager to get back to work.

Time to admit something... I probably should have skipped this ride! After being sick and having such a spotty training schedule over the last six weeks, I poured the miles on over the last two weeks. As a result, Thursday found my right achilles tendon super tight. Not quite a full blown bursitis/tendonitis/whatever flare up but right at the point where some rest was in order. But an ankle brace seemed to be keeping things together and so, what the heck, why not go ride for seven hours?

Up to Lick, I felt just fine, other than some heavy legs toward the end of the climb. Shooting down the East side of Mt. Hamilton was fun and, though I didn't stop to pee on my crash sight, I did give it the middle finger as I swooped by. Down at the bottom and heading toward San Antone valley it was time to start stripping clothes again and the warm sun, valley views and good company are one of the reasons we dress up silly, swing legs over these costly contraptions and thrash away like we do. Good times!

Okay, time to admit another thing... I've had a brand spanking new SRAM 9-speed chain sitting on the bench for about two weeks. I sort of knew I was playing roulette with my year-old Dura Ace chain but I kept putting off replacing it for one reason or another. When Carl and I were riding to Sunol earlier in the day, I sucked up a twig. I worked it out of the drive train back pedaling and didn't think anything about it. But going up Mt. Hamilton, I obviously was having a problem as my chain had an obvious fat spot in it. Somehow it stayed together but when we got to the Junction I found the troubled link and was amused to see that the plate had pulled off the pin and the only thing holding the chain together was spring tension against the pin. I pressed it back together with my chain tool and we headed out for the last leg back into Livermore.

My hard climbing legs were sort of done for the day and I watched Allen and Janet fly away up the last two climbs of the day and chatted with Ludin and that was a great distraction from the battle with gravity. Allen and Janet were nice enough to wait for us at the top of the last climb. We got a decent paceline going and I was surprised to find I had any horsepower left at all at this point.

At the Santa Clara/Alameda county line I employed all the strategies that led to my "1996 Best Saturday Morning Sprinter" award.
1- Let someone else ride at the front until 1 km to go.
2- Attack and get a gap trying to go away over the next 800 meters.
3- Sprint for all you're worth and take no prisoners until the county limit sign is over your right shoulder.
4- (And this is probably the most important tactic for success). Make sure on one knows where the county limit sign is or that you will be racing for it.

After my glorious county line victory we continued on with a pretty brisk paceline with no one really looking like they were feeling the miles. Except me about five miles later when I came off the front, pulled onto the rear of the train and then -boom- my right quad locked up on me. That was about the quickest I've ever gone from "just fine" to cramping. I backed off stretched and got it back but I could only spin form this point on, no real strength riding. My three compatriots motored away rapidly into the headwind and that was fine. I ate, drank, stretched and maintained the best pace I could. About this time I suddenly realized my right ankle was really starting to hurt -but not my achilles tendon, more on the inside. Dammit.

A couple of miles later, I came around a bend and there was everybody soft pedaling and waiting for me! How nice! After that, I was okay for the rest of the day, though I was only using one leg since I was afraid of another cramp and trying to put as little pressure on my right ankle as possible. Janet was nice enough to stay with me while Allen and Ludin stormed off down the last few miles of Mines road.

We regrouped just before town and on my 99th mile, we got the only flat of the day. Allen whipped off his back wheel and I offered up my frame pump. Allen looked at it as I'd handed him an antique boat anchor and said, "You carry THIS thing around with you!?" And a minute later the joke was mine as he blew his only CO2 cartridge on a bad tube. Ah who am I kidding? I'd trade lugging that thing around for getting up hills half as fast as he does!

Back into Livermore city limits, Ludin first split off to his house and I split back to Carl's a few miles later as Janet and Allen finished their loop back to Sunol. (At this point I imagine them flying away at some insane pace free of the burden of dragging my failing legs and bike along - but that's probably just an esteem issue I should work on.)

What a day! I had a blast and it really feels good to be feeling sort of fit again after the long layoff last Fall. My left wrist was kind of sore after such a long day but not too bad. I don't think I have the same raw horsepower as last Summer but with twelve pounds less to haul up the climbs, I feel alot better when the going gets vertical. And the best bonus is that I was naturally kind of tired on Sunday but riding my Mt. bike around with my son wasn't unpleasant at all. Butt feels fine, neck, shoulders, crotch: all say GO! And my legs this morning feel absolutely fine. Recovery is a good thing!

BUT. But. There is always a but. But my right ankle is screwed up. It's the same pain/creaking sensation that I have been dealing with in the Achilles off and on but it's in a different place. It already started feeling a little better yesterday and today a little better still but it's really not near ready to go. But with Copperopolis five days away, I can't exactly stay off the bike this week either. Dammit. It's always something. The way I feel right now, I would just wrap up the ankle, deaden the sensation with something topical and go race. But I'd really like to show up to a race ready and without a "but" in my story.

Pffffffffft. Sometimes we get flats in our plans...

2010-03-13T09:57:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday I went out to Hellyer to participate in the sprint tournament. This was alot of fun and a reaffirmation that track racing is a good thing. The crit and road race thing is kind of tired even though, for some reason, I can't not do road races and crits but the most fun definitely comes from the track and mtb or cross racing.

The format was to do a flying 200m for time and then get seeded into brackets of six for a round robin tournament. This being my first real timed flying 200m, I watched with interest as, one by one, others did their little mini-flying time trials. By the time it got to be my turn, I had an idea of what to do, though I hadn't had a chance to practice it. I ended up with a 13.66 which is not exactly fast but good enough for 18th of 31. Funny enough, my teammate, Ted, was a mere .05 seconds faster and 17th. Eventually, I'd really like to be timing into the sub 13 second range.

Being 18th meant I was slowest in my bracket and that was apparent through all my sprints. I went 0 for 4 but it was still fun. I learned alot and had a good time in the pits and on warmups/cooldowns. I really didn't feel like I had much pop in my legs all day but didn't really expect to have any given the steady diet of base mileage over the last six weeks or so (not to mention getting sick during that period and erasing a week from training).

Towards the end of the day I was feeling kind of out of gas and running out of energy and even had a little bit of a weird upper stomach pain. I got home, ate a big dinner (since I had skipped lunch while racing) and that's when I started feeling progressively worse and worse. That lead to a sleepless night of throwing up and diarhea. What fun! Kris and Jasper had this same stomach flu starting the week previous and I had hoped to skip it but wasn't so lucky. I was luckier than Kris, however, since she was pretty much the sickest I've ever seen her in our 15 years together.

So Monday I pretty much slept all day when I could stay out of the bathroom. Then Tuesday was only slightly better for my stomach but I had a horrendous headache. Wednesday I was good enough to go back to work but I had to contact the Madera Stage Race promoter and cancel. This was a big bummer since I have been looking forward to this race. But between the sinus infection that robbed me of a week of training a mere week and a half ago and now being sick this week, I simply didn't see the point. In fact, my stomach sort of relapsed yesterday and I'm only at about 80% today. So it will be easy spinning -if at all- this weekend and no racing, for sure.

That's the breaks. It just sucks since I was feeling really great on the bike a mere three weeks ago when I obliterated my previous best time for riding up to mt. hamilton and back by almost 15 minutes and got up the climb from isabel creek to the summit in 35 minutes. Oh well. Hopefully I can knock this damn thing out and get back to real riding. I'm registered for Copperopolis this year and looking forward to seeing what I can do with this newfound climbing improvement. But for now, I just would like to stop feeling sick!

Race Report: Early Bird Road Race out of Patterson, January 23, 2010

2010-01-23T17:42:00.000-08:00

Hello race fans! Welcome to this dork's 2010 road racing season opener (and extremely long report - but I can't help myself).

First a word from our sponsor, Exogen Bone Healing Systems! Seriously, that little gizmo has brought my left hand right up with my right hand and has made a noticeable difference. Also helping things out is that I have not been on the road for two weeks. It felt really good to feel the road under my wheels after two weeks of making sweat puddles in the garage. Of course, the doctor clearly told me to keep my riding safe and free of crash-risk but I'm a dumb bike-racer, not a china doll.

The reason I couldn't resist this race is that it is a home race for me on a road that I ride pretty often. On top of that advantage I'm fairly certain I am the ONLY guy who drives Del Puerto canyon to get to Patterson (it's only about an hour from my house). Driving down I got a good feel for the giant puddles, gravel, mud and wetness left in the road after seven straight days of rain.

Once I got to Patterson and was getting registered I looked to the West and saw... big heavy looking rain clouds. Hmm, what happened to the forecast for no rain today??? There were so many 35+ cat 4/5's that they opened up a second field. As a result, my start time of 8:30 got moved to 9:00. As we were finding this out a light, but steady, rain began to fall. Guys did laps around the parking lot waiting but I said, "screw that!" and got back into the car until 5 minutes to go. I switched to full-on waterproof rain booties and that was the best decision I made all day since my feet were the only thing dry by the end.

At the line, the rain let up but I was starting to get a case of the shivers as I said a hello to Tim, who was officiating. As much as we may feel some sense of drama or whatever for getting wet and muddy in a bike race, I think standing in the rain helping put on the race is much more noble. Once we were rolling, I warmed up just right and was fine the rest of the day.

The race itself was a wet and muddy roostertail-fest. My bike afterwards had a coating of grit on every possible surface. As far as the action. It was manageable to the bottom of the climb, just like last year. I did my best to climb without blowing up and was 17th wheel at the turnaround. The descent was fast but I took it pretty conservative. The rest of the race back to the finish line was a hard hammerfest on the rivet picking up and dropping riders as we rolled through the wet and muddy road.

By the time we hit the rollers coming into the finish we had regrown to a little pack of about ten riders and my headcount had us racing for about 10th place. I misjudged the finish and worked way too hard with about a mile and a half to go. When the 1km sign came up I was on the front and working too hard. I backed off, tried to recover and only gave a half-hearted sprint to finish 4th or 5th in our group.

Final result was 13th of 34. I'm really quite pleased with that. Beyond the fun (seriously, not being facetious here) of racing in the crappy conditions, I was quite happy with that. After two months off the bike then another two months after that of not riding on the road I'm very happy with that, in fact. I think I've re-learned the benefit of trainer and roller riding as a 100% substitute for getting on the road and it certainly helps to be another ten pounds lighter than this same time a year ago.

So now no racing for awhile. There aren't really any compelling races (to me) in February so I'll just get back on the no-risk riding plan which means lots more rollers and trainer riding and getting on the road on the weekends.

I'm kind of torn on doing race reports this year. Some races inspire some really fun writing (like the sonora road race last year) and in others I just bore myself to death or feel like I'm glorifying my own mediocre rides (can you say, Roy's updating his brog again?). But I guess all writing is practice. It's kind of like mountain climbing. Sometimes you reach the peak and sometimes, you don't even get to see the top. But if you don't climb at all, you'll never get anywhere. And as Kris just said to me when describing my trepidations, "A life lived in fear is a life half lived."

Down into the cold then up out of it...

2010-01-10T16:09:00.000-08:00

The ride yesterday was as great as I anticipated. I left home about 11:45 bumping out over the dirt road for the first 2.5 miles. By the time I hit pavement, I was already removing my windbreaker and ready to enjoy what seemed like an unexpected warm day.

Almost immediately I looked back and saw three other cyclists behind. I freewheeled a bit and they caught up. It was three guys from a Livermore team that mainly do mountain bike and cross racing. We had a good chat all the way down into Livermore, exchanged contact info and now I have some new Mt. bike folks with whom to ride in the future (when these damn wrists finally heal up).

Meanwhile, as we descended into town the temperature got chillier and colder and finally, once in town and on my own again, I realized I was going to have trouble with my feet if I was going to be spending time up on Mt. Diablo later. So I detoured through town and stopped at the bike shop where I quickly purchased a set of foot covers and some warmer socks. Back on the road, I was quickly happy with this purchase as my feet stayed nice a toasty over North Livermore and Highland cycling through the cold foggy misty hills around me.

I hit Tassajara and then turned up Blackhawk road. This stretch was longer than I remembered (it has been 14 years since I've gone that way) and I began to doubt my navigational skills. But I stuck with my instincts and soon enough, about 2 hours and 45 minutes from when I left home, I finally hit my favorite stretch of road, Mt. Diablo.

I love climbing Mt. Diablo. I don't know what it is but it just suits me. I'm certainly not fast up it but I never seem to find the 60 to 75 minute climb a chore. As I climbed I snaked up out of the fog layer and was treated to warmer temperatures, a glimpse of blue sky and fantastic views of the surrounding valleys with their little hills poking up out of the ocean of creamy fog. What a gift the altitude brought!

I don't think I've ever spent more than enough time at the top to slip on a wind breaker, maybe put on something to keep my head warm, open up a clif bar and then get on back down. But yesterday I took an extra minute to look around and pose my bike for a picture.

Partner in Crime for the day: My Soma Smoothie ES.
Ain't fast. Ain't clean. Ain't light. Ain't a problem.

The descent was not as cold as I expected and the roads were pretty dry so I made quick work of it. Good thing, too since I rolled up to my in-law's house to meet up with Kris and Jasper with only about 15 minutes of daylight to spare.

WHAT A GREAT DAY!!! I've been grappling with what to say to encapsulate a day like yesterday. It's a religious experience. It's good clean fun. It's a small adventure. It's something that makes you feel like you're living your life instead of sitting on the sofa watching someone else's.

Over the river and through the woods and over the mountain and smiling away...

2010-01-09T10:29:00.000-08:00

If this old saddle could talk...

"Epic" point-to-point ride planned today! Down a mountain, across a valley, up a mountain, down the mountain and over to the In-Law's. Training rides are all fine and good but starting in one place and riding to another gives a bigger satisfaction. I think I'm a touring rider at heart...

Then tomorrow back up the mountain to get back home. It's a good life...

Jasper's playing with a stay-over friend in the other room. He pulled out a tape measure and they're preparing to build a fort. The first thing he did was pull the tape out, make some random measure and say, "DANGIT. Shoot!" Hmmm, I wonder where he learned that from?

2010: A Spacecase Odyssey

2009-12-29T10:05:00.000-08:00

The days are only getting longer now, I've managed a couple of 100+ mile weeks on the bike and I think I'm close to getting a thumbs up from the doctor on full-on riding. The wrists are still stiff and sore but coming along nicely. There is some bone ache that concerns me but it's probably normal. So that familiar dull ache in the legs and the need to at least have some structure to my bike racing has me thinking...

Thinkin'...

2010 will look sumthin' like...

Jan to May: Fartin' around with no major goals. Definitely want to race Madera, maybe Mt. Hamilton, Early Bird RR in Patterson, would like to do Copperopolis... Definitely squeeze in some mountain bike races. Probably skip any and all criteriums except for the crit stage of Madera. Will probably hit the track several times for training and some racing. The main focus is just to have some fun and build up base for the rest of the year. I'd also like to lose the final five to ten pounds to get me back in the ballpark of my mid-90's racing weight (wow!).

May to July: Get on a regimented training schedule and try to peak for masters district track championships. Most-if not all racing in this period will be on the track. Use rest of July fitness for fun racing.

August to Sept: Can't ignore San Ardo but take some time off in there. And by time off I mean something like ten solid days of not touching a bike. This would be a good time to do an endurance mountain bike race, too. Start a light running program.

Sept to Dec: CYCLOCROSS! FUN! Yay! Focus on Super Prestige series and Livermore Parks Series probably racing as a 35+ B. Take a serious look into where when how and IF of racing at Cyclocross nationals...

Should be fun. I'm really looking forward to next year.

Armchair bike racing...

2009-12-12T09:58:00.000-08:00

I'm pretty damn frustrated right now with my hands and am forcing myself to take about a week off from the trainer, rollers and the road. If I go by the no pain - no pain healing then that's what's called for. Meanwhile, I've managed to gain not a single pound through this injury but that's really just a testament to some neurotic-level monitoring of my diet. I actually lost about 5 pounds after the accident, then put the 5 pounds back on and am now back to losing the 5 pounds. Christmas, get thee and thine evil food behind me!

So I found myself this morning perusing videos from cyclocross nationals which, by the way, look cold and brutal and remind me of some of the worst days in Maryland slugging through the sometimes-snowie cross races out in Bowie... good times. Anyway, I noticed one major thing. Damn near everybody is riding on the hoods! WTF? Has cyclocross become so serious-roadie infested that guys don't know to ride with higher bars so you can ride in the hooks and get your CG lower? Interesting. I know sometimes you get in an awkward transition from climb to descent and get stuck in the hoods but I don't think riding around on the hoods on an icy course is doing yourself any favors.

I probably should STFU though, since I'm no nationals-caliber racer. What the hell do I know? I'm just a guy who rode his bike off the road and broke his wrists! So I certainly shouldn't be second guessing via my chair.

And here I am trying to banish negative thinking...

2009-12-10T08:37:00.000-08:00

As every decent sprinter knows, it's the hesitation that kills you. Give up that perfectly timed jump -for whatever heat-of-the-moment-in-combat reason - and you're done.

And so here I sit in early December worrying. Though the wrists are far down the path of healed I am nowhere near able to properly train on the bike. It kind of hurts and makes my wrists stiff and sore just easy plodding along and the Doctor forbade me to pull on the handlebars so that rules out real climbing and sprint training (not that it feels like I could be doing that anyway).

On top of that I've gotten used to the rhythms of life without wedging in training rides for almost four months now and just finding the mindset to make-time-to-ride is kind of off the RADAR right now.

But I know you're out there training. I know you're getting a jump on me. I know you're going to be making me pay next season. I know that I'll be looking at your asses from 20 meters back and know there's nothing I can do, beg, borrow, steal or extort to close that gap. I know you're riding 150 mile weeks despite its being only December.

I liked it better in the old days when it was me making guys think like that.

So that's how the competitive asshole bikeracer in me feels. The rest of me just wants to enjoy a nice mountain bike ride or a nice day full of long climbs and extended views. Hell, I'd even be glad to spend a day with the chainsaw and splitter making firewood.

But I must be patient. I found a Tolstoy quote, "The two most powerful warriors are patience and time." And every successful sprinter knows the ability to sit and wait. Let the early movers wear themselves out. Let them work early and fade too soon. It's still early. Next season will be long enough. I'll be ready when my sprint comes.

I'm #1!

2009-11-17T18:11:00.000-08:00

As you can see from my screen shot from the official USACycling website, I am ranked #1 in my zip code in Criterium, Time Trial and Road Racing! So if there was a 94550 Cat. 5 stage race I would be the Lance Armstrong of 94550 Category 5 racers. Wow! Where's my trophy? (tongue is firmly planted in cheek in case you need to be told...).

I believe that what that ranking means is that either A)I am the ONLY cat 5 in my zip code (that actually bothered to show up to a few races in 2009) or that B)USACycling always puts you as #1 in your zip code to make you feel good about yourself and renew your license...

Doctor wagged his finger at me last week and said to not destroy his good work and to lay off for another three weeks and then do three weeks after that of physical therapy so it looks like I may be able to ride again around Christmas time.

So I find myself living vicariously through pictures, video and race reports of what uninjured bike racers are doing these days and I realized the following: Successful cyclocross racers seem to be pretty far on the skinny side - almost like runners. D'Oh! No wonder I've always been frustrated by sucking at something that I find so much dang fun. Come to think of it the skinny guys pretty much kick butt in most competitive cycling situations... Oh well, just like the world of Tuesday nite rock and roll bands needs "rhythm" guitar players, the nation's weekend bike warriors need us "all-rounders." And just like "Smells Like Teen Spirit" needs no hot licks to rock your way through, the occasional wind lets a pear shaped dough-boy like me serve a little payback to the chickenlegged dudes.

So anyway here's my over-thought application for a Cat 4 upgrade which I'm including here because I can't think why but it sort of slightly amuses me which is pretty much the reason I ever put anything here...

2009 Road Race Resume for Roy Johnson (submitted for Road Cat 4 upgrade)

In 2009 I reactivated my USACycling racing license and downgraded from a Cat 3 on the road to a Cat 5. A late season injury kept me from participating in a tenth qualifying race but I am hoping my former Cat 3 license and added experience on the track will be taken into consideration. To upgrade to a Cat 4 for 2010, I submit the following:

2009 Criterium Experience
-Early Bird Road Race in Patterson (35+ 4/5) 40th
-Madera Stage Race (Cat 5) 30th/45
-Lodi Cycle Fest (Cat 5) 5th of 18
-Lodi Cycle Fest (35+ 4/5) DNF

2009 Road Race Experience
-Madera Stage Race (Cat 5) 20th/45
-Sonora Road Race (Cat 5) 9th/20
-Tour De Ames "Kermesse" (Unsanctioned Race) 2nd
-Leesville Gap RR (35+ Cat 5) 7th/16
-San Ardo Road Race (35+ Cat 5) 10th/23

2009 ITT Experience
-Madera Stage Race (Cat 5) 26th/45 - Overall 20th of 45
-Mount Diablo Hill Climb TT (Cat 5) 19th/30

2009 Other
-Track Experience including 6 beginner sessions, and races on 9 separate dates.
-2 Mountain Bike Races (T.B.F. MTB Challenge #1 and #2)
-2 Cyclocross races in late 2008 that inspired all of the above for 2009!

The Frustrations of Bike Racing on a Budget...

2009-11-10T06:22:00.000-08:00

I've been spending too much time on eBay this week trying to buy other people's castoff junk for (probably) too much money. Even with twenty year's worth of bike parts lingering in my parts bin I still don't have enough stuff to get my track bike road-training worthy. And I need to fix my road racing bike since my crash left me with bent forks. Besides that, I fell into a pedal crisis last year when two sets of pedals finally crapped out on me in the span of a few days.

Bicycle and bicycle equipment have become outrageously expensive. When I started racing in the early 90's I rode a modest Shimano 105 equipped carbon fiber frame that I bought for $750 on a starving college student budget of warehouse summer jobs and restaurant work during the school year. Nowadays a similar bike will go for about $1700. Go ahead and adjust for inflation and that's ridiculous! And that's an entry level race bike. Step up to a race worthy component group and wheels and it is very easy to spend $3500 to $6000 on a race bike. Race-worthy forks go for $300 to $800 dollars! Need shoes? Prepare to drop another $300.

I guess that's all fine and good for the folks who can either afford it or put themselves (and their families) into guilt-free debt but for me it's a problem. I'm already racing on ten year old equipment. In some ways it's okay since the rider is 90 percent of the equation but the rest of it is very frustrating when you toe the line on inferior equipment.

Back in my glory days of racing in the DC area, we often rode and raced with the couriers from downtown. Whenever I feel bad that the guys in the pack are all riding wheels worth more than my entire bike I remember those guys riding me into the ground on bikes that were barely fit to be ridden.

But still, I feel like I'm missing out by going on the cheap...

Bike Frames: This is the only place I feel I'm actually in a little club of guys-who-know-better. My old steel frame may not weigh less than a paperback novel but it's comfortable and will last forever. Even with the modern carbon fiber wunderframes available today, I'd still ride a steel frame.

Wheels: Wheels have become stupidly expensive but they are also the one place where you can actually lose and lose big time if you're heavy and inefficient. Not dumping big money into wheels is probably my biggest frustration.

Components: It's all great stuff available nowadays. Buy my ten year old Dura-Ace still works pretty good too. The only difference is weight. That said, I'd really like to upgrade my cranks and bottom bracket to something much more lightweight and modern.

Pedals and Shoes: This one is killing me! I don't know how much longer I can keep limping along. The problem is that I'm sort of married to old Look pedals. Back in the day you could buy new pedals every two seasons or so and eventually you had enough pedals for all your bikes and didn't have to worry about different cleats and could use just one pair of shoes. But Look switched from the old delta platform to their new keo (kea - whatever) and I'm stuck. I'll either have to buy three pairs of pedals all at once (ouch! on the wallet) or go crazy switching pedals from bike to bike to bike to bike.

Or just buy other people's castoffs on eBay for (probably) too much money...

Tears on my toptube...

2009-10-25T09:55:00.000-07:00

I was able to sit normally on my bike for 30 minutes on the trainer yesterday. Hallelujah! I sinched up my splints as tight as I could, rested with the aluminum plate resting on the bar tops and cried through my bike as SRV cried through his guitar over the stereophonic music machine. Beautimous! There is light at the end of this tunnel and next season begins yesterday. Now I can hopefully keep my head in the game and put up with a month of trainer riding...

Jasper got his second yellow belt in taekwondo. I'm so proud of him! This is alot of work for a not-quite-six-year-old. He has to memorize forms, safety tips, life lessons and definitions as well as just exhibit some level of profficiency at different kinds of kicks, jabs and punches. Sometimes he balks at some of the work but he's decided he wants to stick with it. When I was his age my biggest skill was picking my nose...

They don't do halloween costumes at Jasper's school. Instead they dress up in traditional clothes. It's pretty cool seeing alot of the other families bringing their kids in their traditional costumes. But we're boring americans with no families coming over in at least four generations so we go with the American pioneer thing. Jasper, however, decided he was an Australian mountain man. Okay!

I've been working alot harder lately on trying to be more patient and pay attention to what Kris has been telling me for at least a year now. The idea is to parent with positiveness. It goes beyond encouragement, showing pride and taking time to spend a kind word as reward. The idea is to give positive reinforcement for doing the right things. For the longest time I thought this was just ridiculous. "Should I follow him around saying, 'Thanks for not kicking the dogs, Jasper. Thanks for not putting holes in the walls. And thanks for not throwing rocks through the windows.'" It doesn't work that way and I don't seem to possess the verbal skills this morning to explain it but basically I now work harder on noticing when he's doing things right and being good and saying something about it rather than just expecting that to happen and then only yelling when he does something wrong. Lo and behold, it seems to kind of work. If anything, the positive attention puts him in a better mood and encourages to do the things that got that positive attention. Sometimes when you're the only kid around you probably need attention so it's good when he does good things to get attention instead of breaking a window or something.

Anyway, speaking of the lad, he's setting up a game right now so this will remain unedited, hurried, and probably make no sense! Priorities!

33 Days Later...

2009-10-04T13:56:00.000-07:00

I've been running four or five miles three or four times a week for the last three weeks and that's about all my knees can take. And that's all dirt road and trail miles. Sidewalks and roads are just not do-able. I still not supposed to put the amount of weight that leaning on my handlebars would require on the trainer so I've only been on it a couple of times sitting bolt upright and very unsatisfied. Around the house I watch Kris doing EVERYTHING and I feel like crap. She's been super about this but I still feel badly.

On the bright side the forced computer time at work has really made my software come together with alot more focus and dedication than it normally would. Sometimes I forget that my job is really pretty cool. Tap some code here, figure out a problem there, then (literally) set things in motion and grin.

Nothin' earth moving today. Just a moment in front of the computer...

Rule with an iron example

2009-09-25T06:56:00.000-07:00

I love being a Dad. It doesn't mean I'm necessarily good at it but I try. I examine, I analyze and I try to fix things that I think aren't working in my role.

The other day I was walking my son into school after having had what we call in our house, "a hard morning." I often fall into the trap of fighting too hard for the individual battles when it is the complete war that I need to focus on. Sometimes we parents need to let go a little bit and back off and concentrate on the whole picture. I don't remember the particulars of this particular morning but I know that I was probably grumpier, louder and more stubborn than I would like to admit. When this happens, my and my son's personalities are like oil and water. It gets loud. It gets emotional. It gets embarassing to me when I finally get over myself and calm down.

So we had one of those mornings. By the time we got to school I was still maybe a little grumpier and a little torqued with my son for making it such a hard morning (conveniently overlooking my own part in the situational mood). We walked into school and as we went down the hallway to the classroom door I looked down at the center of my universe holding onto my hand. He had flipped his sunglasses up onto the top of his head like a raised visor and his hair was pushed up and splayed straight up in random directions by the glasses. Without thinking about it I reached up onto the top of my own head where I had done the same thing with my own glasses.

I kissed him goodbye for the day and proceded on to the adult part of my day. But it suddenly occured to me that even when I'm being a bit of an obstinant asshole of a father, my son is still watching. He's still sponging up how to act. He's learning to sometimes raise his voice and to argue a petty detail instead of rising above and staying calm. And this reminder brings me to a calmer place as a parent. Because he's learning alot more from me than just where to put his sunglasses when he goes indoors.

Patience...

2009-09-14T17:39:00.001-07:00

Had surgery last Wednesday to repair both scaphoids with neat titanium screws.

After the surgery I was violently ill throwing up all day as is normal for me and pain killers. Kris says, "I don't know how you do these things without taking anything." Pain is easier than pain plus puking. It's that simple.

Got the giant splints off this morning after five horrible days of not being able to do SQUAT. Stiches removed and more x-rays. All looks good so far. Now I'm in wrist braces but at least they are removable and I can at least resume taking normal showers - albeit gingerly.
Recovery will be eight to twelve weeks of limiting my handwork to 5 pounds and then moving up to ten to fifteen pounds in order to avoid stripping the threads and rebreaking the bones. That means no real work beyond typing and some light electronics work. It also means NO BIKE quite possibly for the rest of the year... OUCH! As you may know (if you know me or don't look too far back through this blog) I was mondo-PSYCHED and fit for cyclocross season. Now there won't even BE a cyclocross season. This has been a very very hard pill to swallow but I'm trying to not let it get me too down...

Doctor said I can run, though. I'm not much of a runner and I kind of generally loath it as a form of excercise but I'll want to keep in shape so I can bite that bullet for the next two or three months.

In other news. My son is a complete goofball..... I wonder where he gets that from?

"What Happened To You???"

2009-08-31T20:29:00.000-07:00

I imagine I'm going to be hearing that question alot for awhile so here's the short story (since typing is a pain in the wrists...)

Got up early Sunday morning with the intention of knocking out 40 miles before it got hot and to try to do some riding while the family was still sleeping. I felt good and it was a wonderful morning so I decided to tack on another ten miles that sent me a little ways up mount Hamilton. As I rode up to my turn around spot, the temperatures were starting to come up. I turned around and started struggling with the zipper on my Louis Garneau vest. Louis G. sucks ass and so do his zippers. While distracted by my fucking stupid stuck-ass piece of shit Louis Garneau zipper, I overcooked a corner. Before you can say, "That boy's going down," I was off in the gravel. This wasn't so bad but I could see a large cutout for a culvert dead ahead and knew I was toast. "No no no no No nO NO NO NO/" (I distinctly remember crying out to no good result) --- WHAM!!!

Tumble.
Ouch.
Deflect my torpedoed bike off my arm and back.
Tumble.
"I'm okay. I'm okay."

Stand up slowly.
Whoa. Maybe not okay. My left wrist was sore. Hmmm. So was the right one.

Front wheel tweeked but still rolling.

Both legs bleeding down into my socks from many places. Blood on hip coming through shorts. Both elbows bleeding. Yep, that was a good one.

I got back on the bike and, uh oh, the old boy isn't straight anymore. I must have bent the forks.

Over the next few miles the legs felt good. Back felt good. Head was clear. But both hands were not working right. It was difficult to hold the brakes and the only position tolerable was to rest the heals of my hands on the tops.

The 25 miles home were made much easier by a nice guy who caught up to me as I gingerly descended one of the hills and he rode with me and distracted me from my pain over most of the way home.

That said, let the record show that Roy is a tough SOB who rode 25 miles on two broken hand/wrists.

Later that day Urgent Care X-Ray showed a very well defined break in my left scaphoid and a "suspicious" crack in my right one. Now I am in two splints. The ortho doctor today has sent me on to a hand specialist tomorrow. Likely outcome right now is surgery on the left hand to get over this the quickest. Right hand? Don't know. Maybe just a cast. Maybe it's not broken but the Doctor today said it has all indications of a less severe break in the same damn bone.

More later, must put the young prince to bed with some reading time now. Typing this has been surprising easy with my thumbs immobilized by the splints/casts. Kind of hurts, though.

Hellyer Wed. Night Omnium. August 26, 2009

2009-08-28T15:53:00.001-07:00

Last Wed. night race of the year! I really wanted to make a mark but simply didn't have the legs all night. I only manged one point on the first points race. The miss and out was horrible. I knew there was a guy behind me but he basically dropped off and so they pulled me instead of him. D'OH! The last points race was FAST. Easily one of the two or three fastest races of the year. I was happy to have a brief moment off the front and then survive and not get dropped.

NOT TRACK: San Ardo Follow Up...
Met a guy who recognized me from San Ardo. I asked, "I didn't push you did I?" Luckily he was not someone I managed to piss off. In fact he gave the best complement you can give a bike racer telling me I was one of the ones he had his eye on and that I was dropping three or five guys on some of those hills but that they were able to claw back on every time. Too bad no one else was willing to help me keep that hot pace going. Oh well. So San Ardo was a 10th place. Truthfully, given my barely functioning legs at the finish I was surprised to learn I placed that well (keep in mind it was a very small field). NEXT YEAR!

Other stuff in my life...

2009-08-27T10:38:00.001-07:00

I actually saw this video on another cycling blog but see what they're doing at 25 seconds to 40 seconds? Yeah, that's what I do to pay the bills only I attach alot of junk to it and fly it on airplanes. I wish I could make it track that fast, however!!!

San Ardo Road "Race": August 22, 2009

2009-08-23T19:44:00.000-07:00

Of the five road races over 50 miles this year this was the one that didn't kick my butt the most. But that's not saying much.

We rode out of San Ardo P-I-A-N-O. I kept waiting for someone -anyone- to go up and make things fast. After 30 minutes of excruciatingly slow 18 mph "racing" in two very neat lines with no one taking paces or doing anything at all I went to the front and eased the pace up to a wopping 20 mph. I looked back and found one guy on my wheel and the pack 200 meters behind. A few minutes later and there were three of us and the pack a little farther behind. I say "pack" but it was all of maybe 17 guys. We got a moderately well running three man paceline going but not really pushing hard. That only lasted about five minutes and it was gruppo intacto again. One of the three of us was a Taleo guy and he pretty much spent the rest of the race riding at the front with EVERYONE more than content to just sit on his wheel and stop pedalling anytime there was the slightest threat of putting their noses into the wind. This frustrated the HELL out of me and I wasted all my energy for 60 miles trying to do my share to hurt some of the barnacles or riding slowly off the front then hoping someone would come with me. But everytime it was the same damn thing. I'd see shadows or hear riders behind me, look over my shoulder and there was Taleo-Man pulling the pack back up to me. What a load of crap! I really don't understand that dynamic at all.

As we began the last 20 mile loop the pace went up and some fresh faces finally showed at the front. Of course this was about the time my legs decided they were tired. Staying in the pack and being the ONLY guy (other than Taleo, "no no let me chase that down for you"-man) to make pace on the little hills was still easy but the tell tale signs of legs-about-to-crap-out-on-you were there. Sure enough I got the first signs of quad-cramps with about ten miles to go. I tried to suck wheel and give them a break but they were simply not hearing it. I had a couple of near lockups but was able to keep my legs spinning.

Going into town we mixed in with another pack and the cat-5 shennanigans of death-gripping stiff scary-bike-handling guys riding up on top of each other began. We made the turn up to the finish and I just tried to keep my legs spinning as best as I could with no hope for sprinting.

And I was pissed. Pissed, dissappointed and wishing I hadn't ridden so stupidly.

In hindsight, I should have just sat in and waited three hours for the sprint. I'm perfectly happy to do that in a 45 minute crit but that's simply a waste of time to race a road race like that. Despite the shorter distance of the regular E5 race I really wish I had done that instead. I think the younger guys would have actually been racing instead of merely riding along and only raising the pace when someone managed to make a small gap. Typical California negative racing bullshit. Now I remember why it was so annoying way back when...

I guess I should stick to the track, mtb, cyclocross, criteriums, and road races that create real attrition.

I probably wouldn't be so bitter if I hadn't been targetting this race so much. I'd probably be less bitter if I'd done this race with more of a sprinter mentality than a fighter mentality.

crap

1997 San Ardo Road Race - Ancient History

2009-08-20T16:44:00.000-07:00

The motel is booked, the plans for sending the boy off for the weekend are made, the training has sort of led me up to this weekend and I'm just watching the clock waiting for the San Ardo Road Race to begin...

There's certainly nothing special, epic or unique about the San Ardo road race but it's a race I put on my calendar back in January as a "must do." But why? Well, pull up a chair and be prepared for a boring ancient history lesson.

1997 - Roy
In January of 1997 I pushed the boulder off the ledge that began the rockslide that moved me (back) to California to be with Kris and that history is known (and if it isn't then it goes like married-eleven-years-with-kid-and-mortgage). When I finally located to Cali in April, I hit the ground running looking for as much racing as I could. The Madera Stage Race went well as a first California race but everything kind of went downhill from there. In Crits, no one would work in breakaways. The only crit strategy was to chase down ANYTHING that went off the front and then sit up and wait to sprint. Well that didn't work for a flyer specialist like me. Then in all the road races, it was the same lame chase-any-break mentality. The pace in the flats was pathetically slow while everyone waited to do their racing on the climbs. It was really lame for a diesel motor flat land rider like me and by the end of summer I was very discouraged with the California racing scene. Every race I was either pack fodder after getting chased down on breakaway attempts or was miserably far off the back after getting destroyed on a climb (hmm, sounds kind of familiar to how it still is...).

But then there was San Ardo. For some reason, I pretty clearly remember the drive to the race and what I ate and drank that morning. When the race started, I rode the pack for about ten miles and realized it was one of those lucky days when my legs were really good. So I did what I wasted most races of my youth doing, I attacked! Flying out of the pack I found myself on an easy climb with another fellow. We rode well together and enjoyed a very long flyer. We lasted something like 30 miles off the front together before we finally saw the pack catching up. We agreed to back off and when the pack caught us I remember feeling surprisingly fresh. Mostly, I think I was just happy to find myself on a road course that didn't have a miserable climb on it to kick my ass in.

On the last lap, I saw too many big legs again and took another flyer with ten miles to go. It was a good move but no one went with me and so it was totally suicidal. I was caught on the turn up to the finish and was able to stay in the pack and finish 28th (amazingly the results are still online!). 28th is not exactly a great result but it was not DFL, like many of my races that year so it stuck in my memory. Mainly the wasted tactic and the idea that if I had been more patient and dug in on the field sprint stayed with me all these years.

By the time the race rolled around in 1998 I was shoulders deep in helping organize our wedding and couldn't even think about racing. As it turned out, Madera SR 1998 was the last race I did until late last year and I never got a chance to do San Ardo "right."

So that's it. It's simply one of the races that I remember being able to not only survive but thrive. Maybe it won't be the same at 40 as it was at 28 but I can't wait to find out. Been waiting 12 years, in fact.

Hellyer Tuesday Night Points Racing August 18, 2009

2009-08-19T17:48:00.000-07:00

Wow. Three weeks since a visit to the track. Boo! Actually. Take that boo back. It was a nice break with the family medium-sized San Diego vacation thrown in there which was muy relajado.

Format tonight was 40 laps, sprints every ten. Times two!

Race one: Initial goal was to see if I had any legs or head or lungs or heart left in me after a MISERABLE heat bonk last Sunday that left me creeping the final 10 miles to home up two climbs that took an hour! The warmup let me know I had recovered okay. The initial pace was pretty easy with one spurt that strung out the pack briefly. About five laps in the bottom of the track was wide open and I thought, "why not" and did one of those seated attacks that don't look like an attack. One guy went with me and within a lap we had a nice gap. One lap later and four dudes joined us. "Sweet!" thinks me. I finally get to see what a paceline breakaway is like. I didn't have enough gas for the first sprint so I just held on and did my part to reorganize. A few laps later and we were looking at the tail end of the pack going into turn one when we were coming off turn four! There followed a semi-heated discussion between three of us whether or not to lap the field. I was outvoted and the the rest just kept sucking wheel so we didn't lap the field (BOO!!!!!). The logic escaped me but I guess they wanted to stay off the front and get points despite the 20 point bonus of lapping the field available. Huh? I'm new to this track stuff so maybe I missed something there. Someone please 'splain me it.

So after the next sprint I got gapped and chased for three laps then realized I wasn't going to make it. I waited for the pack then held on in there for awhile and sucked wheel with little motivation for the rest of the race feeling a little dejected.

Race two: Not much happened. Tried to race a solid aggressive one but couldn't get any points.

Lots of fun on and off the track. We had three of us VSRTeammates tonight so that was nice to reprezent. With all the lone wolf racing this year though, I had to remind myself to block instead of chase at one point but I did it right and helped Ted get a gap on a flyer. We didn't have any planned tactics, however. Maybe next year!

The legs feel pretty good for San Ardo, a big objective for the year (why?).

cyclocrosscyclocrosscyclocrosscyclocross

2009-08-06T23:09:00.000-07:00

In the last week I've done two of my favorite types of ride that are half road and half off-road on my "new" (new to me) cyclocross bike and I've got the poison oak on my right butt cheek and the road rash on my left butt cheek to show for it.

Cyclocross begins in only one month. I'm so excited that I just can't hide it and I think I'm about to lose control and I just might like it (or something like that). I probably won't be winning any medals but you can bet I'll have a big ol' smile on my face when I hear them cowbells.

I wonder if this could finally be the year I exorcize the damn stutter in my remount step??? Probably not. There's just too much damn momentum (and self preservation for my crotch) behind that old old bad habit.

Hellyer Wednesday Night Omnium, July 29, 2009

2009-07-30T08:21:00.000-07:00

I was feeling a little fuzzy in the brain and really slow to warm up last night at the track. After about 20 minutes of warmup I stupidly (and I mean Dr. STOOPID LEE Senior, not Junior) brainfarted and tried to freewheel. Up went my ass into the air along with my rear wheel and my heart rate. It was no big deal and I wasn't close to crashing or anything-I do have thousand so of hours of fixed gear under my belt afterall- but it was a reality check to clear the cobwebs and pay attention or just go home. The rest of the night went better and, I have to say, I really really enjoy my track nights. The people are great, the workout is excellent and it's just one of those things that clicks for me.

O yeah, I was racing with the B's. And to cut to the chase, I was tenth in the omnium out of 18 riders which is pretty cool since I wasn't one of the seven guys with zero points for the night. All apologies to those guys...

Race 1: 3x5 Points race. I decided about five laps in to just go for broke on the penultimate sprint. So with the lap counter showing 4 I jumped hard coming off turn four and with the bell ringing in my left ear I cooked it into turns one and two, drove the back stretch then added a little bit more for a final 100 meter kick to win that sprint and earn 5 points. I had nothing left for the final sprint but the 5 points was enough for fourth (tied for third, actually but there is some complex math for determining the tie breaker that bounced me to fourth) place and thus, I earned my single omnium point and was able to feel good about not getting zeroed. Wee.

Race 2: 12 lap scratch race. I ended this one with WAY too much gas left in the tank and frustrated that I didn't work a little harder. I felt way too fresh at the end. But the tentative are pack fodder on the track so it goes. I was about tenth but not really sprinting.

Race 3: Miss and out. Blech! Another race finished while feeling way too fresh. The pack spread across the track and I got boxed in up at the rail and that was that. I counted ten guys left when I got pulled so that kind of sucked.

Race 4: 40 lap points race with the A/B combine! That's right, I said A/B combine not B/C combine. With my placing in the early points race, I qualified for the A race and that went quite well. Surfing the back of the pack was going very well so I put my nose on the front a few times. I was way off pace for contesting the sprints but it was great being able to hang in there and I even tried to take a couple of fliers. On the 15-to go sprint I went off the back and took a lap but when I got back on I survived the next sprint and then even made an attack with three to go, pulled the field at full steam for a lap then pulled off, went off the back and stayed on the same lap for the final. That was a great confidence builder!

And fun too!

Lodi Cycle Fest Criterium race, July 12, 2009

2009-07-13T06:17:00.000-07:00

I have to say this was a very fun race. The course was a figure 8 through downtown Lodi with all 90 degree turns that were, for the most part, wide open. The front stretch was on cobblestones! Turn one was wide open transitioning onto pavement with some white paint cross walk to mind. Turn two was wide open. Turn three had a pothole but it was out of any line I took all day. Turn 4 was a bugaboo transitioning back to cobblestones and some uneven surface that made my back wheel skip out pretty frequently. It constricted too - just to make it scarier. Turns 5 and 6 were wide open with only a little oil in the road and crosswalk paint that didn't seem slippery at all. Turn 7 was a constrictor and back onto cobblestones but at least it was smooth. Turn 8 was pretty much wide open but on cobblestones and narrow to narrow roads.

The great Michael Hernandez was on the microphone all day to amuse and entertain and, as the day grew, more and more people showed up on the course and there was actual cheering and clapping and that ALWAYS makes the legs a bit snappier and the heart a little stronger.

I signed up for both the regular Cat 5 race and the 35+ Cat 4/5 races with a nice three hour break between the two. When I was a young guy I used to be jealous of the masters racers who would double dip like that and this was my first time to see if I, indeed, had something to envy.

E5 race: Only 17 racers :-( We had a mentor take us through the course on the first lap and everyone was supposed to follow him single file. Maybe this helped some people but all I noticed was guys ignoring it. In my opinion, any mentor should tell the following before a crit (and he didn't).
1-DO NOT overlap wheels
2-DO NOT rubberneck, the only thing you have to worry about is in front of you.
3-NO FUCKING SWERVING - this isn't the champs d'elysee and you aren't leading out Tyler Farrar
4-Commit to your line in a corner. No brakes -if possible- and absolutely don't change lines unless it's an emergency.

Anyway, digress. The mentor was around during the race and I did see him correct a few things. He yelled at me for "unecessarily risking it" taking an extreme inside line into the gutter a few times but the real danger there was the guy who kept coming in too tight and not using the whole road that made that dangerous.

I tried to keep 5 to 7 guys ahead of me the whole race to try to stay up front while also staying out of the wind. This worked pretty well. One of the times I did drift back, however, I got to witness the only crash of the race. Of course it happened on the longest straight section right in front of the start finish. The guy on the front went clear across the road and everyone followed him like a snake! Of course someone was overlapping wheels and got his front wheel swept. His rear wheel shot up in the air and he was launched taking three or four guys out with him. After that the adreneline speed spike lasted about two laps.

With three laps to go I was thinking I should probably move up into the top three or four. A couple of corners later, there was a separation that I failed to see how it happened and there were four guys with a suddenly large gap off the front. They increased their lead pretty quickly but lost one guy so with two laps to go it was pretty apparent we were racing for fourth place since no one (me included!) was working well to catch them. So what was left of the pack safely came through the last two turns. I was fourth wheel on the last turn and came out sprinting. I was still coming on when the finish line came up but couldn't win the field sprint. Still, I was happy for a second there and a fifth overall. It would have been more gratifying if the race had been bigger but that's better than my usual dead-middle of the field result and I won a bottle of wine to bring home. I really wish I'd been more attentive when the podium places rode off the front. I think I may have had the gas to stick with them.

35+ 4/5 race: The only crash of this race came on the very first corner with one guy going down in the middle of the pack all by himself (nice of him to not take anyone out!). This race was much faster but I was having a real blast even though I couldn't seem to stop riding in the last five or six guys. I kept passing guys who were fading and getting gapped but couldn't seem to move up more than that. I did notice, though, that there were fewer and fewer guys ahead of me. Halfway through a guy went WAY off the front and the pack accelerated. As usual, the back was gapping and recovering and within a lap the accordian claimed my fitness. As a dangerously large gap opened in front of me I looked back and saw what you never want to see in a crit - a wide open course behind me with no other racers in sight. I sprinted as hard as I could, caught the back but soon enough that deadly two bike length gap reformed and that was that. I chased three others who got dropped for another lap and a half but then they pulled us all.

I was actually pretty satisfied with that. I lasted 25 minutes of the 40 minutes and was one of the last four guys to get pulled. Of the 32 starters, only 17 survived to the final so that would make me 21st-ish if you could get a placing after getting pulled.

In conclusion: A very fun day of racing. A satisfying result. A very fun atmosphere. The track riding is really paying off both in handling and confidence and fitness.

Wednesday Night Omnium at Hellyer, July 8, 2009

2009-07-09T18:29:00.000-07:00

Oof to the head! I gotta headache tonight. Last night was fun. There were so many women and juniors that they got their own race and that left 7 of us for the C men's race. I had a nice 30 minute warmup but I could tell my legs were really dead. I couldn't spin up and sprinting was a real chore.

Chariot Race: Only six of us competed. I had a poor start and just couldn't get up a head of steam to go anywhere. 5th of 6. After the race I kind of felt light headed and vaguely nauseous. I considered calling it a night but I hung around.

Scratch Race: Something snapped about four laps in and suddenly I kind of felt better. I jumped in turn three, got a gap and soloed the bell lap. The group behind was sprinting up beside me coming up to the line but I held them off for the win! Whattaya know??? Cool. Woohoo. Steve Woo called me up to the officials stand to give me a jersey for that! You'd think the prize would be for the omnium but they were only for the scratch races so I am the owner of a new jersey. woohoo!

Win and Out: Oh I blew this one with a all or nothing lap and a half effort that got me nipped at the line. That hurt! I had no gas left and took my DFL with pride knowing that at least I tried. Besides, I already won the scratch race tonight. Woohoo.

Where'd everybody go not a miss and out but a 5 lap scratch race instead: Of the four of us left, three had won events so I found the fourth guy and told him to just glue his front wheel to my back and I'd try to deliver him to the line. We almost did it but he waited too late to sprint and I probably confused him by slapping my right hip when I actually meant for him to sprint off down track. Oh well. He appreciated the effort.

Hellyer Tuesday Night Points Race: July 7, 2009

2009-07-07T23:16:00.000-07:00

Remember the old batman and robin show? They'd get in fights and the sound effects would get cartooned onto the screen? Blam! Thwap!!! Crunch!!! Well my favorite one was always "OOF!!!!" Tonight was a bit of an oof night at the track.

With my new Cat 4 track license I entered the B race with the goal of hanging on for dear life. As soon as I got to the track, I switched my 14 rear for a smaller (more teeth) gear for the warmup. In the warmup session I was hanging just fine but then started to have difficulty hanging in when the pace got up to about 28mph. I just chalked it up to whatever I could think of and went on my merry way shooting the shit with my teammate Jonathan until the races started.

I expected the first 40 lap B race to be fast but I was spun out and hanging on my a pinky finger nail for aoubt 22 laps when I finally just couldn't hang on anymore. I rode a few laps trying to catch up then went up to the rail to recover and latch back on the next time around. I missed timing the tag-on and ended up off the back again pretty quickly. So I tried again and this time just barely held on to the finish. As I rode the warmup (warm down?) track I was starting to think I was doomed. It was just way too hard to hang in - and FORGET about being anywhere near the front and challenging for any of the sprints!

With as much optimism as I could muster I decided I needed a bigger gear so I wouldn't be spun out so badly. I removed the rear cog and much to my horror/shock/amusement, found that I had been using a 16 instead of the 15. Well hell!!! I'll take being stupid over being out of shape any day! My mood immediately got better as soon as I realized my egregious blunder and happily installed the 14.

The second race was also 40 laps (with points every five laps). The larger gear felt so dang good that I found myself on the pole lane in the front and just sort of rode off the front. One lap around and I saw I had a flyer in the works so I tried to not blow my wad yet be fast. This lasted for all of two more laps before I was reeled in and smacked down like a kindergartner on the playground with the sixth graders.

I pretty much went off the back pretty soon after that. I struggled with another fellow to get back on but once there's about a third of a lap, there's no point dying out there alone so I went up to the rail and when the pack came around I latched on. It was really hard to stay in touch with the pack but I managed it until the end of the race.

So... post race. On the one hand I have very clear steps ahead of me (like "don't get dropped!") and that always makes a task easier. On the other hand, this is pretty much what I was afraid would happen after catting up. What if my meager training time budget simply isn't enough to get better or faster? This could get pretty discouraging being pack fodder race after race. Sure it's a great -strike that- excellent workout so it's not like there's no benefit.

But here I am again complaining about success instead of enjoying the fact that I DID and COULD cat up. I should be really quite happy that I managed 38 and 39 laps. I should be happy that I was able to take a three lap flyer. Arg! But sometimes that's just hard to do when this silly sport sucker punches you in the gut and you go "OOF!!!"

Leesville Gap Road Race, July 3, 2 009

2009-07-05T13:43:00.000-07:00

This race is famous for it's bad pavement and, in stretches, complete lack of pavement. It is also known for being, hot, exposed, and for having long straight stretches at the final that tax the weary brain. I can now confirm all the above is true! What a great race. Nothing comes right up my alley like putting miles of dirt/gravel roads into a road race.

After deliberating all week, I asked around and read race reports and decided to go ahead and ride my regular race bike with 25 mm tires. That was my setup at Madera and, though I got the snot hammered out of me by the road, it worked out well as I didn't flat when so many others did. But I ran out of time in my week to swap out my tires so I ran with the 23's.

Heading out, the pace was fast but not too taxing. Riding at the front was pretty easy and there wasn't alot of pushing around up there. Then we crossed hwy 20 and the potholes began! I dodged, bunny-hopped and bounced for a few minutes when I saw the opposite shoulder was smooth gravel. "Why not?" I abandoned the pavement and was rewarded with a nice smooth gravel shoulder. It was much faster than the potholes and I found myself shooting past the nose of the pack. Unfortunately, that only lasted about a mile then it was back to pothole management with the rest of the pack. I found it much safer and easier going in the front five guys and so there I stayed.

One thing you read alot about on this race is the plethora of water bottles all over the road bounced out of people's cages. I was laughing to myself about the time I passed the fiftieth bottle in five miles. We caught the 45+ cat 4's just before the climbing began and all hell broke loose as guys realized they could get lost as the fields combined. But I had my own worries as my body went into the red zone immediately as the road tilted up. Slowly and with all too much familiarity, the pack spit out it's unworthy climbers and I was soon enough among them left to toil in the heat all by myself cursing my inability to go upward as fast as I want to.

The climb dragged on and I had a real problem with it. If a climb isn't steady or has anything to break my rhythm, I'm toast. It was plenty steady enough but the potholes just destroyed my ability to sit down, zone out and suffer.

Over the top and down the other side banging over potholes and placing my bunnyhops strategically I passed a number of stragglers.

This is getting pretty boring so I'll just say the rest of the race was a haze of heat and cramps and grouping and dropping and sitting in and surviving. I drank a ton but was still having trouble with calf cramps. Just before the feedzone, I caught a guy and he gave me an "electrolyte pill." I put it in my mouth to be polite but as soon as he took a pull I dug it out and flicked it into the weeds. Last thing I want is to be vomitting on the road out in the middle of nowhere in that heat. All the other climbs were on smooth pavement or on smooth gravel and I really did alot better there catching folks and passing. There was one 45+mph descent and I passed three guys there. I don't know why I'm descending so much faster and more confidently now as an old guy than I did when I was young. Oh well.

The last fifteen miles was a real drag. Luckily, I grouped up with four to seven other guys (the number changed as guys got picked up and dropped) and it made the flat ride into the headwinds more bearable.

In the end I was just happy to finish this race and happy to not get a flat and happier to be able to hold onto wheels and dig DEEP to not get dropped over the final windy sections. I can motor right along in the flats right now, it's just the climbs that are kicking me in the butt. But then again, that's not really a new story for me...

I think I was 7th but I might have been 4th if I read the results wrong and the 45+ guys were mixed in there. Pretty sure it was 7th, though. Boy, divide a field size by two, add or subtract one and there's Roy. I'm not complaining, though.

Hellyer Omnium Night Wednesday, June 24, 2009

2009-06-24T23:17:00.000-07:00

After the race tonight I cornered Rick and asked him if I should upgrade since I've done five races and four beginner sessions. His answer: "Absolutely! Do not put it off." The only thing is that I really would like to experience a win or two before catting up. I'm always up there but other than the repeat heat of the Kieren at my first race, I am without the W. And once I cat up it's going to be major pack fodder time and soon enough I'll wish I'd enjoyed a win when I could've scored one.

And after tonight and a little feedback I've gotten regarding my "poor me" of the Diable Hill Climb I stepped out of myselfish tonight and appreciated that I am really fortunate to have the health, legspeed and tiny amount of talent and discipline to be in the races. Too often I concentrate on why I'm not better and the truth is that I'm as good as I am and that's all we can expect.

Cough. Same format as -cough- two weeks ago. cough.

Points race: 9 laps with sprints -cough- e'ry 3 laps. El sprinto uno. I dunno. Came up fast but maybe not fast enough to catch people fading at the line. Maybe scored points. cough. El sprinto dos: Probably did better. Lungs started to BURN. I was afraid of my low-grade head cold -cough- making me hurt tonight. cough. Sprinto final: Nowhere near sprinting for me. Watched the pack sprint and tried breathing through my on fire lungs. boo! Immediately took two puffs on the inhaler after the race. Drank alot but an evening of cronic coughing began here (and continues now).

Scratch race: Nice and fast for a C race tonight! Great, it felt much safer at the quicker pace with less balling up and bunching. I sucked wheel then sucked wheel some more then sucked more wheel until el sprinto. Long windup and couldn't come around in three and four. Managed a third somehow. Cough cough cough cough HACK cough.

Miss and Out: Have I got this down to a formula or what? The secret to success is to count heads then keep a running count of laps during the race. After four or five people get out, I go to the front and own the pole lane and simply don't let anyone come by me. Some laps it's dead simple and some laps the sprint works its way up to me. The onliest problem is that after towing the pack for eight laps or so, I don't have enough -cough- left in the legs to win. Still, I was very happy to get a second place.

Points race with the B non-pointers: I popped the 14 on the rear for this race and ran that gear for the first time. It was easy to push, surprisingly. But I had no gas for the sprints so I just sucked wheel the entire race. Well, that's not completely true. I took one mini-flyer and took a pull or two at the front but it was always between sprints. My lungs were so messed up by this time I just was happy to cruise and watch the sprints from a ways back. I went for the final sprint and was maybe in top 5.

I'm definitely learning a few things. NEVER stop sprinting until the line. Several times tonight I passed two or more people in the last five meters. My endurance is just fine. I'd like to work on acceleration. It's good for now but when I went to the ~90 in. gear, I lost alot of explosiveness. And that's what I'll need for the Cat. 4 and up racing.

Mount Diablo Hill Climb TT June 19, 2009

2009-06-21T12:58:00.000-07:00

Wow. All I can say is that I proved that shit can roll uphill as well as downhill. Really not a best effort. The wind was horrible but everyone had the same wind and that's no excuse. I just really couldn't push hard. My heart rate numbers say I was working hard but the legs and lungs weren't along for the ride. Average heart rate over the race was 181, max was 188.

The starts were at 30 second intervals. Due to no-shows, there was only one guy withing reasonable time ahead of me to chase and I thought was doing good when I caught him in the first five minutes. But then, three minutes later, my 30 second and 60 second guys both came by me. That's it. If there's one thing I've learned about myself and time trials it's that I NEVER do well in a time trial once I'm caught. It's mentally just too hard without knowing you're shitty enough to get caught and will never make that time up again. I was eventually passed by my 90 second, 120 second guys. Then, to make it all that much more demoralizing I was caught by my FIVE minute guy. Then eventually my 150 second guy.

End result was a horrible time of 36:09 and 19th out of 30.

This sport can be a cruel bitch sometimes. Especially when today I can go out and set a new personal best time on my mountainous 50 mile bench mark ride. WTF???

----------------

Despite the tone, today is a good Father's Day. My family got me a cow bell! The sweetest sound will be my son's voice yelling Allez! Allez! and ringing that cowbell during the cyclocross races this Fall.

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Creating Traditions

2009-06-16T07:18:00.001-07:00

When I was a kid we really had no family traditions that I can recall. I think we moved too often so maybe moving was a tradition! Of course we celebrated the ones on the calendar but there were no yearly rhythms or functions. I don't know why I expect that to happen for family-ness but I'm happy to establish new ones for my little home. So Jasper and I enjoyed our third annual Dad and Jasper getaway mini-vacation after the last day of school.

Unfortunately funding* and lack of imagination dictated that we do the same thing we did the last two years and go up to Kris' family cabin in Cazadero. I shouldn't say unfortunately since we both love it there and never fail to have a great time. And a great time it was. We took little hikes, spent HOURS down in the creek swimming hole (despite the less than warm conditions), played horseshoes, swinged, did artwork, watched videos and ate like a couple of bachelors. It was great.

I talked to Kris and Saturday night to inform her we were having too much fun and were going to stay an extra day. She guiltily told me she was actually enjoying having the place to herself -if only to be able to clean a little and not have it immediately messed up by us boys. But that's the point! The trip is half for us to get away and have fun and half to give Kris a brief moment in her hectic life to have some time to herself.

I'm a big believer in leaving space inbetween. Space to breath. Space to enjoy a little peace. In music it's an important concept. Not every single quarter beat has to be filled with something. Sometimes taking a beat and putting NOTHING there makes the sweetest accent on what IS there. Get that? It's a beautiful concept.

Unfortunately the realities of both of us having to work, commute, cook, clean, launder, fix cars, build stuff, maintain the ranch, bike race (wait, how did that get in there?) just don't provide alot of that necessary space between the notes. So we have to really enjoy the ones we have.

*Spotty got bit by a rattlesnake weekend before last and let me tell you that you don't want to take your dog to the emergency vet hospital on a Saturday night if you don't want to spend an OBSCENE amount of money on an animal. I can't believe how expensive that was. The good news is that Spotalot survived and is pretty much back to her normal self already. Her face is still a little swollen but that's it. Next time we will have our ranch vet make an emergency call and then take our chances. But this time, I'm pretty sure Spot would have been a gonner (she's such a petite little thing and was definitely going into system shut down when Kris drove her in) so the money is well spent. I just worry she's gonna do it again. You really don't want to gold plate your dog just to lose her...

6/10/09 Hellyer Wednesday Night Omnium Racing

2009-06-10T22:51:00.000-07:00

Since last Wednesday night, my legs have been a bit iffy and I haven't been feeling too good on top of that with a migraine day yesterday. Today I took a quick lunchtime ride and decided my legs were good enough to race tonight. So...

12 Lap Points Race: Points every three laps. I tried to take a flier on the first lap but - FAIL! I held on for third on that sprint. Then there was alot of sitting in and not getting position for other sprints (mostly due to the wad I blew in the first three laps). Sprinted on the last lap and was 4th? 5th? I'm not sure and it prolly don't matter.

Scratch Race: 8 laps. It started off sane. With three laps to go it started getting a little sketchy back in the pack so I moved to the front and ended up providing a perfect lead out. I held on for 4th? 5th? (do you see a theme here?)

Miss and Out: Despite this being a race I don't enjoy, I seem to have it figured out (at the C level anyway). Made the final three again tonight but had no zip in the legs. none. Zipless. So took 3rd.

15 Lap Points Race: They made all the B racers with no omnium points race with the C's so it was a LARGE pack. But I sucked up my fear and rode an aggressive race. I don't think I came out with a single point but I did due diligence trying to get the best placing possible on each sprint. It was fun and the lights didn't screw me up like the last time.

I probably wasn't as good as last week as far as omnium placing goes but it was more competitive tonight and I survived despite my post migraine haze and somewhat dead legs. I'll take it!

Now off for four days with Jasper to Cazadero for hiking, swimming in the creek, and whatever else the hell we want to do.

A (Fri)Day in the Life of a Roybob...

2009-06-06T00:05:00.000-07:00

5:15AM(ish): Wake up. See Kris is gone. Hear tires on gravel below on the driveway. Smile to myself at the thought of my wife out on her bike in the morning with the doggies and maybe a few goats trailing behind her.

5:16 to 6:30AM: Is it sleep? Dozing? Lucid dreaming? I dunno but it ends with my watch beeping at me.

6:35 to 7:55 AM: The usual blur of getting breakfast and lunches put together for me and my boy while also managing the bathing and getting dressed and all that other morning goodness of a Dad at the helm for his one shiny point of the day.

7:56 to 8:17 AM: Split time between watching my son draw a hilarious picture of himself and his TaeKwanDo instructor and spinning my wheels trying to put stuff together so I can sneak in a mt. bike ride during lunch today.

8:18 AM: Look at my watch and realize that we are going to be horribly late for school. Again.

8:19 AM: Realign my thinking to go for a quick mt. bike ride before work thus saving myself from having to shower this morning. Toss a ratty t-shirt on with some equally ratty jeans and a hat while shoving work clothes in a pack.

8:19 to 9:20 AM: Attempt to drive quickly -yet safely- to school. Apologize to son since today it's "all on me" that we're late.

9:21 AM: Walk smack dab into the end of the year class celebration full on with all the kids' parents and everyone looking nice (remember I'm in ratty clothes I picked off the closet floor).

9:22 to 10:15 AM: Apologize to my son for screwing up the thing this morning while hanging out with him in the class room and then explain to various other parents what a dolt I am for not knowing this was going on today. All the while trying to remember if I bothered to slab some deoderant on under my probably smelly ratty clothes.

10:16 AM: I get a little tear in my eye when my boy runs to the playground fence to pass a little more time with me as I walk out to my truck.

10:17 AM: Sit in the truck, look at my watch and suddenly realize that I simply am not going to go into work today. Before you cast me off as the worst slacker of all times, this is my swing day and no one is expecting me at work anyway.

10:45 to 1:45 PM: Mountain biking! But really its just two and a half hours of flogging myself and realizing that I am way way way too beat up already and shouldn't be riding up and down all those damn hills out at Lake Del Valle. End ride dead beat red tired and remember that dead legs and brains were the reason I was going to take a short ride today - oops. Eat my chicken and cheese sandwich that has been stewing in its own juices in the car for the entire morning and wonder if this is the last thing people who die of salmonella usually do.

2 to 2:30PM: Head over to the garden supply place and get a yard of "garden soil" plopped into the back of my Ford Ranger. Oh dear God did I just hear the frame crack? I hope not cuz I'm motoring.

2:30 to 3:30PM: Truck that load up the hill over dale and through the woods (in other words, drive home with it).

3:45 to 4:30 PM: Try to ignore the stabbing pain in my lower back while digging all that dirt out and wheelbarrowing it over to the new raised bed. Feed Kris' horses and the dogs.

4:35 to 5PM: Shit shower and skip the shave (having a beard is so cool).

5PM: Call Kris and coordinate and realize I have a few moments.

5:02 to 5:16PM: Take the sweetest little cat nap a man can have on a play hookie mt. bike and dig a yard of dirt Friday afternoon.

5:18 to midnight: Drive back into town, meet Kris and Jasper, drop Jasper off at a Summer Special party at TaeKwanDo, go get some eats with my babe, shop and then buy a new mattress, chuck back to livermore, grocery shop, back to pick up Jasper, back up the hill to home, get Jasper in bed, play with transformers (how the hell is the kid still awake!??!?!??!!!??) kiss the almost already asleep wife good night, eat too many cookies while interwebbin' then write a ridiculously complicated blog that no one will read.

I got a pretty good life. Dead tired achy back and knees and shoulder and head and everything. the Heart is ache-free.

June 3 Omnium Wednesday Night At Hellyer

2009-06-04T06:03:00.000-07:00

Back to the track again! (Maybe there's a reason track rhymes with crack???). I had no teammates to ask questions or chat with and no beginner session mates to hang with tonight so it was a little lonesome.

Chariot Race: I drew Heat 1 so had no races to watch in preperation. The race is simple, though. You get held, they count down and six of you race 1.1 laps from a dead start. Into turn one I was still uptrack. A quick look down and I followed a young kid into the pole and that's the way it stayed. Sweet! I'm in the final! In the final I figured it wasn't going to be so easy. I honestly can't remember if I was 3rd or 2nd. In my memory there is someone coming second who I don't recall seeing again the rest of the evening. This stuff makes you hazy.

Win-n-out: Simple rules again. You win a lap and you're done. But first there were 4 laps of jockying for position. Stupidly, I found myself at the back (a recurring theme...) when a guy took a flyer and won the first lap and the race. I moved up and started my sprint in turn one. Passed the pack on the back stretch, went over the top in 3 and 4 and won the lap for 2nd in the race. That may have been the hilight of the evening flying past the pack on the backstretch and holding it to the line. I'm not sure why everyone was so tentative.

Scratch: Same dude took a flyer again and most of the race was unorganized chasing. We caught him with two to go and the field sprint was on. Sprinted from the pole lane and passed folks but was 4th.

Miss-n-Out: This time I knew to stay up track uptrack uptrack. Then when the first five folks got weeded out I had a few close calls with almost getting last wheel so I went to the front and pulled the pack for the next four laps. That worked pretty well so I stayed there. I actually didn't realize I'd made the final cut until the guy behind me said, "You guys know this is a neutral lap, right?" Way to pay attention Roybob! Anyway, they made me lead on the front stretch and then came off me in turn two. I stayed in the pole and held off the third guy to take 2nd.

What a blast! My legs are definitely toast now. But that's good. As I left last night, I called up a "Thanks" to Rick in the "office" and he gave me a "Hey. Good riding out there." back that made my night of seeming anonimity a little sweeter.

June 2, 2009: Hellyer Tuesday Night Points Race.

2009-06-02T22:32:00.000-07:00

Back to the track again! That's three times in four days if you're counting. Format tonight was 30 laps with a sprint every five laps. Only I couldn't sprint since so many ladies showed up they earned their own race. So I surfed the back of that pack. The 48-15 gear was feeling way too big and my knees were kind of feeling tweeked by the end of the race.

During the B and A races, I hanged out, chatted with my teammate Jonathan and thought about changing my gear. In the end I stayed with it and added arm warmers and - more importantly- knee warmers. During the second race I surfed the back and my knees felt better. On the sprint laps, I let the pack gap me about a quarter lap then tried to sprint up into the back of the pack in 200 meters. That was giving a pretty good workout and sort of simulating the sprint pace. Halfway through the race I dropped back to paceline with three others and that was that.

I then jumped back to the rail to do ten laps with the B race. The pace was faster but I was able to hang on just fine. But it was getting dark and the shadows from the lights were playing havoc with my periferal vision so I dropped out. The main thing to note was that the faster pace put me more into my powerband and my knees didn't feel a thang.

I might go back tomorrow night. We'll see.

Hellyer Track Racing: Get Ready for Summer (May 31, 2009)

2009-05-31T19:32:00.000-07:00

What an awesome day and what a blast racing on the track was today. I don't have anything to show for it since I managed to make a few tactical blunders but I'm very happy with my first day on the track and -more importantly- had a great time racing and hanging out with folks and making new friends. So let the boring gory detail begin!

First Race: Kieren Race one. In a nutshell, you ride behind a motorcycle getting paced for a number of races, the motor pulls off and you go like mad for about 500 meters. The ticket is to be second or third wheel so the poor sap on the front acts like the motorcycle after the motorcycle is gone. In my heat I ended up being that poor sap and when the motor pulled off I just turned it up to eleven and owned the pole lane. One fast youngster smoked me with 200 meters to go and then a little pocket rocket girl easily went around me for the finish (she won the women's cat 4 race at the Wente Criterium).

Kieren Heat Two (repeat heat?): So if you aren't first or second you get a chance to earn your way back into the final heat by getting second or first in this one. Think best of the rest. I was last wheel of seven and started moving up when the motor pulled off. At 200 meters I was on the stayer's line and just jumped as hard as I could. My jump is not really all that strong but I was able to wind it up enough to come around everyone in turns three and four and win the heat and get into the final.

Kieren Final: I'd already tasted my eggs and begal breakfast once today and this was the second time. I could only manage fifth place (of six). But that was okay. I was just happy to get three heats worth of racing under my belt.

Scratch Race: This is just a basic race of fifteen laps and the first guy across the finish wins. No tricks, no counting points in your head, just race and try to sprint at the end. I mainly just surfed around in the pack trying to get comfortable with a pack at race speed. Mostly I found myself at the back -my predestined place in any pack race for some reason. Hesitated when I saw what I should do, started my sprint too late and not sure where I finished. Maybe sixth?

Miss and Out: Simple rules. Last guy across the line on a lap is out. First lap I took the very high outside and just accelerated to the mid pack level. Easy! Second lap, same thing. Third lap, did it again. Hey this is easy, lemme try to do it going low. D'OH! Shouldn't have broken a good recipe for success. I (predictably) got boxed in and that was that.

Snowball: The first person across the line on each lap gets points. The points increase as the race goes along. I sat in for four laps then decided to try and get some points. I sprinted but failed to catch the person on the line. But I did notice that I had closed a three bike length gap up to the sprint so I just dove down the track in turn one and put the pedal to the metal. I came around and scored points on the next lap solo off the front. I looked back and had about a quarter track gap so I kept rolling. I think I managed to score four laps (or was it five?) before getting caught and I was toast. I went as fast as I could for a few laps but then I went up the track and took a couple easy laps. Then I heard someone say, "keep going or you'll lose your points". BIG OOPS. I didn't know it worked like that! So I lost my points a lap and a half later when I got lapped. Crap! That cost me a top five in the omnium for sure. Oh well. This is all about learning right now and I'm a veritable sponge.

FOLLOWUP::: So I ended up tied for 7th (of 10) with my only point coming from the fifth in the Kieren. I thought I had points in the scratch but it was REALLY close at the line so that's okay. I'd rather come away from the day with a bucket of learnin' than points (not really but I'll say that to feel good...). Off to the track again tonight!!!

As it says on my top tube, No Brakes!

2009-05-24T07:08:00.000-07:00

I'm almost done with the beginner sessions to start racing on the track. There I am all tiny taking my lap at the front bundled up at the beginning of the warmup laps yesterday morning before the marine layer burned off and things warmed up.

The track is alot of fun and fear. So far I've felt very relaxed and am very much looking forward to being done with the beginner sessions and on to the racing. Don't get me wrong. I'm learning as much as possible in the beginners but I think it's like college where all that learnin' is just a foundation for the real knowledge that comes from the proverbial rubber hitting the road - or cement, as the case would be at Hellyer.

Yesterday was the first day on my own bike instead of a rental. Last week I spent a wonderful two and a half hours at Shaw's learning from the Oracle, Terry Shaw and being entertained by Jerry Shaw and his endless ablity to crack wise. I came out with a Bianchi Pista that I could have bought for much less online but the extra money was WELL worth it to have Terry fit me up and give me the confidence that I am setup much better than if I had winged it myself.

Oh yeah, photo stolen with no permission from Steve Woo's flickr page. He has a great blog, as well. http://worldwidewoo.blogspot.com/

May 4, Sonora Road Race squish squish squish

2009-05-04T21:39:00.001-07:00

Well I'm just chalking up all kinds of "inaugural" races here lately. This race seems to have been put together in fairly quick order but was very well done. If only the weather had cooperated. The course was HILLY. Let me say that again. It was a course full of hills. Everytime I went up a hill, I went down a hill then went up another hill. It was like 55 miles of unrelenting hill intervals. In the rain. Yay.

There was no masters cat 5 so I raced with the children again (and for the 108th time wondered why did I cat down all the way to a 5 again???). We had four laps to do. Sadly, only 17 of us toed the line. This was a well run race on good roads and probably the hardest course I've ever done in California. When I say the course was just one hill after another, I'm not kidding. Most of the climbs were the stay-in-the-big-ring-grunt-it-out variety. But there were also a couple of slightly longer hills where the small ring was called into action. Not a sprinter's course, not a climbers course, more of a short stocky strong guy kind of a course.

Anyhoo. We rode out into the rain, all 17 of us. After two climbs I did a quick head count and we were down to 12 guys already. A couple of more climbs and I was really starting to worry about my survivability. Between the humid rainy air and my lack of power, I was going asthmatic and seriously draggin on the hills and not necessarily recovering well on the descents. A couple of hills later, I did another head count and we were down to nine of us. Then it was my turn to get dropped. Luckily, getting dropped made me just angry enough to catch back on. We hit the longest descent of the course (hit 45 mph there in the rain!) with a bridge and a 90 degree right hander at the bottom. MAJOR brake fade had me panicking but friction and heat yielded sticktion and gription so I managed to bind things up enough to corner safely - unlike the first guy through the turn who ended up on his lid all tied up in a knot with his bike. After that guy crashed and even more hills came, the pace seemed to relent and I stopped worrying about surviving. Oops. At the end of the first lap, we hit the finishing stairstep climb and the pace went back up again. Poop, out the back I went.

As I watched the "pack" disappear I did an inventory that I've unfortunately had to do in probably hundreds of races (okay, dozens, I haven't spent THAT much time shat out the back in my racing life)...
-will continuing kill me? - no
-is someone who can affect my paygrade telling me to quit? - no
-is my bike unreparable? - no
-am I a little girl? - no

Damn, gotta keep going. So I continued on into the rain going up and down hills at something less than the pace of the first lap but not exactly touring either. Halfway through the second lap, another cat 5 caught me and passed me. For the next FIFTEEN MILES, we did a silly rubberband maneuver. He would slow on the climbs, I would catch up then he would sprint over the top of the hills. I'd then hold the gap on the descent and he would hit the bottom of the next climb fast, slow way down, I'd start to catch up and we'd do it all over again. Everytime I'd catch up to him I'd try to reason with him that we should maybe help each other out. He'd suck my wheel until the next hill summit and then launch himself and build up that infernal 20 second gap again. Cat 5's. What are you going to do?

Finally on the fourth lap I caught up to him and for about 15 minutes, just glued myself to his wheel. Then I gave him a taste of what it feels like to drag someone up a hill and then have them launch away from you (rather than gently coming and taking their pull). That did it. He must have blown up like a can of coke left in your car on an August afternoon. The only problem was that three hours of going up and down hills had finally began to take its toll on me, too. I started to get quad cramps. I sat on the nose of the saddle for awhile and stretched on the downhills and that seemed to help me recover. When I finally reached the finish climb, I was so happy I could have wet myself. Only I didn't need to wet myself since I was already carrying an extra five pounds of water in my chamois.

So that was one hard-ass course. To make matters worse, I rode past the finish line and down another hill and had to do an extra six miles of hills since I lost track of how to get back to the staging area in Jamestown (ouch!). I drove home sitting funny and worrying that I threw my back out but, happily, my back feels great today and my legs aren't too trashed either. Bonus. I can recover. I certainly can't complain about my endurance right now. I just need to get some speed and power going.

Oh. And my balls started hurting about 30 miles in. Damn you vasectomy scar tissue!

Results haven't appeared on the net, yet so nothing to report. I think I was maybe 7th or 8th or 9th?

April 22, Tour De Ames "Kermesse"

2009-05-02T14:40:00.000-07:00

For Earth Day they had a bike race and fun ride at work. Up until the morning of the "race" I was torn on whether or not to go. Getting taken out by a person pretending to race in something may not turn out to be an actual race would be a serious bummer. But at the last moment, I decided, "What the heck, it's free and when will I get another chance to bomb around Moffett Field ignoring all the stop signs?"

I showed up and found a ton of people there already. Some looked serious and some, well, they were set for having fun - good for them. The format was that the "racers" could go first and after the first five mile lap, the fun riders could begin. The race was only two five-mile laps (ten miles?! that's a warmup not a race!). Anyhoo, Pete Worden the Ames center director sent us off with a starting pistol (In years of doing hundreds of races I think that was the first time!) and away we went. It took a few minutes to sort out the slow pokes but there was -luckily- a guy with full on tri-geek setup hammering away at the front losing anyone who wasn't fast enough. After one lap, there were maybe twelve to fifteen folks left, still lined up behind tri-guy. There was only one double chicane corner that demanded any kind of bike handling skills so I attacked before that and went through on my own. I looked back and had a pretty big gap but didn't feel like I could solo away with the 15 mile per hour winds on that day so I sat up.

Going into the finish, two guys attacked and I waited for all the other wheel suckers to sprint. But they all just stayed behind the tri-dude. Eventually I got anxious and just went with a full 400 meters to go. I quickly caught one of the guys off the front and dug deep for my sprint but couldn't catch the other guy. So I took second.

Prize: braggin rites and no one cares!
Lesson Learned: Go for it! He who hesitates, loses. I'd probably rather have some guys come around me at the finish than just barely miss out on the win.
Other Lesson Learned: Don't judge the field by appearance. Despite expensive bikes and a few pretty fit looking guys, I could have easily won that race if I'd been a little more confident and a little less fearful of the appearances of guys who really had nothing when the hammer time came.

Back to familiar rhythms

2009-04-16T12:38:00.000-07:00

Finally back on the bike! Of course now I have a lingering cough/cold/sinus infection to deal with but that's fine. Jasper's on Spring Break so I'm off work today and tomorrow and he and I are going to go stay down in Monterey for a few days. We're both looking forward to it and I think Kris is looking forward to a Saturday to herself. Win win win. And Sunday will be epic bicycle madness. Or a three hour ride on familiar roads at a base-building pace.

Ow My Ballz

2009-04-02T07:43:00.001-07:00

I got a vasectomy last Friday.

After two days, my right nut was hurting like getting kicked in the ballz when I moved. That wasn't right.

By yesterday morning it was hurting bad enough that I called the doctor and went back in to see him.

Without buying me dinner or even offering me a coffee, he made me drop trow and fondled my aching nuts. He dismissed me with a "That's just a small infection" and a cycle of Cipro to clear me up.

I said thanks and left but what I really wanted to do was haul off and kick him right in the crotch. That would have been nice.

Oh well. It's starting to feel better but still hurts. Mostly I'm having cycling withdrawal. I'd much rather have a bike between my legs than a swollen nut.

Madera Followup

2009-03-20T07:03:00.000-07:00

Final results were: Crit, 30th (same time as winner). TT, 26th (27:33). Road Race, 20th. Overall: 20th of 45. Not bad, not good, not horrible, not excellent. Just there. But that's fine. Check out them hairy gams!