Dedicated Follower of Fashion

Pez has a follow up to Josh's original article on cycling fashion etiquette. After the last one was discussed here, I've had some inquiries about my promise to elaborate on my personal cycling fashion faux pas. Ok, here we go...

First, stuff I do right -- Unclipping? What's that? Anyone who has ridden with me knows what I'm talking about. It's not trackstanding though, it's roadstanding. I always have my left foot forward to use the crown of the road to balance. And yes, I'm very good at it. Years ago at the Biddeford Crit (which was won by a young 18 year old kid from Texas, first name rhymes with dance), I was rolling up the sidewalk. A family was walking toward me. A race was in progress, and a snow fence prevented me from moving out of the way, so I did my "roadstand" to allow them to pass. The family youngster, 3-4 years old, was running ahead of Mom and Dad whilst looking back at them. He plows right into my front wheel, bounces back, and falls to the ground. I did not flinch (really, I had no choice, as falling on top of a little kid was not an option). Mom, Dad, and child were astonished. I held my pose until they walked past... I can't do a real trackstand with the right foot forward and the wheel turned right though. Never practiced it much. Maybe tonight.

My kits always match, and I'm not one to shred a group ride. I never ride racey wheels in training. And everyone knows I'm never caught post-ride still wearing my shorts, as my preference for parking lot attire is well known to be a dirty towel from the back of the car. Now on to the bad...

Sunglasses inside the helmet straps. I do this consistently, for functional reasons. In the event of a bee flying into the vents, frantically tearing the helmet off your head results in your glasses catapulting into the road if they're outside the straps. Not that I should care, as I don't wear expensive, fashionable glasses either. But then again, since the reasoning for wearing them outside the straps was to expose your sunglass sponsor's logos, I've got nothing to worry about. Home Depot is not counting on me to sell more landscaper safety glasses...

Ornaments --- Yes, I've raced (MTB) with a plastic Raphael Ninja Turtle strapped to my stem. This was probably not the only incident either, though I honestly don't remember the others. I'm sure somebody does. And you all know about the longstockings from CX. Someone called me a copycat for that, but the truth is I wore pink/purple paisley kneesocks at Lynn Woods back before she got her first Strawberry Shortcake BMX bike with training wheels. I'm an original...

Bibs with no jersey. Ok, I don't make a habit of this. In fact, I've only done it once. However, somewhere on this blog there's a photo, so I have to face up to the truth.

Arm and leg warmers must match. Ummm, I'm not sure what he means by this. Do they just have to match each other (I'm ok) or do they have to match the kit? (I'm in trouble then...)

Legs cleanly shaven. I'm not the worst offender in the world, but I've caught shit for lengthy stubble. Hey, I'm on a budget here, and Gillette ain't doing much to hold down the costs of their products. And it's not like I ever saw action like the 82nd Airborne either.

Sleeveless. Again, rare, but on my sunset cruises, hell yeah. And I have a colored helmet too, but that was a team buy. Speaking of helmets, although I totally rock the cycling cap, I succumb to pressure and always wear a freakin' helmet. Honestly though, I don't get the psycho "you must wear a helmet" crap. Really? If they're so great, why don't you wear one when you're driving in your car? Or when shoveling your icy driveway? Your risk of head injury in either of those two activities, and many others, is far greater than when going for an easy spin on your bike. Hell, Sunday I slipped in my cleats and nearly broke my neck in my own kitchen while getting ready for a ride. Didn't have the helmet on yet. Most accidents happen in the home, so why not wear it all the time? I know, this is supposed to be about fashion. And I wear the stupid thing anyway. I've been doing it for so long, it feels wrong to ride without it. Besides that, first question they always ask in the emergency room is "were you wearing a helmet?" Umm, it's my ass that's hurt maam... See the part with no skin on it? My brain's not in there, really.

Last but not least, white bar tape. No. My bar tape is somewhat legendary. Until this year, only BLACK Tressotar cloth tape was good enough to grace the handlebars of solobreak. Cloth was racey and old school. But Tressotar keeps getting harder to find. Worse still, I like to overlap it way more than normal. That way I don't have to replace it as often (although those familiar with my frayed and half-bare bars may beg to differ). The issue though, was with 44 cm bars, well, Tressotar hasn't changed the length of a roll since everyone rode 40s. It takes me four rolls to properly wrap my 3Ts. At $4.95/roll, good grief! Last year I caved. I found a "fake carbon" rubberish wrap from one of the discount bike parts whorehouses that has a great feel to it. Not too thick, not too tacky, grippy even when wet. It's $12.95 but often on sale for just $4.95! Any color you want so long as it's black, which is nice, as it thus matches the copious amount of electrical tape I use to finish the job. Other white stuff? Hoods, cool, but do they even do that anymore? Saddles? Sure, but I'll take whatever color is on sale. Tires? They're not white yet, but yes, I'll run colors, and I do try to have the front match the rear.

I'm sure I missed a bunch of stuff. Feel free to chime in. I can take it... Thanks for reading.

McCain picks 50 Cent as running mate

This has got to be the best spam-bait tagline I've seen yet. Maybe you've already seen it. Sorry. Slow Monday rest day... Thanks for reading.

Tour of the Hilltowns Race Report

It's been a week without a post, so I'm taking the easy way out with a straight up race report. Rumblings within my creative mind keep stirring up ideas for posts, but the gap between idea and blog entry proves too big for my always tired and recovering ass to close. Maybe later in the week.

So Hilltowns. Apparently spawning from the ashes of the late, great Charlemont Road Race, this one came to be during my hiatus from the sport, and until yesterday I'd never done it. I only raced Charlemont once or twice too, and that was a long time ago, but some of the route seemed vaguely familiar. I think the loop is quite similar, but the start/finish is in a completely different place. Maybe one of the locals with a sense of history can fill me in. The jewel of this route is the climb up East Hawley Road. We descended part of this in D2R2. This climb is also big enough to be ranked on Dougie's Hillclimb browser. The total elevation gain is over 370 meters (~1200 feet) in 6k or so, for an average gradient of over 6%. I checked this against ratings of similar climbs in this year's Tour de France and to my surprise it appears to be borderline between a category 3 and 2, most likely a 2. By comparison, Big Blue looks like it is a borderline 4 and a 3, most likely a 3. In the past I've read that the placement of a climb within a stage could affect the rating (i.e. same climb at the end of a long stage would be rated higher) but lately I've not heard such talk.

Back to the race/route. East Hawley Road had been resurfaced with something called "chip seal" just a few days ago. The surface wasn't something I've ever seen before; it was like a low grade of asphalt. It looked like pavement, but some parts of it were pretty loose and gravelly. It might be ok after several hard rains, but on race day it was surely among the heaviest, highest rolling resistance surfaces one is likely to encounter, making the climb harder via being softer. Got it?

First we had to get to the climb. And before that we had to get to the race. Colin had expressed interest in carpooling to what would be his road racing debut, so me and the Cronoman borrowed the BOB Magic Bus and met him at the park and ride for the drive out. We got there only an hour or so before the start and had a slight rush to get ready, and no warm up. Not a lot of non-climbers show up for this race. The age group was also 40-50 and 50+, so the mix was a bit odd. The highest number I saw in our group was 68, so figure roughly 65 starters what with the probability of a few no shows. Sammy Morse (Corner Cycle) drilled it out of the parking lot and headed up the road. He was soon joined by a lone Benidorm rider. The start of this race is all downhill. Within two minutes we're going 65kph down Route 8. This was a smooth road. Paul Richard (CCB) quickly flatted. His teammate, Tyler Munroe, waited for him. Sucks being them, so I thought at the time...

The course soon turned onto Rt 8A. This was a ripping, serpentine descent that went for several miles. The pavement here was not so good. Most of the way down, I hear a tire explode in front of me. It's the Cronoman, who has blown out his front at 60 kph. Luckily there were no tight switchbacks on this particular stretch. I chose not to wait for him. It was just us two on the team. At the speed we were going, it seemed like it would be suicide. Plus, I reasoned that Tyler and Paul were chasing back there anyway, and with any luck, Eric would get a fast change and maybe hook up with them for a real chance at rejoining. Those hopes were soon dashed when Tyler and Richard miraculously came blowing through the group seconds later. Making it even more amazing was that Tyler's bibs were completely shredded on one side from an encounter with the pavement. I later found out that just as they were about to join the group, the wheel van swerved over to stop for another flat victim (not the Cronoman), and he and Paul crossed wheels, sending Munroe to the pavement at high speed. He got up and chased again, and made it. Unfuckingbelievable.

Eventually the descent ends, we can see the ski area, and we turn onto East Hawley. I'm about midway up in the pack, right with race favorite John Funk (Cycle Fitness) and a talkative Jonny Bold (Corner Cycle). Sammy and the other guy are still ahead, but visible. The climb starts out steep. Having not done a hilly race in over two months, I don't know what to expect. One of the reasons I'm here is to see whether or not I should bother with Bow next week. I feel OK, but I haven't been able to crack 5:10 on Big Blue this month, not a good sign. I also employed an experimental strategy of outfitting my bike with 38/52 chainrings and a 12-23 cluster. That's right, just a 38/23 low gear. My reasoning was two-dimensional: I've been climbing better at low rpms lately, seated or not. More importantly though, I tend to cave in and use whatever the lowest gear I have on the bike is. If I'm suffering, and let's face it, hilly races are about suffering, I'll wuss out. So I made the choice for myself ahead of time. If I can't push this gear, I'm probably out of contention anyway. It worked, sort of.

The bottom of the climb is pretty steep. Working through those who immediately slow, Funk pulled alongside and quickly moved ahead at a pace I could never follow. I hate not knowing a climb too. I went steady and hard, standing in my 19 and 18. When the grade lessened, I sat down but kept going up through the gears, getting as far as the 16 or maybe even 15. I passed a ton of people in the middle of the climb. Then it kicked up again. I could see a few groups lined out in front of me, which I estimated to be about twenty riders total. Not so bad, but we ain't there yet.

There was one switchback on this climb. I recognized this as where we came out from a dirt path in D2R2, but that day we headed down, not up East Hawley. The steeps before the switchback were in the shade. I stood a lot. I was no longer passing people, but I hadn't gone past the 21 cog yet. That soon changed and I used the 23, but never stood up in it. After the switchback, by now having climbed for close to fifteen minutes, I started hoping for the crest. Not yet dude. I could still see what looked sort of like a "main pack" ahead, but I was looking down a lot. I tried to pick it up, but not knowing the course, could not risk blowing up. Ahead I saw Adam Sternfeld (Millwork One) and another guy. I towed my group, which included Eric Pearce (Bethel) up to them. The hill crested out. Adam tried hard to organize a chase. I did what I could, but I was worried about cracking if the road kicked up again. I also knew several riders, including Tough Guy Tyler, were right behind me and bound to rejoin, with a bigger group having a better chance...

We were only 1:08 into the race! Not even half way. Sure enough, our group swelled to about a dozen, but a few of them wouldn't/couldn't work, notably John Mosher (Corner Cycle) with team mates up the road, and a Keltic guy who was just being lazy. The rest of us still tried to chase, some more than others. Even Tyler did his share, despite his earlier efforts and troubles. Respect... The problem was, I later learned, was the groups ahead had broken up, with a leading trio of Dimitri Buben (CCB), eventual winner Greg Swindand, and Funk being chased by the rest. So we were chasing a chase, and that doesn't always work out so well. When our dirty dozen passed the feed zone, we were told "3 minutes" and that pretty much deflated the situation. After that we were riding on routes 116 and 9, big, open roads. There was some disagreement in the group and people getting pissy about the sleigh riders. I try to remain above the fray, doing my share but not being taken advantage of. Then some of the angered started attacking, and it kind of pissed me off that Mosher and Keltic O'Shea (I think) suddenly had the energy to join in. A few guys got shelled out, so they probably could not work. Regardless, nothing stuck and we continually regrouped. I waited until the last uphill stretch and then set the hardest tempo I could to see if anyone would shake off. I don't think we lost anyone. The race ends in a long, flat sprint with a U-turn into the parking lot at about 150 meters to go. Mosher jumped into the turn and held us off, with me second and the Keltic guy behind me. I think most of the others just rolled in shaking their heads about the lack of a concerted effort among the group, but realistically we only had a chance to rejoin right after the end of the climb, and at that point most of the complainers weren't doing shit. That's bike racing.

No results up yet, but most accounts have 15-20+ riders ahead of my group. I'm still pretty happy with the way I climbed. If I'd known the hill, I may have had a slightly better chance of staying with the leaders. As it was, I got in a very hard ride start to finish, and feel good about going back to known territory at Bow. The Cronoman got a wheel change and finished only ten minutes behind our group. Colin will do his own writeup, but I think his first foray into road racing was an eye-opener. He competed on a cx bike with heavy wheels too, which is how Cat 5s should race, but so few do. Hey, this turned out to be a book. I must have enjoyed this race. Thanks for reading.

Sprintin' nstuff

Photos courtesy of Ron Slaga

Last week on WillieWorld the subject of genetic abilities came up. While I'll stick by my assertion that at our (amateur) level, training and preparation are far, far more important than genetics, I'll concede that some of us gravitate toward using certain tactical weaponry more than others. Sure, skinny people climb better. But anyone can get skinny if they try hard enough. Sprinting might be a bit different. I've never had much jump or much speed, but I've always been regarded as a relatively decent time trialist. Genetics? Maybe it's a factor, though I can't claim to have ever worked too hard on improving my "sprint." On the other hand, I've pounded out countless hours rolleuring it up on the windy flats around here. Nothing like a two hour grind across open cranberry bogs in the middle of March with one eye on your average speed to build up the slowtwitch TT fibers genetics provided you.

This year was different. Despite the "solobreak" moniker, in the 45+ races I've been failing to make any solo escapes stick for oh, let's see, almost four years now. There are lots of riders in this group who like to head up the road, and one almost always has some company when managing to get off the front. Tired of getting fifth out of five, and also just continuing to learn how to train, this winter I spent a little bit of time on the sprinting muscles. I've been doing more "structural fitness" training anyway, and this does not just mean swinging the sledgehammer. I was a regular at the gym this winter, and have continued all the way until now. Over the indoor months, this year I tried some plyometric leg work, such as thrusting (huh-huh) a 10 kg medicine ball at the ceiling over and over until exhaustion (or, on one day, when the ball exploded upon landing, spraying sand all over the exercise studio).

All that stopped when the competitive season opened, but the sprint training had just begun. Maybe not as often as I should, but I've been doing specific workouts on some days, sprinting in the drops up and down steep hills, and some other stuff I've learned over the years. Then there is the track in Londonderry. I've only been up there twice this year, but I'm convinced this is the best way to improve your speed, as the nature of all forms of track racing (not just match sprinting) is short, intense bursts of speed in response to moves by other riders, as well as sprints to the line.

Did it work? Well, Wednesday night at the WMSR road race, four guys were off the front and gone. The remains of the field exploded the last time up the climb. Flying down the descent, I found myself second wheel behind Bruce Diehl (Sunapee-S&W). One of his teammates had attacked over the crest, and had a decent gap, so Bruce eased. Luckily, the CCB train of Leo Devellian and Sean Langford came flying by leading out Ciaran Mangan, a fast finisher. I was fortunate to find a spot on the back of this trio. They reeled in the S&W guy just before the last turn, which we flew through. The speed was very high, and coming out of the turn I clicked up into the 12. The line is about 350 meters past the turn. Doesn't sound very far...

I don't get in a lot of sprints like this. Leo pulled off soon after the turn. I had huge momentum and was closing the slight accordion that opened up in the turn, a perfectly timed slingshot. I thought the finish was closer than it was, and I stood up and opened my sprint. For sure, this was the strongest jump and best sprint I've ever put on in my life, but it was too early. For a little bit I thought I might actually win the field sprint, which would have been huge against Ciaran. But I swear they moved the finish line down from last year. Out of gas, I had to sit and try to spin it up at the end, and in the last 75 meters Ciaran, Sean, and finally Shawn Forsythe inched by. Oh well.

The next night was the infamous points race at Star Speedway, sprints for points every five laps for eighty laps. We did not get to race this last year due to a rainout, but in 2006 I was 3rd after being part of a group that lapped the field. I got 2nd in this race in 1997 after doing the same, and I've always managed to get a decent placing. You wouldn't expect a shitty sprinter to do well in a points race, but honestly this has been my best event of the three. And this year was no different. The first half of the race, I must admit, I was getting worried. CCB had a lock on the sprints, with Paul Richard taking first in four out of five. I generally sit the first several out, letting the competition get tired, but this year, with some good help from my sprinter teammates, I took a few shots to get on the board, but was always marked. Taking flyers and trying to hold it for a few laps works better for me, and I managed two seconds before getting gassed a bit and retreating. Then it happened... The top guys in the race had all been in a long break the night before, and they were tired. A quartet of Eric Pearce (Bethel), Shawn Forsythe (CCB), Mark Thompson (Sunapee-S&W) and Mark Suprenaut (Team Type 1) opened a huge gap and started riding away. Shawn was one of the guys I had a chance of overtaking in the overall, and I could not afford to give him any rope. But I was a bit smoked, and when Duano offered to bridge me up, I said "let's wait." Bad idea. The gap went out to almost half a lap. Panic button. I went around and started strong pacemaking. Then Duano comes flying by. He went so hard I never really got on his wheel. I was suffering, but hung on as close as I could while he tore around the track at 55 kph. Luckily some others filled in behind, as eventually he totally gapped me, but as I faded the swarm took up the chase and arrested the leaders.

Everyone was so gassed from Duane's surge, the front of the pack remained splintered and disorganized until the next points bell rang. It was then I followed a surge by Diehl and Forsythe. Pearce got on too, along with Thompson and Jim Nash from CCB tagging along to block. We rode away from the field. It was totally deja vu, and before long we could see the pack just a straightaway ahead. There were five of us though, and only four places in the points sprints, so we got disorganized with each sprint, and Nash did not want us to catch, as the 20 bonus points we'd each get for lapping the field would put Richard's placing in jeopardy. I did Ok in the sprints though. The training could not have hurt. The CCBs remaining in the field went into TT mode to prevent up from lapping them, and basically we ran out of laps. The race ended with me in 3rd, moving me up one spot on GC to 4th overall. I might never win the WMSR, but it sure as shit is the most fun I have all year. Night racing rocks. Thanks for reading.

Don't miss this

Todd's blog has updates from his excellent adventure as a Mavic service guy at Le Tour. I met Todd when he was working at my landlord's shop right here in Easton, his very first bike shop job. He was a BMX kid, around 15 at the time, so it's pretty cool to see him working the biggest race in the world now. Thanks for reading.

Why I still like cyclingnews.com

Live commentary by Shane Stokes
17:18 CEST
"A French gendarme is standing on a traffic island, waving his arms and warning the riders about the danger. He looks like someone from a village people video, what with the flamboyant arm gestures. Scary."

17:27 CEST
"Swven Kraus (Gerolsteiner) ploughed into some traffic furniture and went flying."

17:28 CEST 174km/8km to go
"He's up and limping. His bike is in two halves. There was no Village People warning there, unfortunately."

Summertime, again...

Sorry about the lack of posts. I'm not on vacation, and had a few topics I could have covered, but no time to do them justice. This week it's once again time for the annual Workingman's Stage Race, a unique 3-night race for scrubs and masters, hosted by none other than Team BOB, the racing home of Solobreak.

The old-timers know what this means -- crazy racing dodging cars in Amesbury for two nights, followed by the points race tonight under the lights at Star Speedway. Long days either at work (uggh), or taking in the 24/7 cable TV while lounging at the Cronoman's house (this year I was lucky enough to catch both a stage from the tour as well as the Hooter's Calendar Girl Pageant, along with the Crono-usual buffet of History Channel re-runs. Clearly an essential service, no idea how I live without it), or doing long recovery rides around the byways of Londonderry.

No time for much more right now. So far not too bad, got 3rd in the TT, beating 4th by 1/100 of a second, could not contain the break in the RR against the powerful S&W/Sunapee and stocked CCB squads, but got 4th in the field sprint to take 8th on the stage, slipping to 5th on GC. Tonight will be a blast as usual, with my race expected to go off at 9:45 pm. I wasn't even supposed to be racing this. I rode the TT just for fun and then was slated to drop out and take pace car duty last night, but since I was the best placed on the team for GC, I got drafted to keep on racing instead. Good thing I got in 75k Wednesday morning, as with the race later it brought me up to 150k on the day, so at least I did not burn a vacation day for nothing. With the late start tonight, I can work a full day, so I'd better get my ass in to the cube farm. The drives up to the race have been great this year, but the homeward journeys have featured gridlock with a front row seat for bridge repair jackhammer warfare no matter which highway I choose. Thanks for reading.

500 Posts

Yup, here we are, two and a half years and almost 2000 profile views later, and still not much to say. To show my appreciation to my dozens of devoted readers, I wanted to do something special to mark this milestone. Well, if you aren't a regular reader of Cyclingnews.com, and in particular their pro-bike tech features, then you might not think this is special at all. Too bad for you.

Most of you probably do read these sometimes ridiculously detailed photo essay/features, so you'll get it. The rest of you might want to check them out first, maybe starting with this one, or maybe this one.

Everyone else can just get right into it. Sorry, but I couldn't do this in blogger. Thanks for reading!

Truth, Injustice, and the Nega-Coach Way

Almost every blog I turn to lately seems to contain yet another story about the strife, misery, and hardship of life as an American amateur athlete. The challenges and difficulties daily existence presents to these poor souls is simply heartbreaking: teenage kids who have to put down the Wii and work summer jobs to pay for plane tickets, wannabee cat 2s faced with staggering $35 entry fees to race their $5000 bikes, and food industry executives being pinched with $4.50/gallon gas for their brand-new SUVs. How much longer can these people be expected to endure such turmoil?

I know that sometimes it seems like life is unfair. The world can be a cruel, cold place. Hang in there. Try to be strong. Take a deep breath and tell yourself "I will not be a victim." Thanks for reading, keep the faith.

A few notes

1) Valverde is extremely lean.

2) He has a wicked cool bike.

3) Tour fans look weird.

Thanks for reading.

Storied History

Check out the list of past winners from Fitchburg. Thanks for reading.

Back on track

Thanks in advance for excusing what will go down in history as my weakest post title to date. Q2 2008 closed out Monday, so here's my six-month training wrapup: 487 247 hours total, a high for the past four seasons of my "comeback." 187 were on the bike, not a high, but more than last year. The other 60 were running and bricks, which are just run/bike sessions where I left the Polar running the entire time.

The loyal few already know the beginning of the year went pretty swell, with running PRs at nearly every distance attempted. The bike season started out nicely too, with a solid base combining with a new svelte physique to put me near the front on most of the climbs, although the podium eluded me. After that, I'm not exactly sure what happened. In May I piled on the bike miles, but also continued to run, albeit reducing my mileage from an already pretty low 25-30/week to roughly half that, mostly races. My theory was the bike racing would take care of the intensity, and the volume of running and riding would knock off even a few more pounds, and I'd be killing it on the climbs by June. Well, we know that did not happen. My weight went up, not down, my running times slowed by 15 seconds per mile (remember that 2 seconds per pound per mile rule?), and on the bike I just got weaker and weaker.

After Six Gaps I started to recognize that I'd failed to plan a real break, so I tried to work one in, but I even fucked that up. I took some three and four day stretches, but I was reluctant to cut back more for fear of getting even fatter. My hamstring started to bother me too, but there were running races that interested me coming up, so I kept trying to hold it together. At least I had the sense to stay away from the weekend bike races (that had more to do with cents though, to be honest). Finally at the end of June I decided to stop running for a bit to see if that helps. It's been eight days already. My hamstring needs a chance to heal, although I can't say its gotten any better. I took another four days off the bike too, then resumed training last weekend.

Last but not least, I reviewed my training files for the past few months, and found intensity on the bike was notably lacking. Closer examination and expert analysis revealed multiple causes. One, I am not particularly fond of doing structured intensity in training, so I hardly did any. Two, I was relying on bike races for intensity, and while I did a shitload of races, back in May I was so fit that I wasn't under a lot of pressure in them. Relative to years past, when hanging on the climbs meant zone 5 or get dropped, this year I was cruising. Not the way to get to the next level. Last but not least, once June rolled around, I was cooked (thanks Doug for Six Gaps, the final dozen nails in my fitness coffin), and every ride was a struggle just to keep pedaling. I know age has something to do with it, but I'm not accustomed to riding along at 28 kph and seeing my HR at 80 bpm. Perhaps my "junk zone" needs to be adjusted down, but out of 36 bike hours in June, 10 were under 100 bpm. Yeah, I was toast.

The weekend went better. Not running already seems to have brought my legs around. Since whatever I'd been doing wasn't working, it's safe to change everything. Are you listening Colin? (I mean about the rest part. Your training obviously works) I've decided to go back to what worked so well in the winter, except to switch it to cycling. This means shorter, but more frequent workouts, with lots of intensity. Saturday I went to Big Blue and did some testing. My power is down 5-10%, and with my weight up 3-4%, my times sucked, 5:35 and 5:30. I did a few more hill efforts on the way home and called it a day at 2.5 hours. Sunday I did just two hours with 40 minutes of cruise intervals at high cadence on the flats. Monday just my sunset recovery ride, but instead of dogging it and coasting around like I've been doing, I kept my cadence near 100 with light pedal pressure, managing to hold the HR over 100 for the entire hour. Yes, it's come to this.

Last night, I went back to the track in scenic Londonderry (home of Feltslave), which is what passes for a velodrome here in New England. In 2006 I raced there several times, but never made it last year. Heading up, it rained pretty hard, but pressing onward, I drove out of it and got there by 6. Only about a dozen riders showed up, but the track was dry and it stayed that way all night except for a brief shower that happened to coincide with one of my match sprint rounds. That's right, we did match sprints. First though, after making some quick changes to my bike (it had been setup with long cranks and lower gearing for winter roller riding) with my chief fashion consultant Garabed, I got warmed up in an "unknown distance" race, where nobody knows when the finish bell will ring. This did not matter to me, because I was just warming up and getting a feel for track riding again. I wish it were not so far a drive up there. This stuff makes you a better rider, no question about it. Racing without brakes means you keep your head up and your eyes open.

I had my monster 56 chainring on there, which scares everyone off, but paired with a 17 in the back my gear is actually a touch smaller than most people run. I still don't have a sprint though, so in most of them I need to jump early and try to burn people off. In the first one, I got beat at my own game as one guy bolted and I never reeled him in, and the third guy rode my wheel and came around me. I don't remember all the results of the other rounds, but we weren't doing eliminations. You can see all the spikes on the HR graph. Note the flat elevation line... As for intensity, yeah, you have to ride very hard to get your body to respond like that in such a short time period. I was maxing out my HR even though the efforts were less than one minute. Intense.

The longer effort on the right side of the graph (second to last one) was a miss-and-out. For those who don't know, this is where the last rider over the line gets pulled from the race each lap. Since my sprint sucks, my strategy was to drill it and stay near or at the front, and let the rest of them fight it out behind me. Once we were down to only four of us left, they had us recover for a few laps and then we did a four-up match sprint. I managed third. The final blip was an Australian pursuit, and I did not fair too well, but I was cooked. But the whole night was a blast. Thanks for reading.