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.