2009

Since the season ended for good at Ice Weasels a few weeks back, I've taken a break from the bike, thoroughly de-trained, and succumbed to the reflection and anticipation thought process that commonly accompanies the celebration of another successful trip around the sun. As much as I'd like to make an attempt to look forward without looking back, I'm simply not that creative, so we'll begin with a not-so-brief summary of all the good things from 2008. This past year was pretty awesome for me in many repects. I think I learned a lot. Usually I make a point to stick to athletic stuff on this blog, mostly bike racing, but for just a second I'm going to step outside of that.

Sometimes going into a new year I set a goal for myself to make some sort of positive change. You know, what's commonly known as the New Year's resolution. The past few years it's been an honest attempt to keep the Nega-Coach persona backgrounded during my life outside of cycling. Direct, straightforward, (blunt?), no bullshit evaluations of situations can have unintended consequences, like hurt feelings, or worse yet fear and entrenchment by your associates. So when in doubt, especially in my professional life, but also (almost) everywhere else, I've been trying to mature into the kinder, gentler, Nurture-Coach some of you know and love. Unless of course you wear the same kit as me. Then you're exempt, so check your feelings at the door and suck it up, cream puffs.

I've benefited from this approach because people are more likely to speak up when they're not cowering in fear of your reaction. What a revelation. Of course, this leads to opportunities to listen. Going into 2008, I'd already been in nurture mode for a few years, so I didn't have a specific personal adjustment in mind. I merely hoped to continue on the same path as before. Of course, here in the United States of America, we were electing a new president and leader. The internet certainly played a role in past elections, but this time may have been the first where it was clearly the dominant forum for "debate." This is a bike racing blog, so I generally don't go there. Bike racers and athletes come from all corners of the political spectrum, and my view has always been that if they want to discuss divisive politics on the internet, there are tens of thousands of places to do it other than cycling sites which otherwise bring us together. Of course, not everyone takes that approach, and on all kinds of non-politically focused blogs and websites, people editorialized their respective views. And shit storms inevitably followed. Slingshotting a crap rocket of disagreement has never been easier, but that doesn't make it a good idea most of the time. I found myself truly appalled by the viciousness and close-mindedness which ensued after even the most benign commentary.

Ughh. I did not set out to pen this type of essay. Cutting to the chase, in 2008 the foundation for my this year's resolution was laid. Staying out of the political debate, or at least not contributing to it, gave me a chance to listen. And not just to voices I tend to agree with, although I did listen to them too, an oftentimes agonizing and frustrating process in itself, if you know what I mean. This year (and I'm not talking exclusively about politics, I'm just using it to make a point), I tried much harder than in the past to listen to views of the opposing teams, and everyone else. I even went out of my way to seek some that enraged me, but kept the rage quelled and listened. Waiting to talk is not listening. Talking is also not always an effective way to disarm others and get them to talk. I hope you get it, because I fear I'm not doing a very effective job of getting my point across. Basically, this year I want to keep on listening, especially to those I don't think I agree with, but certainly also to those whom I do too. Part of it may be a "know thine enemy" kind of thing, but most of it is just a bigger effort to understand. Just try to understand, and learn something from it.

You know what? That was more than just a second. The other stuff will have to wait. Thanks for reading.

Test Pattern Equivalent

No real programming available...


Christmas nutrition. And wtf is that in the foreground?


Wondering what I want to do in 2009.


Closing out 2008, and because believe it or not some people actually ask for this stuff.

Thanks for stopping by.

A quick word from Nega-Coach

Here's a training with power article for you to salivate over. On the whole I think the article is terrible and misses so many finer points of training I hardly know where to begin. But Coggan is a noted authority on power training and of course you can always learn something by reading. You just have to know where to look. I think the idea of doing drag race starts and hard seated accelerations is spot on and should be incorporated into bike race training. The key is accelerating the cranks under load. Not just doing long efforts at one cadence. Taking the crank from 45 rpm up to 110 rpm while under high load, and doing it as quickly as you can is what you want to do.

Coggan went wrong in his evaluation of "traditional" SE training via 5-20 minute efforts in a big gear. Trying to do these indoors at a fixed cadence defeats the purpose. At 30 kph, even a 5-minute effort would cover 2500 meters. A 20-minute effort would cover 10k. Maybe it's different where you live, but around here it's rare to find stretches of road of such length without any grade changes. Most coaches advocate doing these kinds of efforts on rolling terrain anyway, and the reason is (hopefully) obvious: pushing the gear through a range of cadences, accelerating the cranks under high load, is where the benefits come from. Not to mention this simulates racing. The drag race starts and "power stomps" are simply extreme applications of this principle. If you envy lab rats and thrive on suffering through structure, go ahead and do sets of them. But if you just like to ride and accomplish the same sort of thing, push the big gears over rolling terrain and keep the cadence changing. Accelerate over the rises like you mean it. And enjoy the ride. Thanks for reading.

For the ladies...

Congratulations to Craig for being the only one to ID the race in the prior post as the Bicycle Link Weymouth Criterium. This would be circa '92, I think. The other race featuring Paul Nixon and Jeff Turrell is the Silver City Flyer in Taunton, MA, sometime in the early 90s'. So who is the handsome and stylin' young man in the plaid shorts above, pictured at the Rutland Criterium stage of Killington?

BTW Craig, I don't have your email address... And did you ride a white/red Cannondale at one time?


And Craig was also correct, Weymouth had a happy ending that year.

Now what about the future? Don't worry, we'll get to that. I'm not stuck in the past, but these are easy posts for the holiday season. Thanks for reading.

Four More

Here are four easy gifts for Christmas. You need all four to win. Try to guess the race of each one too. Three of them are at the same place.


This guy was at Ice Weasels. Hint: It is NOT Sherman.


This one is a lay-up (not that I can sink those). Also an Ice Weasel, got his nickname doing just what you see here.


A bit tougher. We want the name of the guy in the pink Mass Bay kit, on the blue bike, second wheel camera side. Was at the Ice Weasels event. Bonus points for the name of the skinny scarecrow dude at the front, or the other MBRC guy.


Who is this guy who is about to ride into a house?

Killington

OK, now who is this hanging on to our van?



Here, Solo himself and a teammate patrol the front of the cat 3 crit. His teammate won the crit, then went on to win the final stage the next day, taking the overall until the officials came up with an 11th hour penalty of 15 seconds for not signing in, relegating him to second (maybe worse, I don't remember), after going to the podium and taking the flowers. The penalty was not posted until hours after the event, and we found out about it at the awards ceremony later the night. The Cronoman had to be restrained and escorted from the venue. I can't make this stuff up. Who was the teammate? BTW, I am pretty sure this is 1992, but it might be 93 or 94.

Pop Quiz

Name the race:

Past Winners

1989 Graeme Miller (NZl)
1990 Greg Oravetz (USA)
1991 Roy Knickman (USA)
1992 Scott Moninger (USA)
1993 Mike Englemann (USA)
1994 Mike Englemann (USA)
1995 Frank McCormack (USA)
1996 Malcolm Elliott (GBr)
1997 Tyler Hamilton (USA)
1998 George Hincapie (USA)
1999 Trent Klasna (USA)

Friday Haiku

Back in Rhode Island
The bike path weeps this morning
Missing Gewilli

This concludes the artsy portion of our programming. Thanks for reading.

Ice Weasels - The Race Reports

I'm not sure how you kids who write these incredibly detailed, blow by blow race reports remember all that stuff. Maybe the kids part has something to do with it. One thing about this year was that my age advanced more noticeably. My hair got a lot grayer. Physically I'm different. Maybe it happens gradually, but you just notice all at once. But I'd better get this report written while I can still remember anything.

You already read about the start of the 3/4 race in the last post. I surprised that nobody called me out for doing the 3/4 masters instead of the 1/2/3. I'm the one who says "if you want to race with 4's, then why be a 3?" remember? But I also just said I'm old. And I'm not very successful as a cyclocrosser, and I never was to tell you the truth. But here I just wanted to get out on the course and do some laps in order to give myself a fighting chance in the singlespeed race, and the 3/4 masters was first. I may be an incredibly nice, helpful, sweet and nurturing human being, but as a racer I'm an opportunist.

I fumbled the chain back on as quickly as I could, which was not very quickly. I had my really nice Garneau gloves on too, and was not happy about greasing them up. Good thing I don't lube my chains much (in this case, at all). Now I'm chasing in that danger zone ten or fifteen seconds behind the last rider in the starting pack, you know, right where all the spectators assume the coast is clear and cross the course. And I'm amped and roaring. Luckily nobody decides to make a Roadrunner cartoon out of this and I've got clear track all the way to the maze. I'd ridden it once, but even though (like Alp d' Huez) each of the hairpins had a personality all its own, the whole thing was still quite a mystery to me. The tail end of the conga line was visible just a few switchbacks ahead, and I charged through the stakes in hopes of taking my spot and making up for the failed start. When I was just about there...I lost the front wheel on the one frosty turn and hit the dirt. My front Vittoria Tigre was old enough to enter the junior race, but at least it cleared the sidepull brakes. I wasn't sure if it had rolled or what, and did not notice the icy grass there until later.

I picked myself up and gave chase once again, managing to pass one or two riders before the plunge on the back part of the course. Here is where the memory gets fuzzy. I know I passed Jorge and another MRC guy who appeared only interested in racing each other, and the highly partisan MRC crowd cheered them on as they elbowed each other around in a two abreast procession through the maze. Besides them, I worked my way past maybe three more riders, before once again losing the chain. Or maybe it was twice again. Like I said, I don't remember. The final straw was the wheel popping out of the frame (this was derailment two or three if you're keeping score). The Rossin has chrome dropouts, which never did hold an axle all that well. If you read the recyclingnews review of this bike, then you know that it's also cracked and brazed back together on the drive side. So there were more forces at work than just bad luck here; I had cheapness and stupidity going for me too.

I just picked it up and started running to the pit. Which was a Long. Way. Away. The maze may have been tight and laid out over a small patch of land, but other than one or two spots, it was actually pretty fast -- when you were riding a bike. At least I'm still a pretty good runner, just not a good 'cross runner. This wasn't quite a 5k, but it may as well have been. Almost everyone who'd I'd passed took back their spots, except for the two MRC guys, who were still busy gleefully running each other into the tape. I yelled "bike, bike" to Todd as I approached the pit, and we did my first ever in 21 years of off and on cx racing PRO bike handoff. I raced off on my geared cross bike, immediately noticing that I don't really like the way it fits. It was used, it was cheap, and it was made for a taller person with longer arms. It's too long for me, but what the hey, it's got a chain that doesn't fall off the cogs. I'm not sure if Todd will magically be able to fix my singlespeed, so I ride all out, which was dumb. I might have got three spots back. I did not get lapped, but my finishing place won't exactly be propelling me up the crossresults.com rankings either. Oh, yeah, almost forgot, I muffed a remount and did the back tire doggie hump. In short shorts. At least there were no cantilevers on this bike for that extra piercing finale.

At the end I went back and the Rossin was ready to go. Todd had tightened the shit out of the skewer. The chain seemed a touch loose to me, but he's a singlespeeder and a PRO Tour de France mechanic, so I wasn't even thinking about touching it. I grabbed a swig of water and headed back to the start for the combined singlespeed/fast woman/juniors race. For some reason they put us singlespeeders in the front. I didn't stay there for long though, as this time I knew better than to sprint with all my might. Roz quickly pushed me aside and charged through the moss pit. Having just raced, I was content to pace myself and follow her. This part was cool because the crowd was cheering her wildly. She tripped and fell on the steep runup though, doing the awkward stumble/crash right onto her own bike thing. I was a gentleman and kept the angry mob behind at bay while she picked herself up and remounted. At the barriers I went around and used my magnificent roadie speed to move ahead. I believe some have called this my "time trial switch" or something like that.

A woman with BRC shorts slipped and fell in the same frosty corner where I had gone down earlier. Then one of the juniors also bit it in the maze. That may have been a different lap. I don't think I was doing too badly in this race, but in the middle I ended up in no man's land with nobody close behind or ahead. It was kind of a bummer because by that time they were all tired of heckling/encouraging me due to my choice of clothing, and the others who were still garnering the cheers were far away from me. I figured the race must be nearly over though, expecting the bell or at worst two to go when I passed the officials. FIVE to go! I even asked if they were serious, and they confirmed. Uggh. But this is where the beauty of singlespeeding caught up to me. That's right, I said beauty. I've ridden one before, lots, both fixed and freewheel. Never really much off road though, now that I think about it. On the speed sections of the course, you're sort of getting a rest. Turning the cranks fast, yes, but not much differently than just spinning comfortably on the road. In the turns, well, there's nothing to think about except picking a good line, being smooth, and keeping up your momentum. It especially makes you ride the turns with consideration of exit speed. And it's quiet. I'll elaborate more later. Maybe this was just the perfect course for one. But I think I get it now.

Of course, half a lap later, the chain falls off. Again, fuzzy memories, but I think one guy I'd passed got me back while I fixed it. Then another guy (Team Zanc, maybe) chased me down from behind, catching right up to me. Coming up on two to go, I attacked into the barriers to prevent him from getting a draft on the farmo-bahn straightaway past the finish. Gapping him here handily, I calculated that I could take this guy in a sprint, deciding to worry just about staying right with him until the end. And then, in the maze, I miss a PBR feed, and the chain falls off again. PBR guy tells me it serves me right for turning down beer. Colin heckles me from the sidelines. The Zanc guy passes me. And leader Dan Coady laps me. Did I say I got it?

I jumped on Coady's wheel to see how long I could stay with him. Not very long. Through the maze I was right there, but once we hit the barrier and runup it was like he vanished. I was done. I let the second place guy pass, and since I'm lapped this is going to be my last lap, and I don't get to finish the season in an epic last lap battle for 8th with some racer I don't know. But that was ok. This was "wicked fun." Post race, everyone was so nice, women and singlespeeders alike. And we had beer. Damn, that was long and detailed. Thanks for reading.

Ice Weasels - the hardware

Sorry that I did not take a proper photo of my single speed machine while at the race venue, but I had more important things to do, like doing dollar handups at the apex of the fastest downhill turn on the course. Here you can see the details of the 56x26 (2.154) gearing setup that Mavic neutral support mechanic Todd Downs dubbed "reverse microdrive" or something like that. Hey, I worked with what I had. With IBC being the title sponsor of the race and all, it was only appropriate I race a machine that I bought from Harold when he still worked the floor at the old location on Brighton Ave, across from where the big store is now. Twenty years ago, $1895 could buy you a top of the line Italian racing frame with full Campy Chorus and tubular wheels. My 40k TT PR was ridden on this bike. I raced criteriums, road races, and stage races on this bike. I've crashed into and run over 12 year old kids playing in the street on this bike. I've raced track on this bike. And now I've raced 'cross on this bike.

How did it work out? Well, since this was the last race of the season, I'm going to milk this cow for all she is worth, so you'll need to wait a bit for the full race reports. That's correct, reports is plural. Not only was I one of only a handful of competitors sportin' bare knees at the event (yes, there was at least one other), I did the double, taking on the 3/4 masters as a course recon/warmup, and then the singlespeed event. In both cases I started the races on the singlespeed. Now, this was a pretty hastily executed piece of bike building, and originally I did not want to even bother fitting a new chain. My track setup uses 56x17 gearing, so I first tried a 47T ring matched to a 26T cog (the only "single" cassette cog I had in my possession, other than a bunch of 12T and 13T that were needed as spacers). Miraculously, 47/26 was a perfect fit for the existing chain. With these "road" horizontal dropouts, fore/aft wheel adjustment is quite limited, and not every gearing combination can achieve acceptable chain tension, but I was in business. There was no window of opportunity for a proper test ride though, save for donning the helmet light and taking to the local streets at 5:30 am during Thursday's sleet storm. The bike rode OK, the 105 short reach sidepulls did not squeal, and the fit was nice. The chain derailed once though... Chocking it up to not enough tension, I reset the wheel and hoped for the best. And for mud, because 47/26 works out to only 1.81.

Then Friday Colin wrote about how frozen and fast the course would be. I tried to fluff it off, as hell, it's not like I was going to this farce to race seriously, right? I've been doing my best to take a break and not train, albeit not entirely successfully, and singlespeeding is a joke anyway. Yet race morning I found myself with an extra 45 minutes on my hands, so I headed upstairs to retrieve 52, 53, and 56 Campy chainrings, along with a new chain. Five minutes were spent looking for my 54, which remains at large. One of these had to work... First try was the 56, and the fit was perfect, axle in the middle of the dropout. We're off. Completely untested, but we're off.

The short version of the "race" reports: The chain stayed on during my one lap pre-ride. I was pre-regged for the singlespeed, but picked up a number for the masters day of, and then proceeded to pin it on underneath the singlespeed number, even though the masters race was first. The cool thing about a race like Ice Weasels where you know the promoter and all the officials is you can get away with that sort of thing. Especially when you're wearing short-shorts on a 25 degree morning. That even earned me a call up to the front row, and suddenly instead of this being a test ride and familiarization with the course session, it was a race. The 21 turn maze Colin and Thom concocted on the lower forty (hah!) of the family farmage would surely be an endless single-file conga line bottleneck, so this would be a good time to man up and do a decent start. On the whistle I sprinted hard, made it about fifty feet... and the first chain derailment of the day was rewarded with Colin's hysterical laughter. That would all be made better later in the day when I got to see the face he made while choking down malt liquor handups in the 1/2/3 race. By the time I got the chain back on and got going again, I was the last swinging dick in the race, well off the back.

But this ain't the race report, this IS all about the bike. And yeah, it sort of let me down with multiple chain derailments on the day, despite a near perfect chainline. This baffled me, but other than the starting line incident, all the others happened in the maze of 180s, again always while sprinting hard out of the turns. One of them was actually the wheel slipping out of the dropout due to a not-tight-enough skewer. After that one I chose to run to the pit (further than it looked, big mistake) and take the geared bike. All the others it just jumped. With good tension and chainline, the most likely explanation I can come up with is excess flexing of the giant 26 tooth cog under the impressive torque generated by my obviously immensely powerful legs. This thing is also a hyperglide, with ramps designed to release the chain, and it's not made to be sitting by itself unsupported on either side. So I'll need to work on that. I'd still like to maintain the "reverse microdrive" concept in the future (yes, there is a future, more on that later) but the components may need some sort of upgrade. Thanks for reading.

Extra - Gratuitous carnage photos - Not the way to end your 'cross season.

Ice Weasels - Quality

Quality people like Il Brucie, shown here enjoying quality American malt liquor. Race announcing extraordinaire Paul Nixon also stopped by the Nega-Coach booth, although he and the NC wisely stuck with Berkshire Brewing Coffeehouse Porter. Actually, we needed to save the finer products for handups in the 1/2/3 race, where Cambridge Bike's RMM supplied the field with two full 40's. Thus, even though Brucie was the only one brave enough to sign on for Nega-Coaching, I'll modify my terms and donate $80 to MSPCA Angell for each of the three 40's consumed at the race. The rest of you are of course always free to step up and donate on your own terms, and are encouraged to let me know about it if you'd like some special consideration from NC as well.



What was a larger than life poster of our favorite PRO rider Ted King doing "hanging" in our booth? Well, where else would we hang it? Thanks for reading.

Ice Weasels Rocked! -- part one

Image courtesy of riotking

Now you know why I save the short shorts just for epic party races like The Ice Weasels Cometh at White Barn Farm. I don't want to scare you. Thanks for reading, I'm going to try to recover now...

Ice Weasels Promo

If you didn't already have enough reasons to head down to Ice Weasels tomorrow morning, check out this update to the race flyer:

We'll have Hot Cider, Coffee, Hot Cocoa,
Soups, Chili, Old Fashioned Donuts from The Big Apple, Cupcakes, and Popcorn!

Those of you who've ridden with me on some of my Sheldonville epics will remember the Big Apple as the place we fly through the tourist/pedestrian/applepickers on the serpentine downhill just before it abruptly ends and we J-turn skid to a stop at Rt 121.

It looks like there will be ice. And I'm pretty sure there will be a weasel sighting or two. My singlespeed is finished. The gearing is not optimal and multiple mid-race chain derailings are "highly probable" but who cares? The bottom half of my costume new kit arrived in time via UPS, but last night I got caught up in some Ommegang Chocolate Indulgence Stout sampling and thus did not get the top part buttoned up yet. Maybe tonight. No matter what, we'll be doing the traditional end of cx season photo shoot, so you have that to look forward to. See you there.

Nega-Coach Winter Charity Fundraiser

Because Animals Don't Suck

Nega-Coach, in cooperation with solobreak, will be hosting a special event this Saturday at the cyclocross race in Wrentham, which I'm not going to name (for obvious liability reasons). The world's foremost bicycle racing prepatore/life coach will be offering one-time only special programs solely to benefit MSPCA Angell.

Announcing the Nega-Coach 40-40-40-40-40 Plan

This Saturday, your $40 donation to the MSPCA will get you 40 minutes of personalized Nega-Coaching from the sidelines at the race, 40 days and 40 nights of follow up coaching to help you through the winter and maybe not suck so much next year, and a 40 oz beverage of your choice! Sound too good to be true? Well it gets better. Consume your chosen beverage in front of our Nega-Coach banner, and maybe let us photograph it, and Nega-Coach will match your $40 donation! That's right -- world class coaching, free beverages, and matching funds to a charity in need. How can you turn this down? You can't.

If you suck so bad that even 40 days of Nega-Coaching can't turn your results around, for a $200 donation you can get ONE ENTIRE YEAR of the full-monty coaching program, plus your choice of Campy Chorus brakes, 9 speed Ultegra crank, FSA Energy compact crank, or a pair of Tufo tubular cyclocross tires. All items are brand-new, in the box, never used.

If you're a bike racing couch bum and don't even have $40, we will be glad to take any donations, and we'll match them too, up to our breaking point anyway. No money at all? Well, we don't believe you, but just bring some bike stuff out of your basement and we'll try to sell it at inflated prices, with the entire amount going to MSPCA/Angell. How much can we raise? That all depends on you. Come prepared with your check made out to MSPCA/Angell, or simply go to this link and donate directly using a credit card. Bring your web receipt with you to the race to redeem your beverage, parts and coaching. It's that easy!


Thank you for reading and please support the MSPCA whether you can attend the race or not. If you want to be a real trooper, make a video of yourself downing a 40 in front of a homemade Nega-Coach sign and post it on YouTube, or send us a picture or something. If you do this at CX nats then you are a true hero. And donate! Send us proof and you'll get all the Nega-Coaching you can handle!

Both feet in the air!

Finally, photographic evidence that I'm actually capable of running and jumping. Thanks to Zoo for capturing this rarest of moments.

Racing in December

Photo courtesy of Murat

Being pre-registered for NBX before the foot issue came up, I made a game time decision to head down Saturday morning. The cx bike had been laying in the back of the car since Putney anyway, so I didn't even need to load it up. Despite the cold, and Goddard Park being right on the bay (just two miles from Gewilli's house, by boat...), it was quite pleasant at the venue. The race was super well organized and staffed with an abundance of volunteers. I've skipped this one each year of my "comeback" and thus I hadn't raced this course in at least ten years. The layout has changed a bit and I only got in one pre-ride loop of the twisty maze through the rooted picnic grounds. At least there was lots of fast pavement.

Having registered early, I had a low number but thirty riders got called up ahead of me. Another thirty or so were behind me, but somehow at the start, even though it seemed like only a few passed me before the first beach runup, I scaled it pretty damn near the back. It was a beautiful Graham Watson moment from back there though, with sixty brightly-kitted and helmeted riders shouldering their bikes, packed into the track four-wide, marching up the sandy hill in unison. Very impressive. You tools up front don't know what you missed.

I had one objective: beat Gewilli. No matter how many excuses I had, this was a streak I needed to maintain. And he was right next to me. Sweet. Nobody was trying to pass us (I swear there were only about four riders behind us), so I stayed calm and smooth. Timmy was about 15 seconds ahead. The course did not have any bottlenecks after the first one, so it was clear sailing. Except for all the roots and turns... I did not have much of this course committed to memory. I f'd up a little here and there, but managed to recover, but then on the short beach run I tried to protect my foot by riding down the slope instead of running. I had not tried this during warmup... Bad move. I lost a ton of time, Gewilli ran off, and the four swinging dicks behind me moved past as well. I scrambled up the runup and remounted, but held back on trying to charge ahead, as I needed to recover, and still didn't know the course.

For the next lap I followed these four guys. The Cronoman had done the early race and he encouraged me from the sidelines to catch Willi, who was ten seconds up. God you know your career is in the toilet when it's come to this! There were some drafting sections so I stayed on my group before attacking them on the long paved stretch. I put a few seconds into them, but now I was alone with nobody immediately ahead and a few times I became confused as to where the course turned next. I wasn't fast enough over the rooted turns and although a few blown riders appeared ahead, and I was able to pass them, my forward progress was limited. The race announcer called me out as "solobreak" which was a nice surprise. The gang of four persisted just a few seconds behind me, until the last lap when one of them attacked out of the group and bridged up to me. I f'd up the long beach run and he passed me, so I sat on him the rest of the way (photo above is on the last lap, entering the long paved stretch). In the final turns I was for some reason thinking we would be doing all the paved 180s down by the water again, and the finish line caught me by surprise. Race over.



Spanked by Gewilli! I think the results on site had me 59 out of 69 starters, so I guess there were a few behind me, including GCD, who bent a chain and had to spend half a lap in the pit getting a link removed. Willi was up around 52nd, and Timmy (shown in this link over on The Zoo Report) ten spots ahead of that for a stellar finish. He's going to Nats and says he is on his best form of the year so that is pretty awesome. After the race the sun stayed out and it was a pretty nice day. Corey Masson gave me some home made chocolate chip cookies, you can't beat that. Karin was leading the cheering section for me throughout the race, despite my near back of the bunch status, so now I'm inspired to follow through on some special stagiaire plans I have cooked up for the Ice Weasels Cometh season finale next week. You will not want to miss this...

In other news, this looks like a pretty cool development. Boise? Thanks for reading.

Now I remember!

It took a trainer ride to do it, but a couple of my stray brain cells collided in the personal airspace that is my cranium and the intended subject of this morning's post came back to me. I've been hearing a lot about the magical Power Cranks lately, from riders whom I sort of respect (all three of you... don't let your egos get the best of you just because I'm tossing you a Friday night dog biscuit). Enough so that I clicked on over and took a look. Ummm. Ok. In case you don't know, these are just cranks that have a one way ratchet where they attach to the spindle. You can stop one leg whenever you want. Great for one legged pedaling drills, but the magic is supposed to come from needing to keep your "upstroking" leg pedaling circles to prevent it from just ratcheting back. The end result is supposed to be a better pedal stroke that employs more muscle groups, etc.

This is where I realized my Lapierre 10 speed of 35 years ago was ahead of it's time. Anyone who has ever ridden with a partially stripped cottered crank knows what I'm talking about. Power Cranks. Smirk. Maybe this is why I have such an awesome pedal stroke. Thanks for reading.

Ahead and Behind of My Time

I completely forgot what I was going to write. I remembered the title. Fuck. So last night I saw Ariana Huffington on The Daily Show (you might have seen this the prior night. Remember, I'm a day behind). She has published a book on how to blog. Turns out I've got it mostly wrong, according to her. She advocated the unedited stream of consciousness. Anyway, if you missed Stewart's bit on what to get Dick Cheney for Christmas, go look it up. It made me laugh.

The most played list is the behind the times part that I remembered. Some of these benefit from being at the top of the trainer playlist, which is longer than a lot of trainer rides. Here are the most recent plays. I got looking at this stuff because the Itunes store kept recommending I buy more hip hop. I thought this was Genius working behind the scenes, but I didn't even have it turned on. It must have just been working on purchase history. Or maybe it thinks I voted for Obama or something. Anyway, it coaxed me into springing $2.97 for one cut each of Missy, Queen Latifah and Snoop. Then I did some looking around at a few hip hop websites, which was an eye opener. Hip Hop cover art is pretty cool. I'm not sure about the music, but the cover artists have got to be some of the most creative (or best idea thieves) in business today. It makes sense. The Funk was always way ahead of it's time with respect to cover art.

I still don't remember what I was supposed to write. Yesterday I got the cortisone shot. The doctor said to expect a "dramatic" improvement within a few days, or else he'll order a bone scan to see if the MRI missed anything. I'm pretty confident this is a nerve inflammation problem.

The auto show in Boston is this week. I saw pictures and ads for the 2010 Camaro. This was a huge letdown. As a high school gearhead, the 1969 Z-28 is the ultimate street machine that I of course never had the money to own. Fully restored, they are $30K and up now. I was never a Mopar guy, but the AAR 'Cuda of the same era was pretty awesome too. Now last year Chrysler went the retro route again, but the execution of the new Hemi Challenger was near perfect. The look is almost exactly like the original (Cuda's and Challenger were the same except for a slightly longer trunk on the Dodge). When I read the press release about GM bringing back the Camaro, I'd hoped they were going to do the same thing. They didn't. No wonder they're failing. People are lining up to drop $50k on the new Challenger. The promo video on the new Camaro is simply awful. It looks like they botched the entire project.



Maybe they'll do a retro Coupe d' Ville from the 50's or 60's. They can't possibly screw that up, and the rappers alone ought to buy enough to keep them afloat.

I moved back to the second floor this week. As an orphan (my group is based in Framingham), I get bumped around in the musical chairs game. At first I was kind of pissed, because my old cube was pretty much an uptown penthouse, right on the atrium, in the corner, one of the best. Now I'm down in the ghetto, high traffic, low lighting, but I'm finding it good. More people and more fun. Less blogging though; not so private. Sorry. And I still don't remember what the title is about. Thanks for reading.

Way Better than Cyclocross

I never actually owned one of these things, but one of my hoodlum friends back in the 'hood had a little brother who did. Despite being adorned with a sticker that said something like "Max 70 lbs, ages 8 and under," we discovered that three of us 11 year olds could pile on, one sitting down, one on the bars, and on standing up Secret Service style on the back bumper. We repeatedly sped down the biggest available hill and pulled the donut move at the bottom, eventually wearing the plastic wheels down to nothing. Good times. Anyone want to buy me a Night Rod VRSCDX for Christmas, please go right ahead. This might be a surprise to some of you, but some dude had one at Gloucester and I liked it. I'm a drag race guy at heart I guess. Thanks for reading Chopperoos!

Sportin' Life

For a short time, I thought maybe my foot was going to be OK. I ran a bit yesterday with minimal ill effects. Today I snuck out at lunch for a ride. Tonight it hurts again. I know this is going to break a lot of hearts, but The Santa Speedo Run just ain't going to be able to happen for me this year. Please give generously to someone else who is doing it. They make it easy.

Since I already rode in the afternoon, the evening was no trainer required. Instead I tried something new, listening to music while NOT riding the trainer, not driving the car, or anything else. Not just Missy Elliot either, lots of stuff. I should do this more often. Thanks for reading.

Downhill

Just in case you thought I was kidding about where this blog is headed...



Free stuff! The "knobbler" I got for entering a running race. The golf balls were a prize for best team name in the 80's golf tournament (Duff Leppard). The dollar bill came from JD Powers in thanks for not filling out their survey. That one almost got thrown away. And oh yeah, the wooden bowl was a handmade gift from the Cronoman.



Is it me or does anyone else agree that GoLean looks like cat food? Thanks for reading.

The Death of a Blog

This image was created in 1999, when I started my first website. Wow. Time flies. Will we be advocating for the downtrodden in 2009 and beyond? I'm beginning to wonder. Lately I've had friend, foe, and family alike telling me that my blog is sucking. I'll keep it on life support for now. Thanks for reading.

Caption this photo

Wall of Death

OK, it's Monday, and that means traffic, and you know I don't like to disappoint you, so even though I'm pretty much empty handed, I'll make a token effort. This picture is for G-Ride and of course the Cronoman. Semper Fi.

For the rest of you, and I'm not sure whether or not I ever published this before, but if I did, call it a rerun.

Foot update - seems OK. Rode outdoors three days in a row and it bothered me a bit on the third day, but not bad. Thanks for reading.

You decide

Is this the direction you want cyclocross headed?


At least he has gears...


This I can live with. Whoops are a blast.
Photos by DavidA"

Thanks for reading.

Breath of fresh air

Anyone have one of these? The price seems reasonable enough, although 470 watts running all night every night would impact the electric bill a bit. I've been hearing more and more stories about how these are standard equipment for today's successful masters racers, just like carbon wheels. Anyone? Thanks for reading.

Striking a nerve

Ok, not exactly, but it was a nice segue from "grinding my gears." No stress fracture was detected on my MRI. That's good news. So then, why does my foot hurt? The diagnosis was nerve inflammation. The doctor could palpitate (fancy Daria science word for poking with his finger) the nerve that travels along between the first and second metatarsals (fancy Daria science word for foot bones) and detect some fluid pooling over the tender spot. Now what? He said nerves are slow to heal, and suggested a cortisone shot would reduce the inflammation and speed the process. I've never had one before, but I'd heard horror stories, so I suggested that I was willing to wait it out a bit before going that route. The running race season only goes two more weeks, so I wouldn't be doing those anyway. He agreed, and gave me a script for an oral anti-inflammatory, told me not to run or jump, to keep pressure off of it, and continue with an aggressive course of icing. And that's what I plan to do. Any cortisone experiences you want to share would be super. I've read up and it sounds pretty standard for this particular situation, and the bad rep they have can be traced to earlier times when dosing was higher and administration less focused. But if I can recover without it I'd like to try first.

Moving on to causes and prevention, I'm not sure if this could have been the result of one long run with my shoes tied too tight or not. My feet have been a chronic source of athletic anguish, and I've had several "minor" (non-fracture) impact injuries to them in the past as well. I'm probably going to have to start paying more attention to foot pain and numb feet, and migrate to cycling shoes with a more padded tongue (huh-huh). I already have custom footbeds, but the Rocket7s have very minimal padding all around, instead employing a snug custom fit aimed at light weight. They have three full seasons on them anyway, so I might have to look at having a new upper built to accommodate my new issues. I'll also be talking with the podiatrist about orthotics for running too.

That's the boring straight scoop. Thanks for reading.

What really grinds my gears

As expected, x-ray images of my foot were inconclusive as to the presence of a stress fracture. Tomorrow I'll get an MRI and we'll work with that later in the week. Not that you need to care. I can still ride a bike if I want to, but as bad as this blog gets sometimes, I'm not going to write about my trainer ride in gory detail, or worse yet the makeup of my "trainer mix" whatever that is. Instead, since it's been a while, I throw out a flame-bait op-ed piece.



What's wrong with this picture? And I'm really not picking on promoters here. This example of a cyclocross race meeting separates the "racers" into nine categories. The problem is that while eight of these categories appear to be based on standard criteria such as the age, ability, and gender of the athletes, one of them is based purely on the design of the bicycle. Who thinks this is a good precedent? Not me.

Quite a variety of bicycles exist in just about any bicycle race, especially cyclocross. We have nice bikes, junky bikes, light bikes, not so light bikes, bikes with one chainring, bikes with two chainrings, bikes with three chainrings, bikes with 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and even 11 cogs on the rear cluster, bikes with suspension forks, different tires, different wheels, frame differences both subtle and not so subtle. There's no getting around equipment choice being a factor, but the competitions are primarily among athletes, and I hope that most of us would like it to stay that way. Otherwise we're dancing dangerously close to ... motorsports. Yuk. So why start forgetting about the athletes and classifying races based on equipment? I happen to think single speeds are cool. They look cool, especially with disc brakes. I like simplicity too. That's one reason I like track bikes (which all have only one gear, and always have, so leave them out of this debate). But this is bike racing. If you don't think the equipment you have is competitive, then get different equipment. I'm not out there promoting or asking for a race restricted to ill-fitting, outdated, poorly maintained steel bikes with box rims and mismatched tires, just because that's what I happen to own... And you can keep your stupid bubble machine too.

Related subject - course design. The cyclocross pictures from flickr have been pouring in. The northeast isn't very well represented by the way. Almost nothing local. Hundreds of photos per week from other regions though. Lots of variety in courses. Some look good, some not so good. Yes, cyclocross has some rules about barriers, width of the course, the length of the runs, and the percentage of pavement. All of those rules would not be necessary (and neither would the stupid 35 mm tire rule) if everyone adhered to one simple guideline: the course shall be designed such that the fastest way to get around it under human power is on a traditional cyclocross bike. Simple. Maybe not always possible, but when you think about the best cross courses, it's true. I like this guideline because it has a certain purity and relationship to the man versus horse roots of the sport. The course should never be so nasty that a runner could beat the bikes. Now, the world record holders in 10k cross country running maintain almost 23 kph. Even if they had to hold on for the one hour duration of a cross race, these runners could maintain over 20 kph. So a proper cross course should always allow a world-class competitor to go faster than that, or at least faster than any runner could conceivably go under the day's conditions. Similarly, mountain bikes and/or road bikes shouldn't be able to beat a traditional cross bike either. If they can, then there is something wrong with the course. Meet those criteria, and have a track wide enough for good competition (not so narrow that the singlespeeders can block you while they rest and prepare for their next momentum building sprint to conquer the next rise, not mentioning any names here) and you're all set. No additional rules required. And that's what really grinds my (9) gears. Thanks for reading.

My Left Foot

So there is something wrong with my foot. The symptoms sort of match those of a metatarsal stress fracture, but the pain is not that severe so I'm hopeful it's something else. I can't run on it now though. I'm going to a specialist today to see what's up. No matter what, I don't expect to be running for a few weeks at least. Kind of a bummer with some fun races coming up, but I suppose if I'm going to be injured, now is as good a time as any. I'll have to see about riding the bike or racing the last few cx races. Pedaling does not present much problem but I'll need to find out if continuing is advisable, or if I need to start my December break right now. That's all I've got. Thanks for reading.

Cross Tech

It's Friday, I'm injured (more on that later), so no training BS, but I don't want to disappoint you, so here are some thoughts for you to ponder.


Here is Nys' bike. Notice how short the chainstays appear to be.


Contrast that with American Tim Johnson's bike.

I was talking with Jim Quinn at Wrentham. He was using a Cannondale road bike for his second cx bike. He said he used it as his first choice at many races, because the tighter geometry gave him an advantage. Jim owns a fairly large, successful bike shop and could choose just about whatever equipment he desires. It got me thinking. I haven't owned a lot of cx bikes. Besides the bike I ride now, the only other purely cx purpose-built bike I've ridden was a Torelli. That bike was basically a road bike with cantilevers. The wheelbase was 99 cm. Tire clearance was tight, but the bike handled better than anything else I've tried before or since.

Notice that neither of the pro bikes pictured above has the typical nine miles of seatpost sticking out either. The trend on the road has been to compact and shorter and shorter frames. It seems to me many US cx designs follow the MTB model of short seat tubes and long chainstays. IMHO Nys' bike is better, especially for the dry courses we've been seeing lately. It looks a lot like a traditional road bike from a few years back. Thanks for reading.

The Business End

Photo by PHWadsworth

...of Solobreak, featuring new and improved calf muscles. Others by Scott Dowd here. Thanks for reading.

Children of the Cornfield

Photo by PHWadsworth

Aka my 2008 Putney Cyclocross race report. It turns out "the cornfield" has a name, Kathan Meadow, or at least that's the name of the road that we race out of it on. That's correct, part of the Putney CX course travels on a public road with neighbors of the shop occasionally driving it. The course also goes about a hundred feet straight up the side of a steep embankment that must be forty feet high (wait a minute, that's not straight up, is it?), then zig zags all around the shop parking lot and surrounding woods before plunging down into the "jungle of mud" which this year was a rutted corridor that roughly guided your out of control bike back out to the cornfield like a Hot Wheels track. Most definitely old school, most definitely fun, and most definitely the kind of playtime that turns us back into children.

Putney may not be the biggest race, with maybe 200 or so total entrants, but for me the social scene tops all others. Everyone is in a good mood here. You can't help it. Forget the race report: the Putney school was selling some of the best coffee I've ever tasted, as well as -- donuts that did not come from a chain! The first one I got was still warm. Yes, first, as in not last. Not even close. And of course burrittos. And a woodstove burning hot outside the shop, next to where results were posted. Where else can you hang out around a hot stove eating a homemade donut while watching the next race? Nowhere. Back to our race report...

I was expecting a bit of mud in the cornfield, as I knew some rain had gone over the region, just like last year. When I got to the venue early and headed out with Eric for course recon, we found the cornfield oddly dry, just a bit tacky in spots. In contrast, the top part of the course and the "jungle section" were under water. Maybe not snorkel and fins deep, but standing water. Wow. I retreated to the trainer, set up courseside for a few of the early races, and completed my warmup. The weather was quite nice, comfortably cool but not cold, and even a bit warm when the sun was shining, which seemed like more than 50% of the time. I did some good tempo and knew my legs should be ok after taking Saturday off from racing, but I wondered how rutted the course was getting from the 4s, and how much it would dry out. The answers: a lot and not much, in that order.

The 11:00 group consisted of about twenty-five 35+ riders, a 30 second gap to just ten of us in the 45+, then another 30 seconds to ten or so 55+. Off the line I'm last, but in contact. Cronoman is butting heads with Soups up front, and Timmy is just ahead of me. I'm bad on the barriers, but pass one guy heading into the woods, and I f up a lot of stuff, and get gapped on the mini runup. We plunge down the slippery slope into the jungle and I come out the other side in one piece, and the race is on. Timmy opens a nice gap in the cornfield, and there is a Putney guy and another guy between us. I think I'm ahead of just one guy. The Putney guy has lots of local fans around the course. I sit on these guys up Kathan Meadow Road the first time, and then get gapped on the runup. Here's where I may get mixed up, but it went something like what follows.

I moved past one or two guys the next time around the cornfield. Timmy is still well ahead, and I doubt I'll catch him. Then the Putney guy passes me back. At least I think that it's him. After a bit the people cheering for him seems to have switched names? I'm baffled, but I follow him anyway and he takes better lines than I was using so I go to school. We bomb back down the slippery slope and start racing through the jungle, and there is the Cronoman laying on his back, looking unconscious. He is about fifteen feet from the racing line. WTF? Someone is attending to him, and I see slight movement as I go past. Briefly I think about stopping to help, but he is supposed to be a tough bastard, and I don't want to spoil the child by pretending to care that much about him, so I presume he'll be fit to plow tomorrow and keep racing. Besides, Timmy is the nicest guy on the team, and he didn't stop, so damned if I'm going to.

Putney guy pulls off on the road like he wants me to pull through, but since Timmy is the next guy up the road, nothing doing. Putney guy doesn't protest and resumes his pull, with me sitting on. I shadow him as best I can but he gaps me here and there. I report my fallen comrade to the officials as we race by the finish line, but by the time we go back through the jungle Crono is gone. Putney guy keeps pulling and Timmy is now in sight. At the finish line the lap cards say two to go, but then they yell out "231 you have one to go." 231 is Putney guy. It takes a second for my feeble brain to realize that I am not racing this guy; he is the leader of the 55+ and had caught me from behind. They were apparently doing one lap less than us. So now I really felt like a jackass for not pulling, but what the hell. He seems to know he's got his race sewn up, or maybe I got faster, but this time I don't get gapped anywhere and we careen through the jungle and back into the cornfield together. He tows me up to Timmy and the three of us hit the road together, so this time I pull. Putney guy (turns out this ones name is Phil) still passed before the runup and those two both beat me to the top. Phil pulled off as winner of the 55+ and then it was just me and Timmy with one lap to go. I fumbled my way over the mini runup, then took the front going around the shop. We made it through the jungle for the last time without any mosh dives, and as we entered the cornfield I eased a bit just to make sure he was on my wheel. Well, a BOB kit comes flying by, but it ain't Timmy -- It's the Cronoman, back from the dead, and charging past without so much as a grunt! Glad I didn't stop for his dramatic ass... I get his wheel, and figure what the hell, I'm going to race the fucker. I don't get too many chances to beat him at cross, so I'm not letting this one slip by.

At least that was the plan... This year the corn rows must have been planted pretty tight, and they kind of did a half-assed job of cutting them down. The racing track (worn in from weekly practice races on this course) was only one cornrow wide. Over near the end, just before where they'd laid out a chicane with stakes and tape, there were two big tractor ruts. The racing line made a quick shunt from one cornrow to the next in order to avoid the ruts. Well, I was drafting the possessed Cronoman so close, I missed the cutover when he swerved through it, ending up on the wrong side of the ruts. My choice was either crash through the chicane tape or jump back over the ruts, which was really the only choice. I got gapped and he bullied his way around a few 35+ backmarkers we'd caught and that was that. I almost blew closing back up to his wheel on the road, but he just sprinted up the runup anyway and cruised comfortably into the last paying spot of 5th while I rolled in behind, with Timmy just one second more back at the line.

Afterward was more donuts, burrittos, coffee, music, and making fun of the Cronoman's crash. I guess the stategic genius was leading the race and then decided the treacherous jungle would be a good place to attack. He caught a rut while standing up sprinting, vaulting himself into the air for a somersault half gainer with a twist before pirouetting down into the mud to perform his famous dieing bug finale. I'm going to have to get faster so that the next time he pulls a circus act like this I can be close enough behind to watch the show. Yes, almost three hours of driving each way for a 45 minute race is a little crazy, but if there was any race this year that made me feel like a kid again it was this one. Thanks for reading.

What's so special...

About Putney? This race holds a special place to many of us not just because it's the 18th annual running of their cross event. The Putney/West Hill orange and yellow colors are a huge part of New England bike racing tradition. If you're rolling your eyes about nostalgia, then just go ahead and click away.

Before bikereg, cyclingnews, and finish line cameras, most races only picked and posted five or ten placings in a given race. The only recognition you were likely to get after everyone had gone home from an event was maybe an obituary sized listing in the fine print at the back of the printed version of Velo-News. Except at Putney/West Hill's Tour of the Valleys. The race finished on a steep hill and the organizers cared enough to score and record each and every rider, without a camera. A few weeks after the race we'd all get printed finish results in the mail. Stuff you take for granted today.

Some of you were lucky enough to have participated in this annual epic road race. I know this because you're listed in these printed results from (coincidentally) the 18th running of that race, held in 1988. Click, zoom, and peruse for your pleasure. Notables would be Zencycle getting beat at the line by Dorrie Bowley in the citizen's race, several of us in the cat 3's, and Gewilli's college roommate in the juniors. Also FYI, "Veterans" was 35+ and "Masters" was 45+ in those days. See if you can find your name and placing.

Sadly, The Tour of the Valleys is no longer with us, a victim of selfish racers who could not seem to follow simple rules of community decency. Luckily, we still get to make our annual pilgrimage to the true heart of New England cycling once a year for the cross race. See you Sunday. Thanks for reading.