Gracias

To the Veloshop bunch-

Handing me up a turbo bottle and a GU 10 miles out of the feedzone when I was spinning the little ring home after the mornings' work day done.....

Classy racers up north, loving the scene.

Eugene Celebration Cat 3

Finish stretch of the queen stage of the Eugene Celebration Stage race- 84 miles of hills and flats.

1k hill at the end saw Nome take the win and 2nd on GC.

Vickerator was en fuego and destroyed all in the ITT.

Wilson from SN helped immensely and the favor will not be forgotten.

The Willamette Valley has some beautiful cycling- a bit of rain in the crit but all good.

A bit of culture shock coming back home today.

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
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

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...
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

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!

That's one old muh fuh

Damn this birthday I felt old- maybe it was the new drivers license and throwing the old one away with the picture from the Oakland DMV circa 1989, I'll have to white out some info and put em both up for perusal and some chuckles....

Anyway, I had a crap pre- birthday, 5 flats in a row and a wasted training day, never buy the skinny Velox tape, especially when your friend at the bike shop asks you if your sure you want that stuff, get the wide comfy shit, and don't spend your day in the sun patching things and calling the wife who's home sick to come rescue you....

I was so pissed I walked into the gym at work and just popped the bar up thinking there were only two wheels on each side, damn that's a bit much, but I got off three reps then the linebacking corps noted the extra dimes apiece, thats 245 cold off the street baby, not much to most but more than I've put up in a long long time, and yes, when your a old muh fuh, you have to be grateful and happy for small stoopid things at times.....

Anyhow, I got to sleep in the next morning after working late, and had myself a cool day where folks gave me lots of nice stuff, I got adjusted at the chiro, got some new rim strips and some general love, dropped off some vittles for the dudes that keep my pile of bikes rolling, and threw the track bike in the land barge for a night of this...

Superfast track action, good safe racing, Mike and I had a good time playing in the B's and Mike won, very cool, then we did the A/B points, where I rode majorly dumb and wasted tons of energy but stayed on, then mis-timed getting back onto the line which was hauling ass and got dropped, but it was all in good fun and I didn't kill anybody or myself, saw ton's of bloggers and old friends, got some good luck kisses from the missus who finally decided as nervous as she gets for me messing around down there in San Jose she would still come and support, and like I said I tried to not kill myself on her first visit and maybe she would like the picnic on the grass and the girls playing and it's all good.

Carrot Cake

Homemade Champagne and Grapefruit Sorbet

I really don't need to elaborate on that one, but wow and um, wow.

Oh, and maybe YUM.

Then a sleepover so the grownups could play house?

Very rare around here, it was like being on vacation already.

Sweet.

Now tommorrow we leave for some camping and fun, some crazy hillclimb on Saturday followed by this beast on Sunday.

Good times.

Twitchy

My leg muscles seem to be pretty much deciding when to fire at random right now, little buggers woke me up twice while watching the ITT on VS this afternoon.

They are entertaining to watch, though, squirming around of their own volition, as long as they don't get too crazy......

Sucked cramping all the way down Mines today- felt OK but the buggers had other plans and would kick my ass good if I so much as smelled the front of our little group.
That's my fookin' canyon and I don't like riding in the backseat.

But thanks for towing my sorry ass out of there.

93 is right for me

gear inches, that is......

I went to last Sundays' sprint tournament at the track- I'm a complete newbie which is very fun, actually.
My legs were pretty sore after a long couple days in the saddle on Friday and Saturday, but I really want to get my five starts in this year and get my cat 4 upgrade, so I figured I would ride a easier gear and try to work on some leg speed.

I warmed up and noticed people were pedaling some monster gears, as well as sporting disk wheels and funny helmets.
Hmmm, I'm running a 48 x 15 on my goofy Langster with some Weinmann clinchers, but I really didn't realize what was going on until I had the format explained to me as the first guys did their flying 200's.
I got some great advice on lines and strategies, and even was offered to have a extra minute or so in order to change my gear, but it takes me 10 minutes to get it right anyway, and I didn't want to be some prima donna a-hole holding the deal up so I could get 12th v 13th anyway, so I went with 86- something gear inches- sprinted for the first turn and ran out of gear to stand on, had to flop my ass down and hamster pedal all the way around as well as taking a obscenely bad line and doing a extra 50 meters or something, arggh!

So 13 seconds or so was the result and I got placed into a bracket, this is a fun style of racing where you race against everybody of the same speed and get in lots of racing, so way cool.

I got lots and lots of help and feedback from guys, this match sprinting has lots of permutations with strategies and counters, all in two laps.

I kept my gear on for one match, tried to use it to my advantage with a holeshot and controlling the pace up high, but he came around me on the homestretch and I think he got me.

Soooo I went to the little 14 tooth, plunked it on and was able to "step into" the gear again, kind of giving me a extra bit of umph.

Not fair to be in that bracket anymore, though.

I hate sandbagging and will give no excuses for it, it wasn't my intention to manipulate the dealie and I don't have that fragile of a ego, I just wanted to try some different things.

I liked the " go from the ringing of the bell move out of turn 4", that was fun and it's so early some folks were caught sleepin'...:-)

Things I practiced-
keeping my peripheral vision going and looking under me at the opponent

using the banking and diving like a zero for a carrier

riding the top of the pole lane to hold someone but keeping smooth, not too good on this one and some of it is the bike, when I borrowed my buddies real track machine I definitely noticed a difference in the precision

tuning up the instinct and reflex of when to go.

being willing to play a bit and see.

Loving it and I'll be down next Wednesday for the racing, taking a vacation night or two.....

Big Ring The Dumbarton

Alameda, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara for a second, and back to Alameda County.

I rode on the 280 freeway for a minute- not too bad.A kind Pen Velo guy showed me the way south.

Now I understand why the folks that ride the bridge are so damn tough, that thing is nasty, but like ya love it nasty.

Lots of microclimates and a big cross section of the Bay Area and some good people watching. Gawd I like GG park, fun stuff.

Signs

that base training is over..

Don't worry about the thousand mile mark, but when you've gone through one of these jars, it's a good sign some suffering has gone down.

When the helmet is soaked in bleach and hot water all night until it is pink instead of red, yet the weird smell comes back on the first hill.

When the spot of sweat has sat in the left hand corner of the PowerTap so long the display looks hazy.

A few more long days and I can speed it up a bit...... maybe Sunday at the track!

A bike commuting route from San Francisco

Cyclists love maps.

Most runners like them too at first, but seem to feel getting lost is part of the journey. but they wear funny gaiters on their feet even in nice weather, soo.

I like figuring out new ways, even the new subdivisions out this way are putting in some nice roads- too bad there are more cars to go along with it, but.......

I have a coaching gig down at the Marina Green next weekend, my favorite newbie triathletes start a new class.

I need to do miles on miles right now, and am thinking about riding the train into the city early, doing the bike class, then riding south down the peninsula on Skyline and over the Dumbarton, then through Niles Canyon and home.

But I don't really know the peninsula, I go on rides once in a while over there, but am usually rather lost and have no idea about a cool way to get from the hills to the bridge.

Not even sure- looking at maps online if Skyline goes through or if it stops around the reservoir.

Hwy 1 I doubt is a good option, and riding through Hunters Point on my silly little bike sounds dumb too.

Any ideas?

J

The Bad Patch

came to visit me on Saturday.

A likely place- Diablo in the afternoon, trying to squeeze in one more time up before heading home.

I've been doing dumb endurance sports long enough to have the bad patch be a old acquaintance, it slowly creeps in , hidden by pride, ego, and adrenaline until it's too late to do anything but hang on and curse.

The little yellow pod on the handlebars warned me first- the HR was high and the power was mediocre.

Then the sun got just sooooo intense that the helmet had to go over the stem.

A stop in the shade came next, along with the mental grumblings and speculation on what normal middle aged men where doing right now.

Hating the wind and sun- a clear sign things are going south.

A push for the top, to be greeted by twinges in the legs and the realization-

"I'm officially in the bad patch"
" Maybe not screwed, but definitely this shit is gonna hurt"

Once the realization came, though, things were oddly better, even though I couldn't stand that warm Perpetuem any longer, and I like Perpetuem.

Cause survival mode is what I do.

It allows me to stop under trees wherever I like .

It let's me stop at the Extra Mile and buy icy cold Fruit Punch Gatorade and drink two bottles while spinning a 39 x 17 home .

It lets me smile when the cramps go from the toes to the tummy when I get up too fast or pedal too hard, " you dumbass..."

I knew the bad patch would end.

That's the gift of the patch, when one realizes as bad as this feels it will be over soon....

If you're never in the bad patch, you'll never appreciate the great days.

Oh, and today I felt great, rode the cross bike for the first time in 6 months.

Friday Openers

The Friday opening up workout-

A staple, a tradition

The makeup changes during the year some- I shorten it

during cross season some if I have a race the next day,

but during the base period it serves to get the hard efforts of Thursday out of the legs,

for me thats' usually a threshold ride or weights that feel like a threshold ride afterwards.

3-4 hours, 10 short sprints, two longer jams. everything easy and chatty in between.

I often solve the worlds' problems on this ride.

No point for me paying to race right now, way too slow, but I'll be on some local rides tommorrow putting in some miles.

The picture above- Castle Lake - the third climb @ Shasta Super Summit.

Six Point Elk Steaks All The Way From Colorado

and lifting with the linebacker squad before work.

I'll never win the local hill climb but I hope to cut my sleeves off by September.

The wind is up some and I hope to have a decent smokeless ride on Hamilton tommorrow.

Mt Diablo Hillclimb- the juniors do some sufferin'

Snuck back into town Saturday afternoon and was able to ride Sunday- the 3 days off the bicycle was just perfect and my legs feel human again.

I rode the mountain from the south side alone, the smoke was stronger there and I could feel it a bit, turned around just below the elbow and headed back down to catch some finishes at the Mt Diablo Hillclimb.

I wish I had the big camera- because every finisher had the suffer- face on.Way to go.

Big props to "Dave Stoler" in his first year, the dude has been a pleasure to help this year, a open book with a great sense of humor. I think with another year of tempering he's going to be on fire.

And Jasmin winning the JPS was great, every JPS winner got a huge goodie bag and other prizes.

Thanks to the organizers of the JPS, all volunteers. I could tell the kids really dug it.

Juniors cycling, way cool and much more interesting to me than a lot of old guys right now.

Various Camping Pics

Myself and Little C- up on the Russian River for a couple of days. Kayaking was good times and chilling with a book was real nice as well.

No bicycles for 3 days, a good thing.

Casini Ranch Campground- not so nice. Dusty, absolutely no privacy in the spots, and too much party in the adjoining spots for me or my kid.

Seems like more and more people when they leave home, whether to camp, go to a sporting event, or just drive around,leave their brains and common courtesy back at the house.... sigh.

I've been having to have the talk with the neighbors/ phone call to security or sheriff way too much the last couple of years. Bummer.

Anyhow- we'll learn not to go there again.

Headed up to Fort Ross on Saturday, I haven't been here in years, and I forgot how nice and well restored it is- a sweet half day trip.

A beautiful bell next to the chapel.

These guys were well- armed. The Spanish took a look around and decided the Russians could have this remote little corner of California, maybe they realized the fur trade wouldn't last forever.

Best Wishes......

To the happy couple.

Off camping for a bit....

Wednesday Track Night

Took a vacation night off and went to Hellyer- I took a rest for a few days after Sierra Century, but still had quite a bit of fatigue in the legs, but as Pops used to tell me when he would get the old pickup hauling ass down hwy 20 while flipping Oly's into the bed- " sometimes you gotta blow the carbon out".

Lotsa fun and some decent racing save for the occasional sitting on even with a OK split forming- BORING!

I was there to get some starts, help Mike a bit if possible, and go hard- so tactics and whatnot were not what Iwas looking for, just hammer and lots of it, plus I have very little sprint anyway right now, so I would prefer everything to come down to something like the pic on top, some suffering times three.

Beautiful night, warm and the lighted racing was a kick!

Now can someone give me a idea how many TSS points a omnium of racing should generate?
Geekarama with the WKO continues....

Sierra Century and a Williams Wheel Story

Ummmm, I shoulda inspected the profile a bit more before clicking yes, especially with the whole MTB racing team going.

Always either up or down, not a easy day for a crit monkey.

The up was steep and the down had holes with steep.

Ejected the PT CPU on one of the damn bumps, but I found it in the bushes and it's all good.

The data is all there which is good because I'm fascinated on geeking out with the WKO and getting the CTL up, how many TSS points, etc. Great way to train and my hour power has risen every week and is the highest ever .

My Williams story- I have some 30X's with a PT that Keith built up for me this winter, my first PT wheel and the wheels have been phenomenal, I raced them through the Valley swing and at Madera, just loved them.
The back one developed a squeak after I skipped a pedal at Visalia, although I couldn't find the source. The rim was true, the hub was OK( good to check this though, I hear it is a common problem with PT hubs to be loose), and the spoke tension was perfect on the drive side with a few off tensions on the non- drive side.
My only guess was the spokes rubbing a bit, and I tried a few different things with that, oiling the j-bends and crosses, but I still couldn't track it down.
Swiss DT 14/15 spokes as well, usually very reliable.

I called Keith on a Monday afternoon and he called me back a half hour later. I really was just curious if he had seen anything that solved this and could help either me or my LBS, who was a bit confused as well.
After talking a bit, Keith offered to rebuild it and check the rim, just to get those variables out of the way, then mentioned he could come by and pick up the wheel on his way home- WOW!
My teammates have had several stories of the fantastic service, but this was a new high point.
I headed out to Stockton on Friday afternoon and picked up the wheel at Keith's' home office, I visit my dad every week anyway and I was headed to Escalon/ Oakdale for a team thing so this was perfect.
Keith had the wheel ready to go and I popped the cassette back on and rode it all day at Sierra ,very rough pavement, banging through holes and shaking the old fillings loose.
Not one noise.
Not one.
I lost a water bottle cage, some allen bolts, and broke my PT mounting bracket.
But the wheel was flawless.

Hmm, will Miz C let me have some 50 carbons?

" If it was smart, that's what I'd do."

VN- Adam Craig on Todd Wells' early season training regimen of " hanging out in Tucson, riding a bunch and doing the group rides"

Supersonic

Rollin' some much needed miles, on a high-iron diet lately, some old school deadlifts and sled throwing, as well as mucho ball work, and finally the injuries from last fall are going away and I feel balanced again.

I just like this pic of Mike throwing Macneill in, gotta love the pink jumpers:-)

We had fun on Saturday out on Mines and tired ourselves out good, and I managed not to knock the happy couple down or even cross wheels, even when cross eyed on the hills.....

Why I love juniors racing- a excerpt of a e-mail from the rainy Sacramento crit this weekend...

I ended up riding w/ a handful of boys to the finish, my sprint was sucky I guess because it was raining too
my tires were slipping on almost every turn when ever I hit a bump while turning it would just slide, but very solemnly.

Just badass.

Congratulations Jasmin!

The phone call made my afternoon yesterday!

The entire club is very proud.

EBC Crit- a couple of pictures

A little behind the scenes look- Did you like your results being posted in a timely manner?

Thank this guy or Dr. X the next time you see them. All day on laptop duty.

Gracias.

Enough medals for top 10 in the Cat 5 and all the kids. Some very swank prizes went into that truck as well.

Complete results posted just to the left of this kind man, usually within 30 minutes of the race finish.

Again, gracias.

Tired race workers enjoying a very tactical 35+ race. Liked the kids' race with Otter Pops and goodie bags? Podium pics? How about 50 bags of soil amendments protecting the fire hydrants from the wayward racers?

Gracias.

Migo walking Bunny. A very nice day to sit on the grass with a beverage in the shade.

Each of the gentlemen in this gruppo has punished me badly in one race or another over the years. I was glad to be snapping pictures this day and not groveling on my stem in the pack.

Docile

The missus likes it when a hard ride knocks me down a rung or two, says it keeps me out of mischief.

Between the heavy weights, which I am getting more dubious about every year, some decent miles, and grinding at work 4 out of five nights for weeks now, I barely can read e-mails at 4 am.

Still I managed to get out for a good solo ride today, 3 and a half hours, 251 TSS points for those of you who drink that WKO koolaid, and some solid avg wattage.

I prefer the solo miles right now anyway, my ego can only take getting dropped on the group tussle so many times. Nothing like the cool wind blowing from the side, a nasty climb, a couple extra pounds just to make things tougher, and some freeking Judas Priest cranking sideways into the eardrums, just makes me so pleased.

Much preparation for our race tommorrow, a parked car had me sweating a bit and going back every couple of hours, but he's gone now and the course is in great shape, the pavement is perfecto and the wind is cracking just a bit on the backside, excellent for the faster races to make a long line of pain tommorrow........

This is Sparta!!! - Dramatic Lemur

After a long day on Mines, this is all I got.....

I heart the suffer

6 water bottles in four hours.

200 avg watts.

3,280 kilojoules.

Sierra road was involved.

YUM.

Yardwork and dogwalkin'

Qualify as cross training.

A new rule.

Letting the excitement build to get after it again, and it's brewing up good, but for now it's some small runs with the pup, a few sessions on the rowing machine, and some early strength work.

The most interesting thing going on has been checking out some new restaurants we've been wanting to try, we hit a double today, with Brown Sugar Kitchen for breakfast.
We got in a dogwalk down Mandela Parkway before we were seated, yes, a dogwalk down Cypress, the world changes a lot over 20 years, lot's of hipster coolio fixie bikes out front, and lot's of hipster coolios eatin' fried chicken and waffles inside.
Big thumbs up for this one, don't miss the cider syrup on the waffles.
I'm coming back for lunch before work at least one time a week, especially since it's two blocks from the salt mines.Soul food is just so good for you inside, it nourishes the heart sometimes more than the tummy.
In a good mood afterwards, and needing more exercise, we cruised to the dog park in El Cerrito, where my dude promptly found the nastiest mud to crawl through, being low tide.
He was happy though, and it was good to get him out with other dogs, he still looks for the old girl sometimes when he goes into the garage, but today he forgot a bit, and it was good to see.
I have a typical bike racer lawn, ignored for six months out of the year, and now looking like the Gobi desert, so I did some long overdue work on the trimmins, then we headed down the street to Eddie Papa's, a new joint with upscale American food, lot's of Niman Ranch and applewood bacon, as well as some fish and salad. Better than I expected, honestly, the partners have been around for a while in the business with several area restaraunts and were very attentive to detail, a great place to go after our crit coming up.
Buy your leadout man the chicken club and a brew and he'll be your love slave for life.

Madera Cat 3

I just wrote this RR for the team list and thought I would share...

It's taken me a few days to get cooled off and able to actually think clearly, man, those first few hot days of the year always seem to come around as the Madera festivities begin...

Camping was a blast, good spots, great company, the second time this year I've had teammates at a race with our busy schedules and etc., so it was fun to scheme and plan a bit around the dinner table.

My goals were simple, to hopefully TT well and have fun while helping a teammate do well.

Sharon TT- 10:30 a.m. start- moved back that morning- already hot.
We warmed up riding the course, a good way to go and much nicer than the folks riding trainers in the heat.
I took off and was going well at first, but watching my HR, which responded to the heat poorly all weekend.
The legs felt ok, then better, but I did make a conscious effort to slow down a bit and control the HR around my threshold, even though it was a shorter TT, I wanted to keep a bit in reserve.
I gave it more gas around 4 miles to go, then went more gas around 2 miles to go, speeding up from 40-41 kph to 43-44, but finished feeling like I could have gone harder. 24:30 was my time I believe, a midpack result but without any real matches burned.
We headed back to camp then scurried for Madera, where we found our crit start had been moved up by 30 minutes, thanks, Velo Promo!

Team plan for the crit was conservation and a attempt to get the primes for time, Ron was up there on GC somewhere, we didn't get results till the next morning, but we protected him.
Mo and I were supposed to get the primes and let the other fellas watch the moves and ride tempo.
That is the nastiest crit I have ever personally done, hot, large, tracks, and slow, like 21 mph avg slow.
Some wind but not enough to really factor into things, and a hour long.

Big props to the Team Swift juniors, excellent teamwork on their part setting up their sprinter for the primes, we missed them both times, I went with them on the second one and got the door shut on me inadvertently by somebody who was bumped as they rolled by, by the time I came around his other side, they were in full jam and no soup for me, but I did ride some wheels over to a nice split that developed out of the prime sprint, we had probably 5 guys all fairly committed, I was a bit on the fence and watched the gap to the mob behind, figuring this could only be good for us either way if it came back together for a counter by a teammate or not I felt comfortable outsprinting my breakmates if we somehow lucked out and stayed away, but no sirree, we had some bridging as we got to 6 to go, then the next prime sprint made us gruppo compacto.
Galluppo suffered mightily to ride a last bit of tempo on the front and bring a straggler back, much appreciated, dude!
With 5 to go the jockeying and surging that only 65 field sprinters can bring began, I would get myself to a decent spot only to get churned around by the next lap and have to do it again, last lap I went up the right side by the RR crossing and came out ok onto the final stretch, but all that previous goofing around took a hard toll and I was resigned to rolling in safe in the pack.

We escaped Madera alive and went back to the lake for a nice dinner and BS session under the stars, no race till 11 for us, so we could afford to stay up a bit.

Sunday was a hard one, 97 on my mirror as I left town that afternoon, I brought 2 bottles and stuffed a small bottle in my jersey, but I was probably dehydrated to start the race.

Ron was sitting 13th, I believe, so we were going to need a solid break or split to do well.

The early plan was just to see what the race would give us and protect Ron until the field split, which was our guess at the most likely scenario with the bumps and the rollers and heat.
About 400 meters into the race
I followed a fellow up the side just looking for a better position, then saw the quiet clicking of the cassette and followed him right out of the pack, along with a few other fortune seekers, one notably a representative from one of the largest teams there with a man high on GC.
No Z-team, they had a couple guys high on GC- which in my eyes probably doomed things a bit, but also meant they would be working harder back there, hopefully softening things up some for later.
A good break, and two riders then bridged who at least one of them was very motivated for success, I was again on the fence a bit, but took quite a few pulls and also took a fair amount of crap when I wouldn't, deservedly so and I would harass and cajole someone too but that was my teams' hand and I felt comfortable with it, figuring if we could stay away for a while it would pressure the other GC riders and set up a higher percentage move by Ron or Dave A.
We got a decent gap on the bumps even with arguing a bit, then on the rollers IMHO we made a crucial mistake by dropping the blue and gold fella who had 6 teamies blocking, my take was he took tons of hard pulls on the flats even if he was suffering a bit on the hills he would have continued to help, but more importantly the 6 guys back would influence things greatly with 51 miles to go and a one minute gap....



When he went back they went to the front and we were home after a one hour adventure out in front...

My next job was to try to get the HR down and eat/ drink more, the entire time in the break the HR was running 7-10 beats over threshold and I could see how the heat was affecting me, we were riding ridiculously hard from time to time but even so the watts didn't correspond, nice to use the powermeter during a race and get a good idea of what's happening inside.

We had to chase out of the feedzone, but the entire team needed bottles and it was a bit of a fiasco, but we made it.
I moved back onto patrol for lap 3 and went with a bitty move OTF again that contained two of the previous breakmates who were driving it before, DA was there eating a gel when it went, I think we both wished he had drawn it instead of me, I got a vicious cramp while crossing to the lead guy and had to pull up and skulk back to safety, then, while trying to eat Clif Blocks in the peloton and drink all remaining fluids on board, I at first thought I was getting dizzy, as the front of my bike was wiggling around, only to realize I had a front flat, crap!
I rolled backwards like lots of folks that day, my teamies resting back there offered a wheel, but realistically with the cramps my chance to affect things was over.

Rode it in and admired the snowy peaks off in the distance, framed by the wildflowers in the pastures, all the stuff Inever see when bouncing along on a crap road trying not to hit the wheel in front of me TOO HARD.

Anyway, some good racing, I think we had a good time as a team, rose to the challenge ,and played the hand we were dealt.

Johnny

.

RV club or cycling team- you decide

Either way we had fun, raced hard and bluffed a bit, but definitely raced like a team.



Time for this stuff to be retired for a couple weeks, then some gym time for this old man and let the threshold/ tempo work begin....

Yin to the Yang

I started with a nice day at the track Sunday, my first open session on my new quasi- track bike cobbled together from spare parts and craigslist OPJ- other peoples' junk.

Big fun, some hard efforts interspersed with wrenching a bit, then zoomed down the 880 to the salt mines of Oakland... then headed east.

This was my afternoon in Lafayette- "a little smoke behind the truck on the freeway, oooh, better pull over somewheres safe out of traffic, oh my, that's a lot of smoke, better stop here and grab whatever I can carry".

Note- those little fire extinguishers you carry around in a car only piss off a real fire, it was like shooting a grizzly with a squirt gun..

This is the aftermath-

Damn, my old copies of Road, a old training log, and all my spare clothes were incinerated.

It was a cold rest of a night with only one sweatshirt....

Just happy to still be here, hopefully the karma wagon has gone full circle now......

Non cycling materiel

Some poetry from the skater girl....

Nightfall

The diamond moon slowly rises to it’s throne in the deep sky.

A slow majestic sight.

The sky is its kingdom.

The stars, his subjects.

Glistening faintly, for their king of the sky.

The moon is the life of the dark sky.

Spreading, churning, it causes the light we see now.

If you look up in the sky, you see a kingdom.

The kingdom of the moon.

Good thing I got the hot tub running this week.....

cause after Hanford I definitely needed to mellow out in some bubbles under the stars.

No real race report, I raced over my head and harder than my legs would allow, but had a good time and in a small progression of strength from a couple of weeks ago, got to the final sprint in good position. Unfortunately, everyone else had so much better legs and I went backwards in the last 175, but I was still happy and had the nice track hack all evening to prove it :-)

Good times and I'm always happy to go to Hanford, especially with buddies like these :-)

Anytime middle aged dads can escape for a overnight and ride around in the Central Valley with three matching bikes with stickers and stuff like we're cool racers is a lucky day.

See the mouse

A well- deserved short vacation down south- too much eatin' and not enough ridin', but it's all good.

The biggest A & F store I have ever seen. Welcome to the Grove center in West LA.

More beautiful people in one place on a Tuesday afternoon than is humanly possible.

No one eats anything round these parts.

Quite a contrast from Disneyland, where a true cross section of America was on display.

Any drug maker with a diabetes drug in the pipeline is going to make a mint in ten more years.

I eat too many cookies and tri tip to take HTFU very seriously, the whole thing is getting kind of Die Trying if you ask me.

But I think I can go for some of this WTFU!

It's not Cole, but it'll do.

An entire store of sauces, and a entire wall of hot sauces.

Many of them with completely unprintable labels.

I ignored the No Photo signs until I was done taking pictures.

But I did buy a few things.

Afternoon luncheon at American Girl Los Angeles, mmmm, Dad likes those cookies!

Being West LA, I had a salad.

Your doll gets lunch too, in her own seat.

This was a loaner doll, Little C's doll was getting her hair done and a skin cleanser downstairs at the doll spa.
Yes you read that correctly.

Disneyland California Adventure- the cousins having fun.

The whole family rode this bad boy- even bought the ridiculous picture afterwards.

Do not eat cotton candy before riding this, you drop roughly 5 stories several times.

Not enough time sitting by the pool, but still it was just what the doctor ordered.

Some serious Easter egg making went down at Aunties' house.

Bike racing commentary coming back soon.

"Touch The Deck"

... and other innuendos for crashing,

just another mechanism of denial we use to keep ourselves pedaling forward when the hill gets steep/ the turn gets tight/ the pack gets squirrelly.

You have to ignore it at the present, channel it beforehand, and laugh about it after.

OR it will own your ass.

I'm not hatin' about it, I'm as hooked as the next guy.

Something I was thinking about all week before I heard about the Vickerator repaving the roads outside of Chico today....

Heal up soon,
brutha!

Suavecito

Sprint number 9- time to go home. Really, number 8 not looking too good either. I'd really like to pop off twelve of these with no drop off in power before the season ends in April .


Good times in the headwind with a buddy that needed to just ride fast and let a few things go....

400 meters can be a long long ways sometimes.

Grullense- a style of cooking

Kind of funny when even the latinos I know don't know what that word means, and the internet is no help at all... but somebody asked someone who asked someone and that's the answer.

What style that is I have no idea- but jerk chicken breasts and jasmine rice tucked into fresh tortillas cooked on our little gas BBQ on our work truck- now that hit the spot last night!

Well that was fun...... Exeter and Visalia

Nice weekend down south ,

We showed up a little late for the TT and I got in about a 20 minute warmup, not the best for the violent effort to come, but whatever.

I love the Snowflake, my old tri-TT, whatever bike- probably the only 650c bike still running around, I did the touch up paint with white nail polish, running some old Zipp 400's with a straight block of gears and a 56 big cookie, but she's my baby and my first real bike someone actually gave me her since they felt sorry for me doing triathlons on a Bianchi Squadra with downtube shifters, she fits like a dream, though.

They made the hills taller since we came down and checked things out last month, or so it seemed.

Good ride for me despite technical difficulties- pedals, chains, shifting, a ongoing theme of my weekend on both bikes.

Hard hard hard on the hills and moving along on the flats, a little bit of hail, but I ignored it inside my comfy TT helmet anyway. Sold out on the final climb and the ride into town hurt deeply, and what was up with the 20 mph headwind all of a sudden?

We came home with 4th, 6th, and 8th(me) in the cat 3's so good stuff.

Excellent meal and crashed early, only to toss and turn most of the night, some snoozing would have been good, as we got up at oh-dark-thirty to make the first race at 9:10.

Cruising along roughly 5 minutes in, good course for us, and I drop my chain off the bike. In hindsight, I know the rule about basically only crashes and flats get a free lap, I should have grabbed it while rolling and stuck it on, but I was in front of the pit, so I stop to see my favorite mechanic, the Shimano neutral support. We stick it back on, and then the blue shirt get's involved;

him- no free lap for you!

me- yeah, I know, I just drove for three hours and we're 5 minutes in, but I get it.

him- well, get back in!

Me- I'll wait for my teamies on the next lap, please. I already TTed for a hour yesterday.

Him, turning to referee, wanting to DQ me- can we pull him?

Referee- it's a small field, let him back in down a lap.

that solved, I jump back in and notify Nome and the Vick I won't be of any use to them come the sprint, but will do whatever I can for the remainder to help them escape the clutches, but no soup for us...

M123 right after, we do the superman in the phone booth trick with the jerseys pre-pinned, then head back out.

Shimano looks at my bike beforehand and we seem to get the shifting solved, I did just build it up this week, so more than a few glitches..

Bigger field with 45 plus in there too and some quality guys, MS, SP, VOS, ya'll know the deal.- we just covered moves and hoped to be in the right place at the right time.
I felt pretty good and was finding a second wind, starting to recognize the players a bit as the season goes along.
I chased a sweet move that double clutched in the corner, I tried to keep the power down to reach em and skipped my pedal hard, hopping over about a foot, landing upright but tearing the tire off, then riding a degrading rim down from 28 or so, big fun.
Back to my buddy in the pit, I was just about his only customer, but still kept him busy.

Shimano 10 fits Campy 10 no problem, BTW.

No static from the blue shirt this time and I'm off, albeit a little nervous about skipping a pedal again, but it was race on there again for a while, till I sucked and gave in to all the excitement.
pulled the ripcord with one to go and got out of their way, tough race, with no one really going away, but with hard endless attacks, it never really lulled up to recover.

I took the bike off the truck tonight and the crankarm swung down like a power cranks commercial- I can't find any damage and took it apart, my guess is just not tight enough and when I hit the ground with it I loosened it, not too sure, but that's why bikes and cars get raced, to find out what works and survives, seems a-ok now though.

Having to file the rim a tiny bit where I skidded, some pockmarks, and the pedal has a little more clearance now :-)

Il Grullense- a nice chain, I never have gone wrong with stopping at a Grullense, even though I can't figure out what a grullense is, perhaps a mariachi style?


Edit- I just heard about the womens' pro crash, ouch!

Hope everyones' ok- those ladies don't exactly back down when it gets going- pure aggression.

Thin Mints Es Aqui! ---- and CVC images

Kids' got a eye with the camera

The owls are watching the racing intently.

Criterium Cheering Section- feel the joy.

We are Sierra Pac, and we have complete control.....

Escape is futile.....

Well,
I wanted to post about chile verde, 20 dollar primes, a new camera, and general bike racing blather, then I heard about Kristy while driving back home.
news link here



Just so sad when people in the prime of their lives are suddenly gone.

Kristy was a old friend and someone who let old out of shape guys grovel while hanging onto her wheel.

When said guys would begin blabbing about staying in their prescribed HR zones as the reason they couldn't pull around, a small chuckle would emanate and the speed would slowly ramp up until it was time to let go of the wheel and go for cookies at Sweet Affair in Alamo while Kristy continued her training ride.

Always kind to me and my family, she will be missed.

I've been hoping to catch this place open for a couple years now since I read about it while hiding in a motel room during the monsoon/hail/tornado that was the 2005 CVC.

We will see.....

CVC crit- just about one of my favorite races- kind of like a cross race with all those turns and a great crowd, eat some lunch and watch some great pro racing afterwards.

Mystifies me why more people don't make the trek from the Bay Area/ Sac- too bad, the TT in the orange groves went away this year,my guess due to low numbers, and the race through the park for 90 miles of flats in 2005 was IMHO a very interesting race, especially in driving hail, although most of the time the weather this time of year is spectacular in the valley.

Hopefully I found a quiet hotel this year, Fresburg seems to have a hex on me with 2 am phone calls, Mcdonalds' drive thrus next to my room, full-on Gulag architecture that feels like I'm walking the green mile when I go for some broken ice.....

I've been pumped up since Tuesday when I saw the POO ride rolling through Broadway, all those healthy little spandexed creatures flitting down the mean streets of the Big O like sardines with headlights, and me wrestling a fire hose away from a drunken denizen of Third St before he blasted em..... they had no idea how close they came.......

Not a Bike Racing Dumb Comment

From Little C's perspective.......

The Garden of Beauty

There is a garden of beauty

So light, but dark

Safire Sunflowers crowd on the hill

Emerald leaves stand still

Topaz tulips glimmer in the light

Ruby roses shine so bright

These treasures all shine,In this beautiful garden of mine!

I think I have Trac Sac.

Took a few newbies to the track today, what a ball.

Big crowd and a mix of abilities, as usual.

Lots of pursuit and team sprint stuff today, with a couple of small scratch races thrown in, I think the pursuits are a bit safer with lots of people.

My favorite moment, seeing one of our new juniors completely grasp it and take second in the last Aussie pursuit that lasted a solid 10 laps.
Just sweet.

Apres-ride-
TJ's vegan trail mix cookies, a cup of black coffee, and Het Volk Omloop on the internet,
life is good,
Slipstream in the moves early, the boys are here to play and are rolling with some heavy hitters.

Gilbert showing some big stones and staying away for like 49k, the traffic furniture monsters that live in every town in europe got a few bites of spandex and collarbones down the gullet today, makes Merced look like cake, frankly.

Merco stories, please.

Time to toughen up

Snelling M 123- my goals were modest, and luckily so- to stay on for one lap out of five.

The first lap went by quickly, but nothing too crazy, I stayed sheltered on the lee side and tried to avoid mishap.I must say, the masters ride exceedingly smooth considering 100 guys in a headwind on a 15 foot roadway, a couple of small kerbumpity- bumps, but a big difference from the cat 4's.
We turned onto Keyes and I could see the lead fellows jumping hard up the hill, one unfortunate fellow dropped his chain, causing a bit of swerve and such and needing a sprint to get back right there over the hill, where I found a long single line of pain awaiting me.

I moved up about 20 spots in the line following wheels, but then felt like I was in a good spot and hung on, looks like I should have moved up more, I came off with the rest of the bunch from behind by the feed zone and was screwed sixteen different ways to Sunday.

Rode for a couple more laps, then just lost interest when a rain drop hit me and I turned left for the car.

Monday morning quarterbacking-
for someone that is reasonably strong in the wind I certainly have been riding poorly in it since I jumped in with the big fish.

I need to just hang it out there a bit more, push for the front of the race harder and let the natural aggression fly, a little less smarts and more legs would have kept me on for oh, I dunno, maybe another few miles?

Sunday I went out with Jimbo in the pouring rain for three hours,fenders, jackets, and bad attitudes a' bristling.... I think I speak for both of us when I say we will stew about this one for a while and hopefully learn our lesson....

On the flip side, the team rode well as a whole, several victories in different categories was very cool to see, and the juniors raced way hard, two of them taking falls and getting up and finishing very well, great stuff!

Dinuba

Good fun for me and the Vickerator
wonderful digs down south and a great ride whilst checking out the Sequoia TT course on Sunday.

My main goal was to finish a entire 123 race, my first real one since upgrading last year, ummm, that was fun.
Lot's of jammin', Dip hoppin', learning the nuance of the one move that's gonna go somewhere when the mob loses interest, all great fun.
Oh, and I finished, last, but I kind of went for it with a couple to go like I was gonna catch Joel and Tony by myself :-)

3's race was a hoot, those boys were full of piss and vinegar for a few laps, then things settled down quite a bit, not so much struggling for the wheel going on...

Again the innocous little roll-off caught lots of folks unawares, and general disorganization did the rest.
I got so excited I forgot what damn lap we were on and was perfectly set up for 1 more to go...... you know the story from here...doh!
The field got schooled by the boys from Santa Barbara, fun in these Central Valley races, new faces lead to confusion at times, but good hard racing and that's loads of fun, baby!

Los Banos Starbucks- turkey sammie, hot black coffee, and the new Jack Johnson CD, and I was home in a jiffy.

Stupid oatmeal update

So, as well as the last recipe went over here
( probably because I followed someone else's lead on that one )

I went for it last night with kind of whatever I could find and stuck it in the crock-pot....

I usually like bananas, I like walnuts, and I like almond butter.

I was hoping for a banana- bread kind of concoction to fuel me out on the long ride today.....

No cigar.

Who would have thunk that bananas would look like a nasty tofu dog chunk after cooking for 8 hours on low?

Kind of a blackish sticky mess with nasty tofu dawg bits....

I'd post a pic but the camera officially died- I'm thinking about a D40 from Nikon, we're pretty casual photographers, but I hate shutter lag.
And my buddy's D50 was really fun to play with a few weekends ago.....

Rocky Hill recon tomm., yeah!

Yum yum eat em up

I liked this so much last week after staying at the Vicks' I had to, no make that needed to make this before the Sunday Diablo ride.

Easy,

lot's left over for nuking,

and stuck to my ribs for 4 hours of ridin' today.

Good stuff!

I used soy milk in vanilla flavor instead of the half and half, and used raisins and apples, since we had them.

Also put a bit of cinnamon in there.

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 8 hours,
Ingredients:
1 cup steel cut oats
1 cup dried cranberries
1 cup dates, chopped
4 cups water
1/2 cup half and half
2 tablespoons honey
Preparation:Spray inside of slow cooker with nonstick cooking spray. Combine all ingredients except half and half and honey in the slow cooker, cover and cook on LOW for 7 to 8 hours. Stir in half and half and honey, and serve.
If you like more texture in your oatmeal, you can toast the oats before cooking. Place them in a shallow layer on a cookie sheet and toast them at 350 degrees F. for 15-20 minutes, stirring once during cooking time, until oats are a darker gold color. Let cool completely before you combine with the rest of the ingredients in the recipe.
Stir well before serving. 4 servings

Clerks 2- inappropropriate boy humor ahead....

Reminds me of a teammate :-)
Oh my does it...

A Tuesday Worlds' file

Well, back on the TACX today, my little ones' hanging out with me today( cough cough), so a quality garage session is about as good as I can do.....





( a note- this post started yesterday, another day on the TACX is in my future, dang stomach flu :-(, and clear skies too, training inside when the sun is shining sucks! )







There was some discussion yesterday about matches to burn, this is something I always marvel at in the upper ranks of racing, this physiological ability to sustain attack after attack, or perhaps their early attacks aren't really that taxing on their systems, even though I'm dying like a fish out of water back there with the rest of the fodder :-)

So anyway, this was at least part of the reason for all the power spikes kind of around the 30 minute mark, every time they would slow and balloon a bit, off I'd go., like a German Shorthair after a bird.

Trying to get ready for all that attacking/ jumping in the upcoming crit season, something in the tuneup racing I have been struggling with a bit. A whole 'nother ballgame with the onesies and twosies in the mix :-)

Get the jump, settle down, and hope the group broke apart.

I got in eight of these little digs- if you figure a match for me is between 360 and 400 watts, that's eight matches right there.

Then a nice threshold climb up the hill; I pulled into the climb , not the smartest thing to do, but for me, this ride is all about training, and it really frosts me when folks behave like it's a race out there and never take a pull or challenge themselves,, maybe if you pushed yourself more on the group ride/ interval session, etc., more results would come your way, I dunno. The worst thing that's going to happen is youll be last on a group ride that goes out and back, anyway.

Funny, I kept the group in sight- after a initial suffering/ slump in the body over the bars when they jumped on the lower reaches of Calaveras, I was able to keep within myself and pull them back to about 30 seconds, not too bad, considering the previous sufferage.

We then descended and began heading back, we have a sprint point at about 68 minutes into Tuesday Worlds that I lead out my teammate for, a big spike here, it felt tuff, but considering how hard I should be pulling with 500 to go, actually kind of mediocre.

You can really see the effect of the earlier work by this time in the ride, and rather than just kind of guessing at/ letting the inevitable denial take it's course and claim to be Geert Steegmans on the leadout, the numbers don't lie a bit.

The best part about geeking on the PT so far- the reality checks :-)

The trainer video of the day- tour 2001 again. Ullrich Vs Lance. Just ridiculous the battle between those two.

Paskenta

Recovering with some guacamole and root beers, chips are food, etc.

Actually a good game today, about the second game I watched all season( the cross gets in the way of such pursuits)

Gracias to Vick and his family for hosting me, a great dinner last night with old friends and new ones, getting a bit of 411 on the masters' cycling scene is always fun.

Vick and I were forced into a garage ride yesterday, and the forecast was gloomy for Sunday, but that storm blew itself out, leaving snow on all the ridges around Chico, very nice.

With the forecast the ride was smaller than last year, a light south wind pushed us along out of Chico, then we turned left.....

And that shit blew up.
I followed Vick as he turned the big diesel up to 8, passing lots of riders. He made it on while I lollygagged and got dropped again, kind of a varying focus for me, from pondering my navel and thinking about guacamole to getting back to sanctuary one rider at a time and dialing the suffer-meter up to high.
The pack was probably down to 30 by now before Corning, things were settling a bit, although a few riders were doing the whole blasting up the gravel on the right move, a few close calls and then the inevitable crash about midpack, not sure if that behavior caused it or not, but it definitely struck me as a bit dumb for a training ride in February.
I missed it, but Vick caught the tail end, all good though, but a couple guys looked to have busted collarbones, and sore ribs.
The front group was gone, but we rounded up some stragglers and formed a nice paceline, turning left on Black Butte and a 75 mile cutoff.
I really like the riding up this way, we did 30 miles probably of focused riding without any stop signs before we had to slow for a bit as the crash was taking it's toll on a couple of fellas.
Calls were made, and after dropping off the wounded, we headed back to town, picking up a big group of century riders.
One more nice hard segment there at the end, some good race pace, I just looked at the file, the last 10 minutes Vick and I were with one other guy trading pulls to the empty finish line, the power rose on every pull, and the HR was flying by the end.

Nice race simulation, now hopefully this allergy thing is just that and the training isn't derailed, a good week has been planned if I can hang, topped off with some Copperopolis Loops or something equally stupid and hard on Sunday....

Jam

I've been trying some new things with the training this spring- very time limited, so the intensity has been up.... well, that's a rather vague term, actually.



I've been experimenting with blocks of threshold followed by one or two days off, it's been exceptionally productive. While I never had a power meter before, and only got tested once in a blue moon, which means I have no real numbers to go by in the past, but I do believe in learning to listen to your body, and the legs are beginning to feel good, starting to feel some souplesse while turning the pedals.
A damn fine feeling for riding so little.
I love to spend hours just riding, believe in doing hours of suffering in the hills lugging my 81 kg's around and attend the church of the Two-Wheel most Sundays.

Hopefully this summer I'll be able to get out there in a meaningful way, but right now, this is a good good bang for the buck.

Paskenta will be a real test of my garage-riding abilities, the forecast is kind of a crapshoot, but it sounds like a bit of wet in store for us.I like that gravel road, idiot that I am.
Good thing the new bike isn't built up yet, not ready to defile it yet on that kind of day....