Eugene Celebration

Good rides today by all in the first RR.
Nome up a minute with two other guys, I did my best to clean up after.
Good stuff.
J
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cut em off

It's silly, I know.

And obviously doesn't help with the bikin'

But sometimes gains and goals don't follow reason, just what makes you happy.

And repping the NFL combine weight for bench 7 times today before work gave me a smile all night.

Stronger and lighter than I was 15 years ago.

Yippee!

Middle Palisade

The walk in- you can see Middle Pal and Norman Clyde in the background

A closer view as we approached from the west side of Finger Lake- the glaciers are getting smaller every year.

Kyle ruminating on the value of a shortcut over the glacier while wearing approach shoes, hmmm.

The boys on the summit block, I was on the block to the north, I thought this was the summit till I climbed it and realized the south block was higher, oh well, a good place to shoot a few.

Kyle looking out north towards Norman Clyde and Polemonium and Sill in the background- I hope to go back for Poly and Sill next year.

Norman befits it's namesake and is a bad mo fo that is wayyy over my head.

A happy Seal. Dave handling it all with aplomb.

Bluebird weather, it was colder in the Bay Area tonight when I got home, just a sweet trip.

Welcome Back

Hot damn Carrera was fun- good to see my compadre back at it as well- both of us coming back and shaking the rust off....

I needed Tuesday's legs on Saturday....

but Carrera was a blast anyway!

Good to be back racing, the masters race was quite tuff but safe.

I mostly sat in and struggled to close gaps/not hit my pedal/hide from the headwind. No teammates so I got to watch the shenanigans a bit and learn a couple things .

With 1.5 to go a little lull after a break came back and I saw some daylight for a second and went for the low- percentage last lap flyer, I got gobbled with a half lap to go and got back in line like a little whipped puppy.....

Cat 3 race was definitely more brakes and ballooning than I would prefer, not a lot slower, though. Where I was trying to hang onto a wheel through turns 3 and 4 in the masters, I now was trying not to hit a wheel or just passing folks in the turn-
Not stupid bad but not as fun or smooth.
I also noticed this weird thing where the guys from the back would come up the side, then back off right at the front and not commit, this sucked for me hitching a ride up on their coattails and I would slide back again since 8 across into a corner just seemed like a bad idea to me. This happened a few times, but I was really pretty tired from the previous race and at the end realized I wouldn't know what to do if I did get up there for the inevitable sprint as my legs were about out of pop.

All in all a fun race and maybe more important the Vickerator joined me for the cat 3 race, welcome back, buddy!
That's a tuff first race back.

Locals Only- Shasta Region

Old men don't huck , I took the easy way down...
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Shasta Hillclimb

This is a nice little local race, a mix of guys up for the century the next day and the locals that ride the mountain everyday.

Oh yeah, and throw in about 40 of the DFL crew, makingtheir annual pilgrimage north for a weekend of doing their thing.....

OK, now I will never be accused of being a grimpeur, but the raffle looked like fun and while I am completely unsuited for activities that rely on allez and more allez and especially any venga, I do like to suffer and be timed while doing it.

Rode to the start from camp, my favorite way to go anytime I can, just makes things simpler at times.
My nod to the race? I ditched the frame pump and brought two CO2's and two tubes.
Roughly 70 folks line up in town, they make some announcements and we are off.
My plan was to stay on through town were it is relatively flat and then slip off the back, I figured this would be kind of like a cross start, and it was in ways without the singletrack. I immediately got a tighten up from the bronchial pathways, they haven't gone like this in a while and let me know it, but I just relaxed and tried to stay on for a while- it turns out I stayed on longer than planned and it made things very rough later on, as I rode solo from 15 minutes in.

I tried to hold my threshold all the way but I really blew on the early bits and had a time recovering.
I rode hard for a hour and shut it down to noodle speed, I still had a best one hour power, but ended up finishing 20 minutes back from the real racers- a kid from Army Cycling won, tough little dude that left the bus early, Cameron got second and looked to be having fun and getting his suffer on all weekend, the cross season is coming, boys and girls.

Good stuff.
Oh yeah, I won ( in the raffle) a cooler, a t-shirt, a pass to brewfest at the ski bowl, and a tube.

Gave the pass to a helpful brudda that gave me a ride back to camp and helped me jumpstart the landbarge after I left the back door open.
Sweet.

shasta super summit 08

Not so many pictures this year

, but this one was fun, taken with the old momma earth behind me...

The name of the game was conserve and conserve some more, my two riding partners were much stronger climbers than me and I had to be OK with letting them go from time to time.....

If you think a Powertap is a lame deal- I knocked 40 minutes off this years' time compared to last years and came in 5 lbs heavier.

But I paced well and ate tons of endurolytes.

One more data geek #- 497 TSS points for this day alone.

Gotta train to be able to train.

Thanks to the wife, kid and dawg for handing up a couple bottles and stashing a cooler in the woods. I heard the cowbells!