Busted Helmet

Rocky Lied - Banana Belt #3

2011-03-27T15:25:00.000-07:00

Everyone thinks if they just tried just a little harder... but it's a mind trick. The body only has what it has, and if it's not enough to keep from being dropped, it's not enough. Rocky lied to us. In the end, if you don't have the ability, you don't have the ability, no matter the state of "heart".

These are words I posted to my team's forum about my last race, Banana Belt #3. I got dropped on the second of six laps; just a dismal showing for me. I have my excuses: I raced yesterday and spent 18 miles off the front, there's the month I took off, the field was small so I couldn't surf up the hills, etc. As I was talking with my teammate who actually did finish the race, he was saying that, after I was popped off, they went hard to the start-finish, then kind of took it easy for the whole rest of the race. Of course they did, right? A 66 mile race will be like that. Hard in the beginning to shake things up, then easy up to the end. And this time I was victim to the shakeup.

If only (if only!) I had hung on up that hill the second lap. If only (if only!) I hadn't given up the chase afterwards and got back on. Except it's all a mirage. The mind plays tricks on us. It is quick to forget suffering, it's quick to forget how extended it is at the time. You can always wring one last drop out, right? You can always reach that last quarter of an inch...

And if you could, then the towel is always wet, and your arm is infinite in length. We have limits. Sometimes the mind sets those limits, but most of the time the mind is the one cheerleading and the body is the one asked to do all the work. Bike racing is about finding your limits, your true limits, and extending them. But extending your limits isn't a matter of will power, it's a matter of training and practicing and racing. So you train, you practice, you race... and you allow yourself the opportunity to fail so you can continue to improve.

I'm Back - Piece of Cake

2011-03-26T18:32:00.000-07:00

Those who know me know my training has sucked as of late. First week of Feb was the last good training week I had before taking a month off for a trip to China. The trip itself was 17 days long, but the week previous was bad for training because of all the prep at work and for the trip. The week after was this foggy hell of jet lag, eating at 1:00 in the morning, going to bed at 3:00 and getting up at 6 for work.

All that and I then go off and try to race. I race Banana Belt #1. I felt good right up until I just... didn't. Then I was dropped, then my legs just didn't work to chase, then I bonked trying to continue on the last lap and had to actually turn my bike around and limp back to the start. Bad, bad race. I don't even consider it a race. I pinned on a number, but then I just sat in and was quietly dropped. It's one thing to justify sitting in the entire race by winning the sprint, or even just competing in the sprint. It's quite another to just sit in and then be gone. The guys up front, the ones actually doing all the work, they didn't even know I was racing that day.

The next week, I get a couple training rides in. Then Friday night comes and I can hardly finish my work day. I had developed a cough about Wednesday but didn't think much of it. Figured I was still getting rid of all the junk in my sinuses from China, which incidentally, has a really bad air pollution problem. I can now see why the Beijing Olympic athletes arrived in the city wearing masks. Not a political statement, just realities of competing in athletics in polluted air. Then with Friday comes the fever. Go home an hour early, go to bed at 7:00, wake up at 11:00 when the wife comes home, get coined by my mother-in-law (best that this mechanical engineer can tell, it works to reduce fever by bring blood up to the surface of the skin to cool), and go back to bed and sleep till noon. No training for the next four days. Another big hit in a series of big hits. Have all these thoughts about how my season is just ruined and I should just race track this year and ignore my road Cat 2 upgrade goal. Didn't help that my first team ride the following Saturday just thrashed me. When was the last time a non-race, 42mile ride resulted in me being thrashed?

Fast forward to today. Piece of Cake. Hard mother fucker of a race, for those in the know. Yea, it's flat, all the hill climbers think it is [should be] easy, but there's wind, and the really strong time trialists are just salivating at the opportunity to pretend to be in Belgium for a day and blow a 50 person field apart in a couple miles of crosswind all by themselves. Plus there is the fabled 3 miles of gravel road goodness the race organizers threw in for this year.

I didn't warm up. I never really warm up past a few minutes on the road to make sure everything works. This was a mistake. The gravel started about 3 miles into the race, and when we hit it, all shit broke loose. No, nobody crashed. Okay, one person I know about (on team Ironclad) might have crashed in the gravel, but he was already dropped due to a flat. In the mad scramble at the gravel, nobody went down. But the guys on the front hit it hard. I found myself in the wrong (upwind) track, continually dodging guys who were gaping out and flatting out. The field was winnowed down to the strong and the well tire-shod. Six guys or more must have flatted out in the first section. Funny thing though, after that, through two more crossings, there were only about two more flats. It really was the guys with worn or fragile or incorrectly inflated tires who were the ones eliminated that first time through.

Unfortunately, this group included my only teammate.

My personal plan for this race was to be in the field at the finish, but invisible. I wanted to be the guy nobody knew was in the race. Wasn't going to break away, wasn't going to sprint. Just follow wheels and sit in. Kinda fit the way I was feeling about how my training was going.

After jumping past several gapped riders, dodging waterbottles, rattling my teeth and tolerating a numb ass, we get to the end of the gravel and I'm still in the lead group. Oh Lordy, does smooth pavement feel like glass after riding the gravel for 10 minutes. The 40 or so person field has been whittled down considerably. After I stop gasping for air, I settle down and commence with my invisibility plan. I get on the downwind side of the field, I sit at the back, and I just chug along for the rest of the lap. People broke away, but these weren't serious attempts. More like those same hill climbers just being bored with bumping along and taking a turn sitting 200m off the front of the pack. All of them checked swings. There's an art to riding in the wind centered around targeted efforts and hiding; woe the person on this particular race who doesn't respect that.

Second lap, I make sure I get up into the top 5 or 7 people going into the gravel. This helps considerably with the gasping for air problem I had previously. Much smoother pace when you don't have to sprint around people constantly. And then I commence with my plan, the only difference being that the heavens opened up and what started out being sunny weather turned real ugly, real fast. Rain, hail, you name it. At one point I was being pelted by hail from all sides: left, right, top, bottom.

Right after the hail, I find myself somehow at the front, following a rider who started one of those half hearted breakaway attempts. This time for the right reason though: it was actually a really good time to go. Nobody was taking leadership of the front and the weather was still gawd-awful. I found myself following the breakaway of about 5 people. But this was another checked swing; the guy who started it was Ironclad's sprinter, and he had better things to conserve his energy for. Then one of those five makes the start of a serious attempt and I follow that. And then he cuts off the effort and I find myself in front of the field, by myself. One other person is up the road; other than that, it's just me now. I think about continuing, I stop pedaling, I look back. The field is just dallying.

Change of plans.

I shift up, get into my rumbling gear, and take the swing. If you read "Dog in a Hat" by Joe Parkin, he talks about breakaway attempts. The amateurs tend to slap at the attempt. Short, sharp, sprint off the front of the field and look back: ultimately short lived. Kind of annoying to the field but totally ineffective. The pros, they swing for the fences. When they go, they put their head down and commit.

Now, I'm not a pro, but I like the idea that when you initiate a breakaway, you commit. The breakaway becomes the strategy. It becomes the end game. There's nothing after that. No thoughts of conserving energy for some sprint. No thoughts of what you are going to do once you rejoin the field. No looking back. You put your head down, you get your bike in a big gear, and you challenge the field to come and catch you.

So much for being invisible. On the other hand, it's the first time I've felt good on my bike since the beginning of February.

I cross the start-finish, go up a hill, cross a little white bridge and hit the gravel at full speed. It is so much easier to ride the gravel if you aren't trying to follow someone else's wheel. Behind me, as I'll find out later, the field is disintegrating.

The guy up ahead of me, the guy I was hoping to join forces with for the last 12 miles; he flats out just as I am about to complete the bridge up to him, right at the end of the gravel. Shit.

I'm in rhythm. Things hurt, but they hurt in kind of a dull, distant sort of way. My breathing is steady, if it starts to become ragged, I shift to a larger gear and let my muscles takes some of the heat and let my heartrate recover without losing speed. I do this for the next half a lap. I gain time when the cross winds pick up, I lose time when some of the strong riders pick up the pace. For the time being it's a stalemate.

And now I can tell I am getting tired. It's not the normal indicators. Not when I'm in rhythm. I know I'm tiring because my eyes have trouble focusing. My legs start periodically twinging on the edge of a cramp. I'm slow to shift gears. I haven't broken form to take a drink since the effort started and now I'm having trouble swallowing.

I have visions of grandeur. I'm actually thinking I can pull this off. I make the turn to the straight headwind section, then another turn that'll take me to the finish in a few short miles. My mind wanders to my impending victory salute.

Behind me, the field has effectively caught me and they're just letting me dangle. Bastards.

Finally, two miles from the finish, they make the catch. I see them coming up behind me and I stop pedaling. I'm done. I fully intend to just slow pedal it back to the finish. 15 guys stream past, and then the stream stops. The field's only 15 strong! A few agonizing pedal strokes and I'm back in the fold.

The sprint was the slowest sprint I've ever taken part of. Turns out everyone was thrashed. We were all on the verge of cramping and all of us were turning way too big of gears way too slowly. Like sprinting through hub deep mud. I throw my bike at the line. 8th or 10th or somewhere thereabouts (turns out it was 13th).

Fun times.

I'm back.

Cornering

2010-12-30T21:42:00.000-08:00

I had a pretty good season last year (or rather, for another day at least, this year). The one thing that put a damper on it all was my performance with cyclocross. I was terrible. Cornering was my a-specialty.

Anyway, so I suck. But one day driving home from work, something hit me; I am looking at curves wrong. I am looking to the inside of the curves instead of the outside. I am imagining that my bike (or car, as it may be) is on a string, and that string is attached to the radius of the corner and pulling me around. Thinking about it, there are many reasons why this is bad practice.

For one, the "center" of the corner is always changing. It is never constant except in the easiest of round corners. The second reason is because the "center" of the corner doesn't actually tell you about the corner itself. You have to take the actual radius, translate that to find the center, then translate that back into the radius. Doesn't sound terribly efficient, now does it?

So, instead of eyeing the corner, translating that into a center, and translate it back to a radius to follow on the bike, why not just actually follow the corner? Specifically, why not just put the outside edge of your vehicle on the line you need to follow and let the vehicle go 'round?

I tried this in the car, and lo and behold, it worked like a charm. The outside tire is the tire that follows the most outside line, so just putting the outside tire on the outside line, the car just went right around the corner. No muss, no fuss. Now to translate this to a bike...

A Bit of a New Direction

2010-12-14T07:25:00.000-08:00

Powermeters, computers, heartrate monitors, oh my!
I think it's time to simplify...

Selling the powertap. What a thought.

I have alternatively thought that it was an invaluable tool and an overrated money sink.

Every racer, when they start racing, starts as a blank slate. Maybe they were a sort of competitive recreational cyclist. Maybe they were a crossover athlete. In any case, it is pretty rare that they know what kind of racer they will be. Racing is a three legged table; you have your time trialists, your sprinters, and your climbers. If you've never raced, then you don't know where you fall on this plane. Just because you weigh 130lbs doesn't mean you are a climber. Just because you enjoy riding hard doesn't mean that you are a time trialist.

A powermeter is a great tool for determining just who you are. It reveals your threshold power, and it reveals your sprint power.

Also, a new racer doesn't know how to pace themselves. If you've never done a 20 minute time trial, you don't know how much it hurts. Is the two hour group ride going to help your training or hurt it?

A powermeter is a great tool for pacing hard efforts. Turn the dial to "11" and use the powermeter to keep it there.

Over the last couple years, the powermeter has been my coach. I use Golden Cheetah to log my power data and I have a beautiful critical power curve telling me the size and dimensions of the sandbox I play in. I used it to determine that, yes, I can hold my own in a sprint. And, no, I really cannot climb on pace with a real climber, and will never be able to. It tells me I can time trial well enough to be a breakaway threat if I so choose. And it got me on racing out on the track, telling me that I can sustain over 500W for a minute and a kilowatt for 25 seconds.

Lately though, it has been a less used tool. I haven't been riding much with it. It's still useful for all those things, but my personality doesn't jive with knowing, to the last decimal place, my exact abilities. I look at data from a ride and instead of feeling what my body is telling me, I see I haven't broken any power records; or that I didn't work hard enough. I look at the numbers in a breakaway, and if the numbers are too high, I stop the effort and give up. I am not one of those people who is motivated by a number.

Reading an autobiography is always more interesting than reading biographies. The author in an autobiography is living the words he writes. The latest book I am reading is Flying Scotsman. Everyone knows the story, but what strikes me is his first, crouching, time trial position on the bike, a big part of the story as it normally is told, is a footnote in the book. He devotes maybe a page to this, and the rest of the book is about how he feels when he is racing and training.

In the section where he is describing his first world championship in the pursuit, he talks about the "groove". He mentally recreates the ride, from start to just before the finish (because the finish only happens in real life). He mentally constructs the feelings going through his legs and body, the pain and suffering, the purposeful ignorance of his body's warning signals.

What he doesn't talk about is numbers. Now then, he wasn't in the era of powermeters; on the other hand, he wouldn't be using one anyway. He didn't even use a HRM. He used a watch and trained on feel. And then he broke the hour record turning a 54/12 gear on a homemade bike.

Last year, I raced exactly one race with the powermeter. In the other races, I didn't even have so much as a cyclocomputer. I didn't even train much with the powertap. I did a few interval sets in the winter, but those were just using gearing I knew on a trainer I knew; I didn't use a powermeter on those either. One of the last races I did, the OBRA crit champs, I was in a breakaway with a dozen or so laps to go. I had no instrumentation on my bike; I stayed away. But how fragile was my mental state during that ride! Had I seen that I was over threshold for that effort, that I was putting out, probably, 350W or so for those 10-15 minutes, I would havepsychedmyself out and gone back to the pack and probably lost the sprint. All it would have taken is the slightest hesitation and lapse in will power, that's how close the pack was on my heals.

I know my sandbox, I know how to pace myself. Time unchain myself from the powermeter.

Stone Soup (or how a little here and a little there wins a BAR)

2010-11-16T23:02:00.000-08:00

So, how's this for weird. I sign into the team forum last night and discover that someone is congratulating me for "winning". Odd, being that I haven't raced in several weeks and haven't come close to a good result since the end of the road/track season back in August. Click on the topic and find out that I apparently won the overall Cat 3 BAR (best all-around rider) for the state of Oregon. I knew I was high up on the list... last I heard I was fourth because of the good results at the track and the podium from the OBRA crit. The three guys above me were all upgraded to Cat 2 and standing still, but they had a pretty good lead on me. Apparently what pushed me over was two 'cross races I raced where the B field had only a dozen give or take people in it. BAR points go to the top 15, so even though I finished second to last and last respectively, I scored some points and got myself onto the cyclocross BAR, pushing me to the top of the list on the overall BAR.

It's kind of fun knowing I won something. At the same time, it is a reminder of how close I was this year to breaking through. I was riding well, but apart from a few races, I wasn't getting results. One key moment this year was when I rode away solo from the field one rainy night at PIR. It was a small field and in the cat 3/4 group, but still, I absolutely demolished them; finished over two minutes up after breaking away in the first lap. Up to that point, I had felt good on the bike, and was riding well, but no results were forthcoming. I had high hopes for the Banana Belts; I couldn't finish off the sprints. I was getting absolutely taken to school by the cat 1/2s in the PIR 1/2/3 field. That was the first and only win in a road race this season.

Some things I did right this year. I got stronger. Much stronger. I can win races on a breakaway now; something that just wasn't part of my arsenal last year. The things I did wrong were numerous. I had a hard time finishing off sprints on the road. On many occasions I couldn't get to where I needed to be to contest the sprint, and when I did get good position, I held my guns until it was so late there was no use shooting them; the race was already over.

I never peaked, just kinda keep getting slowly stronger as the year progressed. Basically I raced my way into shape. Old school, I guess. And hills are still mynemesis. I couldn't lose weight.

And now it's back to the grindstone. Two weeks ago, I started training for the 2011 season. Rollers mostly; a solo or group ride on the weekend. And dieting. It seems to be working. It'll take a while for the pattern to become established, but it seems I am losing about a pound a week. There is hope I can hit my goal weight of 170lbs in time for the season start. I opened the throttle a bit in the PV ride over the weekend; haven't gone completely soft over the last couple months. Felt good.

Here's to the new year!

Cyclocross

2010-10-23T12:57:00.000-07:00

I should expand on the last post, since it was one made out of frustration. I thought I did okay in the last race, Blind Date; it turns out I did pretty badly. I am just not very good at this subset of the sport. I am not aggressive enough on the terrain; I am not fit enough to sustain the effort necessary to finish anywhere close to the front. These are just facts.

Can I do better?

Who knows. And at this point, who cares? I am having fun, of sorts. I am learning to control my bike better. I get a weekly hard workout to remind my body and mind how to go hard. That'll be essential when it comes to intervals in a few short weeks.

I have been racing since February this year. So I am not talented in cyclocross. Should I downgrade *gulp* to the C field? Hell no. I am a cat 3 on the road, I'm not going to race with the noobs just because I might finish closer to the front of the field! Am I going to quite racing 'cross? Well, I'm not going to go out of my way to race like I do for road and track, but I'll race when I get the chance. It's a fun time and it's a fun style of race. I wish I could get out more to the Cross Crusades, but they are on Sundays and, like I said earlier, I am not really going out of my way to race; I nominally work at the restaurant on Sundays and asking for a traded day will be going out of my way.

Ultimately, while cyclocross is fun, it is not a focus of my bike racing. I ride a crappy bike, I ride like a crappy rider, and I have no fitness at this time of year. But fun is fun and not every bike race has to be about winning. That said, my bike is gradually becoming less of an agglomeration of random parts and more like a race quality bike, and my skill with riding on dirt is gradually, slowly, getting better. Who knows, next year I might actually train a little for this time of the season. I mean, I can peak three times a year, right?

Nevermind

2010-10-21T19:51:00.000-07:00

Countersteering helps a lot, but it's no panacea. Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised that my 'cross results are so poor, since I haven't done any real training other than racing since July.

The 5 and Dime

2010-10-19T09:53:00.000-07:00

Laying down loads of Rule 5 in the wholesale commitment to Rule 10.

-Keepers of the Cog

Counter-Steering

2010-10-18T19:11:00.000-07:00

After practicing on some trails today, I am now convinced that this, or rather the lack of this, is 9/10ths of the reason why I suck at cross.

Road racers don't really pay much attention to it, except in crits when you are trying to corner at 30mph. On a cross bike, it's much more important because everything is so floppy. The tires are floppy, the terrain is floppy, and so you really need to flop the wheel over in a turn. I can't believe I haven't thought about this before! I went through this whole cournter-steering thing before when practicing crit cornering earlier this year.

Why is it so important? When you turn, your center of gravity needs to be to the inside of your wheels. Now, if you are to turn at all, you have to counter-steer at least a little; it's the only way you can possibly stay balanced in a turn. However, if you set into a turn without an explicit counter-steer, you end up very upright and are essentially balancing your bike by moving your body around. SLOW. Any bump or rut and you have to physically shift positions on your bike to stay balanced. Not terribly stable.

Contrast this to setting into a turn witha good counter-steer. Your weight while your body is neutral on the bike is already inside the tires. To counteract any bump or slide, all you do is steer, which your reactions do automatically.

That's my theory anyway. We'll see how it works come Blind Date on Wednesday. It's very possible that I really do just simply suck at this.

As the World Turns

2010-10-15T23:18:00.000-07:00

So, I haven't written here for a while. Long story short, I've been racing a lot. The track has been good to me (found that I have a bit of talent for sprinting) and the road hasn't been that bad either. Finished the season with a good start toward a Cat 2 upgrade on the track, and even a few points toward a Cat 2 upgrade on the road.

Big accomplishments...

Had a really good OBRA Track Champs race. Upgraded from Cat 4 to Cat 3 right at the start of the weekend, and ended up with three gold medals in the kilo, pursuit, and match sprint and a silver in the points race. All in small fields though, which tempers the glory. But hey, my times in the kilo and pursuit weren't terrible, and my match sprint performance was not bad either.

Got a silver medal on a breakaway at the OBRA Crit Champs. That was fun. Spent over 10 laps off the front; at 5 to go, had a guy bridge up to me and we ended up finishing just ahead of the pack. The other guy got first, I got second.

Final decent result was a second place finish at the kilo in the OBRA Masters Track Champs. I raced the match sprints as well, but I really mis-timed my eating (didn't have anything to eat but a bowl of cereal between 8:00am and 3:00 when the race was over) and didn't win a single match. I could've done better for sure. On the other hand, there are a lot of very fast guys in the 30-39 age group I was racing against. Fast and savvy... I might be somewhat fast, but I have a lot yet to learn about match sprinting.
_______________

With that, the 2010 season comes to a close, except for cyclocross, which I suck at. Base training for 2011 is right around the corner, and I am in the process of deciding whether to obtain some coaching. I want to make a serious run at Cat 2 on the road. A coach will be useful in this. On the other hand, Cat 2 isn't a destination, it's a threshold. The aesthetic side of me wants to cross the threshold on "natural" talent (a better term might be "uninvested" talent); the thinking goes if I can do this, I stand a chance of being competitive on the other side of the threshold with the benefit of coaching.

I also have to decide what I need a coach to do for me. A "generic" coach I have less use for. I can pull workouts out of a hat more or less the same as any other person. A "real" coach would be working with me across multiple seasons and get to know my abilities almost better than I know myself. That might be too much to ask though, either for a coach I hire or for myself and my own commitments to what is still an amateur sport, regardless of category.

Anyway, it's enough to make my head spin a bit. Having a little talent is somehow vexing. It seems the path is pretty clear if you are dominant. Likewise if you suck. Having a few little successes as I've had this year makes me want to see where the rabbit hole leads, but it also makes me question how much time and energy to place into the endeavor. But this is the time of the year (with the non-existent training and the play-in-the-mud 'cross fun) to be philosophical. Wax poetic and philosophical now, put the head down on the trainer in a few weeks.

Eureka!

2010-05-19T00:18:00.000-07:00

The Busted Helmet crash two years ago. The Pinky Finger crash last year. The Puff of Dust crash this year... PIR has been more than a little unkind to me. I've never been fully comfortable at that venue. It is different than a road race. It is so wide, the pack is unconfined, able to wind and weave around the 60 foot wide track. At a road race, nobody is really moving around too fast because the road is so narrow. It's easy to just hold a position relative to another person and keep people from penetrating your comfort zone. But at PIR, everybody is pretty much free to ride anywhere they want. They come over the top of you, sweep around you in corners, cut close through a gap near your handlebars. Especially in the fields with Cat 1/2 riders. Nobody seems to respect your space, yet everyone but me seems to be comfortable. Obviously I am doing something wrong.

Today, in the 1/2/3 field at PIR, it all clicked. I mean, it CLICKED. I was perfectly comfortable. I was at the front of the field, at the back, in the middle. Last week, in the same field, I was a wreck. Totally sketched. A head case. I surfed the back basically the whole race. This week, none of that. What changed?

First thing was, I started worrying about what the pack was doing 10-15 rows ahead rather than being paranoid about what individuals were doing right around me. Contact is normal in racing. Not something to strive for, but it happens, and it's not a big deal really. My problem was I was anticipating potential contact, rather than letting it happen. Looking around at the riders around me, I would hear and see out of the corner of my eye that someone was coming up around me and I would shy away. This is what caused the pinky crash into the wall. Or I would be riding between two people in a gap and one would move towards me and I would shy away from the movement. This is what caused the puff of dust crash. I shied away right into the other guy, got tangled up and slid down on my ass. Maybe it's a subconscious response to my busted helmet crash (of which I remember nothing) but it is perfectly unhelpful and sometimes downright dangerous.

Today I flowed. I sat up on the hoods, looked up ahead and I flowed. I got up to the front with no problem; even sprinted unsuccessfully for a prime (turns out, trying to come around a pro leadout train is hard) and spent some time off the front. I held position around corners and only got yelled at once for a totally unsatisfactory reason. Things are coming together.

On Form

2010-05-17T17:45:00.000-07:00

Form. This is what racing cyclists chase. It is a concept unique to competition. A recreational cyclist never talks about his "form". He talks about how "in shape" he is, or how he "feels" during a ride; the concept of "form" doesn't exist for someone who doesn't race. "Form" is so much more than a measurement of pure fitness. It encompasses the whole range of competitive skills, including fitness, but more important than that, it refers to the athlete's competitive fire, the certainty that he will be competitive in a race, the urgency he feels to compete.

A bike racer who is not on good form fears the race. He goes into it begrudgingly, as if someone is forcing him. He goes through the motions and rides at the back, fearing the inevitable moment he is dropped. Inevitable because he knows that at some point, he will drop, so he will. He is apathetic. Everyone around him has better fitness. Everyone has been training more hours. Everyone is more talented.

When a bike racer is on good form, nothing can stop him. He takes chances. He goes off the front, not just because it is his style of racing and he's just plugging his calling card, but because he believes he can win with the attack. He enters the sprint looking for gaps to move up, rather than trying to keep out of people's way. Up a steep pitch, if he can't keep pace, he doesn't stop pedaling, but starts calculating, knowing his body intimately, measuring his efforts to recover before the back of the field passes so he is not dropped.

But most importantly, form suggests strength. Raw power, combined with the winning mindset. Where instead of dragging yourself to a training ride, you have to force yourself to rest. You are not panicking that others are training more than you. You are enjoying your rise in strength and have to use your rational mind to check yourself from overexertion.

The last couple weeks at Alpenrose. The Tuesday before on the solo breakaway. The weekend time trial before that. I was getting good results but I didn't really feel good. I didn't feel like I was training appropriately. I wasn't feeling like I was on good form. Yesterday, at the hilly Silverton Road Race, the one race that has consistently kicked my ass, the race I've raced twice and never finished with the pack and last year didn't even finish... I not only finished but I placed in the top 15. Now, normally I don't get too excited at anything out of the top 10, but this race is a different beast from the races I normally contest. The accelerations that would normally kick me off the back; the hills that would gradually grind my legs to cramping, quivering sticks of meat - didn't. Not that day. I sprinted uphill at the finish. The 50-some-odd miles seemed short. If somebody handed me another waterbottle, I could've raced another lap.

On form. I can magically climb. I can magically time trial. And I can still sprint. Time to see what's down the rabbit hole.

Nobody Else in the Photo

2010-05-06T07:48:00.000-07:00

Tuesday PIR was a wet affair with spring thunderstorms lashing the Portland area. It was sunny down in Wilsonville, where I work, but looking up the freeway up north, it was like PIR had it's very own dark cloud over it, kind of like those cartoon scenes where the single character is followed around by his own rain cloud. Still, I wasn't worried because the weather report suggested that the rain was just passing through and it would be out of the area by the time the race started.

Weather.com, you suck.

At PIR, I found Jason and a couple other hearty PV riders willing to brave the rain. Originally Jason and I were planning to do the 1/2/3 race, however, seeing as we had teammates in the 3/4 race and it was raining and cold, we figured it was worth getting off the road 20 minutes earlier and switched our registration to the 3/4 race. I figured I would just attack a few times to keep the pace high and the race interesting; try to win a different way and have some fun without all the stress of absorbing Cat 1/2 hammer blows in the 1/2/3s.

The 3/4 field was tiny. About 20 riders. We go off and almost immediately, I attack around the first corner. I don't expect this attack to succeed. I am not known as an attacking rider and even in the 4's I wasn't the type that goes off the front with any success. My previous big race attack had me going off the front and dangling out there for an hour before getting caught and blown off the back for about an equal amount of time.

So I attack and I can see a chase developing behind. I concentrate on pushing the pedals, holding a pace I can sustain. If I'm caught, I'll just attack again. That's the plan.

I look back around the last corner before the finishing straight and I still have a pretty good gap. The guys in the field are all strung out.

Another lap and the gap hasn't changed. I can see two or three guys gapping the rest of the field.

Another lap and the gap is the same. I dig in and concentrate on looking forward. I'm paranoid that at any moment the pack will engulf me.

Another lap; it appears the chase has been temporarily put on hold. The gap is getting larger.

Another lap and the gap is definitely growing. Good sign. I'm surprised at myself. This is new territory for me.

Another lap and the elastic has officially snapped. The gap explodes. Holy shit I might hold this! Immediately followed up by the thought: Holy shit I still have almost 20 miles to race!

Lap after lap, I collect primes like punching tickets. I use two gears: 53/13 and the 53/14. I can see the bottom of my cleats in the reflection from the water on the road. The gap grows to the point where I can no longer see the pack when rounding the final corner. I figure they've been neutralized by the 1/2/3s by this point.

The laps count down and I keep my pace. 22-23mph in the back stretch. 26-27 in the S-curves and 24-25 in the finish straight. Those are my numbers, lap after lap. My feet are numb and I'm paranoid about crashing in a slick corner.

Finally the bell lap. I debate a finishing salute vs. doing all this work only to get disqualified. Rounding the final corner, then 200m, and I finally sit up. No salute; too cold, too wet. 27 miles, solo, for the win, with nobody else in the photo.

One Good Weekend

2010-05-03T18:17:00.000-07:00

Sometimes one good weekend is all it takes to get things moving again. Such was last weekend. About the time of the last post (April Slump), I was down in a funk. Since then, I had a fun time (but unremarkable on-bike performance) with the Ronde of West Portland - one of those uniquely Portland rides where silly people go ride up all of the insanely steep hills they can shove into 45 miles, and the Cherry Blossom Stage Race came and went the following weekend; also an unremarkable performance.

After Cherry Blossom, I took a full week off. My motivation was at an all time low, and it was constantly threatening to rain and blah blah blah <insert excuse here>.

About half way through my nadir, I told myself that I would ride my sixty mile Hagg Lake loop on Saturday and then race the Estacada TT the next day. About Friday I started questioning whether it was wise to ride sixty miles the day before a race, but I said "f- it" and told my rational mind to shut the hell up.

Saturday comes, and after getting off work at the restaurant, I head back home and gear up for the ride. I've done the loop four or five times before, it is becoming one of my regular routes and is almost exactly 60 miles on the nose. I decide that I won't push myself; I'll just get out there, get some miles, and get the mojo back running again and gear up for the summer push of the road racing season. From past experience, it takes me about four hours at an endurance pace. I take off at 3:30 and figure that 45 minutes before sundown is sufficient margin.

Milestone #1 reached: I got on my bike instead of finding an excuse to get out of it. 100 pedal strokes out the door and I am coasting for five minutes to get down into the valley. One nice thing about living on top of a hill: after the initial 100 pedal strokes, no point in turning around and cutting the ride short.

I start the ride at a good clip. I set a power target of about 250W just to keep things moving. I'm experimenting with a new handlebar position. I've moved the bars out and down to get myself more stretched out. Turns out that I like it. Should've done this a long time ago.

I get out to Hagg Lake and I'm starting to feel good. I absolutely fly around Hagg Lake. A later look at my powertap data shows I spent a full hour at 300W, which in the middle of a long ride, means I've got some good form. At this point, all by my lonesome, I've averaged 22mph. I'm just having one of Those Days. If you've read Bob Roll's book (Bobke II); if I were as crazy as him, this would be the day I would've gotten myself lost in a snowstorm in the mountains. Mr. Roll described it as when you push and push on the pedals and your body just keeps giving and giving without a complaint. Perfect description.

I finish the ride in 3 hours and change, which considering that I have an 8 mile climb to finish the ride, is a pretty fast 60 miles. On the way back I had some tailwind help, but still. A Good Day. Just what I needed.

_______________________

Going into the TT the next day, I was a bit sore, but told myself that it should go away later in the morning. It did. I was sore when I woke up, but by the time I got to the race venue, all the stiffness was gone.

I rode in with Ron, so all the talk was about time trial warmups and racing strategies. The best advice being "go hard when it's hard"; of course, because you end up spending more time in the slower (thus harder) sections of the race and you minimize time by powering through these sections and recovering on the faster sections.

I hop on my bike to warm up about an hour before the race. 45 minutes of wiping sweat off my computer later, I'm at the start line. This will be the first time the bike's been out in anger and I have no idea how my body will handle the aero position I have set up. The warmup wasn't promising, but then again, warmups never are.

The countdown ends and I pull out of the holder's grasp and I'm off. I get tucked, and wow, I feel good. Soon enough I am flying downhill at 30 almost 40 mph. Flying. The bike's comfy, or as comfy as one can be at 350W and on the very tip of the saddle.

Interesting sidebar: the TT helmet I was borrowing from a teammate had a useful "feature". Probably wasn't planned in the design, but every time I looked to the side or down, it'd whistle. I kid you not. You think about the damnedest things when you are flying down the road all by yourself at 30mph. Good reminder to keep my head up and straight though.

I pass my minute man after five minutes. My power numbers are good and I am flying. I've never felt this good on a bike before.

After 20 minutes, I'm thinking that a 20 mile TT is a long time to be on the tip of a saddle. I pass a couple more people. I'm thinking the turnaround point must be around here somewhere.

I see an orange "bike race ahead" sign. Ah. That must be it.

After a turnaround that would make a monkey look smart, I'm off on the second leg. I'm still flying, and nobody's passing me, so that must be good.

I pass the pockmarked section of road a teammate warned me about. I experience the pleasant sensation of having both my wheels jump sideways half a foot. In opposite directions. In the aerobars. Curiously, it turns out the bike is actually pretty stable. Not bad for a $300 Performance Bike/Scattante/Made-In-China-Generic frame.

40 minutes in and my mouth is gaping like a fish out of water. Mucus runs indiscriminately down my face as I don't even turn my head anymore. Through my sweat stained glasses I can only barely make out the first two numbers on the powertap readout. It's all I can do to make the first number read "3" instead of "2". I'm falling apart.

An orange "bike race ahead" sign. Hallelujah.

The 200m sign, conveniently placed 400m from the finish. Almost there.

Pound up to the top of the hill; hit the top; back in the aerobars; click click click the gears.

Look confusedly at a row of orange cones near the finish line tent.

Decide I should probably pass between the cones and the tent even though it looks much too narrow and maybe I'll crash into someone but if I don't maybe I won't get scored and I can't see much of anything through these damned glasses so I'll push the pedals and pass by the orange cones and...

Finished.

It was a good day. A good weekend. I feel the season's back on track.

April Slump

2010-04-13T22:36:00.000-07:00

It's happened enough that it's time to give it a name. The April Slump. The last three seasons now, my fitness and motivation have fallen off a cliff in April. It's a combination of things really. A long off-season spent doing hours upon hours on the trainer or rollers in the garage. A fairly race-heavy March with the Banana Belt series and the rest of the early spring classics; big events taking up nearly every weekend from the middle of February to the end of March. And finally weather that is as fickle as a bride on her wedding day.

I've come to terms with it. Think of it this way: I've been training since November. By April, that's five months of almost pure training under my belt, most of it indoors or slogging through the rain. So by April, month six of training, my body is saying "fuck it" and my training hours fall to essentially zero. I think the only way around this slump is to start training in February; the downside being that my form will suck in the spring classics, and those are really fun races I love and have loved doing since I started racing.

To get through it, I have to remind myself the facts of the matter. Summer, when the racing fun is in full swing and I can race practically every single day of the week if I so desire, is still months away. I have time to take a little break and recover my form. Truly, as the Training Bible (and just about every other training source) says, fitness is always changing. It's either going up or going down; keeping a high level of fitness for a significant amount of time is impossible. It takes too much energy and puts too much stress on your body. Eventually you need to recover.

So, recovery it is. I figure that I'll lay off a little; ride when I feel like it and kick the trainer and rollers back into a dark corner of the garage and make them not appear again until next November; and in a couple weeks, after the Cherry Blossom Stage Race, really get back in the swing of things. The timing will be right about right. Don't fight the slump. Understand it. Let it happen. Let my body tell me when it's ready to get lean and mean against for summer.

PS: Definitely a trend. Check out the post I made right about this time last year: April Doldrums. Forgot about that.

Spring Classics

2010-03-30T18:46:00.000-07:00

March is the season of the spring classics here in Oregon, primarily populated by one, three week race series called the Banana Belts. Don't ask; I have no idea why the name. There are bananas on the registration table when you sign in, but the course does not resemble anything like a banana. Racing is every Sunday for three consecutive weeks.

The Cat 3 field does races of 44, 55, and 66 miles respectively. The first and third feature a sprint finish, while the second is run the opposite direction and features an uphill finish.

Race 1: I had high hopes for myself. I was feeling good in the first two races of the season, and this one would resolve in a sprint finish after a fairly short race. Hopes dashed - a third place prime, and nada on the finish. It was a fun race, but man are there a lot of good sprinters in the field. I finished nipping at the heels of them all, beating not a one.

Race 2: Didn't know what to expect in this one. I've raced the Banana Belt series for the past two years, but this was the first time the road was in good enough shape to run the opposite direction. Found out the hard way I still suck at uphill sprint finishes. And that the course running five laps in the counter-clockwise direction is a lot harder than four laps in the clockwise direction.

Race 3: Sat in the field while Mitch the Man went out and crushed all from a breakaway starting at mile 2 to win the race. Good times; hard race because of the climbs and the distance. Lined up for the sprint. Suck again. No legs for the sprint. No finishing speed. No kick. Nothing.

A weekend off of racing and then it's the infamous Piece of Cake road race. This race would be a parade if there were no wind; basically completely flat. But there was wind, and rain. Belgium classic-like conditions: crosswinds complete with spitting, windblown rain, gray skies, and farm fields. In the first lap, I tried to get off the front a couple times. I had a hunch that the win would come from the breakaway given the crosswind conditions. The whole race was one of suffering, looking for wheels to follow and for shelter. A group eventually got off with a member of a big team and they just shut the thing down. The pack was crawling; no team willing to bring people up to the front to bring back the break. A few others got off the front, making a total of 10 people, fragmented in several chase groups.

Finally the sprint comes for 11th and I have nothing. Again. This lack of form at the end of the race is getting just a bit irksome. Just a little. I even had a good leadout this time... couldn't capitalize. I should've picked a strategy and stayed with it. By expending energy early hunting for breaks, I doomed my sprint finish. Now I know what all fuss is about swinging for the fences. These short, punchy fliers do nothing but wear down the legs. I'm not off the front and too fried for a fast finish. Either stay with the pack and sprint, leave it to chance whether I am sprinting for 1st or 15th, or try, try again for a breakaway.
_________________________________

I'm being owned at the finish because I am expending too much energy during the race. Maybe it's as simple as that. Maybe I'm not as good a sprinter as I think I should be. Maybe I just generally suck at racing. I don't know anymore. All I know is that Cat 3 is for real. For the first time, all these tactics, strategies, everything that everyone tells you about racing; it all starts in Cat 3. In Cat 4 and below, you can get away with surfing through races. The guys with natural abilities come out on top more often than not. In Cat 3, you start specializing. You don't see the sprinters out in breakaways anymore. You don't see the climbers in the bunch sprint. Whereas it might be you and three other guys contesting the sprint at the end of a road race in the 4's, in the 3's, there's 15 guys just like you who are fighting for position right up till the end. You don't see them during the race at all. They are like ghosts drifting around and through the pack. But the 1k sign appears and all of the sudden the front is swarming with them. The last five minutes of the race are a constant battle for position. Squeezing into gaps just wider than your bars to get to the front of the field (but not too far to the front!). You get within sight of the finish and it's a game of chicken to see who jumps first. Fourth wheel turns into 15th in the span of about two seconds when you're the chicken.

I feel like these March races have been my first real exposure to road racing. Everyone is good. Some are really good. Mistakes in strategy or execution are punished. Teamwork is alive and real; if you don't have it, you are at a distinct disadvantage to those teams that are organized. Cat 2 is a dream that, for this year at least, is slipping away. I have too much to learn still about racing.

Sublime...

2010-02-21T15:54:00.000-08:00

I entered Sublime Sublimity Road Race for one reason only. To see where my fitness sat relative to the field. It's a race that requires no strategy except to conserve energy as much as possible and keep near the front to cover breaks. For me, there wasn't even that. I just wanted to shake the legs out before the Banana Belts and test the fitness against real competition.

Given this, my race turned out good. First, I found on the first lap that it didn't require that much of me to keep position in the pack on the climbs. Yea, it was hard, but I wasn't redlined or anything. Just on the first hill; no warmup and some hard tempo on the climb made for a rude awakening, but other than that, everything was good.

I ended up off the front once with two others at one point. I got caught. Stayed back with the pack until half way through the third (and last) lap. Then dropped up a steep climb out of a gully. A bit more attention on my part to pack positioning going into the gully hill might have seen me pack slide my way up the hill and keep contact. As it was, I was a bit too far back in the field and I wasn't able to chase back on the following downhill.

So, the verdict? I feel good about how my form is coming along. I didn't like how I got dropped; I would have felt better if I hadn't, but a sprinter getting dropped on this course is not totally unexpected, even if I am a little disappointed at allowing it to happen. Makes for good motivation to keep hammering those interval sets and getting in those hours on the saddle.

Next up: Banana Belt. This course has treated me nice in the past... but the Cat3's are a new field. Should be fun.

Training Update

2010-02-18T17:57:00.000-08:00

A couple minutes to type out a training update for a little motivation before getting it up to sit on my trainer for 40 very painful minutes...

Basically, up till about a week ago, I've been doing only base. This cumulated in a 45 minute private time trial test to see where my fitness was. For that 45 minutes, I averaged 330W, which is better than last year. Pat on the back.

Last weekend was the first race of the season. You can read all about that in the previous post.

Now, it's back on the saddle to do interval training to try to increase my threshold power. The last couple years, I've been doing 2x20min intervals, with 5 minutes in-between. Compared to last year, I am starting my interval training waaayyy late. I was doing this stuff in November last year. This year it's February and I still haven't strung together any significant interval sessions. Another difference is I am trying a new workout. 8x5min with 1 minute between each interval. It's the same 40 minutes of pain, but with the rest periods evenly distributed throughout. It's supposed to be better for race power development than the 2x20min sets. Or something.

Anyway, makes sense to me. Only in the breakaway or a long climb are you doing 40 minutes constant, and even then, the pattern is more akin to the 5min on/1min off pattern than it is to a time trial. I'm not focusing on time trials this year, so it makes sense to be focusing on intervals that more readily duplicate race conditions.

Plan is to do this until two weeks before the Cherry Blossom Stage Race in late April. That gives me 7 weeks to get my shit together and bang my way into race shape. No 7 mile infinite hill at Cherry Blossom this year... maybe I'll have a shot at the overall (really?).

Pie!

2010-02-14T15:27:00.000-08:00

First race of the season! Cherry Pie in the beautiful gray skies and wet roads of Corvallis.

PV brought out five riders to play. The field started off about five minutes early, meaning we didn't have Team Ironclad to deal with. The rollout: stop and go as per usual. It makes me wonder when the lead cars at Cherry Pie will figure out that they need to go a bit faster down the hill and a bit slower up hill during the neutral stretch, rather than the other way around.

The race started red hot as everyone uncorked their legs from the long slog of winter training. This lasted for several fast miles before people settled down. I can't lie, it felt good to let out the leash in anger for the first time of the year.

After that, the pace settled down, a smallish group of six got off the front and I concentrated on staying up in the top 30. Nobody was in the mood to catch the little group, so things kind of bumped along for a good half hour, with lots of slowing and speeding up, brake grabbing, and a bit of bumping as people tried to move around in the bunched up peloton.

We get to the finish hill for the first of two times and it's time to test my legs against the competition for the first time of the season. Surprisingly... the legs are good! Last year on this hill, I was pack surfing like mad; going from the very front to the very back and not making it back up to the front until the very end of the second lap. Not the best thing to do in a race (apparently, all us pack surfers going backwards get in the way of the guys with actual fitness), but us sprinters, man, we've gotta hold onto the pack using whatever means necessary. This year? I was surfing up the pack(!) and went over the hill at the tail of the front group. Only a true sprinter can know just how pleased I am by this change of fitness.

The second half of the race featured a successful effort to bring back the breakaway, who I found out from Mitch, contained a guy who was some East Coast State TT champion. I was able to organize a good chase effort and we caught the guy fairly quickly. From then on, it was covering attacks and trying to keep Mitch in position to attack the finish hill with the front group. The East Coast guy attacked several times. The second or third to last time this guy attacked, Mitch was ready and right on his wheel when the guy took off. It was about five or eight miles from the finish and it was a good move too, if it were anyone but Mitch who went with it. Nobody in the field knows the East Coast guy (Mitch knew of him from the internet; Mr. East Coast is a regular contributor on the site "BikeForums.net"), but everyone knows Mitch... The collective opinion of the field was if Mitch was marking this guy, then everyone else should too, and so the move was brought back in a real hurry. But besides that, Mr. East Coast was the feature of several breakaway attempts, so it was obvious he was a strong TT type fellow who would be dangerous in the closing miles.

Mr. East Coast went a couple more times; the last time at about 3 miles out. He made a strong move that nobody followed. At that point, I was on the front with Mitch on my wheel. For the next near eternity, it was me on the front with Mitch flogging me for more speed at 24.9 mph into a headwind (I remember the "24.9" number very distinctly...), while Mr. East Coast slooooowly increased the gap, foot by foot, minute by minute. I finally fell off the front a few minutes before the base of the finish hill and limped home.

In epilogue, Mr. East Coast was finally caught with 200m to go (which means my efforts were not for naught), right before a freak crash-that-can-only-happen-on-the-first-race-of-the-season brought down 10 or 15 people and kept Mitch from a good finish. As for me, it was a good race: a good test of my fitness and a good indicator that this year should be a pretty good year for me.

First Day of the New Year

2010-01-01T20:51:00.000-08:00

First day of the year and I had to get outside for a ride. I was originally going to go to the traditional Portland Velo First Day of the Year ride. I was even going to go rain be damned, and I was going to ride from home to boot to get in some hours. The only problem was it was going to be raining hard, and the club was meeting at 9:00 in the f'king morning, and to ride over there I would have to get started almost at daybreak.

My alarm goes off at 5:30 and I say f'k it and decide to go to a different ride starting somewhere in Portland proper at 10:00.

My alarm goes off at 6:30 and I again say f'k it after hearing the rain lashing the windows. I concede. I'll ride the rollers.

About 12:15 I look outside and see it's stopped raining. F' the rollers, I'm going outside.

Four hours and 60 miles later... awesome ride. My feet are numb, but 100 times better than yet another indoor ride to nowhere. It stayed dry for all of 30 minutes and then rained for every minute thereafter. It was wet, cold, windy... a slog at times. Worth it.

Athlete Types - Joe Friel

2009-12-12T14:09:00.000-08:00

http://www.trainingbible.com/joesblog/2008/08/athlete-types.html

Mr. Friel, in the article above, outlines three different athlete types: artist-athletes, scientist-athletes, and accountant-athletes. It's an interesting article because I can see people who trend these various directions on the team.

I'd like to see myself as an artist, but I rarely am what I think I am. I place value on certain ways of thinking or doing, but don't always act the same way. The first time I was aware of this was when I was on a trip to Hong Kong to visit relatives, back when I was a kid. One of my uncles bought my brother and I table tennis paddles. Real ones, not the "walmart" paddles you mostly find here; blade and pads sold separately. He bought two pads, an "attacking" pad and a "defending" pad, one for my brother and one for me. I thought of myself as a defensive player - I placed value on defensive play, and wanted the "defending" pad. My little brother countered saying I should have the "attacking" pad - in reality, I played an attacking style.

On the bike, I value being an artist: training and racing on instinct. On the other hand, I question if I really have the talent to pull it off.

December Training Plan

2009-12-12T12:03:00.000-08:00

After a lot of thinking, here's the idea. If there is one theme for December for me, it is base. I want a BIG BASE this year. Not the little wimpy one I've been working with for the last couple years.

For the four full weeks of December, with one week nearly over, here's the idea:

Week 1: endurance rides. Two hour roller sessions at high zone 2 intensity. So far I've completed the two hour roller sessions on each Tuesday and Thursday, and there is no obstacles to the roller sessions today and tomorrow. This is be a total of 8 hours at high zone 2 this week.

Week 2: endurance and threshold rides. Tuesday and Thursday will be 2x20min sessions on the trainer. Sat and Sun will be endurance. Hopefully outdoors for 3-4 hours on Sat.

Week 3: same as week 1, but with the addition of a Wednesday endurance roller session.

Week 4: same as week 2, but with a Wednesday, 1 hr "sweet spot" roller session.

My biggest obstacle in all this is schedule. Weeks 1 and 3 are my most free, because my wife works late on those days. Weeks 2 and 4 are difficult because I need to dodge her schedule or sacrifice time with her (which are why the 1 hour threshold sessions are on weeks 2 and 4). This has been a constant battle between my home schedule and my training schedule, as it is with many people. This year though, I am resolved to just make better use of my time in general and communicate with my wife better about her schedule and work around it. I am fortunate that my work hours are relatively flexible. Between the flexibility in my work schedule and my resolve to make better use of my time, I should be set for 8-12 hours a week throughout the year.

With December being devoted to base, January will probably be more of the same, but with some more bias towards threshold intensity level efforts. In the last couple years, I have been trying to mix in different training intensities into different weeks. I have not really been that consistent, more like "well, I should get an interval set in today, so let's climb some hills..." That sort of thing. Better awareness, coming from the last couple years, of what is required in my training and what I can do with the time I have is essential to my training this year.

This year, I am making a theme for the week and running with it. For instance, I want every other week this year to be a threshold week. Something like two hours of threshold ever week. In the winter months, this will be a 2x20min trainer workout. In the summer, it will be one hour at threshold workout done on the time trial bike.

The week in between weeks of threshold work will be season specific. December and January, these will be endurance weeks. February and March will probably be VO2max (1-4 minute intervals with short-ish rest). Between all these intensity specific rides, there will obviously be a fair number of tempo rides/races, and I want to keep one endurance ride going every week through the year.

"A" races this year are the Cherry Blossom Stage Race in April and the Cascade Classic in June. These are more like markers for my training progression rather than actual racing goals. I want to have good form in late-March/early-April (Cherry Blossom + Spring Classics) and again in July/early-August (Cascade + Track/Crits). So the "A" races are not really targeted races per se (I am not even sure I can ever be competitive in a stage race), but more like anchors to fix my training progression in time.

All of this is just a rough outline of what I would like to see happen. Day to day training will still be done pretty much on the fly, within a general week-specific goal that fits within a monthly progression. This is because I need the maximum flexibility in my schedule. I need structure in the big picture, but flexibility at the day-to-day level. Time will tell if I can pull it off.

Like making a move in a chess game, sometimes you just have to admit that you can't perfectly predict the future. You just choose the move that puts you in the best position after the next couple moves are played; then pick up the piece and play it. Right now, the best I can do is say I want hours on the bike at endurance pace if nothing else. Build a big base while working on my power at threshold - that's how the next month is sketched out, and that's enough for the moment.

After all the talk is over...

2009-12-03T17:18:00.000-08:00

...there are still only three things I need to do to have a successful 2010 season.

Race. Every chance I get.
Ride more. Find the time to train. Ride in the dark, in the rain. Train in the garage at midnight if need be.
Lose weight. Don't we all.

All else will follow: the power numbers, results, all of it. All this training stuff is kind of confusing when you start thinking about it too much. The last two posts I've published were all about numbers and I kind of got caught up into it. Seems to be a side effect of reading too much into all the training theories about training "with power".

What a bunch of bullshit. When it comes down to brass tacks, it's still all about time on the bike. Yea, yea, you don't want to "waste" your training time by doing the "wrong" thing. But make it too complicated and you end up not riding at all. Instead, you spend all your time talking about numbers and chasing numbers instead of riding and listening to your body. After thinking about it for the last few days, I am of the opinion that all these theories of power meter training are better left to professional coaches. Leave the rider to riding and not bother with the numbers at all. Except for motivation by way of measuring pissing distance of course.

In previous seasons, the two most valuable things I did were to: 1) spend a lot of time on my bike, and 2) 2x20min intervals. My weak points still haven't changed. My FTP is still my limiter. I still need to lose weight (though I am better off by a good eight pounds over last year). Sounds like I need to do more of the same as I did last year. It's not like I hit a plateau or anything yet.

Furthermore, I have to be patient. It's the first week of December and I'm already starting to freak out about my training plans. I almost spoiled a perfectly good (and rare) lunch with my girl because I was obsessing about a ride at lunchtime because I couldn't pull off my training session last night. In reality, it's simple. Ride a bunch. Do 2x20's as much as I can stand. When race season starts, race. That's it.

More on Training Stress

2009-11-29T15:59:00.000-08:00

A few more words on tracking training stress before I get back to bullheaded training.

Turns out my training stress score idea, like most ideas, is not original. "Daniel's Points" is a concept that is very similar to the IF^4 stress score I talked about in the last post. Apparently there was a running coach named Jack Daniels (no relation to the liquor, apparently), probably in the 80's, who made an intensity-to-the-fourth relationship between training stress and, in his case, running speed (which is almost directly proportional to power for runners, since wind resistance doesn't come into account). His runners had a fair amount of success on the collegiate scene.

What I like about it is it builds on the concept of NP in a very natural way, mathematically. Basically, with NP, you are defining a stress function that goes by P^4 (after smoothing to get rid of power peaks). NP is simply the steady state power which results in the average training stress. So, every point in time of the training ride corresponds to a stress that is proportional to P^4. The IF^4 proposal for training stress simply integrates this training stress in time.

Put another way, at every point in time during a workout, your body is exposed to a stressor (proportional to P^4) that it must adapt to. Add up all these stressors and you get an integrated adaptation stress, which is your IF^4 training score. Long, slow endurance rides, necessary to prepare your body for the stress of training, naturally don't score well on this scale - I think this is correct; a long endurance ride will not make you fast, whereas an hour of interval training will. This is in contrast to TSS where a 3 hour ride at endurance pace is given the same or better score as an hour of interval training. Threshold intervals will score equivalently on both scales.

Coggan's TSS is based on TRIMPS (you can google it; stands for "Training Impulse" and was designed for training by HR), which apparently started out as a score directly proportional to the training intensity. When this was found not adequate to describe what athletes were experiencing, another factor of intensity was added, making it an intensity-squared relationship. So, it's a guess with another guess added on. Not the most elegant thing in the world.

This IF^2 relationship makes for a unique problem with TSS; namely, that TSS is a function of overall workout time independent of intensity. If you just add time at zero power to the end of your ride to make it longer, you can manufacture TSS points with obviously no gain in fitness. The IF^4 relationship contains no problem in this respect, because if you run through the math, it quickly becomes apparent that "overall workout time" cancels out of the equation and you just get a straight-up integration of the stress function.

Anyway, like I said, I am keeping track of both this year. I'll watch the IF^4 stress score with the most interest though, because it makes more sense to me than TSS. If training stress can be captured by a single number, it seems the IF^4 has the most theoretical backing and about the same amount of empirical backing as TSS.

At this point in my racing career, I am just curious about these things on an intellectual level. Comes from my engineering background, I am sure. This being my third year, I am just in "watch and learn" mode as far as these metrics are concerned - keeping track of various numbers and correlating them to my race results. I'm sure someone can design a system of training based on any system of keeping track of training stress. The important part, I would imagine, is the athlete's and coach's direct experience in tying training stress metrics to performance.

TSS, NP, IF - Thoughts about Training Stress

2009-11-26T00:06:00.000-08:00

Having a little information can be a dangerous proposition. Lately I've been reading up on things like TSS (Training Stress Score), NP (Normalized Power), and IF (Intensity Factor). I have a powertap and no coach, so I get to experiment with some stuff.

See, I'm an engineer, which means that I am naturally curious about the equations that come with having a powermeter. In case you didn't get the memo, there's a lot more that you can do with a powermeter than just measure power. The biggest thing that's in vogue at the moment is this thing called WKO+, which is a software program developed by a guy named Hunter Allen which takes all that raw powermeter data, condenses each ride into a single number, then does stuff with that number. The number is the so-called TSS, or Training Stress Score. You can read about this elsewhere, but basically it's a number that quantifies how hard your ride was.

I hate to do stuff with numbers that I don't understand. It drives me up the wall to, say, look at an insurance reimbursement summary because it's got a number added to a bunch of zeros that equal to zero. Not kidding. I can show you the paper. It's even got plus signs and equal signs between all the numbers. Anyway...

So, I hate to do stuff involving numbers that I don't understand. First off, the whole concept of TSS starts with the concept of NP, or Normalized Power. This is your power as a function of time, smoothed out using a smoothing function, raised to the fourth power, averaged, and 4th-rooted. Still following? Basically it means that there is some function, call it the "Stress Function", which is directly proportional to Power raised to the fourth. This is actually supported by some data, so it's not all bullshit here. Basically then, normalized power is the constant power which, if sustained for the time of the workout, results in the average of the stress function. Nobody's following now, but I'll plow ahead anyway. I have no issue with this at all. Makes perfect sense to me.

TSS is basically the amount of energy the rider expends during the ride, "corrected" by an "intensity factor", which is a function of the normalized power described above. I happen to think that the TSS concept is wrong.

The first clue is that a three hour ride at endurance pace will net the same TSS as a one hour ride at time trial pace. Maybe, but consider this: take two identical riders. Set them on an every-other-day training schedule at 100 TSS per workout. So far so good. Now, Rider 1 does his 100 TSS as a three hour endurance ride, every other day while Rider 2 does his 100 TSS sessions as a one hour at threshold interval set. Let them do this for a month, give them a few days off and then set them against each other in a time trail. Which one wins? My money's on the guy who did threshold intervals for a month.

But TSS doesn't reflect this at all. If you look at a plot of their TSS, it is identical. You'd think that they are training identically. But it's been well documented by Friel and others that interval training is much better for training racing efforts than just riding around for a few hours.

So here's what I propose. TSS, when it's normalized to the rider's functional threshold power, becomes the equation: TSS = T*IF^2, where T is time in hours and IF is "intensity factor" which is NP/FTP. Let's go back to the original derivation of NP. NP is the constant power which produces the same average "stress function" value as the raw power function. The whole point of TSS is to incorporate training "volume" with intensity. Andrew Coggan says on the Wattage Forum that "work" (derived by multiplying NP with time) is the volume component and IF is the intensity; he multiplies these together because he can't really think of anything better to do to combine them. The big problem with describing his formula in this manner is that IF and work energy are not independent. They are both dependent on NP. This is sort of a problem if your starting point is assuming that "volume" and "intensity" are independent concepts.

Now imagine a new TSS* formula which simply multiplies the average "stress function" value, which is proportional to NP^4, and time. Normalize it by dividing it by the average stress function value at FTP and you get TSS* = T*IF^4, where T is time in hours. Let's put it to the test:

Rider 1:
TSS* = 3hr*0.6^4 = 39%

Rider 2:
TSS* = 1hr*1^4 = 100%

Isn't this more of what we expect? Rider 1, following his 3 hour, endurance ride schedule, will be vastly undertrained (61% less) compared to Rider 2. This isn't a new concept: Coggan himself considered this formulation briefly after noting that data for time-to-exhaustion vs. power (which is kind of like the TSS concept) followed a near 4th power law form. He dismisses this out of hand though for some reason involving the hypothetical seeming equivalence between the recovery time from a 12 hour ride and a track pursuit effort.

Food for thought anyway. Myself, I am keeping track of both TSS and TSS* and will see how well each correlates to my form through the season.

PS. If you don't know who Andrew Coggan and Hunter Allen are, they wrote a fairly widely read book about training with a powermeter.

The Puzzle Pieces...

2009-11-24T07:20:00.000-08:00

...are falling into place. For the last two weeks and change, I've been doing nothing but endurance, low paced rides. A majority has been on the rollers in one or two hour sessions. Team rides of 2.5-3 hours make up the balance. Five rides a week with two days off. I call these "movie intervals". Boring as all hell, but put a good movie on the TV or a good football game (is it coincidence that the Pats/Colts game netted me my best training ride of the year?) and it becomes tolerable.

My weight is coming under control. My off-season high was 184lbs. I am now back down to close to 178 and have hit that zone where my appetite doesn't lead me to pack in the food in response to training. From previous experiences last year and the year before that, this should result in a solid pound a week give or take for the next couple months.

I feel good about this season. I feel strong and now that my weight is dropping again, I am reasonably confident of reaching my weight goal for the season. I am starting with a true base this year, instead of just jumping right into intervals. My plan is to continue the five day a week endurance rides until the first or second week of December. After that and through January, I'll add in, with increasing frequency, threshold intervals and the so-called "sweet spot training" sessions to replace the endurance rides.

Important for this year is to train the intermediate intervals in the 1-5 minute range between sprinting and threshold. I think coaches call this the "anaerobic endurance" range. I did zero training in this power range last year, and I suffered a bit because of it. It's not so much that I am not "good" in that range, but by not training, I don't know how to judge effort during those intervals. Thus, bridging efforts are hard for me because I am afraid of going too hard. I get dropped on the start of climbs because I can't push my limits because I don't know if I can recover. I can't accelerate properly out of corners in a crit to allow me to move up and get out of the yo-yo part of the pack. This kind of training needs to be done closer to the race season. I will work these in starting in February.

Lastly, I am shifting all my training backwards about a month from last year. Last year at this time I started threshold work in November and continued it until racing scuttled those efforts in March. I was burnt out by April instead of being good. This year, I hope to have a much better endurance base going into interval training, and not be in such a rush to get into form. I have to bang it into my head that I don't have to have form until racing season starts, and even then, not until late March and April where the racing really takes off. It's not about flexing muscle in training rides with the crew. It's about being good for races. So patience and faith in training is key. Build up the base and hit the intervals in stride and everything else will fall into place.

Bullheaded Training

2009-11-12T12:22:00.000-08:00

An anonomous person on the internet at bikeforums.net asked a general question:

Trainer vs. new wheelset vs. Powertap - What's most beneficial to an aspiring racer?

This person is new to the sport side of cycling and is looking to take up racing next season. Here's my take on the issue, posted in the same thread:

Trainer first. Then powertap. Then wheelset.

Ride the trainer hard and long, doing threshold intervals over the winter. Get strong. Refine your training with the powertap. Get stronger. Then refine your competitive ability with the lighter, more aero wheelset. Getting strong and getting any extra fat off your body will go a much longer ways toward making you competitive than some fancy race equipment.

I liken training to sharpening a knife blade. Right now you are simply a blank piece of metal shaped like a knife. You don't start putting the edge on by going right to the fine grit stone. No, you start with a coarse file. That's your trainer and your first foray into interval training and racing. You file on that blade until you can start getting an edge defined, but you can only get it so sharp. So you bring out the whetstone. That's your powertap. You define the blade edge more and upgrade into Cat3.

Only after you've gotten the blade well defined that you bring out the sharpening steel and really get that blade razor sharp. That's when you buy the fancy wheels and unobtainium 15lb bike and start training with a coach. This might be a several year process.

...Until you are racing at a high level, my belief is that the fancy racing equipment is just a crutch. Other racers have other beliefs, but I think most will agree that successful racing is more about the amount of sweat on your garage floor this winter than it is about a fancy wheelset.

What does this say about me. I have a Powertap and I have a carbon race bike (which means I have some of the toys), but I believe that success in bike racing isn't proportional to the money put into the sport, but rather the time and effort to get stronger and faster. The strongest cyclists on the team, simply put, are the ones who put the most time and effort into training. Some have the toys. Some don't. Some have a coach and a highly regimented training plan. Some make it up as they go. But the common denominator is that they ride hard and often. They turn themselves inside out in training so they can see red in a race. I read books by Bob Roll, Lance Armstrong, and the new one by Joe Parkins. Amongst the pros, they all share this common denominator.

So this is my overriding training goal this year. Less futzing around the edges, obsessing over training plans and equipment. More hard, long miles on the bike. Less shying away from a training session because I am tired from work, hungry, or "just don't feel like it". Eat a candy bar, slap myself into shape; lower the horns and plunge ahead.

Right now I am reading a book by Bob Roll, which is essentially a bunch of his journal entries throughout his career peppered with some stories from his racing days. He tells of one ride he did when he just plotted out a course for a 6 hour ride in the mountains on a clear and cold early spring day. He gets out and he's flying. One of those days. He is so high on his good form that he ignores the traditional signs (such as a gate barring the road and two foot deep snow) to turn back in the mountains. Figures he can hike his bike over the pass, through the snow and catch the road on the other side to continue his ride. He ends up lost in the forest, and after tromping around for hours, finally gets picked up by a couple in their car who know him as a pro. Finally gets back to his house at 1am after something like 12 hours lost in the snow.

It's not the snow or the getting lost that struck me, but how he just got out on his bike to train. Just a general route laid out and he put his head down and got to it weather be damned. The bullheadedness of his training. Seems to me to be something to emulate.

And the New Season Begins...

2009-11-08T07:14:00.000-08:00

First workout of the new season: 2 hours last night on the rollers watching V for Vendetta while the rain pored down outside. I averaged 205W, which for me is smack dab in the center of my endurance zone. I plan on spending the next three or four weeks with rides that are just like these. Long, slow; just get my legs turning for a long time and do a real base period of training.

December will bring out the trainer and mark the start of threshold intervals. Last year, this was the start and the end of my training regimen. My goal back then was to simply raise my threshold power. Which I did, but my middle power suffered a little because I never trained it. I couldn't get to the front of a crit to save my life because I didn't have the 2-3 minute burst to make it up there. This year, after getting my threshold power to where I want it, which should take a month or two after the base period if it happens at all, I will focus on training my strengths instead of just focusing on my traditional weakness at threshold.

Being that this is still just the start of my third season, I am still building my long term base fitness: the fitness base that takes years to build and is required to undertake still more rigorous training. This year, I have a weight goal: 165lbs, and I have a threshold power goal: 360W, to be attained by March/April when racing starts in earnest. Instead of being just a fuzzy wish like it was last year, these are now attainable goals. Last year, in June, I touched down into the high 160s (169lbs or so) for a short period before regaining 5lbs to even out at 175lbs at Cascade, and my threshold power grew from sub-300W to 330W over the course of the season. 165lbs is not far from my low mark of weight, and 360W is a "mere" 10% increase in power over my last season's FTP.

Combine these two goals, and I should be able to hang with the Cat3 pack even up some of the longer hills. I won't win up the hill, but to just hang will get me to the finish of a fair number of races which I can win with a sprint. It was eye opening for me at the Cascade Classic last July when I was almost able to hang with the Cat3 pack at 175lbs and the threshold at 330W. In fact, I was hanging, but made a tactical mistake that popped me off the back. I was even mid-pack on a time trial that was uphill for the first half (and me on a standard road bike that saw me losing a fair amount of time on the way back down). 165lbs at 360W will put me at 4.9W/kg. If I can do that, I might be able to make a serious run at upgrading to Cat2.

But now's the time to get to work. 2-4 hour rides, four days a week or so, are the name of the game at this point. If I can keep myself from dying of boredom in the winter months ahead, I can reap the benefits with a good season.

The Experiment in Cross is DONE!

2009-11-03T18:05:00.000-08:00

Suffice it to say, I suck at 'cross, but it's a ton of fun and now it's time to exit the party and let the people who are actually good at this sport do their thing with the championships and USGP and all that while I go and restore the "home goodwill fund" and "work goodwill fund" so I have lots in the bank by the time the road season starts. Also, I'm slow and fat and need a good head start on the rest of the Cat3 field so I can actually be competitive come March.

Astoria was a blast with the team all holed up in a house on a pier. I drew one of the lucky straws and got to sleep on the floor. I had assumed it was carpet... but everyone knows that hardwood is easier to care for and prettier to look at. Let's just say I awoke on Sunday morning with a real straight back.

Saturday was the serious race... which of course meant that it was this race where I blasted past people on one of my better starts and into the first section of mud and promptly flatted my front tire. Talk about taking the wind out of your sails. Since I was on tubies, I can still ride, so I rode the bike to the pit where neutral support took a gajillion years to put my new wheel on (which was pumped up to, like, 100psi) and included a full brake job along the way. (Even if it sounds like I'm complaining... well, they were actually great and having neutral support is awesome even if I found first hand why it's probably of some importance to bring your own wheels to the pit.) When I finally made it back on course, there was no one in sight. I eventually picked off 10 of the weakest 'crossers in the B field and called it a day.

Sunday was a blast. I had a great costume that was totally team spec'ed and B. Johnson doctor-cum-engineer modified so I could actually see and breath. It was a "Guy Fawkes" mask, wig, and hat a la "V for Vendetta" and even though I could see and breath, unlike some of my other teammates who were without the Doc. Johnson approved modifications, it still sucked to race in it. Astoria convinced me that I am just bad at all the things 'crossers are supposed to be good at, and I'm not like some of my teammates who have the fitness to make up for it. But I had a lot of fun.

I have a feeling that, in the future, unless I have a series standing that I am protecting, my 'cross season will end with Astoria. The costume race is an awesome cap to the short off-season-season and there's some good symmetricality (I think I just made this word up - probably supposed to be "symmetry") to the season with it being on Halloween. Now to hunker down in the bat cave and start doing intervals and suffering through 3 hour rides in the rain.

A Year Review and a Look to the Next

2009-10-01T19:42:00.000-07:00

I left the road season this year in a blur of track frenzy and exhaustion from the road. I haven't ridden a road bike in a couple weeks and the 'cross season has started with a bang. What to make of all this in the whole scheme of my amateur racing career?

For one thing, I've matured as a racer. My equipment, after two years of upgrading and buying, is finally sufficient for all aspects of road competition. I have two road racing bikes - solid, fast steeds; three specialty bikes (cyclocross, time trial, and track); and my trusty commuter. All the components on these bikes are sufficient; they are not holding me back. I feel like I am in a good spot, equipment wise, between top-of-the-line and budget. That means that until my results catch up to my bikes, I am down to spending only on consumables, clothing, and races. If I play it right, the sport should be getting cheaper for me.

In competition, I'm racing in the Cat3's on the road, Cat4 on the track, and CatB in 'cross. I still have upgrade aspirations for the track, and with 'cross I don't especially care, but for road, I am where I will be for the next couple years at least.

I feel like I have room to improve. Even after being 20lbs less than I was two years ago, I can still stand to lose another 20lbs. This is make or break. At 175lbs, I am an average Cat3. At 165lbs, I'll crush. This is not idle tough guy talk. It's just fact. Right now, due to the off season, I'm 182lbs... but I'm racing (cross) again, and will soon start building my mileage from the current near zero to 10-15 hours a week. This isn't a fantasy. I am still, if not fat anymore, not skinny. But it will take work. Now that equipment is not holding me back... I simply need to put in the hours.

And here's the thing. I have time for that too. The first year I was racing I was terribly inefficient with training time. I drove to lots of team rides instead of riding. I hesitated and watched TV for an hour before hoping on the trainer or rollers. I scrubbed training rides due to weather instead of simply bucking up and getting out there. Second year, I am more efficient, but still not as efficient as I could be. Much of this is simply about knowing what to do and doing it. Hesitation and uncertainty is the bane of my life. But with experience, training becomes smoother and more efficient. I don't need half an hour to get ready anymore because I know with my eyes closed what needs to be in the car and/or in my pockets. I know what to eat, I know what to drink.

So, the plan for next year, subject to change. Currently I'm kind of idling myself, merely developing my handling skills and keeping myself sharp by racing cyclocross. November 1st rolls around and I start ramping up the indoor trainer and weekend rides. This rolls through January on a gradual ramp; a 12 week program to develop my functional threshold and lose weight. In February, the long outdoor rides start. I want to be doing 4-5 hour rides a couple times a week. I'm not certain the logistics of this yet, but I want to be doing about 15 hours a week on the bike at this point. Just steady miles to build base with FTP interval sessions in between. The racing season starts at the end of February. At this point I start trading training miles for race miles. I peak first for the April spring stage races. I want to weigh 170lbs at this point. At the end of April, I take a couple weeks break and start building for another peak in July. I peak in July for the Cascade Classic stage race. I want to weigh 165lbs. I end the road season with a generous helping of crits and track racing.

That's the plan. I now know my body, and I know I've executed parts of this plan over the last couple years. It's year three and it's time to put it all together. The goal is to be able to win in Cat3 road races. I don't suspect I'll get the points to upgrade to Cat2, but I want to show myself I have the potential to win in the P/1/2 field in the next couple years.
___________________

As an aside, I almost scrubbed the last sentence of the last paragraph above. Is it going too far to even state that I'd like to win a P/1/2 race? I dunno. Aim to the sky to skim the trees? Is it a fantasy?

Let me put it to rest. I can roll with the big boys on a sprint finish. All that's needed to win a P/1/2 race is to make it to the end with the field. I won't be the best'est mountain goat. I won't be the strongest TT'er. But I can sprint and that's my ticket in the big boy races.

Evolution is...

2009-10-01T15:57:00.000-07:00

First race: Pain on the Peak: 2nd to last

Second race: Hood River DX, day two: 5th from last

(Third race: Blind Date #1: DNF -- doesn't count; flat)

Fourth race: Battle at Barlow: 14th from last

Fifth race: Blind Date #2: 38th out of 66, mid-pack

...moving up in life.

Cyclocross!

2009-09-23T09:13:00.001-07:00

So, with two mediocre 'cross races under my belt for the season; where do I stand in this wild and wacky sport? In the C's last year, I was masking a lot of mediocre bike handling skills with fitness. The guys I was racing against were Cat4/5 riders with not a lot of fitness but perhaps some mountain biking background. Yes, my handling skills were mediocre, but I could compete reasonably well simply because I was fitter than most of the field.

Now, in the B's, that's no longer the case. Everyone is just as fit or fitter (probably the latter), and they have the bike handling skills to match. So I come in close to DFL in both races this year and it's because of my shitty handling skills.

First tick off the list though, came last night. I took my 'cross bike, complete with dirt gearing and tires, on my commute to work. First off, riding crappy roads with big tires is fun! Come the off season, now that I have a real rain bike that is not my cross bike, I'm going to keep the big tires on the cross bike and use it for short commuting and some gravel road rides.

Anyway, though the day I was determined to find some time to practice 'cross, which really was short for "figure out how to get my ass back on my bike after dismounting without killing myself." Days are getting shorter and I wanted to ride the commute, so I didn't get to practice until I got home and was in my driveway.

I figured that what was holding me back with the remount was a mental tick. I was smooth enough at very slow speed where I can get on my bike without my foot leaving the ground. But as soon as I was above a single step, I had to dab my foot on the remount. It's kind of like track standing (which I can do). A rider learns to go slower and slower until he is damned near stopped. But there is a mental catch the moment he has to transition to letting his bike roll backwards on him. Similar here. I can remount as long as my foot stays on the ground as I hit the saddle, but there is a mental catch when I need to actually land on the saddle proper.

Last night, I got over it.

I reasoned that, since it was a mental block preventing me from remounting, I needed a mental trick to get over it. So I stood next to my bike, in the driveway, and mentally drew a line on the ground. Past that line, there is a pool of lava (corny, I know). The only way through it was to roll through on my bike (special bike; must be, or at least the wheels). Dab my foot and I'd lose it. The idea is I'll take half a step with my left foot leading, and kind of hop a little to get in the air and land on the saddle.

First time, lost the foot to the lava.

Second time... holy shit, I did it. Slower than walking pace, but I clearly was past the "catch." It was just a little hop, and I was barely rolling after I landed on the saddle, but I did it.

I do it again.

And again.

Now I add a full stride into the remount. It worked!

I do it again.

And again. The inside of my thigh is starting to get a bruise.

Finally I take a breath, and remount at a full run. Not a full full run like in a race, but a full run.

It works.

Suddenly I'm feeling a bit better about 'cross...

Beer Race

2009-08-24T10:01:00.000-07:00

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brujo/sets/72157622001377539/

Jeff Harwood from Ironclad and I cleaned up in the Cat5's on the track at the Team Beer Race at Alpenrose. We ended up tying for first, with the tie-break going to Jeff because he beat me in the final race of the omnium.

Felt really good in this race. Felt like I could throw myself around the track and concern myself with only the "racing" part of track racing, and not have to worry about the "riding bike" part of track racing. It's a welcome turn of events. I've finally figured out that my crash last year on my first ever race on the track really fucked with my head. I have been timid and tense when I was out on the track earlier in the year.

Something changed. Maybe it was mashing my bike into a real track bike, from the street fixie it was. Maybe it was just time. Maybe it was the speech on Friday by Luciano, our announcer, who made a point of pointing out that the default line in a mass start race is the outside line, not the inside near the sprinter's lane; i.e. to use the whole track when racing: attack going over the top of the pack, instead of underneath.

Whatever happened, I felt absolutely comfortable out there racing. Fun, for a change, instead of nerve racking.

Next stop: Cat 4. And match sprints. I can't wait!

Track... and Redemption

2009-08-21T22:06:00.000-07:00

My last post about the track was a total bitch session. Today, after not racing for the last month and hardly touching my bike the last couple weeks, I went out onto the track for the penultimate race week to get some more experience.

Last time out, I had a bike that had a track geometry but with a road fork, a crankset that was too long and a bushingless singlespeed chain. After that last time, I upgraded the fork to a carbon fiber track specific fork which had a 30mm rake instead of the 40mm rake that my previous one had. I upgraded the crankset to a real track crankset with shorter arms so I could spin faster. And I upgraded the chain to a real track chain. But I didn't get to race. I skipped it the next week, but I would've been rained out anyway, and I was rained out on two consecutive weeks afterwards. That last race would've been my fourth and final race as a Cat5. Then I got off the track kick and started training for Cascade.

Today, I decided to give the track one last shot and cram as much track experience as I could into these last two weeks. And it went so much better.

See, after crashing out of my very very very firstest race on the track, I've been a scared kitten. I didn't so much race to win or even to have fun, but to not crash. Today changed all that for me. I only had to warn one person to hold his line, and besides that, it was a safe race day and I was competitive to boot.

The new bike (the fork changes everything... it's new now, a completely changed beast) handled marvelously. It's a crime that the bike sellers sell track bikes with road forks to beginners. The beginners are the very people who need a well behaved bike. Instead, in exchange for a couple bucks saved, they get a twitchy bike that is even too twitchy for the match sprinters. It's hard enough to hold a line on the bank the first few times out without having to fight the bike as well. My bike, before the track fork, was skittish. I had to fight it on every turn to keep it on a line. Now, with the new fork, it goes where I look. No fighting anymore. I don't have to watch the lines on the track to follow the bank; I just look around the corner and it goes around perfectly. I don't even have to consciously bank the bike into the corner. It goes around like it's on rails.

Anyway, it was a Cat5 race, so there isn't even bragging rights to go along with it, but a couple guys I've met in road races were there in the field, which was good because I knew that these particular folks could ride a bike. The first race was a 10 lap scratch; just a race to the finish line. Found myself at the front after a couple laps. I went up the bank to give a turn on the front to someone else and found I had a gap. So I zoomed down the bank, into the sprinters lane, and took off. Didn't look back. Just hit the gas for the next two laps as hard as I could. A teammate of mine told me once that breakaways were different on the track. You give it a full effort so that you get ahead by about half a lap, then you can back off and just cruise. You don't need to go full bore like in a road race because the pack dynamics are different. It has to be a long points race before you can get a group of even three people to cooperate and chase.

When I finally looked back, I saw I had about a third of a lap lead. I backed down a bit to just match speed with the chasers and rode out the rest of the race. Every half lap, I peaked back to see how the chasers were doing; if they were gaining on me, I'd give it more gas. If they were backing off, I backed off. I ended up holding on for the win.

The next two races... well, let's just say that it was evident that I expended a lot of energy in the first race. I mean, after that first race, I was tasting a trace of blood in my throat from a few burst alveoli from the effort. The second race was a 15 lap points race, with points for the first four positions on laps 5, 10, and 15, with double points at the finish. I wasn't able to do much of anything until the finish, where I was pipped at the line for third place.

Going into the final race of the omnium, myself and two others were tied for first. The last race was a "Tempo" race, meaning it was a race to the line each and every lap, with the first two racers to cross getting points. I got no points. I was fourth or fifth (I think) across the line at the finish, but I was far enough behind the leaders (obviously the race blew apart, which tends to happen on this type of race) that I wasn't even sure when the race ended.

In any case, I had amassed enough omnium points on the first two events to to eek out a second place for the day. And I didn't feel threatened at all. I felt perfectly comfortable in the field and racing, my bike handled great, I had fun, and I wasn't a scaredy cat. A good day.

Cascade... and the end of the season

2009-07-30T18:52:00.000-07:00

First thing first, the Cascade Stage Race. This is probably the first time I went solidly into a race with reasonable expectations and solid form. Needless to say, in my first half season as a Cat 3, I did not do well. Way off the back of the field in the road races, (surprisingly) mid field in the ITT, and just hanging on by the skin of my teeth in the Crit.

The first stage found me seeing my teammate (the only one with a legit shot at winning the GC) pulling and me slotting in ahead of him on the first two mile climb out of the staging area. I went up there, matched pace which put my heart rate right into my FT, and pulled the field up the hill. I got swarmed at the top, but it was a good test of my fitness in this (still) new field which I've only been part of for three races. I ended up doing way too much pulling in the first stage, which was partially because I felt that my teammate would stick his face in the wind if I wasn't up there, and partially because I knew I wouldn't be competing up the finishing 10k climb and I wanted to test what I could do. I was fairly pleased with my efforts up until the hill, when the field just blew by me on one of the steeper slopes (I was pretty tired from pulling). I ended the stage side by side with a teammate who wasn't feeling well, way down in 92nd place (out of 96!). Because I didn't blow myself up trying to move from 92nd place to 80th, I actually finished the stage feeling pretty good.

I was one of the first to go off for the ITT in the Cat 3 field because of my near lanterne rouge status. I brought two bikes to the race, one my "good" Trek race bike, and the other the my "crit" bike which is my old steel frame road bike dressed up with modern Ultegra components. A little heavy but solid as a brick and just flexy enough to make it corner like it's on rails. I also brought a time trial cockpit for one or the other of my bikes in the off chance that I was doing well. I didn't want to be in the situation where I had a phenomenal day on stage 1 and was out of contention on the TT because I didn't bring a stink'n TT bike. Anyway, because I was well out of contention, I simply used my Trek road bike without any aerobars or anything for the TT.

I started out great out of the holder's hands. Bolted up the hill out of the parking lot and settled into my rhythm, looking at my powertap output and trying to maintain 350W. Being that I had raced hard the day before, I ended up not being able to maintain much more than 320W or so on the way up. I caught my 30s man almost immediately once I got out on the road out of the parking lot, and I immediately zeroed in on my 1min man. I could see him up there in the distance, but was closing very slowly. He, I think, caught his 30s man, and after the turnaround, I think I caught him as well. Flying down the hill (out was uphill and back was downhill) as fast as I could push the 53/11, I couldn't quite get up to the 1m man, but I got close by the turn back into the parking lot. Accelerating out of the turn, screaming from the effort, I was sprinting for the line 400m away. Almost caught the guy.

I didn't know the time until later, but it turns out that I ended up beating one of our best TT'ers by 2 seconds (he was having a bad day, obviously) and getting roughly mid pack in the field at 50th or so place. Not bad for a recently graduated Cat 4 sprinter on a road bike.

The crit was uneventful. I got a great start and was in the top 20 or so in the field for the first few laps. Then it went like this:

grab that wheel...

losing it...

getting passed - PUSH IT! - grab that wheel!...

losing it...

etc.

I finished with the pack, but never saw the front and was never doing anything but hanging on by the skin of my teeth. Terrible performance for an alleged sprinter. Something to work on for next year; gotta make it to the finish at the pointy end of the pack before I get the privilege of contesting the sprint.

One good thing to come out of it was the realization that my discomfort in small spaces in the pack was mostly due to the very little details of my positioning. I have been crashing a lot, which is mostly because I am contesting the sprints, which means that I get to be in those tight positions when everyone's all crazy and stuff. We had a bike handling class the previous thursday which showed me two things:

First, that it's not such a terrible thing to lean on another rider. You just need to guard the handlebars but aside from that, everything is all fine - lean all you want.

Second was just a little thing that our team's coach mentioned during the clinic a couple times, but almost in passing. If your bars are in front of the rider next to you, you own him. I put this theory to to the test in the crit and as a result, I never, during the entire course of the race, even running into the corners 3 or 4 wide, felt threatened. It works both on the inside and outside guy. If you are able to get this bar forward position, you can take whatever line you want in the corner. If you don't get the position, try to get at least even so you won't get pushed around. If you fail to get the position, back off so you don't get pushed around. Positioning becomes a perennial battle where you want to lead going into the corners, and if you fail, you either accept the risk of getting pushed off your line or you back off. Even if you accept the risk, you go into the situation eyes-wide-open, which in itself lessens the risk.

Anyway, finally, the last stage was all that was ahead; a circuit race - four times around a 17 mile circuit which the first half featured a nearly constant downhill and starting around mile 10, a nearly constant uphill with a "wall" at about the mile 14 mark followed by more climbing. Just a really tough course, and something which was surprisingly suitable to my style of racing. I was inspired by Thor Hushov's ride in the Alps a few days before where he, a classics sprinter, went on a rampage off the front of a field packed with climbers on a climbing stage so he could soak up 12 sprint points and all but wrap up the green jersey in the Tour de France. I was determined to try to make it to the end of this race with the field. If I could survive the hills, this was a course with a real sprint finish!

We coasted down the hills and I got up near the front for the first uphill at the 10 mile mark. Remarkably, mostly because I am used to being blown out of the water on the climbs, I stayed right with the pack, not even giving up too many positions. I was right at my FTP heart rate (I don't wear my powertap in races; too heavy) of 170bpm and it was pretty uncomfortable, but I was hanging. Pat on the back. At the wall, I enter it in the top five or so spots and almost sprint up the wall, in the process finding on the fly that it is possible to shift the front ring while standing, if you are really careful to back off the chain tension first. Probably not the best place to experiment with this, but it is what it is. Then the long grind up the hill on top of the wall and I start giving up lots of positions. Eventually the hill ends though and I am still at the tail end of the pack. A second circuit earned.

The second circuit went the same way, except that I lost momentum on the wall when I had to dodge a guy who put his chain into his spokes (and I was tired, of course, too) and found myself somewhat off the back about half way up the grinding hill. The ground leveled out a little though and I was able to make it back on before the top of the hill.

The third circuit, I got popped at the feed zone. I went back for a third bottle to dump on my head and lost track of the peloton. Looked up and found I was 100m back. Chased, along with several others, but to no avail. I ended up not getting back on and rode the rest of the third lap and the fourth with a guy from Therapeutic Associates who had also been dropped.

Overall, I was extremely happy with how the stage race turned out. I learned that I was not as far behind with my fitness as I thought. I also found that I steered my training pretty much correctly to peak right at the race. It was not a sharp peak, but I didn't go into the race unprepared, nor did I go into it overtrained/burnt out. Now, as far as I am concerned, my road season is done. I'll take some time off of serious training, for a week or two, then start in on long endurance and tempo rides (and just having fun with commuting and such) and start losing weight for next season and building base, with some 'cross races thrown in to keep myself sharp. My goals are to raise my FTP another 10% to about 350-360W, and drop my weight another 10lbs to 165lbs. We'll see. This is the first time I've ended the season on my terms and on a relatively high note with a definite plan on what needs to be done for next season.

I also spoke of Thor; that guy inspired me. I now know what kind of rider I want to be. Everyone needs a focus, and now that I have two years of racing under my belt, I think I have a good idea of what kind of rider I am. I am a natural sprinter. That is one thing I've learned. I have a great kick. I could be a crit or track specialist if I wanted to. But I don't want to. I'm going to be a "classics sprinter" like guys like Thor, Boonen, Zabel and O'Grady. My focus of the season will be the spring classics with the peak in the spring stage races in April. I'll be working primarily on my aerobic base so I can motor with the best of them on the flats and climb reasonably well. If not well enough to chase the little sprites up the 10 mile climbs, then well enough to stay with the pack to contest the sprint at the end of a long classic style road race.

Suffering

2009-07-04T09:52:00.000-07:00

10 miles left.

No water.

Cramping legs.

Never before have I been cursing society more for making us fear drinking from nature's streams.

Friday, a group of 10 of us from the club and the team decided to migrate over to Mt. Hood and climb some real climbs. Not these little prissy 2-3 mile climbs like we have around Portland. Real hills. Hills that you climb for a solid hour or more.

The ride started well for me, with the first climb being a few miles into the ride and lasting a good hour. My heartrate was high; not sure if this was from the heat or the elevation (probably the heat), but it was a consistent 10bpm higher than normal for the power output. Then a hair raising descent along a narrow, gravel road for five miles; full of potholes and teeth rattling washboard.

We make it to a store at the bottom of the descent and restock. Each of us have three waterbottles, except for one of us, the smart one, who brought a camelback. He was the only one of us who didn't run out of water on the following monster of a climb. The climb in front of us now is 25 miles long. I don't comprehend this. I don't think I've ever done a climb that's required over an hour to ascend.

We start out at a hard pace. 90% of ftp, is the number I am looking at warily on the display of my powermeter. 90%. Can I hold this for two and a quarter hours? Really? 300W and I am keeping up with the group. Then I drop off, my heartrate, which is still higher than I am used to for the power output, at 180bpm. 270W and I am losing ground. 250W and I am starting to suffer. My heartrate isn't dropping with the decreased power. I look at the readout and do a quick manual reading of my pulse. Yup, I'm really pinging 180bpm.

I am going through my water at a worrying rate. Then the first twinges of an impending cramp. I pry an electrolyte pill out of my jersey pocket. Hopefully that will keep things from cramping up completely. I am starting to get chills. That's not good. It's a sign of impending heat exhaustion, when the body temperature starts rising because the body can't regulate it's temperature anymore.

I can barely eak out 200W now. Then the full cramp. I wait it out, stopped, straddling my bike. My plan is to wait for some of the guys I know are behind me, but I wait and wait; they are very, very far behind. One guy, the guy with the camelback, passes me and declines my invitation to stop. He's probably the smart one. Legs tend to seize up if you stop for too long. I have the opposite problem. I pop a couple more electrolyte pills, this time chewing through the capsule to make them take effect faster. I get going again, start catching the guy who passed me, then cramp again. 10 miles of climbing to go and I have 2 inches of water in two waterbottles left.

I round a corner and find the team regrouped and waiting. We stop and wait for the rest of the group; two more who were behind me, one with a flat, and one who was suffering worse than me. All regrouped, I get another waterbottle filled with stream water and iodine from one of my teammates. At the behest of another, I put in some Alka Seltzer, which is rumored to buffer against cramping. Off we go again. Feeling better, I still get dropped, but I'm no longer getting chills. Probably because there is a headwind now keeping us cool while obliterating the legs. Exchanging one poison for another, I walk a fine line between making progress up the hill and cramping.

Finally, it ends.

I reach one summit, go downhill for a ways, then climb over another, smaller summit and there's the rest of the group at a store. Then 8 or 9 miles of downhill back to the start.

Another Crashed Helmet

2009-06-30T07:04:00.000-07:00

I started this blog while I was on a layoff from biking due to a bad crash at PIR where I landed on my head and suffered a hip hematoma the size of a volleyball. 21 days off the bike and I was playing catchup fitness-wise for the rest of the year.

Now, I write again after crashing at PIR again. This time I landed on my shoulder, not my head, so I actually remember the series of events in full color. Basically, long story short, I was in the Monday PIR 1/2/3 masters field two mondays ago and on the final lap, some guys got excited on the backstretch and all shifted left towards the paralleling concrete wall separating the course from the infield. I happened to be next to the wall; everyone wanted to be where I was, and one guy got a little too excited and came down on me and put me into the wall.

Getting up off the ground, I immediately noticed my left pinky finger was screwed up. Turns out that I must have caught it in the fence topping the wall. I had what is called a boutonniere deformity when a tendon across the top of the middle finger segment is ruptured. Other injuries include a sprained shoulder, several patches of road rash, and what looked like a sever cut in the webbing between my left pinky and ring finger from the fence. A teammate and another rider in the field who happened to be an ER doctor (I found out later that this person was no less than OBRA's very own Mike Murray; thanks!) helped me back to the start/finish to get cleaned up.

Anyway, now I am recovering and back on my bike, but this incident makes me think a bit about risk and why I am in this sport in the first place. It makes no rational sense to keep with a sport where I keep on getting injured. I risk my work and I risk my health. All this BS crap about how I am keeping my weight down and keeping healthy and physically fit is just that: crap. It's a rationalization. As my boss pointed out when I showed up on Tuesday all bandaged up, I can just as easily keep fit by going to the gym, or just riding to ride.

So why do I keep racing? There really is an answer, but it's not a rational answer and I have trouble putting it into words. It is similar to the reason why I ride in the first place.

Some people ride because they are looking for something. They are looking for a fun way to exercise. They are looking for a vacation from their brain. They are looking for an experience. But I don't work that way.

Exercise, to me, is a chore, anyway you put it, on the bike or off. I can take a vacation from my brain by reading a book in a coffee shop much more effectively than all the rigamarole that goes with cycling. I can get "an experience" by going for a walk. And I do all that on many an occasion for those very reasons. These are all rational reasons to ride a bike, and I can't say I adopt any of them. I ride and race now, and I have always ridden because I love to ride. It is an unconditional and unrational love. I don't love it because it makes me fit, though it's a benefit. I don't love it because of what it does to my mental state. I just love it. It's just as unrational as the love I have for my wife.

It's not so much about the big things, about the big epic rides or the big risks and rewards in a race.

It's about the little things.

A gray sky and sputtering drizzle with a backpack on. Swooping through a sharp corner. The brief flash of the finish line at 40mph. Squeezing water out of your gloves. Sitting on a stationary, spinning wheel, 4 inches away from yours. Coffee and conversation with teammates. Looking at the sharp lines of your road bike sitting in the garage. The steady grinding rhythm of your body up a long hill.

When I crash, there is a period of time where I am desolate. Pain, bandages, limitations in my movements. Showers and basic hygiene are a bitch. Equipment has to be repaired or replaced. But never is there a time when I think of giving up this sport. It's irrational, of course. Don't know why.

Tired

2009-05-23T11:33:00.000-07:00

For the past few weeks, I've been working hard on my cycling, losing weight and getting stronger.

That all started falling apart a couple weeks ago. I got very few miles in. Then I raced Silverton and was dropped. I used to pride myself on not getting dropped in races, then I started getting dropped. My motivation is low.

Then yesterday, after track, I was bushed. My ear was (and still is), for some reason, clogged up like it was when I had the sinus infection earlier this year. I went to bed right after I went home, without even brushing my teeth.

It started on the last omnium event. I didn't even try. The thought of putting out that much effort was too much and I just soft pedaled the event. I was tired and sketched out. I had a close call when someone shot up track almost taking my front wheel out in the first race. Then in the second, one of the guys inexplicably came down into the sprinters lane after finishing, forcing me off the track onto the apron to take the corner at 20-30 mph on the apron. I came out of it okay, but I was praying the whole time that my pedal wouldn't ground and my tires would stick. It didn't and they did, so okay.

But the third event I couldn't get it up. Started out strong, then just gave up. Didn't even give it a go. Getting up at 6:00 this morning, I couldn't muster the motivation to get ready to either race the rehearsal road race or ride with the team on their epic 90 some odd mile ride today. I turned my alarm off and got up again at 10:30, over 12 hours after I went to sleep last night. I feel better now though, so I'll probably go out for a 50 mile ride after I finish breakfast.

Silverton FAIL plus Track Rant

2009-05-19T09:18:00.000-07:00

The race report for the Silverton RR is a short one: FAIL.

Got dropped after a lap and a half, then rode the rest of the lap with John Kim, a friendly sprinter type who is a monster on the track, but hills, like me, not so much. Quit after two laps of three; no point in thrashing myself on another lap after the hammering I took on the first two.

I did do a little racing early. It's not like sat in the pack and waited for my turn to be dropped. After we started up the first hill of the day a break formed. I got Mitch into a chase group which didn't quite get away, but the fireworks started by the chase led to both the break and the chase being swallowed briefly and the break reemerging with Mitch as one of the members. So, after that little amount of racing, I went to sit in in the chase group. Actually, I drifted almost all the way to the back of the field, and was just getting my breath back when version two of the breakaway went off.

I learned some little things about myself in the race. I learned that my training (and weight loss, I now tip the scales at 180lbs, 5-6lbs less than a couple months ago) was working incrementally. I was able to dig harder than I have previously to keep on the wheels, and I think I stayed on much longer than I would have two months ago. Who knows though. Two months ago, the guys racing now were not in as good form as they are now, so perhaps the tide is raising all boats and I am just trying to keep up.

Also, I learned that the trick to squeezing though narrow gaps just wider than your handlebars is to look at the wheel you are following through the gap, instead of looking at the handlebar you are trying to avoid. If you look at a handlebar on one side of the gap, you'll hit it. If you look through the gap and just move through, you'll go through without the slightest problem. Another thing about moving through gaps is that it is safer to move through them than backing off and exposing your front wheel to someone's rear wheel. Better to be squeezed with your shoulders between two hips than having your front wheel trapped between two rear wheels. I think that's what is meant by "protecting your front wheel". You place yourself such that any swerve on anyone's part will be met with your shoulder or hip, not your wheel.

So, a little racing before I got dropped, some deep digging, and a little more pack riding experience is my takeaway from Silverton. It's a tough course.

On a final note about track.

It's a tough community to break into. The Alpenrose track is a hard place to race because of the high banking so a high level of experience is necessary, but getting that experience is tough. There are classes, but you don't get the racing experience you need from a class. So to protect the Cat4 racers and up, everyone, from Cat3 roadies making the transition to complete bike racing noobs who have never turned a pedal in anger are thrown into a novice field. It's almost a gauntlet with the range of bike handling skills ranging from okay to mediocre to absolutely dismal. Survive the gauntlet four times and take a class and you can get upgraded to race with the guys who actually know what they are doing. I've got to make a decision soon whether to press further into track racing or just shit-can the whole endeavor for being too risky. The way it is now, the noobs are left to fend for themselves; any that survive can race with the real racers. I'm not sure if I am willing to go through with that.

Last race, last Friday, I was criticized a little for riding off the front when I asked a question about the upgrade requirement. The organizers basically said that I didn't show any bike handling skills in a pack because I was off the front the entire time. Now, that's not entirely true, but it's true enough, by design really. I raced that way because I don't trust the other riders to be good bike handlers. I know that I am a decent bike handler, at least enough to keep a line and avoid dumping the bike if I get bumped. But I've seen enough in my first race last year to be really suspect about the others' bike handling skills in the novice field. They'll let pretty much anyone race in the novices with a helmet and $10. If I ride this next Friday in the novice field, I can't say I'd ride any different. The upgrade criteria is basically subjective, and I don't know if I can satisfy their bike handling requirement by riding outside or on/off the front the entire time. At the same time, I don't think I am willing to just soft pedal in the field, just to display my bike handling skills, and risk a crash.

Track

2009-05-15T22:26:00.001-07:00

Finally got back on the track today. Last year in my very first race, a 12 lap (2 mile) scratch race, a crash took me out and ended with me landing on my head and shoulder.

So today, I'm still a Cat5 on the track, so I raced in the novice omnium to see what it was all about. The first race was a 10 lap "tempo" race, meaning that first person crossing the line every lap got two points, and the second person got 1 point. I started the race at the back and almost riding the rail to stay out of trouble. I started moving up, which was hard because I was still staying up-track. But I eventually got to the front with, I don't know, 5 or 6 laps left, and managed to drop everyone in the race.

Second race was a 10 lap "scratch" race, meaning that it was 10 laps and first to cross wins. Very simple. This time, I got to the front in two laps and proceeded to just hammer. I managed to drop everyone but one guy. I just kept pulling him around the track and he came around me at the end for the win. I'm second. Not a great strategy, just leading around the track, but the intent is to learn my limits on the track and this is a decent way of doing it. I found that for an eight lap TT, the 49/15 gear I was running is a bit steep. Anyway, got second.

Third and final race was an "unknown distance" race. The racers don't know how long the race is until the bell is rung marking the last lap. I got up to the front with the racer who beat me in the previous race and we traded pulls for a total of a single exchange, and then I managed to drop everyone again. The bell was rung at lap 4 and I won easily enough.

Obviously, I'm not a Cat5. Next week I'll try some match sprinting and then request an upgrade so I can race in the Thursday omniums.

PIR 4/28/09 - win but an acid aftertaste

2009-04-29T21:43:00.000-07:00

My second win of the season, with a big assist from the team as per usual. But not the ending I would have preferred.

The day wasn't looking too good from a weather standpoint. I got to PIR and while it wasn't raining, it was threatening to. The field was really small, only about 40 people, instead of the 70-100 we've been getting used to. Counterclock-wise is the direction, which usually means a tailwind at the finish, but not today; it's a headwind from the right.

Our crew consisted of six of us. I was sitting first place in the April series; Matt was third. The team plan was to get me the win in the race and the series.

An Ironclad guy was sitting in second, only two points back from me. I had a suspicion that he was going for all the primes this day, so my goal was to shadow him and follow him out on the prime laps, hopefully to deny him an advantage, or at least mitigate the damage to my lead.

So I find Ironclad guy during the warmup. The Ironclad boys were out in force this day with 11 riders to our six, in a field of 40. Between the two of us, we are nearly half the field. As we roll out, I find out quickly that it's much harder to hide in a field of 40 than it is in a field of 100 like last week. I'm actually doing work rather than just sitting back and watching.

A group gets off the front almost immediately and sucks up the first of the prime points. So far so good. I'm starting to admire the Ironclad guy for the way he moves around the pack. Very smooth. Hard to follow around, especially considering that while I was watching him, he and his teammates were watching me and it might have been my imagination, but were doing some boxing of me as well.

By now the break is sucked back in and the bell rings a second time for the second prime. Better get on Ironclad guy's wheel. He's moving well through the pack because he is following his teammates around. Myself, I'm getting boxed in everywhere. Down the finishing stretch, he's got a leadout from about 3 Ironclad guys, and I'm still untangling myself. I am left in admiration of their organization. Ironclad and his leadout gap the field a bit; I surge to get back on his wheel. He kicks, I kick and I am gaining, but the line comes up out of nowhere and we go 1-2. My lead is now down to a single point. Shouldn't have let off after I got on his wheel. It's a mistake that will be remedied with experience. Just get up there, coast up to his wheel to catch a breath for a moment and immediately kick again to avoid killing my momentum.

We get reabsorbed. I follow him around the group some more. The bell rings a third time and it's game on again. I'm getting tangled up again, boxed in trying to follow his wheel and end up losing it again. I get Matt to help take me up to the front and lose his wheel. Not going well at all. I finally get back up to Ironclad guy as we turn onto the finishing stretch. Matt's up at the front now, looking to lead me out, but I am trapped in the middle of the group. Matt goes to plan B (get the points himself), but Ironclad guy times his move just right and pips Matt at the line. Now I am two points back to Ironclad guy. I have to win the race to win the series, and I need him to get third if I want to win the race.

One lap after the last prime, the bell rings again. WTF! Turns out that the race is being shortened by one lap. There is a group of four off the front who went off after the last prime as the sprinters were getting reabsorbed. Unbeknownst to us, one of our teammates was in the break. Ironclad just materializes all over the front of the field, forming a leadout train at least six guys strong. Alex and Matt find me and we start forming a miniature leadout train of our own. Going into the final 'S' curves before the finishing stretch, Alex takes our little train right up the left side and past the Ironclad train. Just an awesome pull to get that done. Now we are finally in control of the race. Alex pulls off right as we get on the finishing stretch and Matt takes over.

It's Matt, then an Ironclad leadout man, then me, then, I assume, my Ironclad competitor. Matt takes a super strong pull to about 300m out and he's off, leaving the rest of the leadout to Ironclad. Ironclad leadout guy keeps the pace high and I am waiting for the launch point.

Then a sickening sound.

Like a corrugated metal sheet being run over by heavy wheels.

The line comes up and I sprint around the Ironclad leadout man to claim the race win and turn around. My Ironclad competitor is nowhere to be found. We coast to the end of the straightaway and turn back around to see what happened. Obviously a crash happened at 35+mph and we are all asking around to figure who was involved. Turns out that Ironclad guy was one of the principle victims, locking handlebars with another rider while fighting for my wheel and coming down on his head and shoulders. One of my teammates was also involved as well (and maybe another, I'm unclear on this right now) and got pretty banged up.

Suck.

I hate this. A grand sprint battle fucked by some bad luck. That's racing, I suppose. I didn't cause the crash in any way, so it's not like it's unsportsmanlike to claim the win. But I don't like it. I'll leave it at that.

April Doldrums

2009-04-24T22:57:00.000-07:00

Last year at this time, I was recovering from injury; the crash at PIR that put a big volley ball sized hematoma on my left hip. But I was feeling it then before the crash, and I am feeling it now, a year later.

The April doldrums.

It's the transition between the spring season and the summer. All winter I've been hacking out small hours on the trainer after work and rainy rides on the weekends. 2x20s, 6x5s etc. Threshold intervals and very few miles because of the short hours of daylight and cold, wet weather.

Now it's spring. I can ride more, and I should. Because of this, the makeup of my training miles changes. I inherently do less intervals because I cannot stand to be on the trainer anymore, and riding intervals on the road is more difficult. Structure comes easily on a trainer. On the road, it takes some real motivation and discipline to do intervals.

And I've been racing a lot. Every weekend for the past month or more, and PIR during the middle of the week. It's a lot of thinking about racing and training and riding.

The April doldrums. Seems like it's going to be a regular part of my season. After the spring races and before the summer. I've been dealing with it these last couple weeks by just getting solid miles in without worrying too much about competing. I am trying to lose some weight and get stronger by putting in more miles. Starting next week, I'll put in some regular, structured intervals. Racing at PIR or on the track will suffice for the shorter interval sets. We'll see how it works.

Yin and Yang of Road Racing

2009-04-24T17:07:00.000-07:00

In participating in this sport for the better part of two years now, I've come to a realization: the yin and yang of road racing.

The sport of road racing takes on two face. One is speed and efficiency. It's all about keeping in the draft. Using energy wisely. Sprinting at the finish. The other is suffering. Riding hard in the gutter until there's only one lone man behind you. Shedding him like a used tissue in one, final, devastating attack.

The pure sprinters, or the purest of the pure, the trackies, value speed and efficiency. Racing to them is a constant battle of energy conservation and position. All the effort in the race is condensed into the last couple miles. There is no suffering because there is no time to suffer. (Suffering is not just effort. It's effort in time. A 1500W burst is effort, but it's not suffering.) A win is a combination of outright strength and tactical skill. It's a chess master maneuvering himself in a sea of riders at 30mph.

And then there are the climbers and time trialists. These riders aren't concerned about speed; they are purpose built to suffer. Winning a race is to suffer the most for the longest. A sprinter, if he could hang with them to the finish line can plink them without trying. But hanging till the finish is the trick. These are the guys who ride people off their wheel. They don't nip people at the line for the win; a burst of speed from a sheltered position. They bludgon their competitors with hammers and attacks until not a one of them is left standing.

Two sports within a sport; within the same race even. Even the flat races are a constant war between the hammers and the sprinters; the guys who flog themselves (and others in the process) for their bread and the ones who snatch it like a thief. I've played both ends. I've played the strongman, and I've played the sprinter. I've been the hammer and I've been the sneak. Oh what a rich sport this is!

PIR 4/21/09

2009-04-23T10:35:00.000-07:00

First win of the season!

Nothingness

2009-04-16T18:26:00.000-07:00

So, fuck it all.

Fuck racing. Fuck training. I'm in the Ultimate Cat now and I can relax a little. Train a bit and get better. My family would enjoy seeing me around more on the weekend; I'll enjoy not competing as much for a little while. I've been racing since late Feb, almost every weekend, for the past month. In fact, for the past month exactly, I've been racing every weekend and once, all weekend, and a couple times, twice a week. I'm tired. Tired of getting my ass kicked. Tired of squeezing training in between work hours and racing on the weekend. I can win in the 4's, but I'm in the 3's now and overmatched. Track season is starting up. I'm going to get some long rides in. Get some hard rides in. Start up my interval training again: the scheduling of which has been shredded by racing and work. Reevaluate my form and my racing schedule. Do some track. Start training for the summer stage races.

That is all.

Cat 3

2009-04-10T17:00:00.000-07:00

Well, I've arrived. Senior Men Category 3. It's a big step. Most guys moving into this category, once arrived, never move out.

It happened the Monday after the Cherry Blossom SR. I wasn't feeling like I deserved it, but I had the requisite 25 races and was only two points short of the upgrade criteria. So I asked and received. Didn't really think about it. Too scary; those guys are faster and the races are longer. If I thought about it too long, I would have chickened out.

But eventually you can only be a big fish in a small pond for so long. Eventually the pond, the talent pool, has to be opened up. I am not one of those people who can do well in a race knowing that there is a more challenging race I should be racing. I'll be beat down, and I'll get back up, and I'll be stronger for it.

This weekend at the King's Valley RR, I'll get to test drive my racing skills in the new pond. A win for me is to not get dropped. A wet dream is to contest. Here's to moving up!

Oh, one other thing. I was a bit disappointed to get into Cat3 while still 2 upgrade points short. It's a point of pride, perhaps, to earn your way in instead of just surviving in the sport for long enough. Well, fear not, the very next day after requesting the upgrade, I got second place in the PIR circuit race in a field of 77 cat 3/4 men. That settles any upgrade point questions. I both survived long enough and earned my way in with results. There is no question that I don't belong anymore in the 4's. The question now remains whether I can find a place in the 3's.

Sprinters

2009-04-10T15:36:00.000-07:00

"I'm fascinated by the sprinters. They suffer so much during the race just to get to the finish, they hang on for dear life in the climbs, but in the final kilometers they are transformed and do amazing things. It's not their force per se that impresses me, but rather the renaissance they experience. Seeing them suffer throughout the race only to be reborn in the final is something for fascination."
--Miguel Indurain

The reason why I love bike racing is because there is a place for everyone. It's not a sport that penalizes whole segments of the population. There are big people like me who can sprint and (one day) time trial, and there are little guys who can climb hills. It results in a richness of strategy and tactics to make use of strengths and weaknesses that isn't seen in any other sport.

When I despair about my climbing ability or my power numbers or my power to weight ratio or any such measuring stick bullshit, I remember the quote above. I am a sprinter. It's my lot as a bike racer to suffer like a dog on the climbs so I can taste the finish. Don't ever give up, because if I can get there to the line, I can blow the doors right off of all those little climbers without even breaking a sweat.

PIR - 4/7/09

2009-04-08T17:24:00.000-07:00

Pic is from: http://aggregatecyclist.blogspot.com/2009/04/comeback-complete.html

Racing out at PIR is always fun, unless, that is, you end up on the ground. Fortunately, that didn't happen this time, unlike last year about this time, when I broke a helmet and gained the inspiration for the title of this blog.

Yesterday was the first PIR of the season. I started the day loading the bike in the car thinking I was going to do a group ride in the afternoon. Halfway thorough the day, I said "what the hell" and ended up at PIR. We had large group of 10 guys: Matt D., both Jasons: Feig and Flemming, Alex, Ty, Johnny Rockets, Jeff Henderson, Mitch Lee, Mitch Gold and myself. Pitted against us were ten guys on the Ironclad team, as well as 57 other racers. Only 10 clockwise laps to account for daylight, which doesn't mean an easy race, it means a fast race.

Everybody marked Mitch Lee. He went off at the gun and everybody chased. He's got himself quite a reputation. Ironclad and Portland Velo were in a Steel Cage Death Match of breakaway and bridge attempts. We would send a guy off, and they would chase. They would break away and we would chase. So it went for the entire race, all 26.5mph average worth of it. It was a fast race.

The big moment for me started in the last lap. I had been covering breaks, bridging and chasing all race. The last lap started like this with Ty and I moving up to the front to chase back a lone Ironclad guy on a bell lap breakaway. Getting around to the back side of the course, the Ironclad guy safely back in the field, everyone started positioning themselves for the sprint.

I was up against the infield wall and made my way to the outside, reasoning that the outside will remain unblocked. I'm coming up the side of the field and I pass Matt D. just sitting pretty on the left side, about 20 wheels back. I get up next to him and get him on my wheel. We move steadily up the side of the field as we make it through some of the preliminary "S" curves; we are sitting about 10 wheels back as we round the final corner. At that point, I just drill it. Just like at Banana Belt leading out Ron, I stayed seated and just started ramping up the torque.

I come out of the corner wide, way wide of the peloton which is hugging the infield wall. It was weird, because we were 20 feet off to the side of the peloton and nobody thought to cross the chasm over to where we were, preferring instead to fight for position out of the wind. Myself, I'm okay out there because I'm not hauling this truck all the way to the line. 200, 300m short of the line is good enough for me, which makes the wind okay.

So there we are, accelerating past the hard charging pack in their own little world way off to the right of us, and then we are free of them with nobody on Matt's wheel. I take a peak under my legs and see a steady wheel not more than 2" away from mine. Sweet. One of the things that riding with Dave Haag taught me was that a good leadout makes the sprint just a done deal. And that's what it was here. I started laboring and slowing slightly, Matt came around with a good kick and there was nobody behind him contesting. I sat up, moved over to the right just a little to get a bit in the way of the sprinters coming up, and coasted across the line in second place. It was a sweet win for the both of us.

Cherry Blossom SR - Stage 4 and recap

2009-04-08T12:33:00.000-07:00

Reposted from the Portland Velo website:

Crappy day.

Crappy weekend.

Watched the lead group ride away from me 3 miles into today's race and the second time up the hill, watched the chase group I was in (with Matt, Dan, Paul, Sasha etc.) ride away. Finished a very painful last 15 miles mostly by myself.

Summary of the weekend:

Stage 1: two flats, but not at the same time. Go off road. Rear tire flats, chase back on (with Tom Ricciardi's help; much appreciated), front tire flats during the chase (got back on just as the rim hits the ground), get another wheel and chase back on again, and then dropped.

Stage 2: Good data from the TT on the powertap. Verified my FTP again. Paced it well. The lone shining star of my weekend.

Stage 3: Break the rear shift cable an hour before the crit. Rode back to the hotel to try to fix it but ran out of time. Raced the crit in the 39/12. Hurt afterwards, but finished with the pack. Contemplate borrowing a bike for stage 4 but manage to fix the cable and get shifting back that night.

Stage 4: Dropped 3 miles into the race on 7-mile hill (actually 5.5 miles, but who's counting). Limp in very painfully.

Cherry Blossom SR - Stages 2 & 3

2009-04-08T12:31:00.001-07:00

I'm playing catch-up here a bit. This is reposted from the Portland Velo website:

The TT went relatively well for me. I got 15th in the stage and got some useful powertap data.

Going into the crit, I was looking forward to it. Ron and Alex, our two GC guys, were just sitting in, so I was going to contest things at the end. All set, in the parking lot rolling around and my shifting is doing funny things. Ride over to the venue and the right shifter is still doing funny things. It's not shifting up to larger cogs very well.

Going around the course, I'm rolling and playing with the shifter a bit, and boom, the shift cable breaks. I've got an hour before the crit starts so I go back to the hotel to try to fix it. Get there and discover that the cable-stop at the end of the, now broken, cable is stuck inside the shifter. I play around with it for about 20 minutes, but it's getting close to the start time, so I have to cut it short and single speed it in the 39/12. As I was riding back to the venue I was kicking myself because I should have adjusted the limit screw to put it in the 15 or 16 tooth cog, instead of the 12 to get two useful gears instead of one. Next time the cable breaks, I'll know better :).

So I race with a singlespeed. Going up a slight rise on the back side I was way overgeared, and going down the down-wind section towards the finish, I was undergeared and couldn't move up in the field. I saw the front once in the last three laps, but couldn't hold the position in the run-in to the finish line. As it turned out, Sasha took 4th, so the day was good for PV.

I was contemplating the possibility of borrowing someone's bike for tomorrow's stage, but I ended up getting the little end of the cable out of the shifter and re-cabling the bike. So I get to ride the next stage on my bike. And damn, my legs are sore.

Cherry Blossom SR - Stage 1

2009-04-07T12:36:00.000-07:00

Stupid, stupid flats. That's all I have to say about yesterday's stage. The day started with a sea of blue and black of Portland Velo at the start line, what with 13 of us in the field. With a total field size of 86 riders, moving up in the field was a bit tough. That's the start of the story of flats and chasing.

Right off the bat, when I was seeing that the field was so congested, I had thoughts of moving up. I tried the middle of the field, but there weren't any gaps that I was comfortable moving up through. I tried the centerline and same thing. I had more luck over by the shoulder side of the lane. I was slowly moving up through the field led by a large contingent of blue and black, when the field went around a corner and shifted a little, pushing me off the road for a very brief spell, maybe 5-10 seconds tops. I think little of it; it was a hard packed gravel shoulder; get back up on the road and think nothing of it.

Then someone yells up to me from behind that he thinks my rear tire is going flat. I say, "no, my bike feels fine." I bounce on it a little, it feels fine. Then it feels soft. Then I am on my rim. This is 3 miles into the race. Fuck. I drift back through the field to the rear and stop as the wheel car stops right behind me. Shout out to the driver that I need a Shimano 10 speed, and digs one out. I slap it in, do a cyclocross remount and I am on my way. Tom Ricciardi, on of my teammates but one I didn't know very well, offered to wait for me as I was drifting back and I took him up on it. I owe him a beer or something.

Anyway, I am off at a full sprint to get back up to speed and I see him up the road noodling along, waiting for me. I blow by him and then slow a bit so we can work together. We work together smoothly and the field isn't actually that far ahead of us. Midway through the chase though, I notice my front wheel is feeling funny. I blow it off. Can't think about that now; my only thought is to get back to the field, which we are slowly gaining on. Then I start hearing my front tire making a "swish swish" noise. I blow it off again. We are getting closer. Now, along with the swishing noise, the tire is feeling soft. I look down and can see it sloshing side to side as I push on the pedals. Fuuuccck. This can't be happening. Now my entire weekend is in danger because the wheel car is ahead of me and if I get a flat now, it's a long walk and DNF or wait and beg a wheel from the wheel car of the next field, which they are not obligated to give me.

We are getting close now to the rear of the field and my rim is getting closer and closer to the ground. I tell Tom, who is on my wheel, that I'm just going to push it really, really hard and sprint the 100m left so I can get to the wheel car and get a new wheel.

I get to the back of the last car in the caravan and try to get the driver's attention. No response, but as I pass the car to talk to the driver, I find it's just a random car and not the wheel car. My rim is on the ground now. Up ahead of that car is the wheel car. I get up to it and tell the driver I need another wheel. We stop, I get it, and after futzing with the skewer for forever, I am off again to chase, this time by myself.

Now, the story gets boring. Chase, chase, chase. I am passing little fragments of the field who are getting blown off the back. I pass Rob who is dragging a brake pad. He hangs with me up the hill for a little, but he is eventually dropped from the pace. I get up to the top and I join up with a group of 4 or 5 riders, including Tom, who apparently made it on just in time to get dropped again when the course took a turn into the wind and uphill. Dropped riders make for bad chase companions though, and I end up pulling most of them along, with them taking short pulls and myself taking longer ones. One last push, and I am back on the back of the field, just in time to finish the first lap.

Going into the second lap, the pace rockets sky high as the field turns down-wind and starts chasing a couple of riders who broke away. We are flying at almost 40mph over level ground. After chasing the field twice and spending a hour at threshold, this eventually drops me. I limped in about 8 minutes back.

Piece of Cake, it was not...

2009-03-29T20:03:00.000-07:00

The graph on the power tap software tells the story. A flurry of activity for the first 13 minutes. Then a line. For an hour.

As a racer, up till now I've been pretty cautious. Stay with the pack. Bring back breaks that look threatening. Maybe attempt a break myself, but always well within my abilities and always pretty short. I've never raced in a way where I just put my head down and went off the front. Till today.

The day was clear, mostly, but pretty windy. A flag near the start was just on the verge of sticking straight out, which according to my father's old rule of thumb (he used to be an Airforce Pararescueman, which means he jumped out of airplanes with a parachute) means the wind is blowing at about 25-30mph up where the flag is atop the flagpole.

The field isn't huge, maybe 40 racers, and the start is casual enough. The course is arranged in such a way that most of the roads have cross winds of one sort or another. This means that there isn't that much shelter. The Piece of Cake is (in)famous for having narrow roads, which doesn't help anything.

It is a typical Cat4 field, which means that everyone is trying to hide, so the pace is pretty slow. A couple of us go up the front to try to make things work a little smoother. I am echeloning with a few other riders, and dealing with the fact that only a few riders want to work, but many people want to take shelter in the echelon.

Pretty soon, I find myself at the front, so I start pushing the pedals a bit harder to up the pace a bit. My intent wasn't to go off the front (we were only about 10 minutes into the race!), but off the front I drifted. Seeing this, I had a decision. I could sit up, let the pace fall, or just start going harder and see where that took me. I decided on the latter. I dumped a couple of gears and accelerated, then, seeing 500W, took it down a notch and let it sit at about 300W. I know from training that this is a pace that I can definitely hold for an hour, and probably longer. I still had 5/6ths of the race to go!

I kind of expected for the pack to start behaving like a Cat4 pack and bring me back in a couple minutes. That's typical. But I look back and they aren't gaining on me. So I put my head down, forearms on the bar tops, and concentrated on making 300W display on my powertap readout.

I look back again, and they are now a bit further behind. The wind is at my back.

I turn the corner and start going into a stiff head-cross wind. The pack is closer because they are still in the tailwind section, but not gaining after the corner.

I turn another corner straight into the teeth of the wind, and I decide to make the display read 315W. I reason that the pack will be less willing to chase hard into the wind (Cat4, nobody wants to pull, etc.).

Another corner and I hear my name and some cheering. Past the finish line. One lap down, two to go.

I am still holding 300W, pushing it up to 315W or so in the headwind sections. I am starting to feel my glutes complaining. I am not used to pushing this much power for this long with my forearms on the bar tops; back completely flat. Down at the bottom of the course, I take a peak behind and see a group of about 8-10 riders going off the front. They are hard charging, but I am not really losing any time to the much diminished main group. I figure this is in my favor as the big guns are probably in the chase group. Once they bridge, I'll be part of a select group with enough firepower to take it to the line.

I am off the front for 1 hour, 3 minutes when the chase group bridges up to me. Perfect, I think to myself. Then I see how dysfunctional this group is. Gaps opening up everywhere. Nobody knows how to echelon into a crosswind. Some big motors are what is keeping it away, but there is no way a 3/4 cooked person like me can keep closing gaps in the group and keep pace.

I fall off. The main group catches me. Yay! I'm safe. I can hide for a little while, get my legs back under me and contest the finish as others in the group do the work of bringing back the lead group I've fallen out of. It's not to be. Crosswinds and narrow roads kill any thought of shelter. Echelons form and break away, always right in front of me, exposing me. I keep pushing the "GO" button to close the gap. I try falling back a little, but the pack is thin. I've promised to lead out one of my teammates. I close a gap or two with him on my wheel, but eventually, we change places. I'm on his wheel. And dying.

I remember an interview I read somewhere of a pro who described racing in Belgium. Knowing that there isn't anyone behind you. Seeing that there isn't a spot to fit into at the end of the last echelon. Watching them ride away from you, the gap getting bigger and bigger and there's nothing you can do about it; you're in the wind, they're not. Now, instead of just remembering the article, I am experiencing it first hand. 10 miles to go in the race, I hit the "GO" button once again, but I don't get the response I want; a drag chute deploys instead and I am officially off the back. With no motivation and the race out of reach, I can only get the display on my power meter to read 200W.

51 miles, 2 hours, 20 minutes. Of that, I spent 1 hour off the front and 35 minutes off the back. I was only part of the peloton for 45 minutes. Certainly a record for me. There is a silver lining though. I know, for sure now, that my FTP is well over 300W, and the 330W assumption that I've been using (I've never formally tested myself), is right about right.

Self Massage

2009-03-28T15:13:00.000-07:00

Sounds naughty, doesn't it.

Up till now, I haven't fully been on board with the whole massage thing. I mean, it seems like it's for prissy men or pro cyclists; I don't consider myself either. The epiphany came right after the ride today, as I was preparing for my shower. I remembered an article I read somewhere that said that leg massages for cyclists should be done by doing a "smoothing" action from the bottom of the muscle (closest to the foot) and moving up the leg towards the heart. So I did this a little bit. Lo and behold, some of the soreness from today's ride went away!

Discovering this, I reasoned that this would be more effective after my shower and leg shave, and with some lotion so the massage motions won't burn the skin. After showering and shaving, I did the massage on my quads and calf muscles... and no more soreness! Beautiful. Not that I'm not still a little tired from the ride, but the soreness is gone. And it's something that will be imminently helpful considering I have a stage race coming up in a week, where getting the soreness out of my legs as soon as one day's stage is over might be considered important.

It also really highlights one of the reasons why competitive cyclists shave their legs. The self massage isn't a full "pro" massage by any means, but it certainly feels better without hair on the legs. So, two mysteries of competitive cycling: massage and shaving, I now better understand.

My "don't care" bike

2009-03-27T09:25:00.000-07:00

Today was my first commute into work of the year. 22 or 23 miles, over some hills on some quiet roads mostly free of traffic. Beautiful.

Last night I went about re-configuring my commute bike to be a zippier, more fun, machine. I took off the rack and fenders, lowered the handlebars and put some larger tires on it. I saw that the computer had run out of batteries, so I just took it off. I put on some road pedals. Cleaned it up and trued up the wheels. Perfect.

It's still probably the heaviest bike in my fleet. But it's fun to ride! No instrumentation. No fancy brifters - just good, old fashion big tires and downtube shifting. It's a race bike again, but from the 80's, not present day. It's my "don't care" bike. The one I'll ride when I just want to re-connect to cycling. The one that I'll waste precious training days to just have fun. The one I ride junk miles on; when I ride just to ride.

So, when I did my commute today, I did it on my "don't care" bike. I have been falling into a rut lately. My motivation has been low. I needed miles, but moreover, I needed to just reconnect with cycling and have pure driven fun on a bike. In amoungst all the training rides and races I do, every once in a while, or maybe more than once in a while, I need to just get out and ride. And on those days... I have my "don't care" bike.

Banana Belt #4 (#3)

2009-03-24T20:02:00.000-07:00

It's amazing what can happen when a team just starts meshing. Last week, at BB#3, I was able to lead out Ron, and the team really controlled the race. Well, if the team controlled the race last week, we smothered it this week. We got some major respect out of this race; not only our number and strength, but because of how we race.

"The fireworks started right out of the gate with the boys from Portland Velo setting a wicked fast pace...." Those words came from the blog of a Vista Ridge Velo racer in the race with us. And we certainly did. Right from the start, the head of the peloton was one skinny line of riders. We were really driving. This was the theme of the race. Everyone contributed. We had six riders in the field: myself, Johnny Rockets, Couzens, Kromonster, Dan Petross, and Alex Gonzalez. We all had our roles.

After driving the peloton around for most of a lap, some people start trying to break away. Kromonster goes off on his first breakaway of the day. He gets brought back eventually and I counter right after passing the finish line. It is becoming very apparent to me that I do better at races where I go off on a breakaway early. I don't have the stuff to stay away long, but it seems to warm me up and I am better able to ride the rest of the race.

Kroman really was a monster that day. By his count, he went off on breakaway attempts five times. He had the peloton hating his guts. I have never heard so much complaining about the pace! And everyone was involved. At one point, Petross went off. Every time a PV racer went off the front, I tried to make it a point to get onto the front to try to block. Well, this time, an Existential Velo rider was up to what I was doing. He had two other teammates with him and he was organizing another 5 or 6 riders to try to keep me off the front. When another rider tried to bridge up to Petross, I was getting into position onto his wheel when the Existential Velo rider stole it away. We were elbow to elbow, battling out for position on the bridging rider's wheel. Eventually, I let him have it.

Every time the pace slowed a little, there was Kroman right there to shoot off the front again. At one point, the pace had slowed at the beginning of the last lap, like it normally does right after a break goes off. For about 10 seconds, it felt like a classic Cat 4/5 race where things would settle out and people would ride together to the finish to sprint it out; everyone thinking they are a budding Cipollini or Cavendish. Then, 10 seconds are up and Kroman shoots off the front again! You didn't have to listen that hard to heard the groans.

Coming across the dam and up toward Lee hill, I moved up to the very front of the peloton, like I did the week before, so I could surf the pack up the hill. (There's even a photo series to prove it; yes, someone caught my pack slide on film!) We hit the hill hard and over the top I get back the lead group, though I couldn't make it to the front for the next uphill stretch. After the last hill before the little bump at the finish, I find myself behind the lead group about 10 or so meters back. But they are really driving! With no wheels to follow, I momentarily panic as I am not making progress towards catching them, and the 1k sign is coming up very soon. I leap out of the saddle and close the gap as fast as I can, getting back to the group just before hitting the 1k sign.

I set myself up on the right side of the road because I know that, not only is the line clear because nobody wants to ride the gutter and risk a flat, but it's also the fastest and shortest line in the sprint. I get right up into the top 5 or so riders as we sweep around the corner and across the bridge. We get to the base of the hill and I can't wait any longer. People are starting to accelerate and I need to go, NOW! So I hit the sprint with everything I've got and slowly, ever so slowly, pull away from the main group of sprinters. There's one guy in front of me who started sprinting about the same time as I did on the other side of the road but had a better jump. I cannot quite get up on his wheel and we are going down the hill now. I concede first place (he's about 2 bike lengths ahead and I'm not gaining), dump a couple gears, put my head down and concentrate on putting every watt left in my body into the pedals. Mr. Rockets comes blowing by me about 50m from the line; he's been on my wheel this whole time and I'm in 3rd. I take a peak behind me and see that there's a pretty good gap between us three and the next person, so I relax ever so slightly and cross the line third. Johnny in first, and the guy I was chasing rounding out the podium.

Not a bad day. Portland Velo is starting to get a reputation: not only did we lay down a lot of hurt and control the race, we closed.

Banana Belt #3 (#2)

2009-03-16T10:07:00.000-07:00

This is reposted from the race report on the Portland Velo website.

________________________________

Man, this race felt good.

It started out with all of us huddled in our cars trying to keep dry and warm while we waited for the race to start. It was poring down rain, coming in sideways. All my gear was wet even before I was finished changing into my kit. I gotta tell you, it was tempting to just pack it all back up and go home.

I spent all the time I should have been warming up debating whether to take my rain jacket or not. The question remained unresolved right up until the last call for the Cat 4's to come to the line; I decided to keep the jacket in my pocket and just go with a vest. It was a good decision. The decision not to warm up was not a good decision.

We're off. The pack is sketchy as all hell, what with everyone, myself included, half frozen and unable to keep a line. About half way through the first lap, I take off on a flier to warm up a little and test the legs. The legs are crap. Ron comes up to join me, but the pack is close behind and the legs have nothing, so we sit up.

Gradually, things started to warm up. The peloton was rolling fast and my fingers and toes were thawing out, even with the driving rain. It feels like being in one of those fancy showers that sprays your entire body from all angles. I'm getting hit from below, above, behind and in front. I can't decide whether to keep my glasses on or not. It was a true dilemma. Keep them on and run into pot holes, or take them off and spend the race blinking crap out of my eyes. Eventually, after putting them on and taking them off twice (probably to the consternation of the guys behind me), I decide on the latter route.

Portland Velo had six guys in the field and it showed. We controlled this race; there was almost always at least two of our guys patrolling the front. When the pace slowed, one of our guys went to the front and picked it up. We chased down or helped chase down the breakaways and initiated some of our own attempts. Some of the guys in the field mentioned after the race that they were watching us closely to see if we would try a breakaway because of our numbers. But while that didn't quite happen, the last lap really showed that our crew is getting our stuff together.

After a very slow third lap, the last lap started heating up with a couple breakaway attempts that were shut down quickly. Leading up to the dam, my first thought was to get through that corner safely. The lap before, everyone up front came in hot - even the lead car overcooked the corner and ended up in the traffic guard's lap. After getting through the corner safely, my first thought was to get to the front of the pack going into Lee hill. I always get pushed back in the pack up that hill, and that killed my attempts at a good finish two weeks ago, so this time I led the pack onto the hill, did the pack slide, and really pushed it and kept the gas down going over the top to get back up to the front again. I did this in time for the next hill, slid back a little and gassed it toward the front as we rolled downhill toward the finish. I reached the front at the 1km sign and looked at who was there. Paul had been pushing things since the top of Lee hill and was probably gassed. Ron is a good sprinter and was up there, and it didn't make sense for both him and me to be waiting for the 200m mark to sprint.

So I get over on the right shoulder and get up next to him. He started to jump a little, seeing me come up on the outside but not knowing who I was and not wanting to get boxed in. I said "Hey Ron, grab my wheel". Hesitated for just a moment and then clicked up a couple gears and accelerated. I took a page from the Dave Haag book (he led me out at a Hornecker sprint one Sat.) and didn't jump like in a sprint, but rather just kept shifting up, mashing on the pedals and keeping the torque high, the acceleration constant and my head down. I hoped that Ron heard me and I wasn't just dragging the pack around; I couldn't see him on my wheel. Down, over the bridge, still accelerating, trying to keep the speed up. Up the rise before the finish and starting to bog down a little. Right up to the crest and Ron comes sweeping by with a single guy on his wheel. I have momentary thoughts of continuing my effort to try to place, but I am really, really flamed out. The guy on Ron's wheel gets up to his bottom bracket and I am hoping that Ron can hold him off. They are accelerating toward the line and I am accelerating the other way, so I miss the finish and just concentrate on keeping out of people's way.

It was a great race, with the best execution of teamwork of any race I've been a part of. None of it was planned, but you can really get a sense that the Cat 4 crew is getting used to riding with each other and we're starting to know each others' strengths. We are starting to learn how to race. No other team attempted a leadout; leading out Ron was like shooting fish in a barrel. It turned a statistically favorable win into an almost sure thing.

Looking Back

2009-01-22T22:53:00.000-08:00

My second year of racing is one of getting better at racing. If last year was "learn to race, learn to train", then this year is simply to get more competitive at racing.

I've come a long way since last year at this time. Last year I was still a noob. I hadn't raced at all, except for the few low key races the previous August and getting shelled at a couple races in Seattle several years ago. I still had my old Univega in it's original form made up as a rain bike. I had no 'cross bike. I had no experience with time trials and had no time trial bike.

Fast forward to today and I have raced in over 20 races, not counting 'cross. I've done time trials and stage races and crits. I know what Cat5 is, and I am now counted as one of the "regular" racers on the team - a racer who can do stuff and has had results. I have completely disassembled my old Univega and used it's frame for a time trial bike and it's components to build up a 'cross bike. The the 'cross bike now has a new drivetrain and is getting a new cockpit this weekend to make it into a suitable backup race bike.

I've crashed twice, hard, and I've gotten respect for holding up as a solid racer in the face of those injuries. I am one of the stronger racers on the team, with only a half dozen or so people who can beat me on hills out of a team of 60, and only about the same number (different people) who might beat me in a sprint.

Now I am at the cusp of a new season and trying new things. I will be getting a powertap in a short while, and I am training more regularly and am stronger on the bike than I ever have been. Here's to a new season!

Running

2009-01-22T09:54:00.001-08:00

Ran yesterday because I was out of town on business. About 5km, 30 min running, 10 min walking. Sore today, but I think this might turn into a somewhat regular thing.

Powertap

2008-12-05T17:33:00.000-08:00

I did it. Finally. I got a powertap. An expensive little bugger, but it should lead to way to self coaching.

A coach exists to evaluate your body outside of your body. He or she works to evaluate your fitness and form from an objective point of view. To train correctly means that you have to let your brain separate from your body. It means that you cannot use your body's internal sensors and senses to mark your progress in form and fitness. Some days you feel like superman, until you turn around and face that tailwind you didn't know you had. Some days you feel deathly and manage to win the race. Your internal senses are not finely tuned instruments. They work in the moment and have the basic function to keep your body from harm, not to evaluate your body's fitness.

A hired coach can evaluate your performance with a stopwatch and with a full knowledge of your performance separate from your body. In swimming, my coach knew I could keep a 1:05 time for a 100yd interval, and turned a blind eye and ear to my obvious suffering. Get your 10 seconds of rest and do it again.

With only yourself as a coach, you must have some data. You have to give your brain something of a target. A coach will do this for you. He says, do this 100yds in 1:05. Just Do It. ...as the Nike slogan goes. If it's just you though... to say "just do it" you must know exactly what you can do and what you should do.

On the trainer, I can do that. I know cadence, speed and gearing and can fine tune my effort. I don't need a powertap for that. What I need the powertap for is to ride outside with the same precision that I ride inside. It won't kill my outdoor rides like numbers can do with some people; I'm a numbers person, so data doesn't bug me. It, on the contrary, will make my outdoor rides come alive with purpose, so I know exactly what I am doing and can free my mind to enjoy (or suffer) the sensations of my workout, free of secondguessing.

So, I hand over my CC and bought myself this instrument. Damned expensive; almost half the cost of my bike. And the materialism bothers me. But it's a tool, just like my bike, and it will be worth it if I can rise to the opportunity.

Drafting

2008-11-30T21:37:00.001-08:00

There is nothing cheating about drafting. Riding with someone on your wheel is a responsibility and riding someone's wheel is a gift. Friends regularly take responsibility for each other and give each other gifts - it's what makes them friends.

Ever wonder why the camaraderie amongst roadies? It's because of the drafting. The guy in front must take responsibility for the guy in back, and the guy in back must trust the guy in front. It's that give and take which forms the bonds of road cyclists and why road cyclists have a different vibe from, say, mountain bikers, and why, yes, sometimes roadies come off as a bit insular to newbies. It's all in the trust/responsibility dynamic of drafting. If one person can't be trusted in a pace line, he gets sent to the back where he can't do any damage while the rest of the guys rotate their pulls.

And even if it's just you and a friend, draft without guilt; just trade off every couple minutes to keep everything on an even keel. And if one of you is significantly stronger than the other, have the weaker one ride the stronger one's wheel a larger percentage of the time and the effort of a fast ride is apportioned evenly according to ability.

From "Fred" to "Road Nazi" in a Year

2008-11-25T07:01:00.001-08:00

Before:

After:

I posted this on bikeforums.net, but then looked back and noticed that these pictures were taken almost exactly a year apart. The first "before" picture was from the last week of July 2007 on the Portland Velo Century (which, by the way, completely destroyed me). The second "after" was at the Sunset Crit in mid August of 2008.

Notice the pasty skin and fat flab in the first picture. I bought the Trek one week after the first picture was taken, then lost 20 lbs and started training and racing with the Portland Velo team.

Winter Plans

2008-11-24T22:52:00.000-08:00

It's extremely satisfying when you find out that the basic training plan that you scrapped together the year previous is exactly what you should be doing. Basically, I ride every day, indoors or out, and twice a week I hunker down for a 2x20 interval set at a sub-threshhold effort level. Exactly what I did last year though the winter and exactly what set me up for a fantastic early season.

So, this year, the same thing. Last year, where I went wrong in my training was forgetting, on a fundamental level, that I couldn't concentrate on all the races I raced. I have to train through most of my races; something that I didn't do. I got confused. People were telling me to back off a couple days before the race and, well, if you are racing almost every weekend, that doesn't leave that much time for structured training.

Base training will be 2x20s, twice a week. These aren't really the hard pukey intervals that everyone talks about. These are just base training to train the "time trial" ability. Once racing starts, I'll add some shorter, more intense interval sets and some hill sprints to train my sprinting ability. Once racing is closer, I'll probably back off to 2x20 once a week, some 5 minute interval at higher intensity once a week, hill sprints once a week, and the rest tempo miles.

"A" races for the year: Willamette Stage Race and Cascade Classic. I want to be in peak form for these two races.

Year end goal: to become competitive in the Cat 3 field. I need 9 more points to graduate to the 3's. I hope to get these at Willamette. It's a race I can win. At Cascade, I just hope to be competitive in the 3 field. I don't think it's a race I can win, but I can certainly help Mitch or another, more mountain goat like teammate, win.

On a somewhat unrelated note, the best feeling of relief I've had all year is finally popping a saddle sore that's been bugging me since Willamette last year, in April. It finally popped after I used some Preparation H to reduce the swelling. I think, by reducing the swelling, I let the head come to the surface so it could finally be ejected from the body. I'll be sure to have a tube of Preparation H on hand at all times to nab saddle sores as the appear in the future.

Training and Racing Plan

2008-11-13T18:04:00.000-08:00

It turns out, there are a million ways of training to race a bike. There are a million different tools to use. Everyone is trying to sell you something. It's incredibly difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff.

My team is working with a coaching service, which is great and all, but it's just a teaser. We get a once-a-month class, which is helpful in a wishy-washy sense, but it is neither here nor there (my favorite expression). It's neither the type of coaching that I received on the highschool swimteam, nor is it one on one. It's more of a seminar which does little more than introduce the student to the terminology and a peak at the training strategies involved in bike racing.

So, I'm off in the wilderness. After the last class, I had two options: 1) I could hire a coach for $2000 for the next 10 months, or 2) I could strike out on my own and create my own training program using my brain and taking into account my schedule. After some hemming and hawing, I chose the latter. I figured that, being that this sport is pure hobby for me, part of the fun is the journey. I will be participating in this sport for many years in the future, and , under no circumstance, will cycling expand into a primary activity (like a job) in my life. So, I decided that part of the fun is creating a training plan at the beginning of each season, tracking my progress in some low tech and inexpensive way, train and race on inexpensive equipment, and see where it takes me. Rinse and repeat next year, taking the previous year's experience into account.

I have a feeling that many good cyclists do exactly this. The best cyclists are probably the ones that have had success on their own before looking to "purchase" success with coaches and fancy carbon wheels and such. Part of the fun of cycling for me is discovering what works and what doesn't and setting my bike up to be the optimum I can have it without spending a ton of money on things. The side effect is I always have a ready tongue-firmly-in-cheek excuse for why I did badly in a race.

So, anyway, my training plan for this year will encompass a tighter focus on interval training and macrocycles throughout the entire season. Last year, I had a good off-season and got very strong. After the Willamette Stage Race (which was the setting of my very best race of the season), my training fell apart. I was fatigued from Willamette at King's Valley, then started racing PIR and promptly crashed hard and lost 10 days of training. Instead of building back into my training for Elkhorn, I stomped back into it, mad at myself for missing time and being weak. I rode too many "junk" miles and did almost no interval training or, in fact, any structured training at all. That was okay for my first season racing. A rookie mistake. I closed out the season with a good race at Elkhorn (I didn't do well personally, but played a role in the last stage that helped my teammate win the GC) and a crash during my first race on the track which basically put me out of commission until 'cross season started. I think I did just one, small crit between my track crash and Kruger's Farm Crit, which marked the start of 'cross season.

This season, I will focus on three races. My early race will be the Willamette Stage Race. Mid race will be the OBRA road race. The late season road race will be the Cascade Classic. I am not doing the Elkhorn stage race this year; it's incredibly difficult to do both of these long stage races well as they are scheduled only about 3 weeks apart. So, odd years gets Cascade and even years gets Elkhorn.

The spring classics (Cherry Pie, the Banana Belts, and Piece of Cake) are "C" races, with the exception of the last Banana Belt, which will be a "B" race. These races come in late Feb through March and I'll use these to test my off-season training. The last Banana Belt I'll race to win and actually taper the week before hand. I'll have a good peek at my competition by then and I like to think that the course favors my style of racing.

King's Valley comes right on the heels of Willamette, so it's a B race by definition. I will get a good week of rest between these races and I'll still be in good form from the buildup toward Willamette.

Silverton is a great race, but not one I can win. So I'll do it; great course, but it's a "C" race I'll train right on through for. Then the OBRA RR is another peak. After that it's about two months to Cascade, with basically no racing in-between.

PIR is a playground, and I'll race there, but never to win. It gets a bit crazy in the pack and I'll use these races to practice attacking and bridging. Nobody will see me in a bunch sprint at the end. My finishes will either be in a sprint where the pack is extremely strung out (say, due to a Portland Velo leadout train... fuck yea!) or off the front or off the back. Last years injury was bad and the race itself is such a little thing that it's not worth risking life and limb to win.

As for training, it's going to be simple. I'm going off of time on the bike rather than mileage. I'm going to incorporate commutes and the mad hills around my house in my training, and I'm going to train through most of my races, rather than get paralyzed by my racing schedule. My basic interval will be a 5 minutes, with the number of sets increasing as I get stronger through a build cycle. Intervals are two times a week, with a recovery and tempo rides in between. I'll test my ftp monthly using average power on my trainer for a 2x20 minute test on my trainer, correlating average speed to arrive at average power.

Over the next few days I will sketch out the macrocycles to hit the peaks I want, and I'll sketch out weekly microcycles on a monthly basis, firming them up on the Monday of each week. My overall goal is to be a competitive cat3 by the end of the season. This means I am strong enough to be more than pack fodder at every race. No weight goals; my weight right now is where it's going to be and I'll slim down naturally through my training over the next few years.

Waterlogged...

2008-11-08T22:10:00.000-08:00

Riding in the rain when it isn't cold.

No rain jacket; just a vest and wool.

Wet but not miserable.

Leaves on the road; beware hidden holes and rocks and branches.

Flat tires - wait for teammates three times, miserable now in the cold.

Perfect pace on a fixie - 20mph at 100rpm steady, leading the group.

Throw the bike in the car; a beeline to the coffee shop to change.

Hot coffee and an omelette.

Friends.

Vehicular Cycling

2008-11-07T23:10:00.000-08:00

Commuting is actually something that is kind of controversial amongst those people who are ardent practicers of this aspect of cycling. It's the kind of controversy which comes from facing a hostile environment filled with 4000lb vehicles traveling at 30-70mph. At the center of this controversy are two topics: vehicular cycling and bike lanes.

To an outsider, and here, an outsider might even be another cyclist but one who doesn't immerse themselves in the politics of commuting, the controversy is not an obvious one. Vehicular cycling sounds like a clever way of coping with the stress of being surrounded by large, metal vehicles, and bike lanes seem like the obvious way of cordoning off an area of the road so cyclists and motor vehicles can travel side by side without interference.

The founder of the vehicular cycling movement, at least in its modern form, is a guy named John Forester. His book, Effective Cycling, is the seminal work in this area. It is a topic which I have thought long about, and I've been in some pretty good internet arguments over at bikeforums.net. I call it a movement because, in advocacy circles, the name "vehicular cycling" evokes an ideology rather than just a mere cycling technique. John Forester is the founder of the movement, because he was the first to make the term "vehicular cycling" political.

I came at vehicular cycling merely as an inexperienced cyclist who had to face some pretty hairy roads to get anywhere in the small city where I grew up. I learned about turning left from the center turn lane, taking the lane to prevent cars from overtaking too closely, and protecting myself in general from cars by tending toward the center of the lane. I still practice these techniques.

But somewhere along this, the concept of "cyclist fare best when they act and are treated as drivers of vehicles" (John Forester's slogan, of sorts), has been interpreted as a philosophy that goes far beyond a mere technique for cycling in traffic. Bike lanes violate this precept in spades. The claim is that bike lanes, because of the special status that both separates bike traffic from motorized traffic and the violation of "normal vehicular road rules" that come about at intersections that have motor vehicles turning across the bike lane, are diametrically opposed to vehicular cycling.

I have lots of ideas about vehicular cycling; I'll be revisiting this topic repeatedly. I consider myself a vehicular cyclist, but a pragmatic one. And I have theories about traffic flow that I think are novel and extend the continuum assumption of traffic flow to take into account the speed variation between cyclists and cars. Hopefully I can explore some ways of getting around some of the deadlocks that poison debate on this topic.

Why I Bike (chapter 1)

2008-11-06T20:26:00.000-08:00

I have kind of a love-hate relationship with cycling. It's kind of weird, I know. Anyone who knows me would think that I have an obsession, which, perhaps, is what leads to the love-hate. I got into cycling many years ago. I'm only 29 years old, but I've already been cycling somewhat seriously for a decade. Wow. That's kind of a long time now that I think of it.

I've gone through a couple different stages in my relationship with cycling. I first started in high school. I'm not sure what started me commuting. I didn't ride to school, mostly because I needed to be there at 6:30am so I could attend jazz band (I played piano and completely sucked at it, but that's a story for another day). But I started attending classes and swim practice (I was a fairly decent competitive swimmer, as opposed to jazz band player) at the community college which was about 5 miles away from my house. It wasn't a good road for commuting or anything. I had a "wanabe" mountainbike, and I chugged from my house to the community college and back on some of the weekends.

Because the conditions for commuting were so bad, I started researching a bit about how to ride in traffic. I came across the work of John Forester, who is the seminal author of the "vehicular cycling" movement, which postulates that a cyclist in traffic is just like any other traffic and should ride as such - meaning that vehicular cyclists do things like merge into car traffic streams and take the lanes and turn from the center left turn lane; things like that. Vehicular cycling influenced my cycling greatly and set me on the path to getting very seriously into commuting.

Since I started working, I've bike commuted to every job I've ever held.

In my first year of college, I got a used road bike for $300. I probably paid too much for it; it was pretty worn out. In fact, one of the first of the longer rides I took on it, the rear brake cable broke just as I was leaving my dorm. My roommate was a runner and got into cycling a little too. We took some longer rides together, and it was with him that I rode my first 40 mile ride. THAT, was hard.

A couple years later, my parents bought me my first new road bike, a blue fading to black "Univega Modovincere" (the remade version, not the famous, vintage Univega) with fully Campy Veloce. That spring, I rode with my first cycling club. My first ride with them was a 60 miler; my first. I was so blown by the end that one of the kind souls was good enough to tow me to the highway where it was a 10 mile straight shot into town before leaving me to my own devices. My first bonk and I was left struggling for home at 12 mph, looking for things to eat by the side of the road while staving off cramps. I decided after that ride to not do any ride over 40 miles without gatoraid (didn't know about the eating thing yet).

Fast forward about six years and 50 lbs gained through college. Last fall, I bought a new Trek Madone 5.2 to finally replace the Univega, which was aging. I just had joined a new club in town, the Portland Velo, and I decided that I wanted to lose weight. Seeing the scales tip past 200lbs was a wakeup call. The club century was a week before and I was surprised by how badly I was out of shape. I was thoroughly trashed after that century. I started out in the third to fastest group, bridged up to the second fastest group on the road, then immediately fell off. By the time I reached the 3/4 mark, I was destroyed. I waited at the rest stop for 20 minutes or so before the group I started with caught up with me again, then I sucked wheel for the last 20-25 miles.

The next weekend, after the club ride on Saturday, I rode to the bike shop where they were having an end-of-season sale. Bad move. I had thought sporadically about buying a new bike and I was tentatively thinking of losing the 20 lbs first, then buying a good bike. But then I saw the Madone and it was marked down over $1000. I test rode it for a good hour or more, then sat for another hour to decide to finally buy it. I hate buying things with a passion, but love to own and use new bike stuff!

I started riding four days a week, commuting 26 miles round trip to work, and combining that with a long ride or two on the weekends. over the next four or so months, I lost about 20 lbs at a rate of a steady 1 lb a week. In December of last year, I joined the club's bike racing team. I've now raced for a year, crashed hard twice and broke two helmets, experimented with track and cyclocross as well as road racing, and had a blast. My one regret is I haven't been commuting as much as I would like. I consider bike commuting to be my roots in cycling. I feel bad for having gotten away from it over the last year. One of my goals over the next year is to balance my bike racing and training with commuting.

I commute for reasons I don't quite understand but which go deeper than doing it just for exercise or doing it to save the environment. Why I am so attracted to cycling as an activity and lifestyle is something I don't quite understand. I feel like I bridge many of the sub-groups of cycling. I am a roadie and a commuter. A racer and a "Fred". I keep tract of cycling advocacy and am in favor of bike lanes, but I adhere to vehicular cycling tenants (In general, these positions, to be in favor of bike lanes, and to be a "vehicular cyclist", is a contradiction in terms). All at the same time. It is a contradiction, given the way these sub-groups are sometimes so divided. But that's me.

Busted Helmet

2008-04-21T20:21:00.000-07:00

Choosing a name for a blog is hard work. You got to be clever, but at the same time, it cannot be obvious. Many chose something that they focus on in life. I don't want to do that.

I want a place where I can post observations that drift through my head; observations that people will want to read. Not a diary. I'm not that type of person. Too voyeuristic. But, you know, I have stuff that I like to write about and I thought it would be interesting to have others read it. Only, of course, in the completely sanitary and anonymous world of the internet.

So, "Busted Helmet." I like to ride bicycles. I race road bikes on the road as a Cat4 (Cat3-O-Meter at 40%). I crashed last Tuesday in a race and busted a helmet. I lost a bit of my memory. Curiously, I am, for some reason, not at all concerned about my memory loss. I am not really sure why; which, I suppose, is reason for a little concern. You would think that I would be more rattled by the (non)experience. Perhaps I am in denial. I still want to ride and I almost panic at the thought that my season now has a gap in it as I recover from my other injuries. I could lie and say it was a life changing experience for the pleasure of the viewing audience... but it wasn't.

Anyway... this post will go off into the aether and will promptly be read by absolutely no one. We will see where this goes from here.