since 2006
Friday, June 29, 2007
The 1% Solution
I rode to work today. It was pretty nice, much cooler than the past few days, which makes the backpack more tolerable. The trip took 39 minutes, barely long enough to get warmed up, never mind do any real efforts. The big news is there are four other bikes in the rack. I think that's a record. Roz had to lock her bike to the end. I just checked the census and there are 596 people signed in to this building. Well, it's a start. Thanks for reading.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Sprints nstuff
Last week Duano asked me what he should do for training in order to best prepare for Nationals. He is just doing the crit in the 45+. I passed on the sprint workout that was given to me a few years back by someone who does this stuff for a living. Now it might seem weird, me, the most pathetic sprinter in NE masters racing, giving advice to Duano, who is a speed merchant with a shitload of wins. But hey, stranger things happen.
So my sprint sucks. I also hate doing sprint workouts. Basically, I hardly ever do them. A person of science might conclude that these facts are related. Even though I'm not a sprinter, and I never will be, it still might help to work on the sprint once in a while, or so I thought yesterday. With the heat wave and all, I didn't get outside to ride until 7 pm. I really did not want to just do another lame-o ride around the 'hood, but the look of the sky hinted strongly at an impending thunderstorm, so I did not want to stray too far from home.
Lucky for me, the storm never came. Maybe it passed by a few miles away, because it got breezy and cooled off a bit, down into the 80's. I rode sleeveless and was quite comfortable. So here is the workout:
1) Warm up. Duh. You always have to warm up. For me that means ride easy for a bit, climb a small hill, do some spinning, then do a little jump. Now time for the first part of the workout. Take note, this is also a great way to warm up for a race.
2) Stay seated, in the drops, in a fairly small gear. I chose a 36x17. Find a road that is flat or a very slight uphill. Roll down to less than 15 kph. Go. Do not stand, do not shift. Accelerate in this easy gear as fast as you can, like you were doing a sprint on rollers. Hit the highest rpm you can without crazy bouncing. You should be spun out in less than 20 seconds. Stop. If you have a cadence meter, keep an eye on it. 165 rpm is a good target, unless you're Jonas Carney, then go for 200.
3) Repeat the process above between 3 and 6 times. You should not need too much recovery in between these, maybe 20-60 seconds.
4) After 6 of these, you should be pretty warmed up, but spin easy for 5-10 minutes for full recovery.
5) A second set of 6 of these "spin sprints" is optional. Last night, I did them. Might have only been 4 or 5. Whatever, you get the idea.
6) Now comes the hard part. Find a hill, not too big, but at least 200 meters is good. Put your bike in a big gear, like a 52x15. Roll down to 15 kph, right into the base of the hill. Sprint for all you are worth. Tug on the bars, pull on the pedals, go like it's a drag race. Try to break the pedals right off the crank (but don't actually do that. In fact, check your cleats first). You should blow up before you get to the top of the hill, and in fact before you ever get on top of the gear, otherwise you did not go hard enough.
7) Recover fully, at least 5 minutes before doing another one. Recover fully between each. Do between 2 and 6. Best to start with 2 or 3 the first time you try it.
8) Another 10 minutes of full recovery. Your average speed on this ride should end up the slowest of all your rides this week.
9) Now do a few regular road sprints. Start at around 25-30 kph, pick a sign down the road, and go for your maximum top end, just like in a crit. Do them on a flat or slight downhill with a tailwind. Do 2-6. I only did 3 last night. Don't ask me what my top end was; it was sad.
That's it. Today my arms hurt. I feel pretty tired too. The whole thing only took me 90 minutes. Thanks for reading, please comment all you training machine mofos.
So my sprint sucks. I also hate doing sprint workouts. Basically, I hardly ever do them. A person of science might conclude that these facts are related. Even though I'm not a sprinter, and I never will be, it still might help to work on the sprint once in a while, or so I thought yesterday. With the heat wave and all, I didn't get outside to ride until 7 pm. I really did not want to just do another lame-o ride around the 'hood, but the look of the sky hinted strongly at an impending thunderstorm, so I did not want to stray too far from home.
Lucky for me, the storm never came. Maybe it passed by a few miles away, because it got breezy and cooled off a bit, down into the 80's. I rode sleeveless and was quite comfortable. So here is the workout:
1) Warm up. Duh. You always have to warm up. For me that means ride easy for a bit, climb a small hill, do some spinning, then do a little jump. Now time for the first part of the workout. Take note, this is also a great way to warm up for a race.
2) Stay seated, in the drops, in a fairly small gear. I chose a 36x17. Find a road that is flat or a very slight uphill. Roll down to less than 15 kph. Go. Do not stand, do not shift. Accelerate in this easy gear as fast as you can, like you were doing a sprint on rollers. Hit the highest rpm you can without crazy bouncing. You should be spun out in less than 20 seconds. Stop. If you have a cadence meter, keep an eye on it. 165 rpm is a good target, unless you're Jonas Carney, then go for 200.
3) Repeat the process above between 3 and 6 times. You should not need too much recovery in between these, maybe 20-60 seconds.
4) After 6 of these, you should be pretty warmed up, but spin easy for 5-10 minutes for full recovery.
5) A second set of 6 of these "spin sprints" is optional. Last night, I did them. Might have only been 4 or 5. Whatever, you get the idea.
6) Now comes the hard part. Find a hill, not too big, but at least 200 meters is good. Put your bike in a big gear, like a 52x15. Roll down to 15 kph, right into the base of the hill. Sprint for all you are worth. Tug on the bars, pull on the pedals, go like it's a drag race. Try to break the pedals right off the crank (but don't actually do that. In fact, check your cleats first). You should blow up before you get to the top of the hill, and in fact before you ever get on top of the gear, otherwise you did not go hard enough.
7) Recover fully, at least 5 minutes before doing another one. Recover fully between each. Do between 2 and 6. Best to start with 2 or 3 the first time you try it.
8) Another 10 minutes of full recovery. Your average speed on this ride should end up the slowest of all your rides this week.
9) Now do a few regular road sprints. Start at around 25-30 kph, pick a sign down the road, and go for your maximum top end, just like in a crit. Do them on a flat or slight downhill with a tailwind. Do 2-6. I only did 3 last night. Don't ask me what my top end was; it was sad.
That's it. Today my arms hurt. I feel pretty tired too. The whole thing only took me 90 minutes. Thanks for reading, please comment all you training machine mofos.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Original Paint
This one's for Slow Your Roll. I apologize, I know you're supposed to always photograph a bike from the drive side, and being too lazy to put pedals on it and take it outside, well, there is no excuse for that. The stylish stock fork still has a stem stuck in it too. More accurately, a stem quill, as I took a hacksaw to it to get the fork out.
There's a little bit of a story here. At my very first race, the "D" event at Wells Ave in 1986 (next week will be the anniversary), the appointed "rider/coach" was the then young BRC Cat 2 captain Ted Richards, who was charged with instructing and policing us newbies. Ted's was waif thin then, and he was resplendent in his Brancale helmet, Duegi shoes, and zebra striped lycra jersey. As race director Jim Clarke-Dawe lectured us on the starting line, while some other guy checked the glue job on anyone with tubulars, Ted sat chuckling astride a red SL Rossin. I'd never heard of one before, but figured this must be the bike to own.
Fast forward two years. I'm now a hotshot Cat 3, and thinking it might be time to upgrade my Specialized Allez SE for something more, well, European. I went into IBC, which was then across the street from the present Brighton Ave location, in the low, flat building that is now a Toyota Parts store. One of the best of the local racers, and future National Masters Cyclocross champion Tommy Masterson was working the floor. He wasn't really an employee, he was actually the rep for a distributor, Ten Speed Drive Imports. TSDI had a big domestic team then, with guys like Kent Bostick. They handled Masi, Guercotti, Rossin, and maybe a few other makes. Since Harold was already a big high end dealer, Tom would occasionally come in and push the bikes.
So I'm looking for something nice, and Tom is trying to persuade me to buy a Masi that is on the floor. I thought about it, don't remember the model, but the blue paint just didn't do it for me. We talked racing a bit and then I told him I'd have to think about it. A few nights later, I see Tom at Wompatuck, and he's riding a Rossin, with an awesome and wild paint job. That's it; I'm getting one. The next week I went back and worked out the order with Harold. All Chorus, tubulars, but I wussed out on getting the multi-shape Ghibli because it was $100 more and at the time I'd been advised that in the event of a crash, with the round tubed SLX model it would be easier to replace a tube. I walked out $1895 1988 dollars lighter. This was pre-Euro and the dollar was a tad weak then...
So here it is. A few years later I ended up in a break with Tom in the 30+ race at Optical Ave and we finished 1-2. What was he riding then? A Concorde. Thanks for reading.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Don't fear the rest day - part 1
This is not a real post. It is just an idea for a post. I don't have time to write it. I'll get around to it sooner or later, but this one deserves some thought. Here is the outline: 1) don't be afraid to rest. 2) don't train when you are hurt. 3) runners especially, go back and read number 2. 4) don't be obsessive/compulsive about training (see numbers 2 and 3). 5) Getting faster is not just about training more. If you like to train, or just ride (which doesn't have to be "training") that is fine, but there is more to getting fast than that. 6) Even if you succeed in getting "fast," don't expect to always have it. We are seasonal creatures. Everything is seasonal. I think it has to do with the Earth revolving around the sun. Get used to it.
Murat has posted a new video from Ninigret. The first 8 minutes he is off the front solo, but at least you can get a look at the entire course, just like an F1 broadcast. Near the end of the video you can see some pretty cool action. There are four BOB guys in this race. I am the skinniest one, the one who looks comfy and at ease on his bike. You don't see much of me though. If you ever wondered what it's like to ride in a criterium on a course made out of an old B52 runway, well here you go. Twenty precious minutes of your life and a computer are all you need.
No Wompatuck tonight; they aren't having it due to Exeter. I guess they deserve a night off. I rode the race bike to work today, as the Slim is now all taken apart. Tried coming straight down 138. It's faster, but not as pleasant a ride. My knee feels a little better after two days off the bike, but I'm still worried that it will require an extended rest for all the inflammation to go away. We'll see. I'm going to nurse it for now. This is an overuse condition, so I guess I'll have to limit the use (see number 2 above. Except this isn't really "hurt." Trust me, I know what I'm doing). Thanks for reading.
Murat has posted a new video from Ninigret. The first 8 minutes he is off the front solo, but at least you can get a look at the entire course, just like an F1 broadcast. Near the end of the video you can see some pretty cool action. There are four BOB guys in this race. I am the skinniest one, the one who looks comfy and at ease on his bike. You don't see much of me though. If you ever wondered what it's like to ride in a criterium on a course made out of an old B52 runway, well here you go. Twenty precious minutes of your life and a computer are all you need.
No Wompatuck tonight; they aren't having it due to Exeter. I guess they deserve a night off. I rode the race bike to work today, as the Slim is now all taken apart. Tried coming straight down 138. It's faster, but not as pleasant a ride. My knee feels a little better after two days off the bike, but I'm still worried that it will require an extended rest for all the inflammation to go away. We'll see. I'm going to nurse it for now. This is an overuse condition, so I guess I'll have to limit the use (see number 2 above. Except this isn't really "hurt." Trust me, I know what I'm doing). Thanks for reading.
Monday, June 25, 2007
Slim Pickens
Not much racing available on the calendar for me the next few weeks. Yeah, sure, I could go to Exeter tomorrow night and do fifty laps of the town square with all the slow masters who hang on to the back of the fast guys half their age, but that would be a waste of $30 and an early release (huh-huh) from work. Of course I'm not doing Fitchburg, as there is no 45+, it requires two days off work that I can't schedule, and because I never was able to do shit on those courses anyway. Some of the teammates are going to PA to race at the Ed Peters Omnium, but I'm not sure I have the industrial nor financial fortitude to spend two days in the van and some ghetto motel with those guys. I'll probably wind up in the feed zone at Fitchburg Saturday anyway.
Complicating matters is my knee getting cranky again after racing at Ninigret on Saturday. At least the racing went OK. I made it home in one piece, which is a bit of a surprise after on course antics of some of my peers. The usually smooth 45+ race featured numerous riders meandering around the course like they were talking on cell phones or something. I guess I'll blame it on Ninigret, as the flat parcours brings out the not so fit, resulting in huge disparity of abilities within the group. The ever present ocean winds across the twisting layout leaves some of these guys hapless and hopeless, diving across the road for wheels to draft, or suddenly blowing up and practically stopping when they can't find one. I can't keep all the whats and whens straight, but after initiating an early break that went several laps before dieing of natural causes, I stayed out of sight and out of mind until the last few laps. By then Skip Foley had a decent but tenuous solo going, and the front of the field in his wake was pretty splintered. With two to go I mounted my charge, hoping any form of grouppetto would completely shatter and leave it all to strength in the wind. On the front stretch taking two to go I headed up on the windy side where it was wide open, only to get taken WAAAAYYYY onto the grass by a crazy push left. One match burned, zero forward progress... Down the far end, coming onto the tailwind backstretch, the inside closes down before I can clear the front and again I get parked. At least it was expected there. I'm not down yet, I get clear on the backside, and start to fly through all the shattered remnants of the last chase group, hoping to get to the few strongmen who remain. Wrong. Going into the second to last turn at great speed, one of the expodee's decides that he is done, and pulls a massive inside to outside move right into my path. I unleashed a verbal tirade as I check up and lose momentum, and he yells that he was "just trying to get out of the way." Good job...
I tried to wind it up again, but entering the front stretch I realize I'm getting gassed and there is still a lap and a quarter to go. I'm about to pack it in, but I hear Duano yelling from behind, "go, go, I need help." Luckily I was still rolling and with renewed purpose in life I made a good charge down the brutal headwind stretch with Duane in tow. I got us up to a small group at the far end of the course, and I hesitated behind them in hopes of grabbing a few seconds recovery before making a last gasp attempt to launch Duano down the backstretch. I guess he felt he could not afford to wait, and he went right around in pursuit of Skip, and there might have been one or two others in the airspace behind him too. I sat up and said to myself shit, that is a LONG way to go for a sprinter like Duane, and I knew he had not gotten a free ride up to my wheel either. Down the backstretch I sat watching an amazing display of him blowing through everyone who was left, and almost reeling in Skip at the line. He got second. DS may not look too fit, but when he is motivated, he can turn it on. That's why he's our team leader.
We then jumped in the 35+ race. At least this was a lot smoother. Of course, Markie was in there, and early on he started a break with Jonny Bold, Bill Yabroudy, and two others. This was all the horsepower they needed. Just after they went, I did my best for a lap or two to contain the break, but it was hopeless. We then just sat in and waited to sprint for the minor placings. On the two to go lap it was much the same deal, some guys strung out ahead of the dwindling bunch. I got up next to Duane and asked what he wanted to do, and he told me to attack the field right now. OK. I went and got up as far the second group on the road, which was Adam Sternfeld, a Benidorm rider who had been out there himself for a few laps, and one other guy. Getting to them wasn't all that hard, but I was pretty gassed, so I thought it best to just sit on them and try to kill it, hoping Duane was able to ride the chase behind me. It worked, and on the mini straight before the final, the cavalry came up, so I looked back to try to pick up Duane for a leadout, but he was back further than I expected. Not to worry, as he knows the Ninigret sprint well and purposely stayed back because of the headwind. He still worked his way though to the front but got piped at the line, taking 7th. I just rolled in.
Combined with Wompatuck and Blue Hills, these two races gave me a nice load of intensity for the week. My knee got stiff and started clicking again though, so I canceled my planned long day in the saddle Sunday and instead stripped the Slim Chance down to the bare frame. It needed some love. Now I have to decide how I want to build it back up. I also pieced the cross bike back together, but got stuck trying to find a front derailleur that would shift the 38/47 combo with a DA STI lever. No go. The old one had sort of worked, but it overshifted and the adjustment screws were hosed. I just wanted to make the bike ridable, so I finally capitulated and swapped it to 39/52, which shifted fine with a cheap Sora FD. Not even sure what I am doing with this thing. Anyone want to by a 58 cm cross bike, formerly raced by a multi-time national champion? Thanks for reading.
Update - Hey, Check it out! Bobke Strut has a pic today of Bart Bowen riding an identical cross bike. (same team as the guy I bought mine from)
Also, I forgot to say, NBX came through at their race with not only free Gatorade water bottles (the nice ones), full with Gatorade, but a BBQ too, where I feasted on four burgers. What can I say, I was short on cash so I loaded up while watching JB1 get caught just before the line in a valiant last lap solo effort against JB2, (or his lookalike, I though this guy was on a Cervelo but the results say it's not Josef) who took 6th or so, and all the other cat 3s. I also found time for some small talk with Murat after the 35+.
Complicating matters is my knee getting cranky again after racing at Ninigret on Saturday. At least the racing went OK. I made it home in one piece, which is a bit of a surprise after on course antics of some of my peers. The usually smooth 45+ race featured numerous riders meandering around the course like they were talking on cell phones or something. I guess I'll blame it on Ninigret, as the flat parcours brings out the not so fit, resulting in huge disparity of abilities within the group. The ever present ocean winds across the twisting layout leaves some of these guys hapless and hopeless, diving across the road for wheels to draft, or suddenly blowing up and practically stopping when they can't find one. I can't keep all the whats and whens straight, but after initiating an early break that went several laps before dieing of natural causes, I stayed out of sight and out of mind until the last few laps. By then Skip Foley had a decent but tenuous solo going, and the front of the field in his wake was pretty splintered. With two to go I mounted my charge, hoping any form of grouppetto would completely shatter and leave it all to strength in the wind. On the front stretch taking two to go I headed up on the windy side where it was wide open, only to get taken WAAAAYYYY onto the grass by a crazy push left. One match burned, zero forward progress... Down the far end, coming onto the tailwind backstretch, the inside closes down before I can clear the front and again I get parked. At least it was expected there. I'm not down yet, I get clear on the backside, and start to fly through all the shattered remnants of the last chase group, hoping to get to the few strongmen who remain. Wrong. Going into the second to last turn at great speed, one of the expodee's decides that he is done, and pulls a massive inside to outside move right into my path. I unleashed a verbal tirade as I check up and lose momentum, and he yells that he was "just trying to get out of the way." Good job...
I tried to wind it up again, but entering the front stretch I realize I'm getting gassed and there is still a lap and a quarter to go. I'm about to pack it in, but I hear Duano yelling from behind, "go, go, I need help." Luckily I was still rolling and with renewed purpose in life I made a good charge down the brutal headwind stretch with Duane in tow. I got us up to a small group at the far end of the course, and I hesitated behind them in hopes of grabbing a few seconds recovery before making a last gasp attempt to launch Duano down the backstretch. I guess he felt he could not afford to wait, and he went right around in pursuit of Skip, and there might have been one or two others in the airspace behind him too. I sat up and said to myself shit, that is a LONG way to go for a sprinter like Duane, and I knew he had not gotten a free ride up to my wheel either. Down the backstretch I sat watching an amazing display of him blowing through everyone who was left, and almost reeling in Skip at the line. He got second. DS may not look too fit, but when he is motivated, he can turn it on. That's why he's our team leader.
We then jumped in the 35+ race. At least this was a lot smoother. Of course, Markie was in there, and early on he started a break with Jonny Bold, Bill Yabroudy, and two others. This was all the horsepower they needed. Just after they went, I did my best for a lap or two to contain the break, but it was hopeless. We then just sat in and waited to sprint for the minor placings. On the two to go lap it was much the same deal, some guys strung out ahead of the dwindling bunch. I got up next to Duane and asked what he wanted to do, and he told me to attack the field right now. OK. I went and got up as far the second group on the road, which was Adam Sternfeld, a Benidorm rider who had been out there himself for a few laps, and one other guy. Getting to them wasn't all that hard, but I was pretty gassed, so I thought it best to just sit on them and try to kill it, hoping Duane was able to ride the chase behind me. It worked, and on the mini straight before the final, the cavalry came up, so I looked back to try to pick up Duane for a leadout, but he was back further than I expected. Not to worry, as he knows the Ninigret sprint well and purposely stayed back because of the headwind. He still worked his way though to the front but got piped at the line, taking 7th. I just rolled in.
Combined with Wompatuck and Blue Hills, these two races gave me a nice load of intensity for the week. My knee got stiff and started clicking again though, so I canceled my planned long day in the saddle Sunday and instead stripped the Slim Chance down to the bare frame. It needed some love. Now I have to decide how I want to build it back up. I also pieced the cross bike back together, but got stuck trying to find a front derailleur that would shift the 38/47 combo with a DA STI lever. No go. The old one had sort of worked, but it overshifted and the adjustment screws were hosed. I just wanted to make the bike ridable, so I finally capitulated and swapped it to 39/52, which shifted fine with a cheap Sora FD. Not even sure what I am doing with this thing. Anyone want to by a 58 cm cross bike, formerly raced by a multi-time national champion? Thanks for reading.
Update - Hey, Check it out! Bobke Strut has a pic today of Bart Bowen riding an identical cross bike. (same team as the guy I bought mine from)
Also, I forgot to say, NBX came through at their race with not only free Gatorade water bottles (the nice ones), full with Gatorade, but a BBQ too, where I feasted on four burgers. What can I say, I was short on cash so I loaded up while watching JB1 get caught just before the line in a valiant last lap solo effort against JB2, (or his lookalike, I though this guy was on a Cervelo but the results say it's not Josef) who took 6th or so, and all the other cat 3s. I also found time for some small talk with Murat after the 35+.
Friday, June 22, 2007
More subbing for Ge
I rode to work three times this week! That must be a record. Today I made it in just 39 minutes, despite having to wait a few minutes at the train crossing. I'm not sure that I really save any money though, as I spend at least an extra buck on breakfast when I get here, and probably eat more during the day too.
I've been following the exploits of the IF/Lionette's local heroes at the Tour of Ohio. The competition must be brutal, because these guys are pretty damn good, and well, it looks like they are having a rough time of it. Support your local D3 Pros, at least the friendly ones.
Still waiting for Il Bruce to serve us up some more of his wool jersey wisdom. The comments are great and all, but there's just too much there for RI's premier retro rider to keep it all to himself. BTW Brucie, Billy Rounds has been terrorizing Wompatuck lately. That's it for now, looks like another crit at Ninigret for me this weekend. Have fun on the bike and off, thanks for reading.
I've been following the exploits of the IF/Lionette's local heroes at the Tour of Ohio. The competition must be brutal, because these guys are pretty damn good, and well, it looks like they are having a rough time of it. Support your local D3 Pros, at least the friendly ones.
Still waiting for Il Bruce to serve us up some more of his wool jersey wisdom. The comments are great and all, but there's just too much there for RI's premier retro rider to keep it all to himself. BTW Brucie, Billy Rounds has been terrorizing Wompatuck lately. That's it for now, looks like another crit at Ninigret for me this weekend. Have fun on the bike and off, thanks for reading.
Mass Audubon is anti-bicycle
Yesterday I did not ride to work. Commuting is great and all, but I felt that a harder post work ride was in order. As luck would have it, I got stuck working late and did not roll out of the parking lot at work until 7. The parkways in the Blue Hills were pretty quiet by then, so I rode over Chickatawbut Road to the Quincy side. Usually there's a lot of traffic using the road to bypass the highway, which is too bad, because the variety of climbs over there is nice.
On the way over, I noticed that the gate at the bottom of the access road leading to the top of Chickatabut Hill was open. As I noted in the comments last week, while shorter than Big Blue, this is a very steep climb. I wasn't warmed up yet, so I went right by, and first took in the climb up from Wood Road, and then went down to Furnace Brook to do the gradual climb all the way up Wampatuk Road and back to the overlook area. I covered this 3.3 km @ 2.3% in 6:56, and as I recall seven minutes was always my benchmark. I then did a loop around the Blue Hills circuit race course before heading back over to try the "other" access road.
Now, for background, the Blue Hills is a 7000+ acre reservation under the control of the Mass DCR. There are several parkways, open to motor vehicle traffic, running through it. After dark some of these are gated and closed. Mountain biking on reservation land is regulated, and mountain bikes are prohibited from all areas east of Route 28, which includes the Chickatawbut Hill area. But I'm on my road bike, and in Mass we are allowed to ride anywhere cars can go, with the exception of limited-access highways.
At the top of the Chickatawbut Hill access road, there is an old Nike missile radar site which has been converted into a park camp of sorts. It has a chain link fence around it. The property is owned by the state, but for some reason this camp and the Trailside Museum are under the control of Mass Audubon, which is a private group. So anyway, I've ridden this paved vehicle road for years anytime the gate was open. Once reaching the top, since the chainlink fence sits at the steepest part of the climb, if the gate is open at the top then I'll ride right though and roll around the small parking lot to catch my breath before heading back down.
So last night I head up, surprised the gate is open at night, and I even see a car heading down. The climb is only about 500 meters long, but it's over 15% for about half of that. It takes me 2 minutes to reach the gate at the top, which is wide open. I go right through, finding about a dozen cars parked there. Obviously there's something going on inside one of the camp buildings. Now it's 8 pm, and I'm a lone rider on a road bike, just quietly rolling through the parking loop recovering a bit. As I start to head down, this kid (well, guy in his twenties) is sprinting across the grass, chasing after me like I just stole his wallet or something. He flails his arms and runs out into the roadway to cut me off, summoning me to stop. While not identifying himself, he proceeds to lecture me about using this roadway, tells me there is a camp up there, and that bicycles are not allowed. The emphasis was on bicycles. I was really in no mood to engage this clown, because if he was hyped enough to drop what he was doing and chase after a quiet cyclist who was obviously leaving anyway, well he's some kind of nut.
Regardless, I was quite dumbfounded and so I said "hey dude, outside the fence is park property." He then tells me, well, "it's all park property, we just don't want bicycles up here." Now, this guy had to know the difference between a road and a mountain bike, and even a second grader could see that my only "crime" was riding a bike on a road that was (tonight anyway) open to motor vehicle traffic. Sure, it's "authorized vehicles only" but so is the other access road on Blue Hills. Bottom line is that it's not mountain biking, it's not trespassing, it's public land. Yet somehow, the Unhappy Audubon Camper feels that the since the state has for some reason granted them use of the land, he is entitled to kick other citizens off of it. This incident lead me to look around the web and find out more about this group, and sure enough, every single info page for areas under their control contains the line: "Do not bring motorized vehicles or bicycles onto the site." Odd, because Mr. Supervisor of Young Boys in the Woods Way Up on the Hill obviously drove his fucking car up there. If you are financially supporting these elitist snobs, please stop. Thanks for reading.
On the way over, I noticed that the gate at the bottom of the access road leading to the top of Chickatabut Hill was open. As I noted in the comments last week, while shorter than Big Blue, this is a very steep climb. I wasn't warmed up yet, so I went right by, and first took in the climb up from Wood Road, and then went down to Furnace Brook to do the gradual climb all the way up Wampatuk Road and back to the overlook area. I covered this 3.3 km @ 2.3% in 6:56, and as I recall seven minutes was always my benchmark. I then did a loop around the Blue Hills circuit race course before heading back over to try the "other" access road.
Now, for background, the Blue Hills is a 7000+ acre reservation under the control of the Mass DCR. There are several parkways, open to motor vehicle traffic, running through it. After dark some of these are gated and closed. Mountain biking on reservation land is regulated, and mountain bikes are prohibited from all areas east of Route 28, which includes the Chickatawbut Hill area. But I'm on my road bike, and in Mass we are allowed to ride anywhere cars can go, with the exception of limited-access highways.
At the top of the Chickatawbut Hill access road, there is an old Nike missile radar site which has been converted into a park camp of sorts. It has a chain link fence around it. The property is owned by the state, but for some reason this camp and the Trailside Museum are under the control of Mass Audubon, which is a private group. So anyway, I've ridden this paved vehicle road for years anytime the gate was open. Once reaching the top, since the chainlink fence sits at the steepest part of the climb, if the gate is open at the top then I'll ride right though and roll around the small parking lot to catch my breath before heading back down.
So last night I head up, surprised the gate is open at night, and I even see a car heading down. The climb is only about 500 meters long, but it's over 15% for about half of that. It takes me 2 minutes to reach the gate at the top, which is wide open. I go right through, finding about a dozen cars parked there. Obviously there's something going on inside one of the camp buildings. Now it's 8 pm, and I'm a lone rider on a road bike, just quietly rolling through the parking loop recovering a bit. As I start to head down, this kid (well, guy in his twenties) is sprinting across the grass, chasing after me like I just stole his wallet or something. He flails his arms and runs out into the roadway to cut me off, summoning me to stop. While not identifying himself, he proceeds to lecture me about using this roadway, tells me there is a camp up there, and that bicycles are not allowed. The emphasis was on bicycles. I was really in no mood to engage this clown, because if he was hyped enough to drop what he was doing and chase after a quiet cyclist who was obviously leaving anyway, well he's some kind of nut.
Regardless, I was quite dumbfounded and so I said "hey dude, outside the fence is park property." He then tells me, well, "it's all park property, we just don't want bicycles up here." Now, this guy had to know the difference between a road and a mountain bike, and even a second grader could see that my only "crime" was riding a bike on a road that was (tonight anyway) open to motor vehicle traffic. Sure, it's "authorized vehicles only" but so is the other access road on Blue Hills. Bottom line is that it's not mountain biking, it's not trespassing, it's public land. Yet somehow, the Unhappy Audubon Camper feels that the since the state has for some reason granted them use of the land, he is entitled to kick other citizens off of it. This incident lead me to look around the web and find out more about this group, and sure enough, every single info page for areas under their control contains the line: "Do not bring motorized vehicles or bicycles onto the site." Odd, because Mr. Supervisor of Young Boys in the Woods Way Up on the Hill obviously drove his fucking car up there. If you are financially supporting these elitist snobs, please stop. Thanks for reading.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Commuting and Womp
Again today I'm going to pick up the slack for Gewilli and ride to work. What the hey. Last night I got stuck at that hell hole until past my normal departure, thus failing to leave early for Wompatuck. I was so stressed, I just said f it, I'm going anyway. After the quickest kitting up ever, I got in the race with 16 laps to go. Not too bad. There were 54 riders, including a lot of the local good guys. I warmed up at the back for about twenty minutes and then went to the front with about 10 to go, and before long I found myself in "the move." Actually, it wasn't so much a move as a 15 rider streetfight, with a bunch of us off the front but not cooperating, just throwing attack after attack. I think everyone wanted the break to work, but nobody wanted it to be this big. About half of us were strong enough to hang with the jumps, but not to participate. Some went out the back and others bridged, and there were a few futile attempts by some to establish a paceline.
It was a lot of fun, but I was way beyond my comfort zone, and crossing into the chest pain zone. Not sure if Tommy Mannion got in there, but if he didn't, then I was probably the oldest. His son Gavin was there, along with Myerson and Marzot, and after a few laps Markie bridged up from the field to join Sammy Morse, Jonny Bold, and all the other high horsepower guys. As noted a few posts back, I don't have much jump to begin with, and with the damage from Sunday's run still evident, I was not having an easy time. Still though, this was good for me; at least I was getting my money's worth out of a short night. At five to go I thought I could hang, and we had one lap there when the pace went smooth, but all that meant was that the motors were taking a second to recover before launching the killer blow. At four to go Markie made a jump and everyone scampered to get on the train, I of course had just pulled off and then got chopped a bit at the top of the hill, and my will to live on in this fight whimpered to a close. The remaining eight or so maintained their 20 second gap until the end of the race, whereas I faded back to the groupetto and sat in for a few laps before making one last interval effort at 1.5 to go. I lasted about 3/4 lap at 45-50 kph, over 2 minutes, so I was quite pleased with that. It would have been nice to hang with the big boys but under the circumstances I'm just happy I got down there to make the effort instead of just rolling around home at 20 kph mumbling about how much my job sucks. Time to pack up the backpack and hit the road. Thanks for reading.
Monday, June 18, 2007
More slack
With Gewilli vacationing, I guess I need to help pick up the slack. So today, not only did I ride my bike into work, I'll ramble on a bit about power. Even though I don't have a power meter. Yeah, I rode to work today, on the Slim Chance; I modified the route a bit, riding very slowly, and it took 50 minutes. Usually I leave at 7:45, but today I pushed it until 8:10 and there was quite a bit less traffic. The summer probably has something to do with that (no, just because I'm subbing for Gewilli doesn't mean I'm going to write "prolly." That is just sad and annoying).
Since I didn't race on Saturday (another Gewilli trait - not racing), I did not get to judge my fitness against all the best New England masters. Really, this spring has been a bust for hilly races. Turtle Pond and Jiminy are only small hills, and they come too early in the season to judge with. At Hollenbeck I raced with the 3's, and on the first lap I was in a break and able to sag climb. At Sunapee, I got shelled early. So I've really got no idea how well I'm climbing. My times on Big Blue have been not at all stellar, so of course I'm worried, but after doing all the training and climbing up north, I was hoping for some validation at Monson. With that not happening, when KL asked what kind of ride we would do on Saturday, I suggested we go to Big Blue and really throw down the gauntlet, and even though she was racing the next day at Hoosatonic Hills (I wasn't), she agreed.
We rolled over for an easy warmup, without doing any intense efforts. When we got to the hill, the gate was open and we rolled right up. Not coming to a complete stop saves a bit of energy and is probably worth several seconds. I used a 36x17 and we rode side by side until hitting the flat spot at 1:07, where I took the front. Knowing this was a one climb, all or nothing test, I pushed hard. Approaching the switchback, I labored in the saddle, trying to stave off downshifting, and KL spun past. Through the switchback and onto the steep along the guardrail, she pulled out five bike lengths advantage, but even though I was going hard, I wasn't blowing up. We were still under three minutes, so I knew this would be decent. Using my familiarity of the hill (she's only done it three or four time before), I reeled her back in. We were both sucking wind. She later said she thought the wide spot where the chairlift ends was the top, and was quite disheartened to see the road keep going. I jumped aheand and drove it over the final pitch and along the flattish finish to stop the watch at 4:52, my best this year by almost 40 seconds, and one of my top 5 all time efforts. KL came in about six seconds down.
When we got home I weighed the bikes, with bottles and seatbags, and they weighed exactly the same, 9.5 kg each. In full kit, KL weighed 43.5 kg and I weighed 81 kg. So crunching this through analyticcycling.com with the appropriate frontal area estimates, using 1400 meters at .089 grade, I came up with 420 watts for me and 245 required for KL. Dividing by our respective weights (minus 1 kg for the kits, shoes, helmets) I got a CP5 of 5.25 w/kg for me and 5.67 w/kg for her. So why did I get to the top faster? Simple, because our bikes weigh the same, thus hers is a much greater percentage of body weight. If you take the total weights, and do 245/53 versus 420/90.5, the advantage goes to me. Interestingly, on the Coggan charts her CP5 is in the middle of the domestic pro range (which is the level that she races at) and mine is in the middle of Cat 2 (well, I never quite made it). All just a hill of shit, but I'm relieved to have put up a time within 10 seconds of where I was at this time last year.
Sunday I was up early, and without having a bike race, even though I haven't run in exactly one month, I filled out and application and jogged the quarter mile over to the start of the Childrens Museum 5 mile Road Race. This usually conflicts with Monson, and I'm not a summer runner, so I usually miss this one of the three local races. Too bad, as this is the biggest, attracting over 300 runners this year. I lined up in the front, just behind a few of the HFC Striders who I know by sight and who usually finish just in front of me at these races. Of course I entered thinking I'd just do a jog here, but you know how it is. With zero mileage in the last month, the gun went off and I headed out just back from the leaders. At a half mile or so, I was amazed to not be breathing that hard. All that bike racing helps. Approaching the one mile mark, my legs were already feeling it, but I held my spot, hitting the mark at six flat. OK, slower than in the spring, but that's to be expected. This hurt though. Mile two I tried to settle, but it still hurt, even though it took 6:26. A guy passed me and someone cheered "Go Steve" and I realized it was this guy Steve Warren from Sharon. He is a real runner, in my age group, doesn't quite medal at most races, but he's ALWAYS ahead of me. I latched right on to his feet. His pace was even, but uncomfortably fast for me, but I hung on with my HR at 170 (LT on the bike is 160. Running?). At the 3 mile, which came 6:46 later, a mushroom cloud went up over the head of one of the HFC's ahead and we passed him. Really suffering now, I clung grimly until just about the mile 4 marker, where Steve began to pull away. The split was back down to 6:32. In the final mile, my feet even hurt (didn't think I'd need vaseline for such a short race, and just used body glide), so I guess I'm not used to the heat. Three more guys passed me in the homestretch as my fifth mile faded back to 6:42, and I finished 16th (7th 40-49) at 32:32. I just got my free water and walked home to lick my wounds.
Today my legs are f'd. That's why I rode to work. I'm afraid if I just sit they'll sieze up completely. Oh well, it was a good push for the heart, 32 minutes with an average HR of 166. I don't think it will help the cycling too much though. Thanks for reading.
Since I didn't race on Saturday (another Gewilli trait - not racing), I did not get to judge my fitness against all the best New England masters. Really, this spring has been a bust for hilly races. Turtle Pond and Jiminy are only small hills, and they come too early in the season to judge with. At Hollenbeck I raced with the 3's, and on the first lap I was in a break and able to sag climb. At Sunapee, I got shelled early. So I've really got no idea how well I'm climbing. My times on Big Blue have been not at all stellar, so of course I'm worried, but after doing all the training and climbing up north, I was hoping for some validation at Monson. With that not happening, when KL asked what kind of ride we would do on Saturday, I suggested we go to Big Blue and really throw down the gauntlet, and even though she was racing the next day at Hoosatonic Hills (I wasn't), she agreed.
We rolled over for an easy warmup, without doing any intense efforts. When we got to the hill, the gate was open and we rolled right up. Not coming to a complete stop saves a bit of energy and is probably worth several seconds. I used a 36x17 and we rode side by side until hitting the flat spot at 1:07, where I took the front. Knowing this was a one climb, all or nothing test, I pushed hard. Approaching the switchback, I labored in the saddle, trying to stave off downshifting, and KL spun past. Through the switchback and onto the steep along the guardrail, she pulled out five bike lengths advantage, but even though I was going hard, I wasn't blowing up. We were still under three minutes, so I knew this would be decent. Using my familiarity of the hill (she's only done it three or four time before), I reeled her back in. We were both sucking wind. She later said she thought the wide spot where the chairlift ends was the top, and was quite disheartened to see the road keep going. I jumped aheand and drove it over the final pitch and along the flattish finish to stop the watch at 4:52, my best this year by almost 40 seconds, and one of my top 5 all time efforts. KL came in about six seconds down.
When we got home I weighed the bikes, with bottles and seatbags, and they weighed exactly the same, 9.5 kg each. In full kit, KL weighed 43.5 kg and I weighed 81 kg. So crunching this through analyticcycling.com with the appropriate frontal area estimates, using 1400 meters at .089 grade, I came up with 420 watts for me and 245 required for KL. Dividing by our respective weights (minus 1 kg for the kits, shoes, helmets) I got a CP5 of 5.25 w/kg for me and 5.67 w/kg for her. So why did I get to the top faster? Simple, because our bikes weigh the same, thus hers is a much greater percentage of body weight. If you take the total weights, and do 245/53 versus 420/90.5, the advantage goes to me. Interestingly, on the Coggan charts her CP5 is in the middle of the domestic pro range (which is the level that she races at) and mine is in the middle of Cat 2 (well, I never quite made it). All just a hill of shit, but I'm relieved to have put up a time within 10 seconds of where I was at this time last year.
Sunday I was up early, and without having a bike race, even though I haven't run in exactly one month, I filled out and application and jogged the quarter mile over to the start of the Childrens Museum 5 mile Road Race. This usually conflicts with Monson, and I'm not a summer runner, so I usually miss this one of the three local races. Too bad, as this is the biggest, attracting over 300 runners this year. I lined up in the front, just behind a few of the HFC Striders who I know by sight and who usually finish just in front of me at these races. Of course I entered thinking I'd just do a jog here, but you know how it is. With zero mileage in the last month, the gun went off and I headed out just back from the leaders. At a half mile or so, I was amazed to not be breathing that hard. All that bike racing helps. Approaching the one mile mark, my legs were already feeling it, but I held my spot, hitting the mark at six flat. OK, slower than in the spring, but that's to be expected. This hurt though. Mile two I tried to settle, but it still hurt, even though it took 6:26. A guy passed me and someone cheered "Go Steve" and I realized it was this guy Steve Warren from Sharon. He is a real runner, in my age group, doesn't quite medal at most races, but he's ALWAYS ahead of me. I latched right on to his feet. His pace was even, but uncomfortably fast for me, but I hung on with my HR at 170 (LT on the bike is 160. Running?). At the 3 mile, which came 6:46 later, a mushroom cloud went up over the head of one of the HFC's ahead and we passed him. Really suffering now, I clung grimly until just about the mile 4 marker, where Steve began to pull away. The split was back down to 6:32. In the final mile, my feet even hurt (didn't think I'd need vaseline for such a short race, and just used body glide), so I guess I'm not used to the heat. Three more guys passed me in the homestretch as my fifth mile faded back to 6:42, and I finished 16th (7th 40-49) at 32:32. I just got my free water and walked home to lick my wounds.
Today my legs are f'd. That's why I rode to work. I'm afraid if I just sit they'll sieze up completely. Oh well, it was a good push for the heart, 32 minutes with an average HR of 166. I don't think it will help the cycling too much though. Thanks for reading.
Shit hits the fanbelt
Originally, the Cyclonauts Road Race at Monson, held this past Saturday, was planned as an "A" event for me. That started to change a few weeks ago when my knee began acting up. Still though, things were looking pretty good as the weekend drew near, and with a full compliment of BOB teammates already entered, I looked forward to going. Friday I began my preparations by going out to open up with a ride over at Moose Hill, including some nice jumps on both hills and the flats. I was reasonably pleased with the way my legs responded, but reasonably annoyed by all the noise my bike was making.
When I got home, I first checked the chain stretch and sure enough, the chain is beyond toast. It's been a while. I did not remember ever buying a 10 speed chain, but rummaging through the parts bins yielded a nice new Ultegra. I pulled off the crank (huh-huh) to do the bottom bracket as well, but close inspection revealed that the one that was in there did not take the standard spline tool. In fact, this was not even an FSA as first thought, but instead an early generation ISIS by Truvativ, held in place by two small lockrings with eight notches. Turning the spindle by hand revealed that this POS was surely history, but despite owning at least ten different bottom bracket and lockring tools, none of them fit this thing. After briefly considering pulling a CTodd and attempting to use channel locks, I came to my senses and decided to just put the cranks back on and live with the creak until I can scare up the correct tool.
By now it was getting dark and I took a break to go and gas up the Geo, as the planned 5 am departure would mean every minute counts in the morning. After checking the gas and filling the oil, I took an additional moment to have a look at my alternator belt, which has only been shrieking for the entire two years I've owned the car. Well, the picture is worth a thousand words. I headed over to the parts store and bought some new belts, but of course by now it was dark. More consideration. I could just take the "car stuff" toolbox and belts with me, and pray that we made it to Monson and back. The thought of struggling to reach all the bolts in the cramped Geo underhood while roasting in the sun while parked in the Mass Turnpike breakdown lane did not seem too appealing. We discussed trying to fit everything into the Insight, but that would mean making the trip with the seat pushed all the way forward, perfect if you're four-eleven, but not so good if you're a foot taller than that.
Let's review: It's 10 pm, the race is two hours away and starts at 8, I have a creaky and suspect knee, my bike's in pieces, we have an untrustworthy transport vehicle, and we're not pre-registered. The choice was obvious:
Thank for reading.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Slack
With Gewilli planning a vacation, I guess we'll all need to take it up a notch and get some content up. I haven't had much going on. Murat has put up the video from Wells Ave, complete with banner text in the parts where I find my way onto his wheel. Cut to about 9 minutes in. CTodd has a Mount Washington video up, featuring a cameo role by Diggerhead Darcy. You may remember her from last year's Green Mountain Stage Race posts. Don't miss it.
I gave myself a new bike racer haircut this morning, which came out OK, but no video this time. My knee is still creaky, but I've been just riding easy every other day. Tonight is off, with a trip to the Brockton Rox game with the work crew on tap. My bikes need a bit of TLC. I think the race bike is due for a new chain, and the 12/27 might be at the end of it's life too.
Yesterday I got bored and weighed a few tires. The Michelin Megamium 700x23's came in at 260 grams, exactly as advertised. The 700x25 wire bead Conti GP's were 300g. I meant to go upstairs and grab a Tufo S33 tubular forSlow Your Roll, BKR, but I never got around to it. Truth be told, I don't ride tubulars too often. I have them on the track bike, but never get to the track anymore. My disc is a tubular too. The only 130 mm tubulars I have are a beat up pair of Heliums, and two sets of DA hubs with GP4s that I bought from Markie. One pair has cross tires, and the other is setup for the road with the Tufos. I like these tires, and at only about $35 each they are a steal. Most cheap tubulars are junk, but these look very similar to old CX's, but what I really like about them is that they glue up nice and straight, and the base tape is perfectly even. In the olden days, those things weren't a given, even with expensive tubulars. I think Clement is French for "pregnant snake." I'm a Fasttack guy too. I used to use Wolber glue, but I never see it anymore. Conti and Vittoria glue in a tube seems to cause base tapes to fall off. I've heard many horror stories about Tubasti, though when I bought these wheels that is what was in use and the tires were on there very securely. I've heard Mastick One (another Vittoria product?) had the highest bond in tests, but with proper application, Fasttack is tight enough that sometimes I need to cut the tires off, so I trust it the most. Not good for training, but I never train on them.
In 2005 I used the GP4s for the Mount A TT. They worked out great, but everyone else used aero wheels so in 2006 I got greedy and used my 6501 clinchers, and promptly flatted as soon as I hit the dirt. For this year it'd be nice to have a set of racy tubulars, but that's unlikely to happen.
Still don't know which race I'm doing at Monson. I guess I'll decide that morning. Hardly anyone has signed up for the 30+ so maybe he'll combine it with the 40+ and make my decision for me. Thanks for reading.
I gave myself a new bike racer haircut this morning, which came out OK, but no video this time. My knee is still creaky, but I've been just riding easy every other day. Tonight is off, with a trip to the Brockton Rox game with the work crew on tap. My bikes need a bit of TLC. I think the race bike is due for a new chain, and the 12/27 might be at the end of it's life too.
Yesterday I got bored and weighed a few tires. The Michelin Megamium 700x23's came in at 260 grams, exactly as advertised. The 700x25 wire bead Conti GP's were 300g. I meant to go upstairs and grab a Tufo S33 tubular for
In 2005 I used the GP4s for the Mount A TT. They worked out great, but everyone else used aero wheels so in 2006 I got greedy and used my 6501 clinchers, and promptly flatted as soon as I hit the dirt. For this year it'd be nice to have a set of racy tubulars, but that's unlikely to happen.
Still don't know which race I'm doing at Monson. I guess I'll decide that morning. Hardly anyone has signed up for the 30+ so maybe he'll combine it with the 40+ and make my decision for me. Thanks for reading.
Monday, June 11, 2007
Green Valley?
I bought some of this on Saturday. Most of the offerings in the Bristol NH Hannaford's beer section were ales, and I wanted a lager. The bottles were colored glass, but it looked like it might be OK, and the biggest print on the label was "organic." Even with my glasses, I couldn't read the finest print on the packaging, but it said "Green Valley Brewing" or something.
The beer was OK, a bit reminiscent of Schaefer, without the nasty aftertaste. Easy to drink, but nothing special. Well, this morning's research reveals this it's an Anheuser-Busch product. Yikes.
In related news, here is the team I think I'd ride for if BOB ever dissappeared:
Human Zoom - presented by Pabst Blue Ribbon. Yeah baby, PBR! Thanks for reading.
The beer was OK, a bit reminiscent of Schaefer, without the nasty aftertaste. Easy to drink, but nothing special. Well, this morning's research reveals this it's an Anheuser-Busch product. Yikes.
In related news, here is the team I think I'd ride for if BOB ever dissappeared:
Human Zoom - presented by Pabst Blue Ribbon. Yeah baby, PBR! Thanks for reading.
Overuse
No racing this weekend. My right knee's crunching and creaking hasn't gotten any worse, but it hasn't got much better either. Seems like a simple case of patella tendonitis, obviously brought on by my vacation week with 2.5 times as many hours/mileage as any other week this year. Riding easy and stretching on Wednesday and Thursday helped, and Saturday the weather sucked so I stayed off the bike and did some focal point icing. Of course, this meant I felt good enough on Sunday to go out in the gorgeous weather and bang out 110k in the New Hampshire hills surrounding Newfound Lake. It's motorcycle week in the Lakes Region, but KL and I for the most part escaped the rumble from herds of Harleys by sticking to the back roads. We explored Sculptured Rocks Road, but it turns to a closed dirt road complete with the "I'd turn back if I were you" sign not far after the park. We reversed course and took the standard route up the Col de Groton Road (4k @ 6%) and then tried going left at the fork toward Dorchester (NH that is). Another few k at 3% greeted us here before a bumpy descent back to rt 118 and then the Mount Moosilaukee Highway (Rt 25) in West Rumney.
We took in the awesome views of the White Mountains and then headed back up the Hall's Brook Road climb, about 10k more at 3.5% average, but very pitchy. The screaming trip back down the new pavement on Groton Road was a blast, taking the numerous turns on the dark side of 65 kph, even catching up to a dude in a new ZR Corvette. We went back around the lake again and cooled down on 104.
Now my knee is acting up a bit again, so this week looks like it will have to be all easy spins, stretches and ice. With my knee's history of problems, I can't take any chances, and tendonitis just doesn't get better from more riding. Durability is the most important component of being an athlete. I wish mine were better. Thanks for reading.
We took in the awesome views of the White Mountains and then headed back up the Hall's Brook Road climb, about 10k more at 3.5% average, but very pitchy. The screaming trip back down the new pavement on Groton Road was a blast, taking the numerous turns on the dark side of 65 kph, even catching up to a dude in a new ZR Corvette. We went back around the lake again and cooled down on 104.
Now my knee is acting up a bit again, so this week looks like it will have to be all easy spins, stretches and ice. With my knee's history of problems, I can't take any chances, and tendonitis just doesn't get better from more riding. Durability is the most important component of being an athlete. I wish mine were better. Thanks for reading.
Friday, June 8, 2007
Give to me sweet secret bliss
Last night I didn't get out on the bike until around 7:30 pm. The joys of June. Even under heavily overcast skies, the daylight shone enough for a safe ride of just under an hour. Despite my lumps, bumps, and bruises, I felt absolutely great on the bike! All the right sensations, as the pros say. The only problem was that I was only going 25 kph and the entire ride was in zones 0 and 1. No wonder it felt so sweet.
Not to worry though; I couldn't help but notice the signs of good form starting to blossom. My battered shoulder also loosened up during the ride, and a rigorous post-ride stretch seemed to help my knee out too. The impact wounds were still sore, but the tightness and clicking I'd been experiencing even prior to the MTB spills subsided a bit.
My new bottom bracket arrived yesterday too, but oddly enough there was no clicking and creaking on last night's ride. Maybe all the noise I was hearing with every pedal stroke was actually my knee... I got some new tires too, 700x23 Michelin Megamiums, which look to me to be just like the Pro Race except with a more generous allotment of tread than the skimpy and short-lived lightweights. I scored these, as well as a pair of 700x25 wire bead Conti Grand Prix for $24 each. Now I have to mount (huh-huh) them. The Pro Race were really a bitch on the Shimano rims. Contis always seem perfect, not too tight, not too loose.
GeWilli posted a link to yet another interesting blog yesterday. SlowYourRoll has some good stuff and is well written, and looks to be in the same circle of blogs as BKW, which Ge recently infiltrated. I don't put each and every blog in my links. Don't consider this a diss, I simply believe it's right, proper, and more fun to let you navigate to someone else first, see what they have, and then go from there. That way Ge can get excited that I check his page 100 times a day, even though only 50 of them are to actually check his content (I run a lot of code searches at work, and these take 2-3 minutes to go through my entire application, so it's an ideal wait time for making the blog rounds). So anyway, SlowYourRoll has a blip a few posts down from the top about how shallow drop bars are beginning to reappear in the EuroPro peloton. I'm not sure if this was the point the guy was already trying to make, but I think the shallow drops are being used because the semi-retarded turned up hoods position that started to be all the rage last year results in difficulty reaching the shifters from deep drops. The post and comments go on to extol the comfort virtues of shallow drops. My two cents on this one is that I guess the pros, with their routine seven hour days, must have some reason to like the turned up hoods. Today's integrated levers have mammoth hoods, and you can see where it would be comfy. Furthermore, if your bars are low enough (in relation to the saddle height), this position mimics a TT cowhorn or an MTB bar extension almost exactly. This could be great for climbing while standing. The low bars aspect may have been missed in SYR's commentary. With such a setup, shallow drops start to make more sense.
Personally, I don't want my hoods angled up. I don't have my bars set super low, but I do like to have to reach down a bit for the hoods when standing, as extending my arms allows better breathing and leverage than having them more bent does. I also prefer a flatter wrist position. Keep in mind that I was also one of the last converts to "anatomic" bar bend, which I'm pretty happy with now that I've given it a chance. On the shallow drops though, my opinion is a bit stronger. I grew up on Cinelli 64s, and thought people who used the deep drop 66's were crazy. Until I tried them, that is. My position (pun intended) on this is that the deeper drops are more comfortable, because they provide a more significant change in position from the tops/hoods where you do most of your riding. Nobody spends hours in the drops anyway, and I find that giving yourself a chance to reach down a bit and make an appreciable change in the angle of your back provides a nice stretch and more comfort when things slow down and you return to the tops. YMMV. Thanks for reading, and don't forget to sign up for Monson. It's a great race.
Not to worry though; I couldn't help but notice the signs of good form starting to blossom. My battered shoulder also loosened up during the ride, and a rigorous post-ride stretch seemed to help my knee out too. The impact wounds were still sore, but the tightness and clicking I'd been experiencing even prior to the MTB spills subsided a bit.
My new bottom bracket arrived yesterday too, but oddly enough there was no clicking and creaking on last night's ride. Maybe all the noise I was hearing with every pedal stroke was actually my knee... I got some new tires too, 700x23 Michelin Megamiums, which look to me to be just like the Pro Race except with a more generous allotment of tread than the skimpy and short-lived lightweights. I scored these, as well as a pair of 700x25 wire bead Conti Grand Prix for $24 each. Now I have to mount (huh-huh) them. The Pro Race were really a bitch on the Shimano rims. Contis always seem perfect, not too tight, not too loose.
GeWilli posted a link to yet another interesting blog yesterday. SlowYourRoll has some good stuff and is well written, and looks to be in the same circle of blogs as BKW, which Ge recently infiltrated. I don't put each and every blog in my links. Don't consider this a diss, I simply believe it's right, proper, and more fun to let you navigate to someone else first, see what they have, and then go from there. That way Ge can get excited that I check his page 100 times a day, even though only 50 of them are to actually check his content (I run a lot of code searches at work, and these take 2-3 minutes to go through my entire application, so it's an ideal wait time for making the blog rounds). So anyway, SlowYourRoll has a blip a few posts down from the top about how shallow drop bars are beginning to reappear in the EuroPro peloton. I'm not sure if this was the point the guy was already trying to make, but I think the shallow drops are being used because the semi-retarded turned up hoods position that started to be all the rage last year results in difficulty reaching the shifters from deep drops. The post and comments go on to extol the comfort virtues of shallow drops. My two cents on this one is that I guess the pros, with their routine seven hour days, must have some reason to like the turned up hoods. Today's integrated levers have mammoth hoods, and you can see where it would be comfy. Furthermore, if your bars are low enough (in relation to the saddle height), this position mimics a TT cowhorn or an MTB bar extension almost exactly. This could be great for climbing while standing. The low bars aspect may have been missed in SYR's commentary. With such a setup, shallow drops start to make more sense.
Personally, I don't want my hoods angled up. I don't have my bars set super low, but I do like to have to reach down a bit for the hoods when standing, as extending my arms allows better breathing and leverage than having them more bent does. I also prefer a flatter wrist position. Keep in mind that I was also one of the last converts to "anatomic" bar bend, which I'm pretty happy with now that I've given it a chance. On the shallow drops though, my opinion is a bit stronger. I grew up on Cinelli 64s, and thought people who used the deep drop 66's were crazy. Until I tried them, that is. My position (pun intended) on this is that the deeper drops are more comfortable, because they provide a more significant change in position from the tops/hoods where you do most of your riding. Nobody spends hours in the drops anyway, and I find that giving yourself a chance to reach down a bit and make an appreciable change in the angle of your back provides a nice stretch and more comfort when things slow down and you return to the tops. YMMV. Thanks for reading, and don't forget to sign up for Monson. It's a great race.
Thursday, June 7, 2007
Slow blog day
I've noticed activity seems to peak on Mondays and then slowly die off as the week goes on. Oh well. I had a very exciting announcement to make, which will be of the GREATEST INTEREST to all you deep pockets bike geeks, but the non-disclosure agreement ("I'll beat you to death with a pedal wrench if you blog about this now") prevents me from writing anything at this time. Consider the buzz started... Thanks for buzzing.
Battered Cyclist Syndrome
Last night I went mountain biking with Rightcoast at Borderland. No, I did not fix the Yo Eddy, we used two of his bikes instead. Our seat heights have always been about the same so we just put ATACS on both his Trek Fuel dualie and his IF Deluxe with a Reba and Thudbuster. Jeff's been bugging me to try the Fuel since he bought it, and I finally caved.
Having not been off road since the snapped fork incident seven months ago, what a better way to do it than to ride a foreign bike on twisty boneyard singletrack with an Expert racer ten times more skilled than me? Truth be told, along with having never ridden a carbon or titanium frame, I've never even ridden with a suspension fork before. Simple bikes man, just simple bikes.
My right knee has been making clicking noises the past few days. I think things got pretty tight and overused during my big week of training, and after Monday's massage some tissue loosened and some didn't, and the tracking got f'd up. That's my crackpot theory anyway. Nothing serious, but cringy creaky stuff. For treatment, I went with bashing it repeatedly on watermelon sized rocks, and on the handlebars of the Fuel. Good as new, and only bleeding in three places. Before even getting that far, I managed to try and take a two foot diameter tree down with my left shoulder, all while at a conversational pace. This left me with a raspberry the size of a grapefruit, and a non-functioning medial deltoid. So the ride was great.
We ended up doing almost 2.5 hours. Things were getting a bit dark at the end when we switched bikes. At this point JG realized I'd had the fork on lockout most of the ride. Whatever. Seemed plush to me. Not sure if I really liked it, but for an old dude the suspension surely saved the body. Much less of a workout for the arms and shoulders than riding the Yo through all this stuff. If I got it dialed in to my liking and took the time to get used to the steering, I'm sure I'd be faster. I'm not convinced that is a good thing. Since I don't race MTBs anymore, all a dualie might accomplish for me is some fatigue reduction (which really means less of a workout in the same amount of time, right?) and higher crash speeds. Frail and old as I am, not sure this is what I want. Disc brakes though, I liked them. It's nice to have that kind of braking power.
Let's see what this one gets for comments. The last post on equipment got the most in a long time, but it was still only eight commenters, myself included. I think blogger should default with a "number of commenters" line for each post in addition to the number of comments. Maybe I'll suggest that. Thanks for reading.
Having not been off road since the snapped fork incident seven months ago, what a better way to do it than to ride a foreign bike on twisty boneyard singletrack with an Expert racer ten times more skilled than me? Truth be told, along with having never ridden a carbon or titanium frame, I've never even ridden with a suspension fork before. Simple bikes man, just simple bikes.
My right knee has been making clicking noises the past few days. I think things got pretty tight and overused during my big week of training, and after Monday's massage some tissue loosened and some didn't, and the tracking got f'd up. That's my crackpot theory anyway. Nothing serious, but cringy creaky stuff. For treatment, I went with bashing it repeatedly on watermelon sized rocks, and on the handlebars of the Fuel. Good as new, and only bleeding in three places. Before even getting that far, I managed to try and take a two foot diameter tree down with my left shoulder, all while at a conversational pace. This left me with a raspberry the size of a grapefruit, and a non-functioning medial deltoid. So the ride was great.
We ended up doing almost 2.5 hours. Things were getting a bit dark at the end when we switched bikes. At this point JG realized I'd had the fork on lockout most of the ride. Whatever. Seemed plush to me. Not sure if I really liked it, but for an old dude the suspension surely saved the body. Much less of a workout for the arms and shoulders than riding the Yo through all this stuff. If I got it dialed in to my liking and took the time to get used to the steering, I'm sure I'd be faster. I'm not convinced that is a good thing. Since I don't race MTBs anymore, all a dualie might accomplish for me is some fatigue reduction (which really means less of a workout in the same amount of time, right?) and higher crash speeds. Frail and old as I am, not sure this is what I want. Disc brakes though, I liked them. It's nice to have that kind of braking power.
Let's see what this one gets for comments. The last post on equipment got the most in a long time, but it was still only eight commenters, myself included. I think blogger should default with a "number of commenters" line for each post in addition to the number of comments. Maybe I'll suggest that. Thanks for reading.
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
Monday, June 4, 2007
Might as well jump
The sharing of training logs via blogging amuses me on several levels. Sure, it is useful to read about what your peers and others are doing for training, and how it works out for them. That's the reason we do this, right? Or is it because we're all so proud of what we did that we cannot wait to share it? Blah, blah, blah, killer workouts, woe is me now, I'm so tired... Or maybe it's just that misery loves company, because everyone who reads this crap does more or less the same stuff themselves, so at least you get some reassurance that you aren't crazy and alone (be patient, that will happen eventually). Then the best of it is just like sitting around after a stage with your virtual teammates, recalling the day's adventures and laughing about all that happened. That's the best part of living the racing life; suffering out on the road and then heading back to your week's headquarters to chuckle about it. Since most of us only get to do that once or twice a year, if at all, the blog scene at least provides a bit of a surrogate team hotel.
Yesterday's 1.5 hours at Wells Ave concluded 37 hours on the bike in 16 days for me. Maybe this isn't huge, but I'm pretty tired. Even spread over a "normal" three weeks, this volume of training constitutes a pretty big block for me at this stage of my cycling career. So this week will be a recovery/consolidation week, with massage tonight and reduced volume for a few days. Most of this recent block's hours were at low/medium intensity, sort of like March in May. With my actual early spring base being more running focused, I felt I needed this to build some endurance and capacity to train harder in the coming month. It wasn't all soft-pedaling, as I worked (one lap of) the Sunapee road race, along with three training races (one each of Loudon, Wompatuck, and Wells) into the mix. There was also quite a bit of climbing included in the three 5+ hour days I managed to pull off (huh-huh). These gave me a chance to work on the twenty-thirty minute efforts that have been lacking in my training prior to this block.
BTW, for the sports fans who occasionally ask "what the hell is a training race anyway," think of it as an exhibition game. The only difference is that unlike stick and ball sports, we do these throughout the year, sort of like a scrimmage. These are great ways to train and work out your tactics, and if you do well you can claim that your training is really working, and if you ride like shit you can say that you weren't really trying, because it wasn't a "real" race. Around here (the Boston area) there are legions of so called bike racers who make a career out of the weekly training races and hardly ever venture out to anywhere else.
Where was I going with this post? Oh yeah, well, there are many ways to get your money's worth out of a training race. You can treat it like a real race, and try to win. After all, you don't condition yourself to make smart decisions by riding like an idiot. But, many of us are practical and say hey, this is training, of course I'm not just going to sit in and do nothing. These races are a great place to do intervals because the challenge of staying a few seconds off the front of a chasing pack can be just the motivation you need to dig deep. Should someone counter and stretch out the field, well, that ensures you won't take it too easy on the recovery blip.
Yesterday at Wells, with the "real" race of the weekend being 2.5 hours away in Maine, there was a pretty decent field assembled for the "A" race, including Chain to the Right and some of his teammates, such as the infamous Craig, whom I got to chat it up with for a while. I haven't been to Newton much at all the past few years, so I did not realize how many primes they were going to have. Chris Ryan, who has been helping to run BRC since way back when I was on the board gave a bunch of instructions at the start, but I couldn't hear a word he said. Once the race got under way, it didn't take too long to recall why Wells has lost its charm for me, as every few laps a car would get on the course, and I can't help but feel that someday the packs luck will run out and a major disaster will occur there. I know they try with the cops and marshalls, but I'm being realistic here.
Anyhow, I'm as dumb and crazy as most of the rest, so I raced hard anyway. Attacks in the first half of the forty lap event are usually futile, but this is for training, and with the frequent primes, being off the front might snag you a couple of bucks, donuts, or energy drink, so lots of riders try. I found myself, as I have at Wompatuck all year, going into Indurain-style diesel mode when at the front and letting riders jump off, with me not reacting and instead just keeping the tempo high and coming back to them slowly. At Wompatuck every week, I see rider after rider making violent jumps to either initiate or get across to a breakaway, but many times this initial burst leaves them wasted and unable to do anything once they sit back down. For me personally, since I'm somewhat of a rolleur anyway, it's more efficient to avoid the energy sapping burst and just roll onto the wheel. However, my jump and sprint suck pretty bad as it is, and never working on them ain't helping the situation. When the going gets *really* tough, such as when the pace is around 50 kph, you *have* to jump on the wheel quickly or you will die trying to cross.
So what is the point? After five laps or so I decided that this day at Newton would be spent working on my jump. I'd patrol the front, and when attacks went, I'd get up and try to close it quickly, regardless of how that might make me feel twenty seconds later. This proved to be fun, and with Newton contested on a wide road with attacks going up both sides, finding people to chase was easy. I made about four or five of these efforts, some of which resulted in dangling moves for a few laps. With about ten to go, some BRC dude on an old school Bianchi with downtube shifters (this may have been Bob Campbell, not sure) made an attempt to bridge to a small group, and I got on him. The three breakaways were dangling only about 50 meters ahead of us. Chris rang the bell and said "power gel prime for the pack," which at the time I though was weird, because this break was clearly within reach of us. After reading kette-rechts account, I'm guessing now that Gavin and company had slipped off already without my knowledge and were out of site. Anyhow, I timed my pull on the backside to make sure Bianchi guy had the front coming onto the front straight, and as we came into the sprint the three guys who'd been ahead capitulated and they all sat up. The pack was really bearing down on us from behind, so I decided to make this one pay and opened it up early with all I had. Well, I got the power gels, but later review of the data showed me just how pathetic my "sprint" is: 52 kph, which was 104 rpm in the 52x13. I won't win any Wompatucks with that.
After that I felt really drained. During the closing laps I just sat in because I was getting the chills. Well, turned out that was because the temps really were dropping as some very light raindrops crept into the area. I had no idea a break was up the road, but at two to go Chis said "9 guys up the road" and I could see a small group. Turned out that was only six guys trying to bridge, but the other three ended up in sight at one to go as the chasing six were absorbed. By then I'd recovered and felt like one more effort might be good to finish up the day, so I took the front and just did some hard pacemaking over the course of the final kilometer. Nobody challenged me so when the line came into view on the front straight I swung off early to let the sprint open up. Not a bad day.
Oh yeah, Michelle, you're right, FSA bearings suck. After just one year and maybe 5000k my bottom bracket is toast. MMMM, toast, time to eat and head to work. Thanks for reading.
Yesterday's 1.5 hours at Wells Ave concluded 37 hours on the bike in 16 days for me. Maybe this isn't huge, but I'm pretty tired. Even spread over a "normal" three weeks, this volume of training constitutes a pretty big block for me at this stage of my cycling career. So this week will be a recovery/consolidation week, with massage tonight and reduced volume for a few days. Most of this recent block's hours were at low/medium intensity, sort of like March in May. With my actual early spring base being more running focused, I felt I needed this to build some endurance and capacity to train harder in the coming month. It wasn't all soft-pedaling, as I worked (one lap of) the Sunapee road race, along with three training races (one each of Loudon, Wompatuck, and Wells) into the mix. There was also quite a bit of climbing included in the three 5+ hour days I managed to pull off (huh-huh). These gave me a chance to work on the twenty-thirty minute efforts that have been lacking in my training prior to this block.
BTW, for the sports fans who occasionally ask "what the hell is a training race anyway," think of it as an exhibition game. The only difference is that unlike stick and ball sports, we do these throughout the year, sort of like a scrimmage. These are great ways to train and work out your tactics, and if you do well you can claim that your training is really working, and if you ride like shit you can say that you weren't really trying, because it wasn't a "real" race. Around here (the Boston area) there are legions of so called bike racers who make a career out of the weekly training races and hardly ever venture out to anywhere else.
Where was I going with this post? Oh yeah, well, there are many ways to get your money's worth out of a training race. You can treat it like a real race, and try to win. After all, you don't condition yourself to make smart decisions by riding like an idiot. But, many of us are practical and say hey, this is training, of course I'm not just going to sit in and do nothing. These races are a great place to do intervals because the challenge of staying a few seconds off the front of a chasing pack can be just the motivation you need to dig deep. Should someone counter and stretch out the field, well, that ensures you won't take it too easy on the recovery blip.
Yesterday at Wells, with the "real" race of the weekend being 2.5 hours away in Maine, there was a pretty decent field assembled for the "A" race, including Chain to the Right and some of his teammates, such as the infamous Craig, whom I got to chat it up with for a while. I haven't been to Newton much at all the past few years, so I did not realize how many primes they were going to have. Chris Ryan, who has been helping to run BRC since way back when I was on the board gave a bunch of instructions at the start, but I couldn't hear a word he said. Once the race got under way, it didn't take too long to recall why Wells has lost its charm for me, as every few laps a car would get on the course, and I can't help but feel that someday the packs luck will run out and a major disaster will occur there. I know they try with the cops and marshalls, but I'm being realistic here.
Anyhow, I'm as dumb and crazy as most of the rest, so I raced hard anyway. Attacks in the first half of the forty lap event are usually futile, but this is for training, and with the frequent primes, being off the front might snag you a couple of bucks, donuts, or energy drink, so lots of riders try. I found myself, as I have at Wompatuck all year, going into Indurain-style diesel mode when at the front and letting riders jump off, with me not reacting and instead just keeping the tempo high and coming back to them slowly. At Wompatuck every week, I see rider after rider making violent jumps to either initiate or get across to a breakaway, but many times this initial burst leaves them wasted and unable to do anything once they sit back down. For me personally, since I'm somewhat of a rolleur anyway, it's more efficient to avoid the energy sapping burst and just roll onto the wheel. However, my jump and sprint suck pretty bad as it is, and never working on them ain't helping the situation. When the going gets *really* tough, such as when the pace is around 50 kph, you *have* to jump on the wheel quickly or you will die trying to cross.
So what is the point? After five laps or so I decided that this day at Newton would be spent working on my jump. I'd patrol the front, and when attacks went, I'd get up and try to close it quickly, regardless of how that might make me feel twenty seconds later. This proved to be fun, and with Newton contested on a wide road with attacks going up both sides, finding people to chase was easy. I made about four or five of these efforts, some of which resulted in dangling moves for a few laps. With about ten to go, some BRC dude on an old school Bianchi with downtube shifters (this may have been Bob Campbell, not sure) made an attempt to bridge to a small group, and I got on him. The three breakaways were dangling only about 50 meters ahead of us. Chris rang the bell and said "power gel prime for the pack," which at the time I though was weird, because this break was clearly within reach of us. After reading kette-rechts account, I'm guessing now that Gavin and company had slipped off already without my knowledge and were out of site. Anyhow, I timed my pull on the backside to make sure Bianchi guy had the front coming onto the front straight, and as we came into the sprint the three guys who'd been ahead capitulated and they all sat up. The pack was really bearing down on us from behind, so I decided to make this one pay and opened it up early with all I had. Well, I got the power gels, but later review of the data showed me just how pathetic my "sprint" is: 52 kph, which was 104 rpm in the 52x13. I won't win any Wompatucks with that.
After that I felt really drained. During the closing laps I just sat in because I was getting the chills. Well, turned out that was because the temps really were dropping as some very light raindrops crept into the area. I had no idea a break was up the road, but at two to go Chis said "9 guys up the road" and I could see a small group. Turned out that was only six guys trying to bridge, but the other three ended up in sight at one to go as the chasing six were absorbed. By then I'd recovered and felt like one more effort might be good to finish up the day, so I took the front and just did some hard pacemaking over the course of the final kilometer. Nobody challenged me so when the line came into view on the front straight I swung off early to let the sprint open up. Not a bad day.
Oh yeah, Michelle, you're right, FSA bearings suck. After just one year and maybe 5000k my bottom bracket is toast. MMMM, toast, time to eat and head to work. Thanks for reading.
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