Mayday Blog Entry

MoveitFred, Al, and Heywood are in here somewhere, in case you were wondering what they do instead of blogging these days.

This will be pretty random shit. Somebody said fair warning. At Wompatuck Tuesday night, Scotty reminded me that I hadn't provided answers to the photo quiz. Oh yeah. The race is Plymouth, Race for the Rock, probably 94 or 95. The field is a combined Cat 3/Junior race. I really think the Hot Tubes kid on the left is Jon Page but Jerry says no way, and Craig, who should probably know, says it's some Roszko brother that I never heard of. BTW, the Sons of Italy guy with just his eyes showing behind me, I'm pretty sure that is Steve. Of course the Cyclonaut is Norton. The guy in yellow (totally obscured) behind me, not sure who that is but the Ringle hub might mean another Link guy, as the Bike Link was Ringle central then. I see some blue on the sleeve though. Way in the back is Bob Steeves in the MBRC kit. I should know the guy in the pink/mauve kit but I don't remember. So there you go. Race for the Rock was a pretty big deal then, with a 50 mile Pro,1,2 affair that always featured the local honchos and some travelers. Way back in the day everyone would already be in the northeast for the Killington SR, and so the following week it would be Martha's Vineyard on Saturday and Race for the Rock on Sunday, both high $$$ races. The Cat 3 race used to be 35 miles, which was huge for a 3 crit back then, and even today for that matter. Good times. I still have an envelope from a $100 Bob Beal prime I got down there.

So Wompatuck - in case you missed it, Dana and some other dudes friggin' clear cut the place. It's amazing. They wiped out about 15 years worth of brush that had been slowly encroaching on the edges of the course. It feels twice as wide now. Of course some of it will grow back in over the summer, but still, it's nice. Not that I got much chance to enjoy it. I went to shake down the new bike, and shake it down I did. After about five laps I was on the front drilling it, sitting on the nose of the saddle when it slipped and tilted badly on a bump. I stopped and bummed tools but the Madone carbon seatmast requires several engineering degrees to understand and sans reading glasses I could not get it right and did not want to f with it unless it was perfect so I retreated to home and the torque wrenches. After getting it all set I got in a nice matinee ride on my Moose Hill mini-circuit Wednesday. Speaking of which, since readership is up and witty content ideas are down, I might start doing a weekly "routesharing" entry to spread my knowledge of the local road network. I'll have to think about how best to do that. I generally use runstoppable.com but that requires membership and most people use the ugly mapmyride so we'll see. I almost jumped way out of character and pre-ordered a Garmin 310 XT today. This looks like a cool device. $400 is a lot of dough but if you run and ride and even swim this does it all. Or at least is does all the stuff I want it to do. I don't need maps...

Today, new cleats on the old shoes. Major hassle for someone like me with fussy feet. I'm trying to go without cants this time too. My shoes are Speedplay-specific, but you may already know that the Speedplay system is pretty stupid. "Don't tighten the screws too much." are the instructions. So what do you do if the cleat still won't stay in place? I used to just use spray 77 on the cants and that would do the trick. This time though it was just stainless shims direct on the carbon soles, and I did not feel like huffing adhesive at 6 am. I tried to go without but the left one would not stay put fore/aft. Then I remembered I bought some "carbon fiber assembly gel." I did not use it on the bike, because I discovered that basically it's vaseline with sand in it, and has a "this stuff will scratch the shit out of your carbon parts" warning on it. No worries for the bottoms of my four year old shoes though. Seems to have worked perfectly. One more chance to test ride before Jiminy.

Last but not least, racing in the Blue Hills Sunday. I've not been to this one the past few years, as I used to go to Glen Swan's awesome Hollenbeck race out in Ithaca after Jiminy, and then last year it was cold and rainy, so I stayed home. This year I signed up though. Not sure how it will work out with angry, hurried metro drivers texting behind the wheel on their way to Dunkin Donuts, but the chance to race right past the building I work in doesn't come every day. Randomness over. Thanks for reading.

Turtle Pond Race Report

Now I know what the hot dogs feel like.

I like the heat. Or at least I used to. I tend to ride better and get decent results when it's warmer out. The 45+ race at Turtle Pond started at 9 am. That would have meant leaving home before 6 am in order to arrive on site in time to get a decent warm up. F-that. The 35+ was at 1 pm, much better. 48 is still > 35... This would mean missing out on not only the team shenanigans, but as it turned out seeing Dougie win, as well as being deprived of any chance to try to stop him. And I'd get to race in the heat of the day, which as it turned out, was 91 degrees F at its peak.

The 35+ race had a smaller field, just 40 starters. OA/Cyclemania had several good riders, CCB had three, and Sunapee had three or four. Five laps of the newly modified 11.4 mile circuit, with the finish no longer at the top of Oak Hill, but instead a downhill sprint. Hmmph. We rolled out very slowly. At first I wondered if yet again we'd be caught by the field behind us, but after half a lap someone attacked. I'm not sure, but I think it was an OA guy and a CCB guy, maybe Langford. Then I think the CCB guy came back. The first time up the new hill I went to the front to make sure I had no issues. I was riding my aluminum bike and the front shifting is not that reliable. The new part of the course was fun and the race got aggressive on the downhill portion.

The next time up Oak Hill was faster but I felt OK. It was a good thing I'd arrived early enough for a good warmup because when I first got on the bike my legs felt like shit from running the LT test Thursday. Now they were better. Fluids were an issue. I packed two bottles on the frame and two small Fuel Belt bottles in my pockets. Drinking these first, we were 1.5 laps into it before I had to touch my frame bottles. Still though, I'd need to ration.

There were more attacks and I think another OA guy bridged up to the first guy. Thomas and Barton, I believe, both strong time trialists. The follow vehicle passed us, so they must have had a minute's gap. The third time up Oak Hill the pack realized we'd have to chase and all hell broke loose. To my surprise, my legs were up to the hell-raising, and I cut through the field and stayed on the good wheels all the way to the top and over. A lot of better riders got shelled out. At the bottom there were a dozen of us left, Shattuck (Bike Barn), Mangan (CCB), Vollers (Start House), Piergentilli (WH Bagshaw), Mosher (Corner Cycle), Meerse (OA), another OA or two, an IF guy, and a Sunapee guy (Stockwell?). The rest of the field was gone. Shattuck was pushing the pace mostly, and oddly the OA guys rode some tempo. I suffered a bit but hung on. Mangan made a few attacks but the OA guys covered and they'd come back. Ditto for anyone else who tried anything.

The fourth time up the big hill I was hurting. Then Shattuck and someone else tried organizing the group. I would roll through on my turn, but several were not participating, notably the IF guy, Vollers and Mosher. The break was gone and we were racing for third. Or at least they were. I started to feel very bad. I was overheating. There have been very, very few times I've ever felt like this on the bike. It's happened at Bow on the climbs, but I've usually lasted until a descent, or been able to douse with water. Or just pop.

With just 1.5 laps to go, and the chase organization having failed, someone got frustrated and attacked. About half the guys got 10 seconds or so on the rest of us, but they were spread out, barely together. The rest of us closed it up, and then Vollers countered. That came back too, but all these surges were nails in my fiery coffin. I even had my head down, somewhat out of it, when we hit the turn to the Hoe Pond Road wall. I died immediately, barely making it up, never mind fighting to stay on. I thought about stopping. I had goosebumps, was dizzy, and in uncharted territory. I don't think I've ever felt this bad on the bike. Rolling down the short chute to the pond, the remains of the group disappeared. I drank what liquids I had left, preparing to bag out of the last lap and accept a dnf. It seemed like the smart thing to do.

On the descent toward the start, I cooled off. From rationing, I had more liquids than I thought, and drinking it helped. Approaching the line, I heard some beeping. We'd passed the women's race and now their final sprint was coming up from behind. I crossed ahead of them, but made the turn onto Oak Hill Road anyway. There was a feed zone there. I did not want to quit. I figured if someone gave me a bottle, I'd keep going. I could always turn around if I couldn't make it up Oak Hill. I begged -- some dude responded with a small bottle, only 3/4 full of plain water, but it was cool. Riding the hill in my smallest gear, I kept going. When I looked back I saw nobody, but then on the next descent I started to feel better. Drinking more water, I rode a bit harder, but after a few minutes Craig Harrison (Sunapee), Adam Sternfeld (Millwork One) and two other guys rolled up. They were all that was left of the field. Craig was doing 80% of the work, towing us around. On the backside rollers we even lost one guy. I was pretty psyched to have friendly faces to ride with. We did not sprint. I would have cramped. So I was credited with 16th place out of 20 finishers, with half the field dropping out.

After the race I mixed up two bottles of Gatorade and did a few miles easy with Adam (who says he weighs as much as Murat, something he was not proud of...) Then I drove home, stopping at TJ's for a turkey club and a bag of chips. I drank at least 2.5 liters of fluids by the time I got home, but weighed in a just over 75 kg when I got there, a full 2 kg less than when I departed. I hope this was just because it was the first warm day of the year.

This morning I stayed home. My original plan was to just race Monson, but that was canceled, so I did TP instead. Today's Quabbin race is good, but that was an early start too, but beyond that I did not think I'd be recovered, and I had much to do at home. Ironically, I was up early anyway, and decided to head out on sore bike legs at 8 am. After twenty minutes I felt much better, even doing several seated high-force efforts before heading home at two hours. So I think my legs did not get that stressed Saturday, as the (blown) fusible link was my body core temp. Home by 10 am, after a bit of recovery, I began to slowly put all the finishing touches on the Madone, cutting the fork, making adjustments, tightening everything. In the evening I took it out for its maiden voyage. Everything was cool, it felt great. Front derailleur setup with the compact is a pain, I was getting rubbing in the last two cogs either way. I'm hoping Shimano might come out with 36/52 rings for these things, but I may resort to TA or FSA rings. Or just go standard. That was the only issue. I left just one 5 mm spacer under the stem. The bars are still not as low as the Slim but I think they will be OK. If the weather cooperates I'd like to get a few more rides on it this week and race it at JP. It was 17.5 pounds with the fairly heavy clinchers that came with it. That's the same as my aluminum bike weighs with the carbon wheels, which shed at least 400g over the clinchers.

Yeah, that was boring. What did you expect from an overbroiled hot dog? Thanks for reading.

Tired of Being Tired?

Fridays are pretty slow here but my sense of duty dictates I put something up for the faithful who stop by. OK, well maybe I've messed up my training/rest cycle pretty well. A combination of factors conspired to bring me into the New England spring classics season on the heels of a pretty steady rest-free block of training. Complicating matters, my sore foot completely recovered and I was able to start running regularly (at low volume) back in March. Of course, this kicks my ass fatigue-wise and is anything but helpful when it comes to preparing for hard bike racing, but I need to at least keep up a maintenance dose of running so that some running ability will be there for me in the cycling down periods.

So anyway I had an LT test yesterday, on a treadmill. The LT pace calculated for me was faster than I'd have predicted, but the HR value lower. Fifteen bpm lower than what I've maintained in races up to 90 minutes. I suspect two things were going on here. 1) I'm tired. My HR response to training stimulus is way down. Normally if I ran 6:19 pace my HR would be higher than 149 bpm. 2) Using the race pace/average HR method of determining LT is pretty flawed unless you maintain a constant pace. I achieve astonishingly high average HRs in races (when compared to my observed maximum), but I rarely (never) negative split. In running races my pace typically drops. The average HR can end up higher than where the BLa spike occurs.

Thus two lessons, 1) I'm really tired this week, like I was much of last year. I need to deal with this... 2) I need to work on my pacing strategies. Not so much rethink, as execute better. Thanks for reading.

Rolling Enclosure

I can't say I've ever seen this approach before. Click image to be taken to photog's flickr page. Thanks for reading.

The Battenkill Report

Yesterday was a long day, and I'm waiting for it to warm up today, and don't feel like cleaning my bike yet, so I may as well get this over with. No results were posted for the 40+ race, and reports are some of the others that were posted are messed up, but for me it's not relevant anyway.

Short version was that I think I rode well, better than where I finished, if that makes any sense. I knew going in that I was too lightly raced this season to be competitive, so the primary goal was to fight hard and get an ass whoopin' for myself. Goal accomplished.

Longer version: Beginning with the obligatory equipment selection file -- I was one of the few with no arm nor leg warmers. I thought it was quite comfortable. Unusual, as I tend to wear more clothes than most. I rode my Slim, with GP4s and a 39x27 low gear. I had Tufo S33 Pro tubular tires that I've ridden here before and at Mt. A. Before the race Gewilli asked about tire pressure, because CX guys obsess over that. I told him I don't know; I pumped them up a few days ago and I'm sure some leaked out. In hindsight it was dumb not to check. I'd put 120 psi in them on Wednesday. That is a lot for me, but Tufo recommends high pressure. With a squeeze test they felt hard, so I let out a tiny bit, but not enough. They probably still had 110+ in them, too much for this course with tubulars. 95 would be more like it. More on this later. I had two flasks of Hammer gel, one slightly watered down. I had a large bottle of Clif Electrolyte mix, and a small bottle of plain water. I also had one 10 oz Fuel Belt bottle of each in my pockets. After reading horror stories about how the wheel vans won't stop for backmarkers, I decided to pack a spare tubular and an inflator too. All this added up to well over a kg in my back pockets.

We had 125 signed up, but it looked like less than that on the starting line. Maybe 100-110. We rolled out of town S-L-O-W. Kind of a surprise. The first 10k are flat and we were curb to curb due to the slow speed. There was a lone escapee I think. I was mired in the back where I usually am, hoping for a fast, strung out charge into the Eagleville covered bridge where I could move up the side. That did not happen, but about a kilometer from the bridge the gutter opened up and I went right to the front just in time for the hostilities to begin. I am poor at holding my spot up front when things go slow, but when it's aggressive and lined out I do much better. The race to the bridge was pretty aggressive -- like sprinting into a black hole. I was pleasantly surprised to cross in about 20th, maybe even getting in the photos this time, bonus.

After the bridge things got very aggressive going into the first dirt road. Shuffled back a ways, but on the Perry Hill climb it thinned a bit, even though the pace was not severe. Looking back at my graph though, this was the highest HR I hit during the race, not good this early. I had heavy legs. Felt like shit sitting, and the load in my pockets was annoying while standing. Still, the pre-ride paid off. After the descent, took the turn onto Juniper Swamp Road maybe 35 riders back from the front. The climb did not go so well. My legs were feeling very heavy seated, and I was quickly in the 27. Trying to stand was futile, even where the road looked good. Things had softened up considerably from when I pre-rode the course, and my overinflated rear tire was definitely not helping. Thankfully, I had a fairly clear shot and went over the top about a few spots ahead of where I started, with about ten riders who were gapped by 10-20 seconds from the lead group of 25 or so. After a brief chase down Juniper where I took two turns at the front we caught on just before Rich Road. It was touch and go for me there as I was tail-ending all the way down the descent and out of Shushan.

Up 64 I got some recovery. The pace was not high, and I'd made the initial selection which looked like around 45 guys. For me this was a best case scenario. At the top though, Zencycle and about a dozen compatriots bridged up from behind, so I guess the pace was a little too relaxed. Down the descent and through the village of Salem even more may have come back, because the big teams with a pair of riders up the road had things well shut down. So well in fact, that our follow vehicle started megaphoning us that the Cat 4 field behind was catching us. So more riders may have got back on by drafting them too.

A few k before the Joe Bean Road climb our pace heated up a bit, but we had over 50 in the group, about half of what we started with. On the climb of Joe Bean, feeling good at the start, or at least better than on Juniper, I got too aggressive in my moving up. I like to jump across little gaps from wheel to wheel. That's how I climb best. But my lack of racing and absence of special high-intensity training (S.H.I.T.) this year caught up to me. Pushing myself into the red zone, when we hit the next steep pitch I started sliding backward, so going into damage control mode was necessary. Near the top it's not as steep; that is the good news, the bad was that of course the pace picked up. Finding myself again with about ten chasing riders, we could see the group 15 seconds or so ahead on Ferguson, where of course there were a lot of flat victims. Chasing hard, it appeared we were still losing ground. Then at one point I noticed not one, but two groups, maybe 15 riders each, up ahead. So we were chasing a chase, never an easy predicament. We passed Jonny Bold who had a flat or mechanical. His teammate Sammy Morse was ahead waiting for him, and he summoned another team mate who was in our chase to wait as well. Back on pavement, we were still gapped by 20 seconds or so, but those two came back to us (sans Jonny, for some reason) and that helped our cause. After a few k we achieved grouppo compacto on the road to Greenwich, and it was around 35-40 riders total. But the Cat 4s were on us again. A bunch of guys from our pack had glombed on to them and they came shooting across the gap. So now we were back to close to 50 riders. Strangely though, our follow car had disappeared, never to be seen again (at least by me). We still had a break up the road, so no pace car to neutralize us and let the 4s by. Their pace car driver led them through anyway, pretty insane against oncoming traffic as we were a sizeable group did not slow down much. When they went through it looked like only 20 guys or so, which explains why they were riding so hard.

Through Greenwich we had a separation of a few seconds ahead of our bunch, so at least we got separated. Into the feed on Burton Road an impressive chase of about ten more 4's rode through us. After that things got a little crazy. Gaps were opening, and our field was splintering. I was having trouble crossing gaps when they opened. By the end of Burton I was still in contact but it was a battle for me. Things were also confusing as the 4 pack ahead was disintegrating and we were also sweeping up stragglers from earlier fields. Mountain Road got a little chaotic. It was a prize fight for me, riding at threshold, avoiding all the soft spots, trying to get around squirrely riders and close gaps; it was somewhat of a losing battle. I was yo-yo-ing and our group was splintering too. By the downhill portion of Mountain I was gapped, but me and Paul Richard (CCB, who may have been coming back from a mechanical) put on a valiant chase, which turned out to be a chase to the death for me. We caught the group just as the dirt of Mountain ended, and I popped badly on the paved rise leading to Becker. At least 10 riders went right through me right there, all of whom could have contributed more to our little chase but did not. Maybe they were just being smarter than I.

Around the corner onto Becker I was blown and the groups slipped away. An official car of some sort (I don't think it was our original car, but maybe it was) passed me. I rode through a few stragglers but could not see any group, but then I bombed the descent and got back around the car, and could see a lot of riders in the road ahead on Meetinghouse. There were a lot of trouble victims standing at the roadside along the way too. I was somewhat rejuvenated and TT'd Meetinghouse, making up time on the descents. By the end I was almost on a small group which included Zencycle, but they slipped away before I got there. On the wet descent and through Center Cambridge I chased hard with two other riders. They missed the left onto Rt 59 because the official car guy went straight to talk to some marshalls, so now that I think about it he must have been an observer not attached to our field. I let the twosome catch back on and the three of us hammered the long downhill to the bridge all friggin' out, riding right through anyone we caught. At the base of Stage Road we just got on grouppo Zencycle, which numbered about a dozen plus us. But I was blown. I gave it my all just to catch up to Zen and harass him and let him know I was there but then I popped. The tagline on Jonny's blog is "Did you really try as hard as you could?" and I'd been muttering that to myself each time I got in trouble in this race, and Stage Road was no different. But this time I did not have any more and the group slipped away. On the descent I felt better so I think I was just all climbed out. I managed to fight and ride at threshold all the way into Cambridge and the finish just so I could break three hours, finishing in 2:58. I know I rode hard and this will pay off in the races to come, so I'm very glad I went. It was fun too. I was not cold, did not crash, and went home healthy, just tired. Can only guess what the "result" was but I had no team mates and just did the best I could. My guess from hearing other accounts was 10-15 minutes down on the leaders (seems like a lot considering I was with the group just 35k from the end, but that's what I heard) and that there must have been somewhere between 30-45 riders ahead of me. I know I rode better and harder than I did last year when I finished 27th so I'm happy with it.

Thanks for reading.

Pre-race calm

Photo courtesy of Mark Suprenant

200 miles and 3 hours later and I end up parked next to Gewilli. Pinning up the numbers... Thanks for subjecting your eyes to this.

Another Pop Quiz

In the comments please, how many riders in this photo can you identify, besides the handsome one in the center? Most of all, any positive ID on the young Hot Tubes/Landry's kid with the Scott dropins on the left? How about the other Hot Tubes kid? Then we have the partially obscured Sons of Italy rider behind me. And the big guy in the back on the left.

Last but not least, but easiest, what race is this? Thanks for participating.

The Good China

Believe it or not, at one time these were considered bling wheels. Of course we did not call them bling then. They were the good stuff though. Record rims were rarely seen anywhere other than the pages of Winning Bicycle Illustrated. Mavic GP4s, GL330s, and G.E.L. 280s were the standard. Less common, but I always felt easier to build into a round wheel were Campy's reasonably priced Victory Strada and Victory Crono rims. You would see some Ambrosio, Araya, Wolber, and probably other brands that I'm forgetting, but GL330s and GP4s were by far the most common. The much coveted Mavic SSC Blue was another PRO only Paris-Roubaix rim. Like the Record Pave, they cost at least twice as much as GP4s, so you didn't see too many at the local races.

I only got the rims in the picture because one of the distributors had a sale on 28 hole models. Nobody used to ride 28 hole for anything but a TT, and so the idea of a 400+ gram wide and burly rim with so few holes didn't fly and resulted in overstock or something. In my quest for economy, I committed the sacrilegious act of lacing these top of the line Italian hoops to Japanese Dura-Ace hubs. That's life; they were still the nicest wheels in the house.



Vittorias were still handmade in Italy then. I used to buy 30-40 at a time each spring, with a unit cost of less than $30, and then pass on the savings to my friends and teammates. There were more expensive tires available, and the mystique of silk lured in some, but the cotton CX and CG from Vittoria was the best choice IMHO. For these wheels though, I obtained some extra wide CG Paves to complete the PRO program of the day.

As you can see though, these tires have more spoke rub wear on their sidewalls from storage than they do tread wear from being ridden. Live and learn. This tire still looks great but I'd have a hard time trusting something so old in a race, even though it's always been stored properly. The rear is a threaded freewheel 126 so it's of no use. I guess these will end up on a wall art bike. Makes me wonder about not riding the current good stuff at Battenkill this week. Trust me though, I'll ride it in the races where it will really help me. I'm a slow learner, but I do learn. Thanks for reading.

Yet another Battenkill preride report

Because let's face it, this race just hasn't been hyped enough already. Besides that, who cares about what the course conditions were three weeks ago? As well, most of the reports I've ridden so far were from the perspective of a contender, or at least a hopeful. Why else would you drive all the way out there and do a pre-ride rather than just winging it? Well, in my case, two reasons: 1) I wanted to try Coxsackie anyway (huh-huh. Even better the adjacent towns are Gayhead and Climax. Check the map. You can't make this stuff up). With just one Charge Pond under my racing belt this year, I was a bit apprehensive about going into the spring campaign against riders who have been doing Bethel, Wells, and Coxsackie every week. Some of these guys will have ten races in their legs already when they line up at Battenkill next week. So getting in a 100k race on Saturday seemed like a good idea. 2) The weather. The wet storm system was clearing out of New York Saturday morning, but drenching Ninigret. That was all I needed to see to make a last minute executive decision to load up the XBox and make the 186 mile trip to Coxsackie in 2:37 flat, leaving myself a full 13 minutes to get registered, dressed and on the starting line.

After that ordeal was over I carted the smoldering remains of my legs another 75 or so miles north to Cambridge, NY. The Cambridge Hotel was $150 so I said fuck that and got a ghetto room around the corner for $65, with wifi and heat that worked, good enough. Sunday morning I went out in search of breakfast but the good place was closed so I made do with coffee, nutrigrain bars, and an Odwalla drink from Cumberland Farms. At 9:30 when I rolled out of town the clock at the bank said 30 degrees, but the sun was out, briefly... Five minutes out on 313 it started snowing and there was a gale in my face that had to be coming straight from Montreal. I had no legs and this was going to be a long day. But I don't want to burden you with every detail, so let's get right to the important stuff about the course.

Note 1: Most of this course is paved. Quite a bit of it would be rather boring if the fields weren't all busted up. But they will be.

The Eagleville bridge is the same as before, we're just going the opposite way. Don't worry about it. Sector 1 of Un-Pave, Roberson Road, is straight and in good shape. No worries. Part of the reason I wanted to see this course was because the other reports I read did not make much mention of what the roads leading to Juniper Swamp are like. I checked the map and one road was "Perry Hill Road" and where I come from that usually means there is a hill. Sure enough, this nugget which nobody made much of gains almost as much vertical as any other climb on the course, including Joe Bean. According to my Polar, from the bridge to the high point gains 120 meters in about six kilometers. Most of this is in the last few. It's nowhere near as severe as the paved climb before Juniper last year, but it's enough to string out the field and probably even shake a few riders if the pace is high enough. A short, fast descent takes you to the turn onto Juniper. It is almost a 180, but I don't think there will be many issues. The entrance is pretty wide. Like all the dirt roads, the beginning and end of any intersections tend to be where the loose part is.

Sector 2: Juniper Swamp Road, including the climb, is in excellent shape and I do not expect it to be the factor it was last year. Most of the descent is OK too, just a few patches that warrant caution.

Sector 3: Rich Road. This one is new. Compared to Juniper, the surface is marbles. Not horrible, but this road contains a little climb, so it could be interesting. The exit onto Newman is pretty loose. Newman leads instantly to a right onto a state road that plunges into the village where you have to lock it up and take a 90 degree blind right onto another state road. Use your head and there will be no problems.

Now we are in a long, long, paved section. In fact, there is only one section of un-pave (Ferguson) for the entire middle (almost 50k) of the course. Rt 64 climbs out of Shushan. None of it is steep, and there are some beautiful farms. It's hard enough that riders could make a race out of it, but I think that would be foolish. Near the top you join last year's course, but going backwards. Over the crest you're descending the opening paved climb from last year, then quick right on 22, into Salem, left and then it's the road the race used to start and finish on. From here it's last year's course backwards all the way to Greenwich. Joe Bean Road will almost certainly blow the fields apart. It's over 2k at 6% average, in steps, with steep pitches.

Sector 4: Ferguson Road. You are going to hit this already flying down from Joe Bean. There is some loose stuff at the beginning, then most of it is ok, but there is a minefield patch just before the Appalachia Rusty Falcon and Old Refrigerator Museum Homestead. After that it's excellent, way better than last year.

It took me over two friggin' hours to reach the top of Joe Bean, thanks to the headwinds. By then at least the snow had stopped, and I would have friendly tailwinds and cross tailwinds the rest of the way, except for about the last 3k into Cambridge. It still took me four hours to finish this. No shit. Nothing to speak of between Ferguson and Greenwich. Leaving Greenwich you go over the skinny bridge but then immediately go right onto Rt 74. This is a smooth highway but after a mile you go right onto Burton Road. Burton is paved but it's mostly uphill. Gorgeous farms, not too steep. I guess there is going to be a feed here. At the end you take a left then a quick right onto Mountain Road.

Sector 5: Mountain Road. The fun begins. That is, if your idea of fun is riding uphill on marbles and then downhill, at speed, through soft patches that your front tire can suddenly knife into. If this course didn't already have Hilljunkie written all over it, well now, fresh off his Hawaiian lava skiing adventure, it's advantage Jansen. I would expect that even though the race would have been well busted up on Joe Bean, there will be significant regroupings and we'll be hitting this mess in fairly large bunches. Here is one section where you might want to pray for rain. The only nice thing I can say about it is it's much better than the next sector. There are some pretty views off to the right too, but you'll probably just have to take my word for it.

Sector 6: Becker Road. At the end of Mountain, turn left on pavement for about 300m then it's right on Becker, the opposite way from last year. There is not much good I can say about Becker, frankly. It's loose and rocky, some fast downhill, pretty dangerous. But these things always seem worse on the pre-ride than they turn out to be in the race, right? The end of Becker is a climb of course.

Sector 7: Meetinghouse Road. Again, opposite way from last year. In contrast to Becker, 95% of Meetinghouse is in impeccable shape. I think they brought in the track superintendent from Belmont Park to do the grooming. It's like glass. The very end is a little rough, and the paved stretch leading off it (where I was unceremoniously popped out of the race two years ago) is pretty sandy and treacherous.

Now it's fast riding on pristine pavement. There are a few miles flat, then a hard left up a little climb, then a few miles of super-fast mostly downhill stuff. At the bottom there is a covered bridge that you don't go over. But they have bridges because of rivers, which means we're at a low point...

Sector 8: Stage Road. This is a pretty big climb. Almost equal to Joe Bean. But it's on marbles. The road is not that great. If you saved some of your sit down legs for this part, you'll be glad you did. At the very end is the section of ground under repair noted in the other reports. I rode through it no problem. The rest of the road was pretty bad so at that point you're used to it. If they can run a steamroller over it this week it would be a good thing though.

That's it! Big ripping downhill, one of the fastest on the course. Then about 4k or so mostly flat right into town. I can't really imagine how this race will play out. The tough climbs are all spread out. Stage Road is big enough, and close enough to the end, that I think any non-climber who keeps getting popped but somehow manages to rejoin the climbers will not have a chance. If I had to guess I'd say this race will be attrition from flats and whatnot, and any weak moments on one of the many difficult spots. It's not good for me. If by some miracle I manage to stay with the leaders up to and over Joe Bean, I'm afraid that after the long, uneventful stretch of Ferguson to Greenville, the next climbing stretch is really going to hurt. Be wary of that. There will be no climbing at all for over a half hour, and then some real grinding. Becker is going to suck. And A-Bomb is in the 40+ this year. Yikes. Thanks for reading.

You know it taint easy

Riding on the rivet for the first 60k... ouch. Coxsackie - Or should I say Ghent-Coxsackie. Fuck. Training race? This has to qualify as an American kermesse. 45 degrees, 20 mph crosswinds. Overcast. Not freezing, but certainly not warm. About 65 starters. 1/2/3. Emphasis on the 1/2 I think. There are some masters, like Aspholm, Stotz, Ruiz, and all the other Keltic guys. Lots of French being spoken in the group by the Quebec guys. Neutral parade in honor of David Brinkerhoff, the state trooper killed in the line of duty for whom the race is named. Just long enough to get cold. Then the whole field pulls over to take a piss. After that, BANG! Nine laps of a 7 mile circuit. Mostly flat, but a few good rollers, some twisty stuff, some rough pavement, lots of fields and crosswinds. One hill that is long enough to hurt, especially on the long false flat at the top, where it was single file in the 53x15 for the first four laps. In the crosswinds I was on the last centimeter of the edge of the road, pure gutter riding. No shelter. I got there last minute (surprise!) and was not warmed up, and also sore from efforts in the Blue Hills on Friday. I was within a thread of getting popped on the first lap, and just about every lap until the real motors (whoever they were; I know A-Bomb was up there) broke the chain and pulled away for good. I was setting little goals -- just make it to 3 laps, ok 4 laps, etc. Never expected to finish. LVG and one other woman were in there too, pretty impressive. I swear at first it seemed to me like I was the only one in trouble but then people started getting dropped and eventually there were some just sitting up and pulling out at the start/finish. It was still aggressive for a few laps when the breaks were in sight, but eventually the white flag went up and the pace dropped drastically for the final three laps. I don't think I'd have made it if it hadn't. As it was I was cramping on the last time up the hill. I was just following the sprint, good thing, as I had no idea that we were turning off onto a side road for the finale. I did not talk to any other riders after but I sure as hell hope someone else besides me thought the first few laps were heinous. I think we covered 28 miles in 1:05 or something like that, in the wind. It was one of those "who the hell is driving this bus?" races. I know it slowed down quite a bit and it was 1:40 at the end of six laps, 42 miles in. I think the finish time was 2:35 or something, plus about 20 minutes for the neutral parade.

Pretty psyched that I decided to come out for this. The weather and day at Ninigret sounds like it sucked. Up in Battenkill now. There was a big meeting at the market/coffee shop downtown with Dieter, the tech director, and all the moto volunteers for the Sunday Pro race. It's supposed to be cold and windy tomorrow, but I'll put on the woolies and ride the new course to see what it's like. Then come back here next Saturday and hope for the best... Thanks for reading.

Position

What is going on here? I never messed with my riding position too much, at least I didn't think I did. Other than always living with "fidgety feet" on the bike, my comfort and performance levels generally left me without reason to change. On the road, other than time trial rigs, I've only had about a half dozen or so different bikes over the years. When Selle Italia Turbo saddles got harder to find, I switched to mostly Flites. I have messed with the fore/aft saddle position, but honestly never took good measurements. I've changed it up based on feel and sometimes advice from riding partners who do this sort of thing for a living. Then when I gave up Look pedals for Speedplays, I had to make a big change in height. My Rocket 7s have the thinnest soles out there, and they're drilled for Speedplays, so there is no adapter. The total stack is over a cm less than the Looks. The improvement in pedal action from having the bottom of my foot nearly on the pedal centerline was dramatic. But I had to of course lower the saddle from the measurement that I'd always used.

Here's where things got messed up. Like I said, I'd never taken into account what the actually setback of the saddle should be. Since saddles are all different (even among the same make and model) and don't have a measuring reference point, trying to be super precise didn't make much sense. Like many riders, I simply measured from the BB centerpoint straight up the seat tube to where I sit. And always kept this measurement the same, 765 mm when using Looks, and 753 with Speedplays/Rockets. MTBs and CX bikes I was less afraid to mess around with, as I never did so many hours on those that I worried about it. I felt that slight differences were not as bad as many people believe, as I can imagine potential for both positives and negatives from working the muscles in varied positions. The other place where I tend to stray from conventional wisdom is that I do not alter my seat height if I change crank lengths, which does not make sense to me. Proper seat height comes from having the optimal angle at the bottom of the pedal stroke, the top of the pedal stroke, and everywhere in between. Basing it only on the angle of the leg at full extension doesn't seem to be complete. Not that I change crank length very often anyway. I've been on 175s since long before they became fashionable for riders my size. Nearly everyone still used 170s when I started. Those who dared use 172.5 were thought to be wobbling gear mashers. Then Greg Lemond said he used 44 cm bars and 175 cranks and that was good enough for me to try them both, and I stayed with them, and eventually they became the norm.

The past few years I've not felt as comfy on the bike. I've shrunk. I'm no longer almost six feet tall, in fact I'm barely five ten. As well, I've been mixing up my machines more and more. I have the shitty aluminum bike with fenders for commuting and winter crap. That frame setup does not allow me to get the bars low enough, but I figured that's fine for the bike's purpose. Then I have my crappy aluminum racing bike. While not so-called "compact" geometry, this bike does not have classic dimensions either. The seat tube is extended (bike is 58 C-T and called a 58, but it's 55 c-c), and the top tube is a little short for a 58. Plus integrated headsets generally result in bars being pretty high for a given frame size. Lots of rider are old, fat, inflexible, or some combination of the three, so that's not often complained about. But look at a photo of a masters race versus one of a pro race, and the difference in bar heights is obvious. There has been a lot of emphasis on "comfort" lately, but if you can get lower, it is faster. Anyway, I ride that bike in most races. Then I have my Slim Chance. I was racing this before I got the aluminum bike. It was built in 1994, one of the last frames to come out of the old Chance Somerville shop. It was an employee bike, and I guess the tubing selection involved a bit of dumpster diving, so it's not exactly stock. It has Yo Eddy chainstays, but some of the other tubes are pretty light. It also had a light steel quill fork. The original owner thought that was too flexible, so he then made an ugly unicrown steel unit for it after the fact. Luckily, after I bought the bike, when it was being sent off to IF for a repaint we could not find the unicrown, so I always ran it with the original. The bike had a sweet ride, and was pretty light for a steel frame (under 20 lbs built without anything fancy), but it was a bit flexy for a guy my size (especially with my legendary power) to race on. That's why I bought the cheap aluminum bike, which got me down to 18 pounds and into 10 speed for less than many racers pay for a rear wheel, albeit at the expense of comfort. I've scored about a half dozen podiums on it, so it can't be that bad. But back to the Slim. This bike measures up pretty classic, and last winter I rebuilt it with an Easton EC30 carbon fork (only decent 1" I could source), threadless, and 10 speed Dura Ace drivetrain. When I cut the fork I didn't leave too much (any) room for spacers and the result is the 11+ cm of seat to bar drop you see in the picture above. Yet this bike is by far more comfortable than anything I've ridden lately. I love this bike. No matter what I've been riding, I get on this and feel at home. I tend to ride harder on this bike. I rarely race on it, and until a month ago it hadn't even been out on a wet or dirty road since the rebuild. But I love it. Of course, since I don't race it, I'm not in the drops all that much, and maybe they would be a touch low for that.

You all know that I went out to California for a trip and rode a loaner bike. That's what got me started on this position quest. In my head I was thinking my seat height was still 765, having used that for years; I'd completely forgotten about the change when using Speedplays. So when they set me up at TBOV, right away it felt way too high. We kind of winged it and I don't think I ever really did move it down as far as the way the Slim is set up (my current gold standard for fit). The bike I rode out there was a Madone 5.2. This was not the "PRO" geometry, it was the standard, club racer, i.e. extended head tube version. Yet I loved the bike, even if the position was not perfect. The front end was so much more solid than any bike I've ridden. Go figure though, as the Slim, though better with the carbon fork, is pretty soft, and the Taiwanese aluminum bike, though stiff in the back end, has some sway up front, even with a fork that looks all gigantic and burly. The Madone tracked better, braked way better, and felt more solid standing than what I'm accustomed to. And of course it was lighter. So I bought one.



Of course, I bought the "Pro" geometry. Dura Ace was not in the budget, so it's Ultegra SL, compact, and I went with some Project One options like the flashy white frame, trim, and tires, as well as deeper alloy rims, heavier than the standards but better for Wompatuck. In the picture of course I have my good race wheels. I wanted to see how much it would weigh (7.35 kg as is, sans bar tape and cages). And that brings us to the point of this exercise, getting the position correct. Even with the special order 17 degree drop stem and all the spacers removed, the bars will be a few mm higher than on the Slim. I'm not sure exactly how much, as I'm just starting to map things out with the custom sizing rig you see in the top picture. And I want to try it some before wielding the hacksaw to the steerer.

Right about the time I got back home, this article about the Team Liquigas sizing rig ran in cyclingnews. I did some more reading and found a forum discussing it over on the Salon. Someone over there mentioned this thing and there was a discussion about various ways to replicate it using drywall squares, a door frame, plumb bobs, or what have you. I worked with what I had, a level and a T-square. I have a plumb bob around here somewhere but it's exact location is currently a mystery. The Salon discussion highlighted what was incorrect about my past system of bike fitting, and using a more precise x,y coordinate system provides a much better method of comparing exact fit from bike to bike. There were also quite a few obvious (well, now) and useful tips. I'll be working on this for a while, but I've already been surprised by some things. I had kind of assumed that since most road bikes have similar seat angles, and I was using "normal" setback seatposts, that if I had identical saddles with the rails positioned about the same on the cradle, then the fore/aft positioning would come out pretty close. I expected the Slim to have a more rearward position than my aluminum bike. Not even close. The Slim's way, way more forward. It took me a while to figure all this out. I had the seat to bars (length) dimension about the same but that was with a longer stem and shorter top tube. There was a huge disconnect between perception and reality. My fender bike was even worse. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with that, but I know I won't be riding it except maybe to work or in horrendous weather. Certainly not at 6 gaps (btw, I can't make 5/23, but that's a story for another post) or D2R2 again.

Enough is enough, ramble on. I'll update on this when I'm ready.If I have time maybe I'll pen something about all the crazy buzz surrounding Battenkill lately. I'll most likely ride the Slim there. Also a running/duathlon update, and a rash of event date conflicts. Traffic has been inexplicably way, way up here, and I hate to disappoint by having visitors find the same old shit. Thanks for reading.

VDB

You got to love this guy. Thanks for reading.

The Moment

Why do you "train?"

I've been thinking about writing this post for a few weeks now. Let's see how well I do. What started out as a "fitness for use" type of chronicle, expanding on something I read on Joe Friel's blog last month, tonight morphed into something almost completely different.

"Adaptation to a specific physical stress is called “fitness.”

So we train to get fit. Personally, I don't buy into ultra-specificity when it comes to my training. I believe that can lead to what I call the dull edge. But that's another matter. Joe is talking about things in a more general sense here. What you do prepares you to do what you do. So what are you trying to do? Most of my audience also reads our friend Hilljunkie. Dougie often refers to his death march rides as being "of dubious training value." But are they? Hilljunkie's primary schtick is doing these maximum climbing and mileage in one day, last person standing kind of rides. Doing them prepares him to be good at doing them.

The same sort of thing applies to doing pushups. Mostly they make you fit to do more pushups. Running stairs, ditto. If you go out and ride and stare at your average speed, then you'll probably get better at maintaining a high average speed. That's cool if your focus competitions require it, like time trials or multisport. And that's cool if it's something you enjoy doing. A lot of us started out that way.

Of course, all of these things have some side effect benefits that do crossover to other activities. Let's look again at Death Ride Dougie and the 10,000 vertical feet in 100 miles Saturday ride. It has the side effect of getting him strong enough to ride the front at real races. Maybe if he didn't hit the first climb like it was a $20 hooker then there would be even more benefits and less dubiousness. But that's not the goal. He has some fun and gets fitter for other things in the process. Maybe not as effectively as with some targeted psycho workout (that some people even pay to be told to do), but effective just the same. Or close to it. He even wins sometimes. Hard to argue with that.

But what if you are a "serious competitor," concerned only with your performance in competitions, specifically bicycle road races ('cuz that's what we do here), and want to "train" to "get fit" and get better at road racing. What to do? Well, that depends on how much you suck now. If you don't really suck, and you're not getting dropped, you're occasionally making the break, getting in the money, that sort of thing, but still yearning for improvement, well, maybe you've come to the wrong place. You already knew that though. You don't come here for training advice. How about if you do suck, pretty badly, most of the time? Off the back is your home. Getting dropped is a given. Your crit race reports start off with how many laps you lasted before getting the hook. Now we're talking. Specifically, we're talking about the moment.

The Moment. Heavy on the italics tonight.

You don't win a road race in a single moment. You do lose them that way though. At some point, the race gets really, really hard. Often this involves a climb, or the chase after a climb, but sometimes, especially in crits, it's just pressure at the front, things string out, gaps begin to open. Either way, you find yourself on the wrong side of a split. This is the moment you've been training for.

Even the good riders we were talking about two paragraphs ago find themselves in this situation. The winning break is forming, and the train is leaving the station. You know what you have to do, but can you do it? Can you dig a little deeper and respond to what is happening, even though it hurts, even though it would be so much easier to just give up and let it go? *

Web 2.0 brings us lots of Monday morning director sportifing (I just made that up) and oftentimes we read Fred Studley's race report and he writes something like "I could have done it but for some reason I didn't. Next time I have to dig deeper. I have to make myself suffer." That is so much bull. Suffer is so totally overused by bike racers, it makes me suffer to read about this alleged suffering. Fred didn't do it because he couldn't. He blew. He cracked. Yeah sure, there is a mental component, but I'm here telling you that miracles don't happen very often. You can dig all you want but if you're digging into every last gram of so-called mental toughness that you have, chances are you're just delaying the inevitable. Without the fitness to back it up, all the mental toughness in the world won't turn a chess player into a bike racer.

So that brings us to the point of this mess. I could be watching Stewart or 30Rock on hulu right now, but instead I extol this wisdom upon my faithful masses, all forty of you. Train for the moment. You can fake it for the entire rest of the race, and nobody will know. But you can't fake it at the moment. If you can't produce the goods at that instant, then you're gonna get shelled. Serves you right to suffer, serves you right to be alone. Off the back. Loser. Thanks for reading.

*paraphrased from a book by Tom Doughty

BTW, if you're good, maybe tomorrow night I'll let you stay up past bedtime again and I'll tell you about the time I cracked, got dropped on the climb, recovered, chased back on with my entire (also dropped) team in tow, then broke away and won the race, solo. Hey, I said miracles were rare, I didn't say they never occur...

da 'pan update

So far only one day of 'da pan. Tuesday I made it out at lunch and did my first Big Blue ascent of the riding season. I haven't been running the hill this winter either, so I did not know what to expect for road conditions. Pleasant surprise - the access road was completely clean and dry, fairing well over the winter with just a few new cracks.

We know I don't do a lot of testing. I ride without a power measuring device. My times on Big Blue are the best benchmark that I have to work with, so the first trip up of the year is always a nervous time. This calendar year my bike hours for Q1 exceed my totals for any year since the early 90s by a wide margin. My total hours (running and riding) are just a few behind last year's record. I was riding my Slim Chance, felt good, had a slight tailwind on the hill, but only 25 minutes warmup. This was lunchtime after all. At the first time check (the flat spot) I was below 1:15 so I knew this might be ok. This bike has a 39 and I was using the 19. On the pitch before the switchback I went to the 21 and stayed in it the rest of the way. Somewhere along the guardrail stretch I looked down and saw 3:30, but I was fading a bit and standing a lot. At the top, I stopped the clock at 5:15. Pretty good for the first time of the season; I haven't looked but this is probably a March record for me. My all-time PR is 4:46.

I was using the much-maligned Polar HRM, and this bike has both speed and cadence sensors. My average cadence was 68 rpm for the climb. The new version of the Polar software also spits out a VAM for each interval. Maps show the climb as 130 meters, and I usually get between 120 and 130 on the Polar altimeter. Today it showed 128 and 1410 meters distance, 8.9% average grade, 1448m/h VAM. Of course, that's only for five minutes. For me and on this bike this calcs out to a CP5 of about 4.7 something. Again, not a record but I'm please for March.

Wednesday I worked from home and enjoyed a traffic-free matinee ride around Sharon and Moose Hill, so I did not get to ride the 'pan. Shame on me. It looks like we're on for tonight though. The clouds should break and it's supposed to warm up. I am going to try to be out there from 5:30-7:15. There is an outside chance I'll be able to get out in the afternoon for a long lunch, so if anyone can make it, email me. Thanks for reading.

Battenkill Ultra Relay

Anyone else noticed this? Published details are few it seems. The date conflicts with Housatonic Hills too. The entry fee is $75 for a solo rider, 50% higher than D2R2. Still though, it looks like a good time if it's going to be well-supported. Stay tuned. Thanks for reading.