Feel It: The Factory Rider

the twelve days of effeciency

2012-01-30T15:06:00.001-08:00

I guess you could call it thirteen days now, as I am just about to jump on the trainer again right now . . . So I started riding my bike again thirteen days ago. It was super cold and I was super motivated so I decided I wouldn't going to ride outside until February. I don't really know why that seemed like a good idea but it hasn't been above freezing yet this January so I haven't had to fight the urge to crush it outside too much. I wanted a nice solid pedal stroke and have some muscle imbalance kinks worked out before I start laying down the fitness foundation. It is a slightly different approach than last year when I attempted to work on my pedaling cadence/stroke/force while starting to put in base miles. Gran-it, I wasn't putting in anything considered large amounts of riding in January but at least now I feel it is smart to venture outside, plus there is a slightly better chance of going above freezing. And it isn't like I will get outside everyday, so there will probably be at least one day a week where I am pounding out cadence ladders and single leg drills and one where I am crushing my core workout.

I also revisited that nerdy strava site and have decided to start "making history" again by plugging in rides from my garmin. So far they have all been probably really boring since I haven't ridden outside yet this year (barring a race on NewYear's) and my heart rate rarely creeps past the 150bpm level. But don't get the wrong idea, strava isn't about seeing if Robert Rode His Stationary Trainer for an hour today; it is more about trying to beat your punk friends on local climbs. It is pretty neat in the sense you can see exactly where you need to try on your rides to look awesome and get some serious street cred. I want to ride outside now. Is it February yet?

what do you want to be when you grow up?

2012-01-26T19:15:00.000-08:00

I guess everyone has been asked this over their lifetime. I mostly remember this being asked in elementary school when everyone actually had a definite answer. Mine was always an architect, even from being very young. I probably just liked saying the word originally but in reality I was super into drawing buildings and those skyline things where they fade off into the distance. That is probably how I learned the word, from telling me that is what I should be.

But now, I get this question even more often and don't have a very sure-fire answer ready. And if you say anything along the lines of putting off college a year or even, dare I say it, avoiding it for multiple years, you get shunned by all elders. In current times that is.

It kind of reminds me of the scene in Breaking Away when Cyril is talking about what to do with his life and says something like, "this is gonna be the first year no one asks us to write a report on what we did over summer." But not really since no one really gets an option nowadays: a) you are going to college no matter what/where b) we are disowning you as a kid / you are a failure no matter what. I guess I have slightly more clue than cutters about what to do with my life, ie I know I am stuck attending college.

[On a contradictory side note, my grandma wants me to pursue bike racing for at least a year so I put use to all the fancy parts she has bought me over the year]

Making these decisions should be easily transferable and adjustable, but, we are getting some serious pressure at school to pick our classes for next year before next tuesday?!? And there is actually a lot of variety next year. And of course, every teacher is like, well since you get decent grades I recommend you taking classes that will coincide with your major in college (simple as that, right??)

So in my agenda it says 'learn what you want to be when you grow up- by tuesday'

chicago and notnationals

2012-01-15T08:35:00.000-08:00

Well, a culmination of unfortunate circumstances amounted in me missing Nationals, again, last weekend. I was banking on getting a buddy pass from my uncle who works for Continental, but, when the only flight I could have taken to get to Madison was down to having only two seats left with one day left, I just stopped caring and told him not to worry. He was pretty convinced I could make it there, but would be on stand-by and would have to take another flight home, requiring me to miss Monday at school, and breaking my only chance at perfect attendance this year. I was basically left with the option of spending $1200 for a guaranteed spot on the plane, or risking not getting on, on the way home at all. But, I simply had the attitude of "I am not going to win, so why even go?" This probably isn't the right attitude as 96.4% of the people (1023 of 1061) who go to Nationals don't win. Either way, having two back to back off days racing in Chicago didn't help my reasoning. And then I didn't go to Nationals.

oof

2011-12-25T07:20:00.001-08:00

Yes, a training blog on Christmas morning. I will attempt to enlighten you on how hard/dumb it is to be training today. It is kind of funny, I know a few people going out riding today who are already training for next bike racing season. . . while I still need to finish up this one on a high note.

USA Cycling made it final around this time last year, that nationals the next year wouldn't be in that calendar year. To be more similar to the Euro racing calendar, our Nationals have been moved to the first week of January. Initially, I was all excited how fun it will be to train through winter break. But, now that we are here, I quickly realized either 40° and rain, or 30° and flurry's isn't as fun as crushing intervals mid-fall. Sure, you feel like a true hard-belgian-man when you get home covered in salt and you have ruined another pair of booties, but, is a lot harder to crush yourself when the climate is fighting against you.

I took 4 straight days off after the final Cap City trying to boost my motivation to train/race three more times this year. Since then, I have been mixing up riding a good bit trying to fight the boredom of the trainer and constantly destroying my bikes.

I haven't done many hill repeats too recently, but I did a lot in the early part of the season. The idea is to stress your system and teach yourself how to recover faster. The pink is power and the red is heart rate. You could commonly find me doing these on Wednesdays, hoping to maintain my fitness before the next weekends racing without totally blowing up my legs. If I was trying to come into a weekend fresh, I would make sure to do only endurance/recovery/openor rides in a week along with one of these hill workouts.

Here is a power file from yesterday on the trainer. I usually can't stand to do tempo efforts on the trainer but yesterday I really wanted a specific workout. I usually blame my lack of trainer riding on my lack of muscular endurance, where I physically can't push the pedals that consistently, but it is probably more a mental endurance problem. I managed to get done 20 minutes of a solid tempo, then do 5 repeats of 2 minutes at LT power, then two minutes rest. My legs didn't really hurt at all from this workout, but man my indoor capability is hurting today. Luckily it is up to 34° outside!

Here is hopefully my secret training plan for nationals: Doing intervals on what I think will be similar terrain and course conditions. Like woah that is original! I didn't take any pictures the day it snowed about two inches, but absolutely went out and shredded the gnargnar on the local parks thinking it will be similar to Chicago/Nationals. I tried to make ruts and different turn angles that would teach to me to be slightly better at cornering when it gets crappy contrary to KingsCX, where simply put I forgot how to ride in the mud. So I basically scout out a lap or two, warmup on the road, then rip off some tempo laps testing my speed in all the turns. Pretty much like all cross training sessions, except this is when its crappy outside!!! SECRET!!!!

I will put up some less boring pictures of said ruts, but here something to get your juices flowing for today. Ok, time for some zone two.

4 more weekends, 4 more races

2011-12-16T13:53:00.000-08:00

Our race at Kirtland Park went off smooth and was quite highly attended being the series finale. The course was laid out nearly perfectly with lots of features but still with some good pedaling sections in between hence the perfect 7 minute lap splits.

I was pretty amped to crush the race beforehand, but, lining up myself in the third row kind of deemed that not impossible, but quite difficult for a mere me. I came through the first few turns outside the top 15 but soon got my head into it and rode the hardest second lap of all time, moving up to 6th position. I could tell I had a good lap because me and Twining crossed at the exact same spot we did after the first lap, too bad it meant I was still thirty seconds down . . . Tony dropped back a little then I managed to keep the gap to the back of the fast guy train around twenty seconds, until they really started throwing down. 'Ole Danny Quinlan started to get serious also and flew by me with about four laps to go. I had realized he was coming and tried to show all the people there I could hold him off but my lack of hour long racing recently didn't help.. Then Nate Ziccardi passed by with two laps to go. I lost most motivation and just plugged along for 7th on the day. Respectable, but not quite what I was thinking.

Then Thanksgiving happened. I guess before that happened I got super sick the night before and couldn't enjoy any food outside of toast the whole day. My flu-like symptoms remained with me for the next few days so I got in a whopping one hour of bikin' in the whole 10 days before the next racing weekend. And that one hour wasn't even the day before so I felt far from "opened up" for the weekend. The weekend I am referencing is the Kings' CX, Cincinnati-region weekend.

Saturday's course was pretty darn heavy, and hard to navigate, mud. Locals who came down compared it to the Brooklyn course, just stickier and cooler. Funny enough, I was at the OVCX races when Brooklyn was going on, so my mud skills were pretty lacking. Needless to say, the legs weren't cooperating on Saturday and I got another crappy result. But, at least I raced the sickness out of me by finishing and got some in practice for Sunday's showdown.

Sunday I came out swinging like I usually attempt to do on a second race day. My 3rd row start quickly changed into about 4th place by the first technical section. This technical, uphill start stretch section I noticed had one very secret, hard to see, line. It was deteriorated by the second lap from close to 100 people on the course, but, for the split second I needed it, it was there. Well, my gamble paid off and I was able to ride up the finish stretch and get to take the lead after only half a lap. I wanted to drive it hard and get away from everyone so I could focus on staying smooth. But, my lack of mud racing had me take a backseat to some other junior bro's who could actually drive their bikes in the mud. Apparently, losing time in every corner doesn't help trying to win a bike race. Eventually, I ended up 3rd overall, 1rst cat3 (phat upgrade points) and at least felt like I had some legs left in my season. Then this past Sunday was the finale in the Cap City Cross Series. I had a goal of trying to stay with the two fast guys for close to half the race, but I barely made it a lap with them. I don't think the course favored any three of us "Cleve-O's", but, I still could/should have faked having phat watts for more than a lap. I sat up and recovered a bit, thinking about how pedal-y the course was and how much drafting would play a role over the next 8 laps. The first guy to come up was none other than Mr. Columbus himself, Spencer. At first I thought, who is this guy wearing Spencer's Jeni's kit? Then I saw the beer-gut and was like, woah man, I need to beat this guy because it actually is Spencer. We worked pretty darn well together for about the next 45 minutes until I unleashed the mother of all attacks to drop Spencer. Actually, another "C-bus'r" was coming up relatively quick and I wanted to make sure I had enough room to pad the pockets and get on the podium. I got clear quickly and was able to finish 3rd, where I predicted myself to be, just not looking back and waiting for people to ride with after so soon. I should have been disappointed, but was quite indifferent knowing the end result would either way have been the same. After four days of rest since then, I am ready to put in a big push towards Nationals. I don't have any intentions of winning, but gaining some experience and trying gauge just how much faster the kids fresh from Euro_Land will be next year. It will be an experience in Madison for sure.

2nd, 2nd, 7th, 5th, 12th, 11th, 36th, 16th

2011-11-14T17:21:00.001-08:00

I guess I have some catching up to do on the 'ole blog. Looking at the results on the top of the you might think I have been getting slower, but the quality of the racing I have done has gotten better and better these last 4 weeks. I still might be getting slower, but at least my crossresults.com ranking has been rising! I left off right before the Ohio State Championships which were placed much earlier in the year this year. So here we go:

States' Day 1: Saturday was age group championship racing. I was in the 17-18 year old group since in cross you are approximately 43 years older than you are in real life. I got a good start and figured riding away from everyone would be my tactic. But, tactics did come into play in all the races as the course was far too easy. My buddy Sam Dobrozsi had good legs and was able to stay with me all day, that usually never happens.. I had no legs and couldn't get away without any really hard sections. Short story short, I screwed up the sprint and Sam won. That wasn't too embarrassing but having it be such a tactical race that 3 single speeds got by us kind of was. States' Day 2: I was out for revenge. I knew I had good legs the second I got on my bike. Unfortunately, that bike started to fall apart on my even before the start. My right pedal's spring suddenly was loose on the line so I had a bad front row start. Also, my shifter started getting the all-too-common, I AM GOING TO BREAK SOON! Like any idiot, I tried to avoid this but had to change bikes after two laps. But, when you have good legs, who cares?! I can do a half lap in my 11t, this course is flat! I swapped bikes and was still able to make the lead group of Bruce and I. We traded some pulls and got a pee-break established gap. Everyone was screaming, "SANDBAGGERZ!" at us. I didn't like it very much. I thought I had Bruce under pressure so the last two laps I kept digging in my sections but he kept coming back. I guess we were both riding zone two those first five laps....Then in the sprint for the final sector (which was basically the sprint for the race) we got a little argy-bargy and I backed off like an idiot. Bruce led onto the pavement and won. 2nd place, twice. That wasn't anywhere near what I came to do...

Next up was Brett's weekend at his parent's place. The course suits me well and I felt like abusing myself after my idiotic showing at States'.

Brett's Day 1: I continued my dumb riding, but I took the "abusing myself" idea a little too literal crashing sooo much, sooo hard. I guess it was really my first 'muddy' race of the year so that is my excuse. It was halloween day so don't think I race in my prepboy-twining-costume (and of course destroyed falling in the river- that is why it is called Chagrin River Festival I suppose) I still ended up 7th, my best NEOCX race up til then, but more because the turnout was a little light for the A race than me riding well. Brett's Day 2: I started well and was riding with The Paul Martin for the first three laps in 4th and 5th until I rolled my fancy tire off the rear rim. I let some air out and gingerly rode 1/4 of a lap to the pit when I switched to my less aggressive tire-d bike. But, the course was drying out a good bit and I started riding even harder. I rode through 7th place (pictured below) and eventually caught back up to Paul before the ride-able logs. I kept my pace smooth and Paul let me have 5th place, my first semi-podium in an NEOCX race. Next up were two very highly attended UCI events in Cincy3 and Louisville USGP. I was doing the cat 2/3 race since I am a loser and didn't buy a UCI license to race the P-R-O junior category. Since I am going for perfect attendance this year at school, we shot down Friday night to both races. So, in turn, we got to miss my least favorite course on day 1 uci3.

UCI3 Day 2: This is such an awesome course that Sam and his dad put together each year. I had a pretty good start and just rode steady for 45 minutes trying to save as much gas as possible for Sunday. Flecher was back and forth from crashing, rolling tires, and just general suckage at the front so we eventually were riding together trying to catch 10th place. We didn't catch Mayhew, my secret nemesis, but we sprinted it out for 11th, with Greg winning the epic sprint by inches. Flecher was pumped he beat 14 year-old superstar Ian, also! If you look at my expression, I clearly let Greg have this sprint and wanted to be nice to him after he had a bad ride. I was pleased with 11th hoping I would have best legs ever at Harbin on Sunday.

UCI3 Day 3: A lot of fresh legs showed up, and although mine weren't the best ever, I rode the hardest I have ever ridden. Plain and simple, I suffered like no tomorrow out there. I was loosing five seconds a lap to everyone on the power climb but just kept chugging up to 9th place!!! But, as I do in every race, I had to screw up a nice result and crashed with a little of a lap to go and two more lamb chop fellow, including Mayhew, got by me. I ended up 11th which I was once again ok with knowing the course isn't exactly my style and I didn't have best legs ever. That brings us to this past weekend, the third stop on the USGP series, in Louisville Kentucky. Being the site for worlds, along with being part of a national series, there were some HUGE fields each day. Saturday and Sunday I would partake in close to 120 rider cat 2/3 fields. Saturday I had a 5th row start and a 3rd row Sunday, even though I was #218 both days...

Louisville Day 1: I felt stuck at 70%. That feeling just stinks. I rode smooth after blowing up after trying to move up. So I just tried to stay with every group that passed (loosing ~20 spots in a 5 lap race, you get a lot of chances) and hoped I would make it to the line in one piece. I eventually finished, albeit hours after most in 36th. Louisville Day 2: BEST LEGS EVER! DUMBEST ROBERT YET! I was MR. AGGRO himself (captain aggressive) sunday at the start. Like mentioned, I started third row, behind the man himself, 14 year-old (racing age 57) Ian McShane. Ian drove our two man train to 7th and 8th spot by the first turn! I was pumped. Like so pumped I started passing more people and was 3rd by the flyover. Holy crap I am winning this thing is seriously what I thought. Then I rode into the back of second place and lost an instant 15 spots. I found Ian's wheel again though and we slithered back into the top 10. I was able to latch onto the lead group of 8 that formed on the second lap before some KCCX punk ate it right into me. There goes another 10 spots. After me freaking out for twenty seconds spent rolling on the ground, I got into a group of 3 riding for 14th spot with one and half laps to go. Man, so many places lost on such little mistakes. I was content with this, which was wrong, since I got mega-pinched in the last technical spot for a dismal 16th place. Well, dismal for BEST LEGS EVER! This one was a mega coulda-woulda-shoulda. Oof, I think top 10 was possible barring me being an idiot. Ok, that ends today's month catchup. Our final NEOCX race, and our final promotion of the year, is this sunday at Kirtland Park. Hopefully I will get you some updates on that Friday or Saturday.

holy october and too much info

2011-10-20T15:41:00.000-07:00

I can't believe October is already here! Now that I think of it, it is almost over too!! The State Cyclocross Champs are less than two days out and I need to get into fine tune some things to be ready.. Anyway, I should have probably posted my schedule a bit earlier but here is the complete thing anyway: As you can tell I started writing this post over two weeks ago and haven't filled in Orrville or Cap City #2. I think both were 11th place. Maybe 10th in Columbus. I'm not sure. I put the whole Jingle Cross weekend on the schedule but I doubt we will be doing those races. Most of the others are actual possibilities. Also, Kirtland may possibly be moved to Sunday to better coincide with the rest of our series. And here are the bicycles I have been (and will continue to) riding this season:

I have one white bike that has two rings in the front. And I have one red bike with one ring in the front. *After some recent episodes (dropping my chain multiple times in Dayton and breaking off my rear derailleur in Columbus) I finally switched this bike over to dual chainrings also. I also caved and bought some cool guy Thorne chainrings in a 38/44 combo. While I am on the info drop (productive streak) here are some pictures from the last few weeks taken by me when I have time (or my mom) and julie:

- Cascade Park and Julie's
- Wendy Park and Julie's
- Kent Stark and Julie's
- John Bryan and Julie's
- Orrville and Julie's
and...
- more actual bike pictures
Hopefully some of are you and not just me...

change of plans

2011-10-18T17:48:00.000-07:00

I'm not going to go through a whole complaint list about how my race went Sunday. The original plan was to do Cap City Big Run Saturday, then Spin's Willoughby Sunday. Well, apparently Cap City moved when I wasn't looking and Spin got cancelled due to flooding in the park.

So, Sunday we motored down to Columbus-ish for a very difficult hour of racing. I felt pretty flat from not riding Saturday while my Dad and Julie felt flat from actually doing something on Saturday: trail building in our actual home-town (much more later) Either way, I suffered like no other and my stomach hurt from overheating and the bumps. But, I rode steady for an hour and wasn't even too close to getting lapped, but it wasn't quite the confidence-inspiring ride I was looking for going into I think five straight weekends of bigger 2-race weekends. Having no "pop" on a course like that just doesn't work. I also managed to break my bike on the last lap and had to walk/jog a good bit. Let's just put it this way, it was just nice to finish... But, as I know far to well, you learn something from every race and I am very much looking forward to more racing.

if it's not one thing it's another

2011-10-10T15:34:00.000-07:00

Someone asked me before the race Sunday, "top five today, right Robert?" maybe slightly joking knowing how good the competition is at even our local races.

I responded something like, "all the fast guys are here today and I'd be happy to be in the top ten if I am lucky..."

It is funny because someone else asked me after the race how it went after getting eleventh and I said, "good for about half the race then crappiest ever... so mad... so disappointed"

I then later explained to an even different someone that when you know you are feeling good during the race, then screw up ever so slightly, loose focus, and lose five spots over the last four laps, it is disappointing. Even if, you only finished one spot lower than your goal. The end result wasn't too bad but I will remember from this race was having a good one, then not finishing well.

It is weird. It used to always humor me how intense guys got in the A race, but now I understand how. I don't know where I was going with this but either way Sunday I felt good and enjoyed the course. And because of that I was/am mad how the result came out. But, as my buddy benjacat says, it is just bikin'. Perspective. I've been using Jeff Craft's method of not blowing your gasket early on. I started in the back and slowly picked off and maneuvered by riders into a nice group early on the second lap. This second group soon split up and I found myself riding for 8th/9th place with Brent Evans. I sat on Brent for a lap then somehow got a gap running the run-up. I used this momentum and rode up to Jim Baldasare. Dan Quinlan and I had a nice battle somewhere in here to before I think a crash took him back a few spots. I should also mention SteevO flatted or switched bikes after a nice wreck and came storming past somewhere around the 5th lap. As luck would have it, Jim was having a rough day and going backwards when I caught. I managed to go through him also and latch onto Erik Lesco riding in 6th. Just as I was going to try and attack Erik with 4 laps to go (of 9) something started grinding on my front chainring. I figured it was a stick or something. My big ring was barely turning over so I noted to my teammate Nate in the pits that I wanted my spare bike. I rode the 6.5-7.5th lap in my little ring as Dan and Jim got back around me putting me 9th.

(big ring still)

Ok, hold on to the place now, still top 10. But wait! My pit bike is working but didn't like my tire pressure (too much- so much my back starting complaining) so for my 8.5th lap Szabo tells me my bike is fixed and I swing back into the pits. I lose a few seconds and I can now see Brent/Greg reeling me in.

(My dad tells me to go faster but I just can't in my little ring!)

I loose focus and shift down to my little ring and now can't get back into my big ring. Flecher comes by and says he has 5 seconds on Brent, let's finish this out. But Greg drops me across the field stretch while in his big ring. I give up and Brent blows by me. 11th it is. Phew... 6th place sounds so much better than 11th. Stay focused my friends.

last weekend before this weekend.

2011-10-08T08:10:00.001-07:00

Julie, Dad, and I swung a trip down to somewhere dry near Dayton, Ohio this weekend for some good 'ole aggressive OVCX racing. Needless to say, I am still looking for that elusive victory this year.

I got pinched in a bit at the start saturday and had to do a really, really hard first lap effort to get in the front group. I could tell I felt pretty good because I was able to recover after that first lap and sit in at the front group still. We had 5 persons in the group and weren't really working together but we had a big gap anyway (the sandbagger race as most would call it) Tony and I made sure no one was riding away until he had an untimely tangle with course tape and dropped back from the lead group. Mike Jernigan and I kept riding hard and dropped the other two in the group until a different guy bridged across midrace. He tried riding right through us (awesome) and I was like, "who is this guy?!," but he eventually calmed down and resided on the back of lead trio. We started rotating through but with one to go the real attacking started. I was surprised that our last lap was only 4 seconds faster than two to go, but, it was 30 seconds harder between the constant big accelerations and slowdowns. We each gave it a little gas but I soon realized we were going to come into together. I felt relatively confident in my sprint and got in Mike's wheel into the last 180°. I wound up in a gear two easy (get it, I shifted down two too many times) and was reeling him in but couldn't get around in the 11 inches of pavement I had to work with. They even still let me on the podium after that weak sprint. Tony and I talked a bit after the race and even though it didn't seem like we were going as hard as an A race up north here in Cleveland, one small mistake and we couldn't make it back onto the front group. Sunday was my turn for that small mistake... The starting uphill was very long and T and I capitalized on our 2nd row spots moving up to 1rst and 2nd rather quickly. I drove it pretty hard for a lap and only one other dood was able to bridge up so our lead trio again was formed. The other dooder who came up was insanely powerful up the 2 separate one-minute drags and me and Tony had to work together to catch him each half lap after he gapped us there. On the fourth of five and a half laps, as Tony and I were just catching up through the logs (he was running and me and T were riding) I dropped my chain. This was probably to be expected considering I was rather out of control each lap and one lap even legit bunny hopped the first log we came in so hot. Of course, my chain was a bit jammed in between my chainguard and I lost 4 spots and 16 seconds. "I guess our phat gap wasn't as big today," I thought to myself as 4 doods came ripping by.

The only reason I kept pushing it was when I rolled through the finish stretch and the announcer said "schrokkuh is cracked! schrokkuh is cracked! He went from the lead to 7th this last lap!" Everyone's hero 14-year-old Spencer had caught me and I got pissed for some reason at this abuse. I sprinted past their group and back into 4th but couldn't get 3rd back after he had rolled through the group. To be honest, my legs were feeling pretty jello like after spending 16 seconds doing the lawnmower dance to get my chain out. Jokes on Kyle (the winner) though after that lame off balanced attempt at a victory salute. Just kidding bud. And me looking quite pleased to be OTB of the podium. It was a fun weekend though, and its nice to know I have the legs to win some type of race, even be-it a cat3 sandbagger race. Julie had two solid rides netting two more top 10s to the résumé and Dad crushed single-speed on Sunday with Kastu. He also rode in the elite races both days and got in the money Sunday!

(title goes here)

2011-09-26T17:56:00.001-07:00

I was watching a little pre-game browns (best part of racing on sunday's is missing football atmo) coverage yesterday morning in front of the "muni lot" which is pretty close to where Wendy Park cyclocross was last weekend. To be honest, I would have thought Wendy Park was a month ago. I guess it was just last week.

I seem to have developed that nack for deleting memory of races I don't like. Especially since I haven't complained about it on here yet. Either way, Wendy went crappy again this year, just not as bad as last (Oh yeah, just to clear that title of the link up, it was sarcasm last year when I said "crash heard around the world" because no one seemed to realize I was gone from the race! This is what happens when you suck) This year I still flatted, blew up, crashed, and didn't finish all in like 4 laps. It was chaos. Moving on.

The past Saturday was the Stark-Kent cross race. I had a bunch of time to dial in my bikes but for some reason I didn't have the course very dialed. I kept forgetting when the loopy-loop 180°s were, and which direction they went. I guess that is what happens when I try hard. My legs also weren't cooperating too nicely.

I had a great start shooting along the outside from the 3rd row to be in the top 10 out of the first corner. I should probably just start on the front row, start easier, go into the first corner 10th, and save some energy but my way is more dramatic. Anyway, I soon found myself helping Johnny get back up the leaders. I kind of blew up closing a gap that had opened after Tony had an untimely crash. I readied myself for the 2 minute power climb but kind of blew up on it each of the first two laps, loosing some major places. Eventually I got my second wind on the third lap and started picking a few people off and battling some others trying to move up. Almost like a real race for me!

Sometime in the middle of the road race, Tony, Chris Metzler, and I hooked up. I don't think any of us were happy with how the race was going so we pretty much stayed glued to each other no matter what section. Not waiting for each other, but also not attacking each other. We worked semi-well together to close a bit on Ray, but really more to gain time on Eric Lesco. The gaps were huuuuuuge with all the pedaling sections and we were soon in no man's land. Power-to-Weight-Ratio-Metz led up the power climb but couldn't shake Tony or I. I was waiting for Tony to attack into the last turns but I couldn't wait any longer (ADD kicking in sometimes helps) so I attacked and 'won' the sprint for 12th or some lowly placing.

I was glad I kept punishing myself even though I wasn't going at my best and at least scrapped something of a result out of a less-than-perfect day.

Also, since John is too P-R-O to update his blog now, he beat PaulfreakingMartin on Saturday. ON A GRASS CRITERUIM COURSE NO LESS! My hero!

jokes on me, chris mayhew

2011-09-11T16:52:00.001-07:00

Today was a fun day. I was a little hesitant after last year's death march up that climb, along with the recent heavy rains, but, the course truly was much better this time around. The mud consistency was about 7/10 for the first B race, but by our race, the sun had shone and the tackiness had been applied, so it was pretty fast. I did a few laps on a few different tires and ended up running my trusty formerly white file treads. It was so tacky and they were shedding perfect and gripping well, too, I knew it was the right choice.

I got a so-so start basically starting in the second row and riding my brains out, passing only a few in the process, but getting on the right wheel eventually. After a lap, I saw the second group approaching and decided to recover for a second, take a handup (water, actually) from my mom and wait for some poor souls to draft off of. I quickly found myself with CamJam. He was willing (or I made him?!) to drag my overweight carcass across the pavement while I caught my breath. I must have got my second wind here (2nd lap) and quickly jumped him on an uphill no less and bridged up to NatO Zicarrdi (back from the dead) I passed NatO and was now getting reports I was up to 6th place!!!! Awesome, first mortal I thought!!!!

But, as all tragedies end, I was rolling it well when I started to hear the thunder come. I remember going past the pits saying, "well next lap get your bike with some tread on your tires." Then it started pouring right after I went past the pits. I didn't have much traction then. Then soon after, about fifty meters from the pit, I superman'ed over a turn.. big time. CamJAM and NatO, along with three others quickly passed me. I guess my gap wasn't too big, and spending ten seconds wiggling on the ground doesn't help.

I quickly jogged into the one entrance/exit pit, swung back around, swapped bikes and tried to catch Cameron. The lightning and thunder started coming quick along with the downpour now and the race officials were giving one to go.

I was mentally pretty done so I just kept the gap at a steady ten seconds to Cameron but didn't have the energy to crush myself to close it. Better safe than sorry..either way, 11th place so I can't complain toooo toooo much (but I will!!) It just sucks thinking, "what could have been"

Ok here is the picture from Mehul of me coming across to Paul at the mud pit. I can't stand not stealing it. Also, Brent Evans is falling in the backround. I would make fun of him but the way he warms up on the trainer he might just rip my head off if I say anything. Oh yes, the Chris Mayhew joke for the title. He came up to me at the start of Stark/Kent cross race two years ago and said file treads are worthless, why would anyone waste their money on those (I'LL TELL YOU WHY, BECAUSE PAUL FREAKING CURLEY WINS NATIONALS ON THEM EVERY YEAR THAT'S WHY!!!) At the time, I only had one set of tubulars (unPro) so I cried a little at the start but then I had the best race ever, before it started hailing/downpouring (kind of like today!?!?) and I lost all traction. Well, today I might have finished 6th *also known as 1rst mortal* had I switched to grippy tires half a lap earlier. So moral of the story, listen to your elder Chris Mayhew. Or just look cool and run white tires then have a boss excuse why you got passed by five people on one half lap.

more media from the weekend

2011-09-06T14:23:00.001-07:00

I make a brief mash up to the totem pole around 35 seconds in, then around 3:20 I get my full ten seconds trying to bridge back up to 9th place. Man, it's no wonder my shoulders hurt so much Sunday, check out that sweet body english! I liked Gregg's perspective slightly better in the earlier races, but anytime we can get a video out of a cross race its awesome! Gregg got a few more nice photos of me and the gang but I probably shouldn't steal those considering apparently I got Julie in trouble on facebook after I showed her how to screen print pictures, whoops... Anyway here is a link, and another, and the whole set HERE. Speaking of Julie, she got a nice sequence of me going through the woods:

Here is some slight proof I still race mountain bikes (and I still go hard at the start of races): And the results for more proof.

manatalk weekend

2011-09-05T09:51:00.001-07:00

As I may have mentioned, our team put on the first race of the cyclotrons (spelchecked cyclocross) season this past Saturday. The lead up was pretty stressful especially considering we were crossing the way out of the park (road) and needed tons of volunteers to stop those insane mountain bike drivers.

In the end, everything worked out quite well. I ended up announcing the C Race, B-1 Race (calling all Cat 3/4 35+ and 45+ men to the line....) and the start of the B-2 Race before handing off the mic to my dad for the end of the B-2 and the A race. It was pretty fun helping out Rody, who seriously had his hand full this weekend (and most others too!)

Before I knew it, Johnny was telling me to go get my jumpsuit on and get ready for the race. I managed to get everything ready (bike to pits *first find bike, switch and pump up tyres, etc etc) and get in 1.5 laps in about 40 minutes. The field was really stacked with not only more people from last year's edition, but also new faster people (any time you add Paul to a field....) Either way my goal was pretty much start slow, don't blow up, and finish on the lead lap after sitting in the sun all day and riding too hard the past few days.

Well, I executed the plan well and didn't die out in the 96°f and 96% humidity. I was taking feeds at least once a lap from my mom and Nate and had like three pounds of ice in my skinsuit (socks, too) I ended up battling two separate Competitive Gear guys for 9th place. I kept it steady and was able to split the difference rolling in for 10th. I never went outside my limit which is not usually the way I race (blow up, recover, blow up harder, recover, maybe finish) I probably would have finished 12th/13th but Weeks flatted in the just wrong place, the real deal Tony broke his wheel when I was on it, and Scott gouged his leg in half (Flecher also cracked from not eating this week so there is 14th place) Either way a top 10 is a top 10 with everyone there (well, almost)

_____________________________________________

Phew, I think I need to make Sunday's version a bit more condensed if I want anyone to finish this in less than an hour of reading. Well, as per usual, if it rains- it pours at the Manatoc XC race. Luckily, it only rained most of the day Sunday (and not much during the week), so the trails weren't total trash during the race.

We sport juniors had a pretty lengthy discussion about whether to just all race expert today or stick to sport. I would have been up for expert, if they let me do just 2 laps :) So 90% of the juniors did the sport U18 race while one loner (eric) started with the expert (only to pull out after two laps)

I had a good start and was towing around JBLODG while he complained about how slick the bridges were. Eventually, we got to what I call the equalizer of the course. There are two singletrack hills most have to walk when it gets wet, one everyone has too (according to the guy in the lawnchair at the start of it) So the one that is semi-ridable when wet, I was able to keep the tires stuck and power up it while Jason was walking.

I kept the gas on for the rest of the first lap getting by one or two more experts and probably all but 3 more sporto's- 19-30 group started in front of us yougins. Then I handed my half-full bottle to Juan, went to grab my other full one, and saw it on the ground. I probably looked like such an idiot dropping all my water off! I should have realized stopping for 10 seconds would probably help me infinitely the second lap, but, being a dope, I didn't stop.

The rain picked up and I just started opening my mouth letting the acid rain shower over me. It probably had the same effect on my stomach as my bottle of Nuun I left on the ground. Just not as expensive and lighter!

Anyway, the acid rain filled with me some electrolytes or something because I felt even better the second lap, even though it was probably slower since it was pissing rain. I managed to catch 2 more experts and the final three sports giving me the overall win! *I saw big dawg weeks (yes he did sport) coming up from the 31-40 ag but he broke his chain with two miles to go, still running he won 31-40 sport!!! I guess all his running practice on saturday paid off!! Either way, matt *possibly* would have beaten me for the overall sport king crown but I'll take these unlucky days for matt as lucky ones for me.

busy week ahead

2011-08-31T03:45:00.001-07:00

This week is going to either make me or break me. The plan so far to finish off another good chunk (3 weeks of training) is basically bury myself this week. As much as I want to go into the first cross race "fresh" I know it would put me yet another week behind before the bigger races this season...

So the plan:

Tuesday - continue with my longish uphill Vo2 max intervals attempting to get me in shape.
Wednesday - ride to Manitoc and put in a lap on the mtb or a few laps on the cross bike. get picked up though*
Thursday - go to manitoc with dad (driving though*) and finish setting up the course, then help put on a cross practice trying to break in the course.
Friday - 1rst annual harley hills death climb challenge presented by scott.
Saturday - 1rst cross race of the year. thinking of announcing the earlier races, then racing the A's later on.
Sunday - if I'm not too tired, race the mtb race at manitoc. if I am tired, sleep in, ride to manitoc and ride laps, then get driven home from race worthy julie and dad.
Monday - sleep in and ride until I can't ride anymore. Then, a little rest next week sounds good.

More details: Here is my Tuesday workout from a few weeks back when my powersnap rim wasn't in multiple pieces. Getting that heart rate high and coasting a lot! So.. Thursday's cross practice usually at Broadview has been moved to Manatoc! If anyone is interested in coming we should be riding by 6pm. It will be a fun, good workout on an awesome course. For directions use THIS, plug in your address, and be sure to go in the 2nd entrance (NOT the one with the gated MANITOC (or MANATOC) SIGN) The course in the woods was very loose (fresh cut) as of Saturday so we need some laps to pack it down! Friday is Scott's inaugural Harley Hills Challenge. HERE are more details, it should be fun. I've talked a bit about this hill before as it is quite the challenge.

See you sometime this week!

i9s

2011-08-26T15:08:00.000-07:00

Nope, I didn't buy another set of sick wheels, but these are nine things I've been up to lately:

- I destroyed the in-destroyable. I was experiencing some brake pulsing, and I, as usual, ignored this. Well, when I was braking relatively hard I hit a pothole, my rim split in half horizontally. Luckily, I was only a mile from home so I could walk it, but man, no power now!?! Do my workouts even count?!

- I built up my dad's cross bike from last year with most of my parts. It has one chainring in the front and is very light.

- I mean sooper light, like under 17lbs if I cut the steerer tube (~20g), remove the garmin mount (~10g) and put on my full carbon rear brake (24g).

- I will do those small changes and post pictures soon, as in as soon as my brake arrives.

- I put in another good week of training last week, without racing, at just over 15 hours of pedaling.

- I started my junior year of high school.

- I am going to help out Julie and Dad hopefully finish grooming the Manitoc cross course tomorrow.

And now for the real news:

- I got the "Ok" to race Nationals from my mom, again, assuming the race schedule for juniors stays the same from the prior years (where I would race on only Saturday)

- I couldn't be more pumped for this season.

cat none!

2011-08-10T09:57:00.001-07:00

It's funny earlier in the week I was made about my upgrade getting denied...and now I need to send in my downgrade!

Westlake went pretty terrible. Everyone was depressed about what happened this weekend, and what happened to our friends and teammates. It was a tough pill to swallow knowing such innocent and helpful people died after some dumbass went crazy on his girlfriend. There are lots of rumors going around about the shooting spree in Copley, mainly the gunman's motive, but all I know is we all lost a big part of a wonderful family.

The worst possible combination led to me crashing last night, insult to injury I believe is the right term.

We were lapping the B race, at turn 2, maybe 8 laps in, and I was following Dave Walker, bridging up to the front field split. There was maybe a five second gap between us, the front group, then five more seconds to the rest of the field. *Everything came back together after I crashed, too. So neither Walker nor I yelled at the Bees to move over, I think they just assumed what was left of the A race was only 15 guys. And we just assumed they thought there would be more racers.

Anyway, we went in HOT (like no brakes pushing on the weeble-wobble speedplays HOT) and the two guys in the back of the B's also swung wide going much slower (thinking that was the end of the A field). I slightly over reacted and over corrected as to not go into one of the guys and presumably ate it trying to avoid these guys. I washed out on my knee cap and knuckle punched the ground.

Damage: skinned up basically. My right hand fingers all hurt to touch and I can't lean my elbow on anything beside a sweatshirt, but other than that, fine.

Real report, bike damage: bar tape is toast, shifter got a nice little chunk taken out of it but still functional (same with rear derailleur) pedal cover shredded, and my seat is a little torn. Hanger straight, too.

Besides still mint! I was going to retire the SuperSix for this year, anyway, due to my lack of parts for a cross bike and my knees always feeling wonky when going from 175's with weeble-wobbles, and 172.5's with stiff pedals (I like the cross setup better fyi). And I had a few signs I should have retire the bike one day earlier: flat I had to change before the race, bottle boss stripped, and one weeble-wobble completely seized. Weird. But I should have listened and brought my cross bike last night.
Every post needs pictures: Close up, yum. I was trying to show both the tarmac-embedded flesh, and punching bag knuckles. All I could think of was this gang symbol. ...you may remember me from such movies as Spiderman 1 and 3 (#2 was dumb and I don't want to be associated with it)

informal or unformal

2011-08-05T16:01:00.001-07:00

Cyclocross and more cyclocross- whats new. I started yesterday trying to round up the troops for some cyclocross practice. I managed to get 5 people (including myself) but 3 had the last name (once again including myself) to come to Broadview yesterday. But considering I only started talking about it the day before I didn't expect too many. Either way, the park seems a little less crowded on Thursdays this year, so we are making the practice open to all- and by open to all, I mean everyone who is stuck reading this and not this gypsy magic!

So here are the details: Starts HERE. We ride around the soccer kids until we get tired of looking at them, then go ride around another field. We have a nice loop in the woods and also 4 barriers available. We usually play follow the leader for a lap or two, and can easily make a 7 or 8 minute lap there. Next Thursday we'll start 6. There might be something resembling an actual course because Szabo and I are getting there early and there will be no school practices/games yet. It'll be fun. Be there or be square.

I also put myself pretty deep in debt this year buying goodies for cyclocross season. I still have one frame/fork left that is the SAME BIKE TONY MARUT RIDES! That means it has the capability to fast. I am trying to sell it local because I only expect $200 for the frame/fork. It seems like a hassle to use eBay when shipping will be a 1/5 of the total cost.

It is a 54cm frame, so anyone who uses a 54-56 road bike would fit well on this. I realized I probably have enough parts to build this up to sell also, if need be. So, for maybe $400 I could put some used Rival with FSA cranks on there along with an ITM handlebar. I could do everything (including tires/tubes) besides actual wheels/cassette/pedals. You could choose between a single or double chainring setup, too, along with options for brakes/seatpost/stem. Perfect starter setup, or pit bike. Email me for more at rob dot sroka at gmail dot com.

I've been trying to get my grimy little hands on a pair of the new Challenge Limus tires. After Quality sold out two weeks ago, CyclocrossWorld.com had a huge advertisement for the tires on their home page. They of course did not have them available. So I fixed the add for them. To show my displeasure with Challenge, I went ahead and spent $65 more on another brands' tires. Whoops.

boring stats turned semi-interesting

2011-08-04T06:28:00.000-07:00

I've been feeling stuck at 90% a lot recently. I usually blame it on the heat, but, on Thursday, Bill Marut pointed I should take a slight breather soon, then really kick up the training before school starts. To give myself a break, I wanted to bury myself really good going into a rest-ish/easy week.

So after Thursday I started keeping the gas (fatigue) on until Tuesday night. Since last Tuesday I have done a fair amount of riding:

Tuesday 7/26 - Westlake 915kj, 2.5hrs, 55 miles.

Wednesday 7/27 - 650kj, 2hrs EN, 26 miles.*

Thursday 7/28 - LeRoy 726kj, 1.5hrs, 28 miles.

Friday 7/29 - 790kj, 2hrs EN, 29 miles.

Saturday 7/30 - Lakewood 543kj, 1.5hrs, 30 miles.

Sunday 7/31 - 1538kj, 3.6hrs EN, 46 miles.*

Monday 8/1 - 1620kj, 2.6hrs EN, 47 miles.

Tuesday 8/2 - 2097kj, 3.7hrs, 80 miles.

*Cyclocross bike.

That totaled up to 18 hours and 57 minutes of riding since Tuesday. Consistency.

I also think this past Tuesday was the first time I have ridden over 77 miles at 80 miles. But it felt quick because I averaged 21.3mph for the night sitting in the motorpace (A race)

So anyway, that was 341 miles from Tuesday to Tuesday. My dad always jokes (not really joking) that anything in the 70s/80s under 300 miles/week was considered a rest week. And all that rest does is hurt you. No matter what. This shouldn't be too much of a surprise considering for a good time my dad was on Chews' brothers' team. I wouldn't call that family nuts (I don't know them personally), but I'll just use a stat to describe Dan: He rode 134 centuries in 1994, and 31 double-centuries that same year~ that's more than a century every 3 days, and a doulble-century once every two weeks!

zing!!!

2011-08-02T20:12:00.000-07:00

Burned as Kelso would say.

Saturday, I got burned before the race even started: On the start when line, everyone was rolling up to the line when my insanely competitive buddy Mark was introduced as "THE OHIO STATE TIME TRIAL CHAMPION" even though I've beat him at every TT this year by multiple minutes (but apparently I missed the Indiana- I mean Ohio TT). I shed a little tear when Brent said that over the loud speaker to the five people who heard it. ZING #1 Either way, Saturday every cat 4 got burned when some dude solo'd away with about 3/4 of the race to go. Achewood Criterium.

He had his three Fuji teammates sit on the front and slow everything down. Me and Spence (along with one or two Snakebiters) gave it some gas a few times but they were so on top of everything. It sucked. They were pretty negative about it, too. I guess I would have done the same thing but when me, Spencer, and one of their sprinter teammates had a good gap, he still should rolled through and we would have had a very good chance at staying away. But, what do I know.

Either way, I resided myself to field sprint duties with about 5 to go, also known as just sitting in. I felt bad doing it, but I was already getting close to minute gaps from reliable sources to the lone leader. Ouch.

Then I screwed up the bunch gallop. I wanted to go into the last turn 3rd wheel (long 300 or 400m drag to the line) but I went in second. Then I kicked too far out in my 11t and hit the wind where I died a slow death. Seated sprints suck bad. I still managed to hold out for 3rd in the sprint, and 4th in the race. Ouch. ZING #2.

Monday I sent in my revised cat 3 upgrade proposal. I added in lots of Westlake starts and finishes, 3rd overall at TOTV (3,5,6), and my 4th at Lakewood (along with my prior stuff which wasn't too impressive). I gave my sch-peel about how I tried helping my teammate early in the year and didn't get too many results for me...sad story I know. But the response I got Tuesday was pretty harsh including: "not even halfway to your 20 upgrade points" and a big phat DENIED written all over my USAC account. Officially Catfour4life. ZING #3.

I was pretty mad about this: why would someone want to race a higher category be denied I questioned? Especially at the cat 4-3 level?! Either way, this fueled me up to ride to Westlake and do Westlake, hard.

34 miles there. 4 more miles warmup. 38 mile race. 4 mile cooldown. Legs are ZING #4.

80 miles on the day including about 12 in a good break with Stiener and Cruikshank (there was also a Snakebite there but he doesn't have a blog so no name drop) Our break was the set-up for a huge counter and I was on it, but nothing solidified. For the next few laps few attacks were laid down until Chris "hot-streak" Riccarrdi dragged out four more going through one to go. Johnny had made it across and led out the promoter for the WIN! Lake Effect goes 1,3 at Worlds!!

All Zings are now withdrawn.

weeknight racing

2011-07-28T09:28:00.000-07:00

Westlake went weird again. No AussieRob, Paul, and Ernie flatted so everyone was licking their lips for top 5. Me too, except my lip-licking only happened because of the heat. I don't quite understand how a field split continues to happen (or how it gets pulled back) but it does. This particular night Chris Riccarrdi was in a long 4-man breakaway, when soon after about 12 riders were off the front. I am thinking someone ramped it up to about 28mph and like 4 guys in a row just sat up not wanting to close the gap. 3 of them were LE members so their was no real concern, but when I saw Shawn trying to go across I hopped on for the ride.

Together it took about 1.5 laps or 6 minutes to get across. We had a pretty substantial (15 second??) gap on the field and Matt Weeks even came back when we were about 50m off the field to make the final connection. I sat on for a lap and then the whole field came back, though slightly depleted. I was very suprised. Bridging a 30 second gap happened quick for us, but even quick for the field!

Either way, with 4 to go, everyone was back together. I peaked out the corner of my eye once and saw captain sprintfrogger chernosky on my wheel. With 1 to go I slightly "backed off" through a corner and "happened" upon his wheel. I was prepared for the bunch gallop as I had yet not cramped when I saw the 1 to go sign. Bob Martin and the RGF pain train hit the front with about a 'k' to go and I was pretty much right there. But, as always, something has to get *slightly* thrown off.

Into the final turn and I got a little bowlingball pinched by an actual phat guy and pushed back to about 10th. I still sprinted and got 7th, I believe. The bowlingball rolled in for 5th so I guess I should have not let him in and risked my life for a point at Westlake. Whoops. If I would have survived on chernosky's wheel I would have gotten 2nd, as it looked like he had it by a bike length or two.. So an actual 7th, basically last of the people trying in the sprint this week, contrary to the usual 6th place everyone "gets"

I wrote this before we left for LeRoy last night:

[Tonight we are going to go the LeRoy "Merckx Version" TT. No aero equipment. Without my aerodynamic position, my time will be around 20 minutes I would assume. This should give me a good chance to set a true 20 minute power. Right now I haven't done any intervals yet this year, and all the racing I have done with the powermeter, are shorter courses where you coast a lot. So, my 20 minute power in trainingpeaks is a measly 247 watts from last Westlake.

If my threshold truly is 320 watts as Sean thinks, 105% of 320 is 336 gwatts. 336 is what should be my all time maximum for 20 minutes. At the first LeRoy, I used my powermeter on my TT bike, and I averaged 304w for 18:1X minutes, but then stopped pedaling so my average dropped and my record was gone. I'd like to think I can push out a few more watts since early June, and with my ultra-effecient road bike I figure that is some watts right there, right?!?! In re-reading my post I also cracked half way through so maybe the magical 336w is possible. That would put me at a phat 4.8w/kg for 20 minutes, or 4.57w/kg for 60 minutes.

Man, all this pressure and I thought doing Merckx would let me not worry about anything but going hard!!]

Well, everyone confirmed not only due to the merckxiness of the TT but due to the humidity, heat, and wind, times were very slow.

I actually started relatively conservative and kept an eye on my heart rate. Kept it dialed to 181bpm before the turn, a steady 185 up the grade, then 190 on the kicker. Then semi-recovered to 183 on the downhill but up to 193+ the final 2 miles.

The Results: I crossed the line behind downtubeshifter dad and we both said we didn't feel that great, but pushed hard the whole way. Starting conservative I don't think helps me, though. I seem to always settle in after a mile at the same pace so I should just try and get there quicker next time!! I tried to keep going after I crossed the line for a full 20 minutes but I was pretty shot and my heart rate was already at 195bpm... so my new 20 minute power average was 296 vs. my measly 247 at Westlake. But, my normative power for the 18:55 (~25mph) was 308w (@ 70kg so...4.4w/kg) which isn't too shabby. I think my power was a little erratic on the downhill, turns, and turn-around, but with maybe a 20 minute 3% grade with great legs I could do 336w...

Anyway, my dad finished at 18:53 (~25.2mph), so, we were once again very very close. But, his time does have an asterisk next to it because downtube shifters were a ten second bonus (is it still called a bonus even if it subtracts time?!?) This tied him for best time of the night with Emillio. Here is how close me and my dad have been over the past few LeRoy outings.

unseasonably motivated.

2011-07-25T16:19:00.000-07:00

I don't really have anything new to report on the racing/training front but I figured I could throw some new pictures up here to keep the reader occupied. On eBay, I swapped frames so I could get a larger size, and the white was very appealing as always. Here is a more complete picture of my 2011/12 cross bike. It looks strikingly similar to my road bike...

For some reason I've been organizing a bunch of small stuff as of recently. I think my mind has been getting sidetracked to easily in mass quantity of heat (or the air conditioning) I go to find more brake pads, let's organize them all! I go to put together my single chainring setup for cross, let's organize my chainring bolts in color order! Holy crap my motivation in this heat is overwhelming! I am thinking it must be all the JeoPardy I have been watching lately. What do you think Alex?

Speaking of TV, I realized why I had mass amounts of time today: no more Thor to watch. I guess the only exciting parts to me of the thor were Jeremy Roy (pronounced waaa according to Phil) and the defender of yellow, whomever it may have been that day. Maybe I've watched too much jeopardy and lost my love for the thor, or am just too uneducated about road racing, but everyone saying its the best thor in recent years- I'll take watching the doped up guys going up Alpe d'Huez 3 minutes faster. I am still glad old-man Cadel got one though. Either way, I now am not drawn to the TV for 10 hours a day. Maybe I will find some time to train now and not just link up things to their wikipedia page.

weekend and westlake update

2011-07-19T13:42:00.000-07:00

Vulture's Knob was hoppin on Saturday with the Enduro Race. Someone mentioned how "in-the-middle-of-nowhere" you feel when you ride there on a day without a race. I would have to agree with that.

My dad, Julie, and I are in what are thought of as the slowest cat 2 categories (grandmaster, female, and U18), so in turn, we start last, next to last, and 3rd from last. This makes a lot of passing necessary. Knowing the race always comes down to who enters the singletrack first, then gets to pass first, I started the hardest ever.

I won the holeshot and was well into the grandmasters' going into the drops before Mike's Upper Lip. The course had been cut down to a shorter and less dangerous loop with the removal of the over-under so things were looking good for me.

Best legs ever by the way. TOTV/Westlake must have put this overweight kid into shape, because I could literally recover behind people, then spprrrrinnnt ahead to the next person, repeat. It was going well until just before the Over-Under, I started having some chainsuck issues.

Then I broke another chain, I think. I managed to fix it up enough to keep going but was so far back I just bailed after only one lap.

Dad, Toad, Johnny, and Julie still crushed it though.

__________________________________________

Sunday I wished I would have been able to make it down to the State Crit but I didn't. We still ended up going to a very local time trial in Deerfield, Ohio aka right behind Westbranch. I didn't have very good legs but I had all the cool-guy-gofast-stuff so I managed an Ok time for the 20k course, at 29 minutes 50 seconds. That is only like 25.5mph but everyone said the course felt slow from the humidity/heat, so that is my excuse, too. Even with the pathetic speed, that was good enough for 4th overall of about 50, so there is that.

_______________________________________

Last night we ventured to Westlake for Worlds. Chris, Dad, Vanucci, and I had a few more teammates to work with. For some reason, the field split has been the common theme this year at Westlake. I missed it initially, but jumped with Chernosky/Stiener. Chernosky jumped us and Stiener didn't want to ride up to his teammates so I missed the split again. Whoops. Luckily we had Chris and Greg "back from the dead" Flecher up there, so not too much panic ensued. Not to mention it was hard enough just riding in the field!

Somehow, Matt Weeks/ Andy Clarke/ Jeffrey Pendlebury all missed the split so they started taking digs. None of them would let the other go across by themselves so we'd cover (or one of the mass # of Spin dudes) that after two of them followed the initial attackee. And we'd all bunch up again, then one of the three fast guys would throw down again. I thought it was too fast slow fast slow to catch but apparently the front group was messing around more than us.

So, Jeff pulled it all back together with one to go. I was expecting to hear the superheros had launched and there would still be a few off the front, but neh. Everyone was ready for the bunch kick. I tried to give it some gas from a mile out when everything was going to slooowww, but I started to cramp again.

I rolled in with Flecher somewhere in the back of the people who tried to sprint, ie. top 15. I just fell like I've been stuck at 90% with this crazy heat/humidity lately. But my 90% this year is still 100% better than last year, so hopefully, by cross season I can be going well.

more westlake and more weekend

2011-07-15T13:06:00.000-07:00

It feels like I have been racing a lot lately. I haven't quite settled in on it yet, because other than racing, I've only being doing a few recovery rides a week with maybe one longer ride thrown in. I promise next week (and therefore the rest of summer) to actually focus on gaining some endurance and doing some racing still.

Anyway, Westlake went well for about 22 of the 23 laps on Tuesday night. I felt awesome after suffering for a little bit in the beginning. I found myself in the lead group that swelled close to 15 riders and became more as a field split. I can remembering "bridging" across through the parking lot thinking "why did I just pull the whole field with me?" but in reality I think I was one of the last few across the gap the whole night!

Our group was relatively cooperate with at least one person pulling on each team (so there were like 8 people actual pulling, including me rotating at least) and having some of the bigger dawgs do the attacking. For once I never felt on the verge of being dropped.

It wasn't until about 8 to go until I started seeing Shawn chirp into Matt's ear, and 6 to go, when Dave C. was chirping in Cameron and Mitch's ears'. I followed a few moves each time thinking "Oh man, were going fast this is the winning move!" only to see one of the other singles pulling it back.

Finally the elastic broke with 4 to go when Steiner mashed away and Batke followed when everyone seemed to be catching there breath. Perfect timing on Steiners' part, not to mention Brian had just come back from a one lap solo endeavor. Cameron bridged with Ernie and they had an instant gap. The first four places were gone with each of the major squads represented (team ernie, too) and all the singles/team members seemed content to sprint for 5th.

But wait...the Zak Attack Dieringer and Steady freddy 32 Weeks have other ideas. Both starting throwing down again trying to get away for points. I tried to follow them but I cramped up and had to roll the last half lap solo. Whoops, I think I worked a bit too hard early thinking I made the final final cut.

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In more racing unpreparedness, I am planning on the DoubleDown Enduro tomorrow at Vulture's Knob. To be honest, I am very nervous I won't be able to "race" the whole thing. My longest ride of the week has been at Westlake recently. This little thinger will be closer to 3 hours for chunky robert. Even if I can't race around fast, it should be a fun time.

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If we (Julie, Dad, Johnny) aren't totally toast from Saturday, the plan is to go to our first Deerfield TT out in Ravena. It should suit me better (flat) but I wouldn't expect too much after Saturday.

totv wrap up

2011-07-12T08:55:00.000-07:00

stage 3 - the basic 45 minute crit. right. wrong. well, a good uphill (I guess there was a downhill too) was put in this year. It made everything harder than I think anyone planned. The recovery on the downhill was trying to avoid manhole covers and potholes. I barely turned the cranks warming up but hoped the legs would wake up after a few efforts. They didn't really, but I suffered and followed the right people as much as I could. There was one long solo attack but thebikeshop team had 8 guys and brought it back relatively easy. Fast forward to one to go. I am maybe fifteen riders back and literally think "how'd I get so far back?!?" I realize this is a poor place when the road narrows to one lane wide in the final 300 meters. To move up I rode dangerously but got up to tenth before the last turn. I sprint hard out of the last turn and keep my momentum up the hill for 6th place. Ouch...Crossing the line that could have went a lot better I just wish I was better positioned at the end. Luckily I had my cheat sheet #'s to watch (people around me in the Gc) I think 4th place swapped with 2nd in the end. Either way, I still got 3rd in the Gc which I was content with.

I mean, you could be second, third, fourth--hell Ricky, you could even be fifth!

2011-07-09T17:57:00.000-07:00

Totv stage 1 - Ended up 3rd with an average speed a few clicks over 26 mph. Not what I was looking for, but considering I never had the legs to really get on top of the gear, not bad. It just felt all uphill in my opinion. My plan was to break 20 minutes but I barely broke 21.

Totv stage 2 - Crazy hard road loop. It was fast, too. WASLABS set a hard tempo up to the KOM climb around 26 miles in where the race blew to pieces. My loyal teammate Craig got me well positioned and I only came off the huuuuuuuge climb about 15 seconds down from the front group. I bridged more or less with Brent Thompson up the rollers. We looked back and the group of about 15 was gone. I think that left like over 40 4's dropped on the hills. We ended up catching the remains of the masters' field who started 5 minutes ahead! Three snuck away but we reeled them in with bridging distance (5 seconds) but my legs could not have it. I sat in the field and had a nice leadout (not on purpose) from Dave Yohe and I got the field sprint for 5th. I was very content, though, considering phat kids don't climb phast.

Gc - I know for sure the winner of the road race (max max max points man) isn't in the Omnium for the weekend. So I think that puts me probably in 3rd going to try and hold on for the podium in the crit tomorrow! It will be tough with 9 WASLABS and 1 puny Lake Effect but I'm willing to suffer, again, I hope.

weekend plans

2011-07-07T14:13:00.000-07:00

Somehow I've been talked into doing the TOTV again. Last year it was probably the worst weekend of racing bikes I've ever had. That's saying something when you suck a lot like me. Man it hurts to link to that even. This year is more or less the same set-up as last year with TT friday night, a loooong/hilly/death march of a road race on Saturday, crit Sunday, except the criterium on Sunday appears to have a pretty good hill in it.

I was also informed from superstar Matt Celek at Westlake on Tuesday, that the upgrade points will probably be based off a stage race setup. So, one should do well in the overall with a lot of competitors if one should need upgrade points. (Matt was also auto-upgraded as he was sitting on a whopping 52 points of a necessary 20...fyi all cat fours you can come to races again without getting smoked) I realized now I should have asked him for a few! I wasn't planning on trying to upgrade after leTour but I actually want to now. I don't know why it just doesn't feel like I am doing well in this cat 4 thing so let's try cat 3. So I need to do well this weekend in the overall for real. It is supposed to be realllllly hot this weekend so don't expect much even after all this cat 3 talk.

Speaking of going well, this Alexey kid has also ridden to superstar status winning nationals a few weeks ago along with a few other significant results. When he does well this weekend against the likes of Panther/Carbon/GPOA/RGF, you heard it HERE FIRST.

battle royale

2011-07-03T18:23:00.000-07:00

My dad and I are getting pretty competitive at the local Thursday night time trial in LeRoy. This week we each brought out even cooler wheels- my dad was on the team disc and julie's 404 front and I was rolling dad's disc and chris martino's 808 firecrest front. All Zipp all the time.

I think was the first time I haven't set a PR at LeRoy but I have a few solid excuses: it was by only one second compared to only two weeks ago, I had put splits on my garmin for the original course, therefore was 7/10ths of a mile ahead of myself most of the time and thought I was on a PR run (so I now think I would have went harder), and I also rode 2.5 hours on the TT bike the night before.

Either way, my dad started 30 seconds in front of me, and we both agreed I did put some time into him on the way out, but on the way back...ouch. My legs weren't turning over quite as well but I still thought I was going well enough to equal dad after denting his lead going uphill. And I almost did.

Later I got this email from Jim:

Guys,
I found that I didn't see two of the numbers correctly, one for Rudy and one for Matt. Rudy's actual time was 17:23 (a gain of two seconds) and Matt was at 17:20 (also a two second gain I believe). Sorry Robert, I didn't find that second you thought I was off. Jim

We still both averaged slightly over 27 mph (dad got my time from last time) but noooo, now Dad is now up 2-1 in our LeRoy TT series. Also I should have went faster to beat Matt "no aero wheels" Weeks...sometime.

backseat driving without commentary

2011-06-29T11:14:00.000-07:00

I grew out of my 56cm frame so I inherited my dad's 58cm frame.

It's very white and went well with my bar tape and bottle cages already. Click to make it bigger and less pixelated. Last night was its big debut at Westlake after I got the fit dialed in with Sean moments before. It was riding awesome but then something started to feel weird in the rear end. Gaps started opening around lap 5 and I found myself going across a good field split. My rear end sort of turned over in turn 2. I looked down to have only maybe 30psi left in my back tire. I was nervous I "rolled" it slightly (clincher) but later found 2 staples near my tire that were slowly sucking the air from me. I rolled back to the car with my hand raised and in the gutter. It took me one lap to change but I decided to wait one more and be a bit more ready to try and jump from 0 to 30. I got back in and sat at the back not wanting to interfere (no free laps at westlake) and watched TLE be aggressive. More backseat driving at Westlake! It's fun to watch the fast guys do their weekly business but now I kind of want to get in the action. Sometime before I flatted, I unclipped after turn 2 one lap due to what I thought was a mishift.

I looked at my bike back in the parking lot during my 2 free-laps and two links didn't seem to want to stay "in tack" with my manly-man chainring. I rode very cautious then from lap 8-24 at the back. I lubed my chain more detailed today but think my manly-man ring may have a slight wobble in it, from my cottage of wattage (legs)

redemption

2011-06-28T07:55:00.000-07:00

We awoke a the ripe hour of 5am to get to my mom's first triathlon in 17 years. At first I was thinking, "why would anyone start a race at 7am?" Then I realized the answer: "to get to a bike race in columbus by 11am." My mom did very well winning her age group on minimal preparations and with an eddy merckx style bike leg.

After a brief two hour jaunt to Grandview Heights... I got prepared for the bike race. Last year at Grandview I didn't even make it half way through the race before I got droped (actually I got dropped so early there is only one "p" in dropped) My only goal this year was to make it to the finish and have energy to cheer on the later races.

Our race started off like a real race, someone put in a huuuuuuge attack off the line and like 6 people crashed in the second turn of the race. Luckily, my late registration placed me at the back of the starting grid allowing me to avoid this. On the other hand, it did take like 4 whole laps to get back near the front, and guys were already popping off by then.

The maybe 40 second hill kept minimizing attacks but kept knocking people off the back. It didn't have the crazy number of surges per Westlake but having to keep pedaling after a jump after a turn hurt everyone. My average pedaling power was 331 watts for 42 minutes...

Anyway, with close to fifty starters, I bet their were less than twenty going into three to go, when we got a prime bell? I could have spent a few matches and got that (no one jumped too hard) but I figured the way I can't seem to recover in the heat I should stick in the pack and hope for the best at the end. One to go comes and guess who is on the front, RIDE FREAKINGON. Todd was in the first lap crash, didn't take a free lap, rode back to the front, and was covering moves for his teammate Matt the last few laps. Jeeeez. In the final turn heading up to the climb, about 10 of us have 5-10 seconds on whats left of the field, about a dozen. I took a risk diving into the turn way on the inside to avoid a manhole cover and lucky I did..three guys tried to go hot and hit the manhole cover, crashing each other to the outside. Matt (who wins all the races) jumped after a nice leadout from Todd, who had crashed, again, and I was there. This is it, phat victory here I come. But, Matt just rode me right off his wheel in the last 200 yards. Then Purdue guy jumps me with 50m to go. Ok, keep turning over the pedals and get on the podium. I can smell someone coming up from behind, so I go for the bike throw but throw too early for the finishing checkerboard, and not the actual line. 4th.

That was a really bad last 30 seconds I think cooling down. I really cracked hard, I was thinking win in the last turn and I got fourth. But, that little yellow measuring device told me different: 651 watts for the last 30 seconds. My all time all time all time high was 702 watts near the start of a "best legs ever" ride and up a stupid steep hill. But, I still got droped in the sprint baddddd....

The 1/2 race didn't disappoint. This guy with his boss shoe covers spent the first 8 laps off the front before being brought back from a Paul Martin-esque chase. Then, a few laps later he rode across to Bauldessare/Knapp and helped drive the break to the win. It was an exciting finish where all four in the break threw their bikes and no one knew who won for 10 minutes afterwords.

thank you breakaway

2011-06-22T09:08:00.001-07:00

I pedaled 4 miles over to the store around 4pm yesterday. Sean checked my saddle height (only 1/3 inch off this week) before dad and I jetted off to Westlake.

Being it slightly over 90°F and almost 100% humidity on the longest night of the year (50 miles) my plan was just to make it to the finish. There was no Paul Martin or Andy Clarke so I think that heats everyone up a bit more too, thinking someone on their team can actually win. But, soon enough, I see my dad and looking at each other with "the move" a good bit up the way with no LE mates. He had already covered a lot so I figured I'll get one and give him a little break. But, as Bob Martin and I bridged across I turned my head as we made it to the front 4 and we already had 3/4 of a straightaway (ie. almost half a mile). It truly was the right combination after a lap with 2 spin (jason h/aussie r) 2 rgf (jim b/dave c) 2 carbon (b batke/aaron c) and 1 ernie (strength of 10 men) plus dopey young me. Bob Martin seemed to like his RGF chances and quickly dipped back into the field. Good thinking I say, but with no black and red represented I wanted to at least stick it out. I took three turns at the front before realizing my head might explode if I take another one.

So I told the break I won't attack, but don't yell at me for sitting on. No one seemed to mind as I was having the Jamey Driscoll cross-eyed look anyway. (That's how you get most aggressive rider each day, just look like you're dying)

I sat and got to watch the race unfold from a new perspective, the back of the breakaway! After about 4 laps of sitting on (so maybe 15 of 25 laps in) Matt, Cameron, and Steiner joined the party. Matt, Aussie, JB, and Ernie instantly got away leaving about 6 of us in the first chase group. This is when I started hoping the field would gobble us up. I was feeling better and started rotating through per Chernosky's request but didn't really want to change the outcome of the race knowing I had just had a free ride around in the break for half the night.

Thankfully, just as we heard the Weeks/Baldesare/Thompson/Marenchin gruppo had 45 seconds, my dad along with 5 more (3 spin and mitcholo) came across to our break basically cutting the field in half. I had run out of water so Thom Dominic was super cool about it and lent me a huge bottle with about 4 laps to go. Now the games started...the break of 4 was deemed gone, and Chernosky really wanted those last few points for 5th place. For once I don't think he fancied a "field" sprint as fresh-legs-dominic was looking good, so he jumped with 2 laps to go. The one spin dude (they had 6? in the front 15!?!) went with him but for some reason I don't think Chernosky lost that battle. So the first six places now gone, everyone had a teammate up their besides Dad, I, and this sweet white/red kit man, we did a steady final two laps having a huuuuge gap still on the field.

So still no top 5 for LE, but I'd like to say we are getting closer. Usually, we have Pete to count on to make this group, then make the final four selection but moving to Seattle didn't help our chances last night! I am thinking a private jet team funded for Pete to still get to do Westlake Worlds and help us out. We already miss you Pete and you haven't even officially moved yet!

fun father's day

2011-06-21T10:02:00.001-07:00

Not signing up early didn't help at the Reagan Park TT. Julie, Dad (capitalized for Sunday), and we started about 5th, 3rd, and 2nd from last in the sport class out of about 60 sports racers. Somehow JimmyMac snuck between me and Dad in the start order. So I would be "chasing" him and dad, along with Julie chasing me. Juan held us up and we sprinted into the tight singletrack. It was a weird feeling not being 100% pinned the whole time in a time trial. All the turns let you recover because I couldn't pedal through most of them without totally dieing. My trail knowledge was quickly deteriorated due to my tunnel like vision trying to catch the old man. It didn't really help anyway because I haven't really ridden Reagan yet this year (too wet) and when we do, we always ride the opposite direction. So I wasn't as smooth as I have been there. I kept pushing though convinced I had good legs. I caught Jimmy after some roots (he was on his cross rig) and could see dad a few switchbacks ahead. All three people on the course were screaming at me to catch my dad. Somehow I did right before the trickier logs in the Annex trail. Dad letting me by never happens but I tried not to kill myself right in front of him. Between passing slower riders and my killer (ha) accelerations I managed to put a good gap into dad. Then I started getting cocky in some turns and crashed pretty hard 3 times consecutively, each one behind a certain Miranda family trying to not ride into the back of them. Each person in the family needs to get disqualified for not letting anyone by and riding like a jerk. My dad then caught me when I was trying to pass one of them and yelled at me to go faster, so I did. I was pretty recovered from all the time spent wiggling on the ground and he said he was very surprised to see me again.

I thought about going through the finish line on with dad on father's day but instead I attacked him on the last little twistie bits. Don't expect me to be riding any cool new bike stuff soon after that move!

I got back to the prelim results already disappointed in my time but saw I was still sitting in first U18 about 30 seconds up on Jason, but second overall sport, a mere 49 seconds behind first! Not too bad, but man it would have been nice to not crash so many times!

*My phat $35 gift card winnings were later given to my dad.

training races = way more fun than actual races

2011-06-17T07:18:00.001-07:00

I guess I have done 4 races since I have updated the 'ole blog.

Saturday was the State Road Race in Shreve. The race was presented by RideOn and was theirs to lose in our race. I think they had something like 12 guys in our race and we only had 40 starters. It was relatively hilly and relatively hot so everyone took the first of four 9 mile laps easy. The second time up the hill was hard and split a good bit of the group up. Then on the third lap, RideOn started setting a good clip to the top of the hill, where three of their guys attacked and were gone forever. This time, I was right there, but just couldn't physically stay on their wheels. On the last time up the hill, I took a pretty good dig and dragged out three other racers. We put in like 7 miles off the front before they all gave up. I tried to counter attack that but nothing was happening with still five or six strong RideOn's in the field.

Sunday was a 1.4 mile circuit race with a pretty good uphill and some steady winds throughout the day. Only one RideOn guy got away with 4 to go. People actually wanted to work but Matt was still stronger solo then a few guys working. I realized this going through with 1 to go and jumped hard trying to get across, if not, hopefully screw up RideOn's win streak of everything cat4. Basketballshortskid came with me and we instantly had 10 seconds, and only 5 more up to Matt. I swear Matt turned around and kicked again like he had been coasting along (even though he had been otf for the past three laps) so neither I or basketballshortskid got onto his wheel. We still railed the down but with a hard charging leadout from who else, RIDEON, we were totally swarmed in the final turn, a mere 300m to the line. I guess not all is lost as they only got 1st,2nd and 5th compared to their usual 1st-6th.

Tuesday marked my first Westlake without school before hand. I was still tired the first 20 laps somehow and LE only had Pete/Dad/early on Vanucci covering moves, but, be it the strongmen they are, LE was present in each break of the night. My legs started to come around and I soon moved up quite a bit in the field. Right as I was moving up, with about 5 laps to go, a perfect combination (Cameron, Ernie, Stiener, Pete, Batke?!) minus Paul Martin went up the road including Pete. Paul sat in for about a lap until him and Pendleberry started trading 30mph pulls for the last three laps. This caused a major field split with only about 12 making the front group + 5 more in the break. I think Dave Chernosky must have told Pendleberry to pull back Cameron because, well, he did. So with half a lap to go, there is more or less 15 people getting ready for the sprint. I wanted to counter after Pete came back but Brian Batke had the same idea and made it slightly too hard to throw anything real down. So into the last corner we go, dad on my wheel, with Pete/Ernie on the inside of me. I basically follow Aussie Rob into the finish but can't come around him, but neither can Dad or Pete after a long night. So LE gets 7th, 8th, and 9th I think. Woops, no top 5 = no nothing. But, the only people in front of us were:
1-Paul
2-Dave
3-Jeff
4-Aussie
5-Ernie
6-Red Kit Man
So that's a win in my book.
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Wednesday I went to Westbranch with Sean.
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Thursday I convinced my dad we needed to go to Leroy even though the weather wasn't looking like it was to cooperate. I used the disc with a 404 front along with my Garmin. I pasted splits to the turn, the turnaround, and the turn again on my screen. My goal was to break 17:45 after two weeks' prior's 18:15. At the first turn I was right in line with my 4:25 goal to the corner. Sean told me to try and pick it up as much as you can for the uphill so I did. My split was 9:30 and I think I did it 9:10 or so. After the turnaround I instantly felt the power of the magical disc and actually felt fast on the downhill. I looked at my split and was 45 seconds ahead of it. Thoughts of breaking into the 16 minute barrier raced through my mind but those were quickly pushed away with a massive headwind. Ok, still push through and manage a 17:25 back on the original course. Still 50 seconds faster than 2 weeks ago (no aero wheels though..) and average speed of 27.04mph. I'll take it.

one week left

2011-06-06T15:49:00.000-07:00

I swear the other day I had an 88% in every class and a 98% in one. That extra 2/3% has been really getting to my head. What I should do is just take 4 classes seriously and just take a B in the other 3 so I can get my phat 3.5gpa but instead I throw myself out there more evenly spread and get screwed in the end. But, its almost over and next year I'll plan better.

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This song reminds me of summer. It was the official song of the tour (NOT the official car of lance) and was used for each stage about 34605 times.

This might be my last summer without a job so I am gonna take very much advantage of it.

monday - easy ride
tuesday - maybe a light ride in the morning, westlake in the evening
wednesday - core in the morning, ride to reagan for group ride, group ride
thursday - easier day or leroy tt depending
friday,saturday,sunday - endurance adventures or races.

awesome.

can't wait.

just have to make it through 10th grade finals first.

18:15

2011-06-04T09:07:00.000-07:00

Doesn't my scanner make this look computer animated?

I am trying to make it out to LeRoy a bunch more this summer. Even though it isn't quite summer yet (for me, one more week) Dad and I were able to swing a trip out there Thursday night for the time trial. I am starting to think it is a wive's tale that the course is really far away, because even with mild traffic we still got there in exactly an hour. I decided earlier to race with my 32h standard wheels with my powertap and a few other slightly "un-aero" items. I drew stick #6 putting me behind Chris Nicula and 30 seconds in front of resident time trial hero, Brian Batke. Jim must have gotten stronger over the winter, too, as I found my push off the line immensely fast.

For some reason, more than likely adrenaline, I started pretty hard and turned the only corner onto Kniffen with the wind at my back really opened it up. Dumb. I got half way up the hill to the turn around and knew I made a mistake in my unplanned pacing strategy. I got to the turn around just as Brian wizzed by me, made the turn with him, then got gapped instantly to 30 seconds on the downhill. The downhill is a 2 mile stretch that starts at about 6% then is more of the opposite of a false flat, maybe 2% downgrade the rest of the way. Now I realize Brian is going a lot, lot better than me, but I weigh probably 30 pounds more than him and he put literally 45 seconds into me just in that 2 mile stretch! After making the turn onto Indian Point with only 500m(?) to go I was struggling to hold it above 300w. Usually, this is when I know I didn't go hard enough and am holding 350w more or less. But not tonight, I blew up early and paid for it with not the time I was looking for, 18m and 15s, on the 7.85 mile course or about 25.8mph. This required a power of 304w average, at an average cadence of 87rpm at 4.18w/kg. I would have liked a 320w with a sub 18m time, but that's what happens you kind of bonk half way through a time trial. Still, that puts me 2 seconds faster than my best time last season with full aero gear.

Another positive I can take from this is Mr. Batke said a sub9/1080 combination is almost a whole minute faster on the course. I am thinking this must all be on the down hill?!? I will have to test this later on in with Sean's 1080s and possibly using the team disc for a PR.

My dad, as per usual, had a very fast time and Tony I think set his runner-up PR there (or possibly third). Bill had a slightly off night but is putting in a good block of training for a big Tri next week so he had a real excuse. We all did a nice 10 mile cooldown before indulging in burritos.

no pinning

2011-05-31T17:53:00.001-07:00

Every race this weekend was at least 3 hours away each direction. That seems kind of pathetic to me but what do I know. It's just funny because in April/Early May you can do so many races everywhere, but now, the lull begins. So anyway, I didn't race, the first time I went a weekend since April 10th, but I did get to ride my bikes some. I guess that it has been 7 weekends. Since there is too much going on next month.. and I can't decide exactly what to focus on, no matter what event though, I am trying to get some (ohio) climbing legs then for whatever it may be.

TUES: 50.2 miles w/ 300ft of "climbing" - race at westlake
WED: 6 miles w/ 2ft of climbing and core workout (rollers)
THURS: off
FRI: 27.9 miles w/ 1403ft of climbing ~2 hours brisk road bike
SAT: 26.2 miles w/ 2339ft of climbing ~3 hours hard at moho
SUN: 28.3 miles w/ 2074ft of climbing ~2 hours easy road bike
MON: 68.1 miles w/ 3341ft of climbing ~4 hours steady road bike

I used that ridewithgps site where you actually don't have to ride with your gps to track your everything stats. It *seems* to read a little bit lower than my garmin but it seemed in line except for Monday's ride, I would have put that closer to 4500ft of vertical. So here is a summary of the first part of the racing season's training:

Week of 4/4 - 11.5 hours (1 race)
Week of 4/11 - 12.4 hours (1 race)
Week of 4/18 - 11.7 hours (1 race)
Week of 4/25 - 7.5 hours (2 races)
Week of 5/2 - 8.0 hours (2 races)
Week of 5/9 - 7.4 hours (3 races)
Week of 5/16 - 10.3 hours (1 race)
Week of 5/23 - 15.2 hours (0 race)

My little plan is to tone it down the next two weeks while finishing up 10th grade. I want to keep some good intensity but keep the volume at only 8 hours per week, then come into the State Road Race and Wooster Crit feeling fresh. Then I can start to ramp up into the Pro-20hr-no-job-summer weeks and start to think about some longer races.

ToC / 1rst Knob (for me) / 1rst A Westlake (for me)

2011-05-25T11:53:00.000-07:00

Just in case you missed it, this guy finally won a really big race. I guess it helps when you aren't the designated slave for the "official" team leader (also that Horner didn't have to carry his bike at all) By the way, did you know Chris Horner and I are basically related? He raced cross for a season or two with the Indiana Regional Medical Center Team. The director of the team, Ed Krall, is someone who I have raced with multiple times though never actually talked too. But close enough, Me and Chris Horner = best buds.

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Saturday I got to test out my new parted out mountain bike in the second race of the Vulture's Knob XC Race. I was slated to do two laps of the 7 mile loop that consists of even more climbing/turning than last season! It was my first time on trails all year it showed. I made it to the Over/Under (halfway in?) the first lap with the 2 leaders of the Sport race in sight (they dropped me on each descent) and decided I would try to make it across before Maizeville where the locals could lead me through. Well, in turn of trying to keep up I blew all the air out of my fork trying to "race" the Under. It took me a second to diagnose the problem so 2 more Sport U18's got by me by the end of the lap. I eventually turned my the lockout out on the fork and pulled the fork up but not before my rear wheel fidangled itself out twice! Man that sucks. That killed all of my little momentum so I just took the second lap relatively moderate trying to get some skills back of what little I had, again. I managed to catch 1 guy in my class so I ended up 4th under 18, or about 9th fastest overall sport time. Only 8 minutes out of 1rst!!! (Insert excuses here) But, this year I am actually going to do some more mountain bike racing so maybe I'll be able to pick up some results there....moving on!

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Tuesday I did my first A race at Westlake World's and I was pleasantly surprised. As expected, the turns were very smooth, but surprisingly, so were the accelerations, they just happened to be 2x as long with no recovery in between in comparison to the B race. It is also a great feeling (in a new different sort of way) not being the one who does the attacking, rather being the attackee in the A's. Anyway, the pace wasn't too relentless so after about 6 of 21 laps I began to move up and try to help my dad/pete/chris a little bit. And of course, the one move I follow ends up being the longest move of the night! Not my plan by the way. Brian Batke attacked with Andy Clarke right on him and I was on Drew's wheel as he bridged across. It was pretty nice having the two 16 year-olds + one RideOn guy who seems under 20 go across. I took my first two turns at the front getting no "free" rotations like Drew and RideOn got....And being after Brian and before Andy in the rotation didn't help for the 'ole legs. But after 3 turns through and 2 full laps. I sat up a little bit, realizing I couldn't take it much longer. Thankfully, I could see my dad and Chris coming across with another 3-4 in tow...ahhh.. a perfect excuse to go back in the field. Thanks mates. This lead group eventually swelled to about the 12 superheroes of the race but Team Ernie/ Some Spin pulled it all back with 4 to go for another field sprint. As much as I'm mad I couldn't stick it in the break til it swelled up, at least I gave it a go considering I was worried about not making it to the finish of the 44 mile race earlier that night. Also, I think our site is doing Westlake Results this year?

solar panels and masters racing

2011-05-17T14:36:00.000-07:00

On the ride home from Chippewa, there is half a bridge out. There's a stop light that's solar powered and we always get "stuck" at it. We always joke that it never turns green because we never get any sun.

About a mile south of the Chippewa loop, there is some major water buildup.

This is part of the Chippewa loop when me and my mom were re-conning it on Mother's day. This is looking up right after there was the crash/split in the cat 4 race.
Here is the slight kicker up to the ball fields. The picture is slightly imbalanced but the road is still built on the camber, not into it, which makes it harder. I wanted to counter over the top of this but was boxed in.

The whole course is slightly tilted which makes for some slightly interesting racing, and a whole lot of 2x riding, even if it's easy, versus a fully flocked across the road field. Nate Loman solo'ed away for the Win on Saturday at RATL in the Master's. He went on lap 3 of 18 and held a steady 15-20 seconds the whole way. It was fun seeing someone trying to go across with three or four of our teammates grabbing his wheel.... I am glad that suffering on his wheel up Boston Mills a few Wednesday's ago pays off for him.

My dad was allergic/sick to something all weekend. He got 5th to 3 teammates and Jim Yankush Saturday. Then on Sunday, he was feeling better, probably due to all the climbing, but Phil Hines (another master's teammate) came up to him and said he was going to win today. So when Phil attacked and John Lowry and Jason Suppan went with him, my dad was relatively confident. No one tried to get across so my dad patiently waited until the gap was big enough to attack with one to go. He rolled across the line in 4th solo cutting the gap in half to the break in the last 3 miles but quickly learned Phil got 3rd out of three in the break. He literally grabbed his stuff under the pavilion and rode home in anger without collecting his pay (I later got it). Like, the most angry I've seen him after a race (that wasn't Westlake) in a very long time. Rudy Sroka doesn't like to lose. Neither does Robert Sroka, he is just more accustomed to it. I am curious to see if my dad ever lets a teammate roll up the road again even if my dad is suffering like there is no tomorrow and just covered six back to back moves.

not for a lack of effort

2011-05-16T14:23:00.000-07:00

This was one of those weekends you look at on the racing calendar and you know it's gonna hurt. But once again, I did a lot of hurting taking a lot of wind and got very little on the result side. But I could have sat in and got the same result (well maybe Sunday....if only), but not hurt so much. Hopefully it will pay off later though. Saturday I decided to run my PowerSnap for the first time at RATL and I set new 5 second, 1 minute, 2 minute, 3 minute, 4 minute, 5 minute, 10 minute, 20 minute, 30 minute, and 40 minute powers, by a lot, too.

Saturday at RATL I had Johnny to help, so our plan was for me to get something going very early, and him to counter it very hard. So we roll through the neutral start and iJump from the start line and do a full on hot lap per cross, average speed: 28mph, 37mph jump on the downhill, gap: about as much as that picture above with everyone right there. Apparently I wasn't the only one feeling froggie™..

After that it got pretty RideOn gayed out where they went to the front with their dudes and half of them sat up and the other half rolled away. Johnny was on it but somehow got put back in the field with the break rolling it up to about 20 seconds. With two RideOn's in the break, along with one Competitive Gear, and all of their teammates licking their chops, getting across was possible, but you had to do it by yourself, and drag at least one of each of their guys across too. The gap stretched to almost 30 seconds and the primes began being rang for the field. I won two of them but was later told they were given to the break after all (then don't ring the bell and say its for us)

So with about 5 to go, Johnny and I tried taking some seriously long pulls to get it close. We did get it back down around 15 seconds, but then were too winded to get across. Then I got crashed into the curb in the sprint by another RideOn dude. Awesome. I've never screamed so much at the poor guy after calling it out. But he was nice enough to say sorry.

___________________________________________

Sunday was Chippewa. My dad and I pedaled down (about an 8 mile warmup) then sat under the tent hoping the rain would stop but it didn't. I really wanted to work for Johnny because he said he was feeling good and with a hill-top sprint I thought he couldn't mess it up. I was a little nervous about making it over the top of the hill but it was no where near as hard as last year. Two of five laps in, there was a pretty good crash and a huge field split to boot. I think there were probably 15 in the group left of maybe 30. It got down to about 12 with one lap to go and I continued to work at the front making the pace hard enough apparently to not let any attacks happen, but even if they were John would be on them.

The last time up the baseball field pitch, a Stark guy put in a dig, but I got majorly boxed in wanting to go for the counter. Anyway, after the descent there was 6 of us (3 or 4 RideOn, John, Me) ahead of another 6 or 8 with maybe five seconds so I set a good pace right up to the last steep pitch making sure there'd only be 5 going into the finish. Well I managed to blow up one RideOn guy and myself, leaving John with 2 RideOn's going into the last 300m. Long story short, he got 3rd and I couldn't keep it together and got passed by all those 6 behind us only beating the guy I originally blew up. Not what we were looking for. The results say I lost 33 seconds in the last 300m uphill. Awesome. Maybe it was too much work on my part and not being there to the very end to cover one last move, maybe it was because RideOn was at the front a whole 3 minutes of the hour long race, but in reality, those two are just about the strength of John with the smarts of Brad Carvey, so I guess I can't be too disappointed (but I will be)

no cigar

2011-05-11T13:50:00.000-07:00

I feel this year like I'm a million times stronger this year, but, does that mean I'm racing a million times dumber since I am getting the same results? Either way, I thought I played it out smart yesterday at Westlake but once again, could not pull off a W, let alone a top 3. Did everyone get stronger/faster/smarter or is my top end just totally gone after doing a winter of true zone 2 all winter? As I continue to question myself my little powermeter says I am going stronger than ever, so I am going to just start doing the A races. Forgot learning how to win, it's impossible anyway! I am just going to ride/race my self out of this funk either way.

new title same story

2011-05-09T15:11:00.000-07:00

Oh, I know you are probably sick of hearing my lame excuses about how I lost another RATL, so I won't put you through it this week. Needless to say I will be staying at cat4 for the rest of my life. Well at least this week I made the most of it and made some people suffer at least a little bit. I'll be back for more Saturday though!

I also think I may be doing Westlake (more than likely my last B race there) again tomorrow night so I am pumped to lose another field sprint! Get ready for another lackluster race report.

a, b, and c

2011-05-05T14:15:00.000-07:00

The average blog post is written about:
a) how cool your bike now looks
b) how bad the races have been going
c) how terrible the weather has been.

I will discuss each topic a little today.

a) My dad finished up my tubulars two weeks ago and here are some pictures of them. I ended up with the tan sidewalls which are pretty old school, yet neat enough for racing now-a-days. He also finished up my MTB wheels with pretty orange hubs and all. We are having a little confusion with the tubless kit stan's sent us but we should get it worked out soon enough. That means more pictures!

b) The logistics worked out enough for me and dad to make it to Westlake Tuesday night. Unfortunately, the logistics didn't work out for many other people so we had the lowest totals of all time, 12 B's and I think 9 A's. But, in everyone's defense, it had rained like 3 inches all throughout the day. The B race started really slow for a few laps getting used to the new pavement and the wetness, until I decided to split things up a bit more. I got it down to 5 people and due to some weird circumstances we had 4 going into the final lap. I more or less had been the only one taking a pull worth a damn during the whole race so figured, what the heck, might as well lead out the last lap too. I did that and was the jerk who took each turn at 4mph then shot up to 30mph to make the guys work at least a little. Well, I managed to tire out one enough to get 3rd in the sprint. Whatever.

c) I have only shown the bare skin of my legs 3 times all year. I have only worn just shorts 2 times. And I have been without sleeves on the arms 1 time. It is cinco de mayo and it's terrible. The average high for this week is generally between 64° and 68° and it's been just above 40°...

getting closer....still not there

2011-05-01T17:36:00.000-07:00

I felt like being aggressive at the Covered Bridge on Sunday. I have put in a ton of time on this course over the spring and winter and wanted a result to show for. I didn't quite get it, but I was at least more satisfied than last time.

Fast forward to the last lap. I followed lots of moves and never really got outside the top 10 places in the field waiting to hunt down attacks and make 'em stick. Sadly, between a mega-alliance (like WWII alliance) of Soupcan and RideOn, no other singles had a real serious shot at staying away even with one of their guys, unless, you were like 30% stronger than everyone. Which I obviously am not. It was getting sketchy slow, but I knew exactly how much I had in the tank and wanted to wait until at least we crossed the railroad tracks before any big shots were flown.

Fast forward to 500m to go. Right after the last bit of roughish pavement and before the parking lot, another Soupcan rider goes and gets a good 20 yards instantly, and no RideOn guys go or pull from the front. I get ants in my pants at like 450m to and go across which takes to the crossing of Ira. This is in the bag with no Alliance chasing me down, I thought. So I gave my last little kick past Soupcan and got 5m on him, another 10m to the field with close to 100m to go...ANDDD......They all come zooming by and RideOn/Soupcan still takes all the places in the top 5. Whoops. Couldn't wind it up anymore though so I am content. I roll in probably still in the top 10 but at about 10mph slower so I try to stay out of the way.

Still not enough top end. Last year I could have made this stick in July. But my better base should keep me going well longer, so maybe I'll hold out a result one of these times.

what am i doing wrong

2011-04-30T17:44:00.000-07:00

Went with the same moves. Rode around the right people. Did my fair share of work. Got the same result.

New idea is to wear my helmet cam next week. Upload it and have my dad and the internerds analyze what I am doing wrong. Speaking of the 'ole Pops, he won again.. this time in the field sprint! Mixing it up and still getting the same result! Dan Quinlan also yelled at Jeff to take a pull. That may be the last time anyone ever purposely pisses off Jeff Pendelberry.

Winner winner chicken dinner. Cat 5 to Cat 2: 42 days later.....

ok race. great day.

2011-04-24T07:24:00.002-07:00

The plan was simple in the cat 4 race with only Johnny and I. Get in each noteworthy break and make it work. No need to necessarily break apart the race all by yourself, but then again, don't let it come down to a field sprint. Well, Johnny succeeded. On lap 4 to5 I covered back to back moves of which no one ended up working and the counter to a prime went, and appropriately, Johnny was right on it. Their lone group of 5 started coming back and 2 of the dudes came all the way back thinking that was it, but John and two others pushed on eventually building over a minute advantage over the rest. Knowing I would screw up the field sprint, John did all by his lonesome on the podium capturing the top step. Always remember, VOTE FOR ~~PEDRO~~ JOHNNY! It was a pretty good feeling knowing I had a strong dude in the break with my jersey on, especially since the bike genie's didn't grant me great legs today.

After my piss-poor boxed in sprint attempt at the line, I quickly chamoised out, and watched my dad do the same thing as Johnny. Went with the counter after Joe, or new teammate, was reeled in. Then played strongman in the break with Zak and Ray eventually winning the sprint, too. Not to mention, finishing the senior race slightly otf of the field immediately after! Sam and Sally got away early and created a huuuuuuge gap on the windy day, finishing in that order. Not the picture, my word order. Then some mega-tactics were used in the P-R-O race since PM was still feeling under the weather. The two major teams represented in the break, RGF and Carbon, both looked a lot at each other and were wondering who was going to win now that 'ole Paulito wasn't up there.

But eventually RGF p/b Cleveland Clinic p/b Felt Bicycles and Zipp Weaponary with association of Shimano and Hammer Nutrition took the bull by the horns shipping off Jim Baldesare on the last lap, with enough time to thank Polo. And local mountain bike stud, Jeff Pendleberry and sprint guru Jeremy Grimm took 2nd and 3rd, also a big part of Team Polo. Gartburrito also put in a valiant effort in a small group off the front of the field after winning a very special prime. And was last not to get lapped. I was feeling better after the race, too, so Johnny, Fletcher, and I caught up the Carbon boys for a little bit then rode home with Shawn for another fifty miles tacked onto an early morning race. And, as per usual, I felt awesome during that ride but not the race. Ho hum, rest week coming. Of course, now I don't feel like I need/deserve it.

2 done and no wins

2011-04-19T17:45:00.000-07:00

Sunday was another local Covered Bridge bike race. The plan was to ride down again and race, then get some more k's in by riding home. Well, I managed to do that well again, but not do the race part right.

Fast forward to one lap to go in the race (of five) and Soupcan had the Suppan Jason off the front by about 15 seconds. My usual planned spot of attack was pretty well paced already, so I waited until the final mile on Riverview, that leads to the final one or so mile finishing straight. So maybe 2.5 miles to go total. Jason was visible and I was sitting about 3rd wheel. The two guys in front of me pulled off and I dope-ily stuck my nose into the wind. I drew out singlespeed mountain man Lorson but didn't even get halfway across the gap before blowing up. Lorson wouldn't pull through since his teammate was off the front (I probably wouldn't have either- but then again Soupcan's tactics always surprise!) and we slowly drifted back into the pack after the railroad turn. Dumb. Rolled in about a second after the field after getting smoked into the back with about 200m to go. I suck and Suppan held it off still.

Still, here are some goodish stats from the day:
70.06 miles
2,270kj
206w normalized power for over 4 hours
new 15,20,30, and 40 powers*
52 minutes at or above 174bpm
*= only from this calenderic year

coordinating configurations

2011-04-15T12:25:00.000-07:00

Old bikes, re-used parts, new pictures. Here is the road bike configuration. Pretty similar to last year except with Zipp Bars and Stem, Force shifters, a 1090r chain, a matching pt/mavic front wheel, and my new favorite saddle. I guess it isn't all that similar. I will post a picture later with the tubulars and the white bar tape and it's full black on white combination. It looks even cooler.

And here is the mountain bike with the full XX. It has the same seatpost, fork, and handlebars, but that is about it carrying over from last year. I just recieved orange grips and a slightly better looking (but better yet, fitting) so another picture for this bike is to come soon. She is also getting some new wheels soon, too. Lacing some of these. (Orange theme) To some of these. Should be my most coordinated bicycles yet.

phlat

2011-04-10T12:45:00.001-07:00

I went down to the race today hoping for some phat pockets but ended up with a flat instead. It is pretty embarrassing for some reason. Not only because I am the sponsors' head mechanics' son, or that I re-conned the course probably between 8-10 times this winter (with multiple laps each time), or that I had just ridden 22 miles on crappy roads, or had to crawl my bike back 2 miles to the parking lot, but because I rode through crap roads all winter with glass, chunky salt, sharp rocks and never even wiped off my tires and got 2 flats total in about 1200 miles. And I am pretty phat (overweight) this year, too. But, riding to and fro the race, even though only fifteen miles of the actual race, I still got in over 60 miles. So I will take it out next week, just not on my rims this time. Also, Johnny didn't win today like I told him to do.

meh

2011-03-23T17:19:00.001-07:00

Yes, it has been a while. Well, I finished a good 3 week tempo block around 35 hours then took a nice easy week. I thought that was good chunk for someone my age but apparently not. Now it is time to start going hard while keeping up the volume and racing, too. But more on that later. That is about all my news for now.

___________________________

Also, I was telling my dad about how good my single leg no handed riding (along with some trackstanding - must be able to read labels on rim to count) has gotten on the rollers. He gave me the crazy "I don't believe you- you have eight heads" look. So here is some slight (headless) proof. I want to do a more professional video with some better music etc. but that might have to wait until I have some free time. That might be in 8 weeks when school lets out sadly. But by then I already may have forgotten how to ride the rollers and have long forgotten about this post.

races start

2011-03-19T15:04:00.000-07:00

This weekend for most people. I am not racing. I won't be until April because apparently I save my travel miles for cyclocross. I am pretty anxious to get in a field again. I've been doing some good group rides and think I understand racing a little more and might have some powerz to do something at least. We'll see. Here is what I've got so far:

__________________________________________________

April:
April 10 Akron Valley Circuit Race #1
April 17 Akron Valley Circuit Race #2 / Steel City Showdown
April 23 RATL #1
April 30 RATL #2
May:
May 1rst Presque Isle TT / Akron Valley Circuit Race #3
May 7 RATL #3
May 14 RATL #4
May 15 Chippewa Creek Road Race

pavé

2011-03-18T15:28:00.001-07:00

So me and my dad (with a few teammates) have been enjoying the weather a bit lately. With the dry roads I've been doing a lot more 2 and 3 hour rides than last year, which hopefully, will make me a lot faster. Here are pretty much the standard loops. Saturday we rode down and did 3 laps at the Covered Bridge course, then took Major home.

And Sunday we played around a bit more riding mostly on the opposite side of the valley. Then ended coming up the Columbine. This is my road bike configuration, so far! I have a few other items on order through QBP that include white bar tape, a cooler chain, and new shifters.

on helmets

2011-03-14T17:20:00.000-07:00

I've been able to ride outside these past few weekends and maybe a day or two during the week and have been seeing or riding with a few people. I am down with looking cool and staying warm on rides but (I have a problem with everything).... "We all know that rockin' the winter cap is very pro and makes you feel pretty cool, but you know what else is not so sweet? Brain hemorrhages." I guess it just makes me mad since people complain about helmets being too warm in the summer, then not using one in the winter. I know these might not be the same exact people but I put those phrases together and assume everyone speaks for everyone. So I present you with a few options: [caution ahead:ugly kid alert] Standard lightweight winter cap, available everywhere.

Basic pro-tour cap. Available for $2. Also note slight head growth when PRO cap is ridden with. The homemade cap. Cut the sleeves of an old shirt, put on head, cover with another cycling cap. Most stylist, comfortable version, but therefore most expensive. Or, incase you are really nerdy like me you can go custom. I may post some routes I've been riding as of recently so you will know to avoid me, if, that is you don't wear a helmet.

print screening stuff and describing it

2011-03-09T13:12:00.000-08:00

I studied the calendar a little bit the other day and was absolutely shocked at how little time there is before the first race. For some reason, it usually seems like the weather is better in mid-march. But I then had to check that, and it's only 10° off so far, which for northeast ohio, is nothing.

In something besides the weathers, the new lake effect site is almost ready for the public. Outside of a few color changes, a few small html revisions, and a few more pictures, it looks pretty good. I know you can't wait for another site that won't get updated!The parts are rolling in pretty quickly for the race bikes, too. My road and mtb are now rideable and nearly raceable, just a few more details. Then some pictures.

one extra hour

2011-03-03T03:39:00.001-08:00

It's pretty funny how far an extra hour can get you. Wednesday we had an early release from school so I got home an hour or so early. With some motivation from the sun, I got my stuff together and got a LOT done.

Before six o'clock I had:

tinkered with my bike a bit,
got some homework done,
rode for 2.5 hours,
showered,
and put away all my dirty and clean clothes.

I am curious as to if I got home at 1:45 everyday if I'd literally ride 18 hours a week. Probably.

crunching

2011-02-26T18:35:00.001-08:00

(posting is from Wednesday, then under the line, Saturday)

Last Year's Test

Around this time each year, good ole cabin fever sets in and I start obsessing over these little digits on a bright yellow computer that sits on my stem. Now that I am done with my 2 week swine flu bout (actually it was a common cold combined with bronchitis) I am ready to start basing some riding off this little guy.

The whole point of this week is to determine my "zones" for training. Not necessarily my pinpoint lactate threshold YET, because I won't be ready for that training for another month or so, but enough gauge to tell %Vo2 or tempo. Wednesday I wanted to clear out the legs from a solid weekend of riding and some core work on Tuesday with some fun, every zone hitting, intervals.

Wednesday WORKOUT
10 minute warmup
20 minute zone 2 @ 191 watts
5 minute z1 based on hr
5 minute %Vo2 @ 250 watts
5 minute z1 based on hr
2X2 minute LT @ 305 watts
4x30 second 100+rpm increasing power
15 minute cooldown aim for 85+rpm

I am pretty sure my LT sits at 300 watts give or take about 10 (don't want to be specific at all, no guarantees) When I was riding at 310, my heart rate pretty quickly shot to 183bpm, then stopped dead in it's tracks. I am hopefully this means 300 is the number as that sets my threshold power (ftp) around 4.28w/kg @ my current 70kg (by the way, getting sick and losing your appetite for 2 weeks shrinks your stomach) I think this sounds about right comparing it to the teammates who took the test in my previous post, they who finish well in front of me especially on the road bicycle. But, they were on the road bikes which I bet is another 10 watts right there. Again but, compared to people outside Cuyahoga County, this number seems way too high. So I am pretty excited to go into the Lab on Saturday for the REAL RESULTS. There are just too many variables even when riding the trainer.

When I start talking w/kg I always think of Ray simply becuase he does well at a lot of the races I am at. When Ray's w/kg was 4.3 he was pounding out 27mph runs at the Presque Isle time trial. Gran it, Ray had a pretty trick TT setup and a less frontal drag so there is that. For some reason, I don't think I could go 27mph right now. But my powermeter says I could, sort of. I don't know. But I will know on Saturday.

Picture from Last Year
_____________________________________________

RESULTS: Well my 2x2 minute tests turned out to be pretty accurate. I warmed up the legs and the trainer for about 15 minutes then churned out 100, 120, 140, 160, 180, 200, 220, 240, 260, 280, 300, 320, and 350 increments of one minute until I couldn't anymore. One thing to note is my powertap was a set 20-25 watts lower each interval, only getting accurate past 500 watts. There were some "sandbagger" coughs from the employees about having a little too much breath at the end but hey, at least I might be able to improve some doing another one of these in March. Still, my heart rate didn't do the big jump going anaerobic but I still think I got the right number of threshold, 320 watts @ 70kg, or almost 4.6w/kg but didn't push enough to get me the bragging rights. I still had a little gas left for the 30 second effort and managed to eek out a 631 watt average. Not my best ever, but also not on my TT bike on the trainer, but for that the best ever.

Slave Labor on the Six13's

Got started on the new drivetrain for the road bicycle.

something new to look at

2011-02-25T10:09:00.000-08:00

No news is apparently good but not for blogging. I have been sitting on a few posts (and the couch) way too much as of late. Basically I had to skip riding/life for two weeks in part to severe bronchitis/swine flu so not much has happened. I may have some semi-interesting news tomorrow but for now you are succumbed to this crap below.

I've been trying to finish my winter chores in case the weather decides to turn. Apparently the whole weather thing isn't getting the message.

Richard Sachs::
Gutted/Broken Rival Shifters put on
Clean Chain
Put on a massive training gear (sissied out on this one but still 42-18 outside probably 6-8 times before the flu struck)

TT Bike::
Swap to Sram Force 175mm Cranks
Get Sram Rival Brakeset
Adjust front shifting
Clean Chain
Really, really work on fit

Road Bike::
New Chain
Rebuild with parts from A Bike (red crankset from B Bike)
Piece together a set of tubulars
Extra Coats of Bike LUST before build

B Bike::
New Chain
Full Fenders
Build up matching front pt wheel (ordered not here yet)
Put on Time ATAC XS’s
FSA 172.5’s with NO pedal spacers (slight cleat modification to follow)

MTB::
~~New Chain~~
Garmin Cadence/ Head unit
Nokon Cables
XX Shifters
Decide if I need more than an 11-28 in the rear (26t up front)
Put back together training wheels

I'll take some sick pictures of my bikes once they are finished and I can walk outside without getting frostbite. The top TT picture is a before and below is an after a prior visit to the shop. I ended up working on the fit with Sean on the computrainer testing each angle a few times from either a different stem or spacer stack height after measuring my correct saddle height.

Here are the angles of my various positions. I tried out two stems in five different positions. And then I would ride 3 minutes in my 39-18 at 96rpm. I wouldn't flinch a muscle and Sean would record the power/speed and pedaling efficiency. The results seemed logical but I wasn't expecting to put on a stem with 10mm less of length from last year. Then again, I didn't have my saddle two inches past the recommended use line or have any spacers stacked underneath. My balance of weight, though more, is equal from last year and feels fast.

Between our very analytical brains, Sean and I found a few variables that I will test out later but for now the position feels dialed and looks cooler and was about 20g lighter.

bailing

2011-02-14T15:11:00.001-08:00

I was still sick on the weekend and bailed on my Power Test but Jonathan and Gartmac still did theirs so I recorded wattages and gave them the tips to cheat the old compu-meter after I started putting together my mountain bike. I get my dosage of pain on this machine this Saturday. At least I am bit more motivated now and have a # to expect. But as always, we shall see.

Before this last thaw, the icicles were topping out around fifteen feet. That is pretty cool. I also didn't really go outside this weekend. That is not pretty cool.

Proving my vampire status, I taped off the last of the light into the basement. I may or may not be hydrating on blood as of late too (for my threshold test, you know)

actual sickness

2011-02-11T11:45:00.001-08:00

Well I managed two and half weeks of feeling well and actually riding (7.5hrs in half week, 11.5hrs, then 11hrs the last week) a bit before I get sick again. This time seems more real as I have already missed two days of school and had a fever that lasted three days. Now I realize what it feels like to really be sick. The only fault in being sick at this point in the year is being another week behind training for Presque Isle, missing my Conconni Testing, and of course, missing school. I am feeling slightly better now but I am more than likely going to sit tomorrow and sunday out, completing a week full of non-exercise. Now not only did I miss training for Presque Isle, I am losing fitness!

From this setup on the trainer. To this.....

winter bike

2011-02-03T13:25:00.001-08:00

Sram finally came through with my replacement warranty shift mechanism so I finally finished up my all black and white (minus the front wheel which i may update soon) fendered bike. Don't worry, the unslammed stem is just for the winter with my 564302 layers of clothing.I thought the bulk of the death storms were over but considering we got over a foot of snow this week and 2 days off from school, it is definitely NOT over. Sram's latest version of Rival seems more compact, slightly closer to the bars, and has the words Rival swapped from before. Looks too much like Apex in my opinion, but hey, at warranty price I'm not complaining. Semi-Custom spacers with the rear fender drilled. Fully sealed. Double Chainring?!? Slightly reformed rear fender tightened to seatstay bridge. 172.5mm training cranks. New idea for cross, gonna see how I like it. Also, buy my parts.

is this thing on?

2011-01-31T14:50:00.000-08:00

Well, I am tired of looking at the post below this one, as I am sure you have been too for the last two weeks. It hasn't been a lack of time this winter, more a lack of news. Overall not too much to report over here in snowmageddon, besides I have scored the first day of February off with a snow day today. The weather man was actually right as the storm came in around 12 last night, dumped off about 3 inches and got really cold so right when decision time came to close the schools, it was terrible out. Perfect, not as if it is nice out now, it just isn't the day after tomorrow. In Cyclocross News (what else is new), the UCI calendar came out for next year. This is the first year America's Nationals will take place in January FYI (if you have been living on another planet recently) So, the schedule in the U.S. has been moved around a good bit including the classic UCI3 Cincinnati weekend being pushed into the second week of November. Hopefully that means global warming won't takes it toll and push the races to 80°F+ like each of the last three years. My schedule is relatively limited as it is every year especially since this following fall/winter I want to acheive perfect attendance in my junior year of high school. So it is basically the same as last year, with a few more possibilites: the USGP weekend in Louisville and Nationals. The two other races I noted in red are races I'd really love to do, but it would depend on when the State Cyclocross race is, and how the lack of budget is affecting me. Nationals would obviously be the big goal of the year even though they are technically in 2012. This would mean anyone going to Nationals (and considering they are in Madison, everyone IS going) would really like a few local races in the final weeks of 2011 (can you say christmas weekend at Broadview) Just some thoughts.

bad timing

2011-01-19T09:48:00.000-08:00

I usually get sick around this time of year. I usually have the option of resting or just keeping doing whatever I'm doing. Two weeks ago, I started to feel the hints of a cold coming on and did this and knocked it out fast.

The correct way to deal with an illness is this.
1. Only eat light foods and don't eat any meat or milk products
2. Throw away your toothbrush and buy a new one. Wash all of your sheets and clothes, no double dipping on the already worn workout clothes.
3. Drink your sports drink of choice non-stop, chase with tea
4. Htfu, pull on your grown up pants, and go out for a hard as nails ride, run, or ski while overdressed to sweat out, cough up, and breath out any bad juju left in you.
5. Don't do anything else.

I felt very good the next week (11hrs of training, and I felt undertrained) But now this time I am sick enough where I don't have enough energy to do anything. I have midterms this week (7am-11am) so I have bacially went to school, came home, rested, and studied for the next day. Tuesday and Wednesday I had a good rides planned considering I had the afternoon to myself but was ill. I hate using the word ill. It makes me feel old. On the brightish side, I get out at 11am Thursday and have off until Monday, hopefully I can get some quality rides in. (My 20 minute power test is planned Feb. 12th and then I began to tack on some intensity into my rides)

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In other crappy news, after constantly calling out cyclists, the plain dealer finally got a winter sport, cross country skiers. Those fifty pound skiers really do the damage compared to those fifty thousand pound golf carts.

i have a dream

2011-01-17T06:52:00.000-08:00

That one day, for my sixteenth birthday, I would recieve Sram XX instead of a car. My dream came true.

wordle

2011-01-12T12:47:00.000-08:00

Apparently I am like 4 years behind on this site, but hey, I am like 4 years ahead of everyone not spending 7.5 ho urs on facebook a day. "Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text." The funny part is when I plugged in my blog, the words "work" and "bike" came up largest. The "bike" makes sense considering this is a cycling site but "work" doesn't because I refuse to do that "work" stuff. I really like the way the black backrounds look. Also, I think "mtb" combined with "MTB" would have been my largest cloud had I not known how to use CAPS LOCK.

Anyone care to guess who's this one's below is?

Who talks about cars on their blog anyway?

trainer views

2011-01-11T17:21:00.000-08:00

From this setup on the trainer. To this.....

winter blues

2011-01-11T12:59:00.000-08:00

I would guess little news is okay in January because I am suffering from that for sure. I've been putting a little bit of work into the bikes, and starting to get a nice riding/core/snowshoe regime going. We are getting dumped with snow after a lull during the Christmas/New Years Week. Probably over 2 inches the past 2 hours. Here are some recent pictures: My road and training bike have been out of commission recently, so I have been solely on the Richard Sachs. Which has actually been great despite the lack of gears.

The magical ratio - 42-18 (girly) free. Woah, what little gadget snuck on there.

I also got something new for my butt. My new saddles are the Bontrager Inform RXL. It runs about 6mm wider at its midpoint vs. my Fi'zi:k Pave Sports (100mm in) which I would think will open up my knees a touch more for a more vertical alignment over my pedal (more power) Also, the weight is a big factor. My old saddle weighed in at 297g while this at 178g. That is 119g which is more than a quarter of a pound lost in the saddle alone on each bike! The Inform RXL may be 40g heavier than an SLR, but with my budget spending an extra $100 on each seat for at six bikes doesn't work to well.

a fresh start

2011-01-01T08:09:00.000-08:00

My printer and handwriting both kind of suck, so I'll sum up my season with some more suck. The charty says I started 43 races this year. I did 5 mtb races, 14 road/crits, 4 time trials, and 20 cyclocross races. The MTB season started up with mechanicals but finished up with a "W" at the Knob one night, and a second overall in the JB 6hr duo. Satisfying enough for me to quit mtb racing. The road season went decent up until tour of the valley, where I personally fell apart, quickly following my retirement from road racing, at least for 2010. I then re-did base in mid-July to August with a solid bit of mtbing in other parts of the country. I pieced together some good intervals before the first cross race and was in the best ever shape of my life. Then I got super sick and missed a few weeks of training. I followed this up with a nasty crash resulting in a major back seat to cross, barely riding in September. My fitness sucked but I pushed on and eventually found some form for States' before blowing that, too.

The plan next year is to map it out similarly again to 2010, but do it better. I also want to do good in TT's again, particularly Presque Isle in early May. I will coast off that fitness until school ends where I will ride as a job for the summer.

adaptation

2010-12-29T18:35:00.000-08:00

I have found something wrong and write with being young over the past few days. Wrong - I stayed up til maybe 12am two nights in a row. The past three days, I have laid down at about 10pm but sat there WIDE awake until at least 12:30am. How can this happen so quickly? Does my body know I don't have school tomorrow or did I really adapt to changing my sleeping patterns 3 hours different a day that quickly? All I know for sure is, sleeping 10 hours a night for a week straight makes you feel so much better, no matter at what time. Write - Also on the adaptation theme, I started to do some more core work so I won't have to pull out of half my races next year due to back pain. The plan is to start 10 reps x 1 set and work your way up to 20 reps x 2 sets for maximum ab-ability. The first workout I did, I warmed up a little with a walk on the treadmill and was crying-for-mom-suffering by the end. The second time I completed the workout, I warmed up a little more with some very light stretching, but I did 50% more workload, and can barely feel the effort sitting here 6 hours later. That is a good sign. It felt 50% better during, too.

winter

2010-12-22T12:56:00.001-08:00

I put a lot of stuff on my plate this winter hoping it would work out better for racing next year considering this year didn't go the way I wanted. Outside of actually training, these are some of the projects I want to focus on:

Work on trainingpeaks.com until my mind goes.
Remove tread from used mtb tire and put it on road shoes aiming for a stiffer mtb shoe.
Repack all pedals with grease.
Clean all cassettes and chainrings.
Apply wet lube to all bikes for the winter.

Then at Broadview Heights, I want to make a cyclocross park for real. It obviously won't be this official since we don't live in Boulder, but, I still would like to get it enough to have a solid practice course where you could practice everything relatively legally and within a 1 mile radius.
So Broadview::
Cut in stairs onto gravel path
Begin a nice smoothed out singletrack section in za woods
Repack entry to bridge to stairs, then cover bridge with something very grippy (see above photo for said bridge to stair combo pack)
Find ways around stone path to oil drillers (or, mandate clinchers at park)
Grind up soild to implicate sand somewhere in za woods

Onto the bikes.

Dial in fits with Sean on all bikes.

Richard Sachs::
Gutted/Broken Rival Shifters put on
Clean Chain
Put on a massive training gear (work on lowwww end power for big muscles)

TT Bike::
Swap to Sram Force 175mm Cranks
Get Sram Rival Brakeset
Adjust front shifting
Clean Chain
Really, really work on fit

Road Bike::
New Chain
Rebuild with parts from A Bike (red crankset from B Bike)
Piece together a set of tubulars
Extra Coats of Bike LUST before build

B Bike::
New Chain
Full Fenders
Build up matching front pt wheel (open pro w/ pt front hub)
Put on Time ATAC XS’s
FSA 172.5’s with NO pedal spacers (slight cleat modification to follow)

MTB::
New Chain
Garmin Cadence/ Head unit
Nokon Cables
XX Shifters
Decide if I need more than an 11-28 in the rear (26t up front)
Put back together training wheels

MIGHT as WELL call IT ovcx

2010-12-20T16:10:00.001-08:00

This will probably be a bit jumbled as I wrote this on multiple dates at multiple rage levels. So beware and let's hope you are a local so you know what I am talking about a little bit.

While the series is still a little fresh in everyone's mind: I should start bringing up next year's plans. I have some pretty good (in my mind) ideas of what I want to do with our cyclocross series next season. Yes, I italicize "our" because if you have an event, you are a big part of the series, especially when you have been putting it on for the past 12 years (even though you are getting ruled out of it this year, haha) HERE is what they are doing down south, arguing on the internet, so let's get to it.

My Plan for Daily Race Schedule:

11: 30 minute event - C Men (Cat 4) and Juniors (u18) start 30 seconds after and C Women (Cat 4) start another 30 seconds after

1145: 40 minute event - B Men (Cat 3,4) and Singlespeed? - note time gap (30 minutes) in between until Master's (old guys need their warmup, and officals need a little break)

1: 40 minute event - Masters (40+ and 50+) and Women Open starting 3 minutes later (divided into under 35 and over 35)

2: 60 minute event - A Men (Cat 1,2,3)

Arguments: Women - we don't have enough women for a separate 1/2/3, 3, and 4 race so I divided it up into three categories (cat 4, open under 35, open over 35). I didn't know whether to put the women open's race with B men, or masters, but I will do some calculations later to figure out field sizes then put them with the least amount on course (no traffic for women) Technically, we should start the women first (generally under 10 racers, followed by the B race) Masters - so many we need to split up the B race in half, cut out a few in the A's/C's, and have a good size field with a wide variety of riders (still ok) divided by 40+ and 50+. This will be a spread out field, but would be competitive throughout. Singlespeed - This isn't Portland, there are no singlespeeders. Just kidding, if interest is shown, this would be a good one to run with the B field. NOT OVCX - I think the great part about our series IS the lack of categories. I hate going to a race where they combine fields or don't have enough numbers for at least the first few people to get upgrade points. It is totally wrong to have 6 separate Master's categories. Maybe its because I am not aged well enough, but, having more than 2 Master's categories is VERY excessive when the total race gets mayyyybe 200 racers. Maybe. Then having 4 junior categories when the majority of last year we HAD 4 juniors in the race, total.

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At this point in the year, we MIGHT get two dates on the schedule for Lake Effect promoted races. I don't quite realize how or why this is happening. #WTF. I seriously thought we (being team lake effect) were going to have 4-5 races this season (Boughton, Kirtland, Kent, Broadview for sure) but all the dates are already filled up. It is not as if we can't put on a Saturday race followed by a Sunday race with a different promoter, BUT, generally most people have to work on Friday so the course would have to be put up on race day AND I know quite a few racers who have children/wives/lives that don't put them in the situation to race a double weekend more than once or twice a year, so they would miss series points, be out of contention, then may not be as interested in the overall. Also, "no dates after the Thanksgiving weekend," if I remember correctly this is cyclocross NOT ROAD RACING. My proposition is obviously to run a series right against the big dawg neocx series. This is definitely not the best solution, but, when you want to put on races and race dates are set 2 DAYS AFTER the end of the prior year, there is no solution. It is like a bidding game that everyone will complain about shortly after playing. To spit even more in our faces, the large majority of these races don't have permission from the park/grounds to have the race (all of them don't besides Brett's weekend - parent's property (he might not have even asked his dad yet)) I heard Wendy Park wasn't asked until two weeks prior to have the race this year, but was on the schedule 2 months in advance. I am just so enraged at all this. Simplicity is the key, everyone thought. Remember, it is just a bunch of lycra clad racers going around in circles.
If you've made it this far, thank you. All Comments are greatly appreciated and needed.

an appropriate ending to the script

2010-12-16T14:35:00.001-08:00

Cap City #7 didn't go to well. I was riding inside the top 5 (of the A RACE!!!) for almost two laps when my rear derailleur cable froze to my frame, then slid out from my force rear derailleur. This left me in the 39-11 gear, only, with my cable flopping through the wind. I realized this wasn't an option considering the race winner only had his 3 easiest gears functioning, and won. That is how sticky/sloppy slow it was. Race over, season over. Nothing like doing well, only to be let down majorly. But I am used to that apparently this season, so I wasn't a debbie downer.

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Based on this site. I don't think I completed a single one of my goals this year so we can skip that section in the cyclocross review of 2010.
BAD

not going - to the chiropractor earlier on (extra segment of vertebrae in my sacral vertebrae that was crammed, right pelvis was 1/2 inch lower than my left one, and, my whole spinal column was twisted to the right slightly all the way down) 15 treatments spread across a month and all better for now

then - NOT riding in September, resting so much with a few dnf's and dns's throw in the mix

32c tires - what was i thinking, by the time I'm a uci elite tires will be electronic or something, 34's make the courses in europe child's play (sven nys quote)

worn - out pedals
majorly - differently sized rims

challenge fango's - i should give them more credit (at Kirtland, ideally similar conditions, after i switched bikes and equal traction as grifo's, etc) but not enough bite still. more a sliding feeling not matter what pressure (played between 20 and 40, sweet spot is lower but still not that grippy) rear tire also wore down after about 15 short rides with minimal pavement. Front tire was wayyy better than rear though.

GOOD
Fully sealed cable systems (gore/nokon)
1 bike single ring, 1 bike double ring
salad and water. as much as you can consume all the time.

water for the final two hours before a cross race. only. Gels = too amped up for me = no 2:30 feeling later but = toooo crazy feeling first lap, followed by a premature bonk

lots of calories the night before race with good sized breakfast if race before twelve, no other food. before state's I consumed this at Olive Garden in the matter of a half an hour:

- 2 salads
- 5 breadsticks
- 1 meatball
- 1 full entre' of cheese ravoli with meat sauce
- 2 dr. peppers
- 2 large waters
Sadly, those stats are no fluke as I have noticed a major increase in energy race day with an enormous meal the night before. Ittez what works I guess.
race at 2, then breakfast, followed by bagel/sandwich three hours out.
recovery food instantly - gatorade perform + clif bar + sleeping in compression
BETTER NEXT YEAR
bigger base of z1,2,3
actually riding during September
working in the powermeter more (do at least 1 race (cross) with it for actually data)
11-28 cassettes all around
starting on the front row
more tire options of course (thinking 4 sets - Grifo, File Tread, 34 typhoon, 33 terra's, meh maybe just suck it up and get rhino's)
stronger core / with at least better short power running
more knowledge - if you make the group after the initial two lap split, the effort will decrease dramatically and you will recover

did he just say what i just said

2010-12-11T16:56:00.000-08:00

Visit cyclingdirt.org for more Videos

He explains the beads around his neck, too.

more nationals coverage

2010-12-11T13:18:00.000-08:00

My dad had a pretty good TT Friday which put him a lot closer to the front than in prior years, at least the system worked a little bit in his favor. Even though he ended up 21st in the TT, he was still 5 rows deep in the 50-54 AG due to prior call-ups for earlier years' results. He managed to move back up to 21st for a pleasing finishing result even with the super epic conditions.

And just to put it in perspective how fast everyone is at Nationals, Jon Card won Ohio's PRO STATE championship, but managed only a 10th in the 45-49 AG yesterday, and was almost 4 minutes behind the winner in a 48 minute race! I want to say he once made the podium (cyclocross AG wise) but has never come close to the win. (But he did get a 2nd and a 6th in this year's road nationals in his age group)

My dad was preriding the course earlier this week and someone caught a picture of him on the flyover catching some air.

this just in from bend

2010-12-09T16:33:00.001-08:00

My dad and Julie are out at Nationals for cyclocross this year in Bend, Oregon once again. Today Julie had two races, age group master's women and singlespeed, with a three hour time split to cure the legs and singlulate the bike. She ended up taking 10th in the 45-49, then getting 4th in the woman's singlespeed. Those are some pretty awesome results and putting them on the same day makes it all the more special.

Now she gets to rest up the rest of the weekend (long weekend, huh) while my dad goes at it Saturday. Our buddy Patrick who we have visited in NM before got 8th in the SS TT after no warmup, then got a front row start only to have his chain break, sound familiar? His teammate Andrew, who is 18, rode wheel to wheel on Wednesday for the win in the B-Open race, eventually taking second in the sprint to the line. Nice job! I'll update more as the results come in!

signs of the apocalypse

2010-12-08T12:04:00.000-08:00

With the random outbreak in snow (went from 95° to 70° to 40° to 15° this year, no inbetweens) I realized something must be up. I checked my email from jawnp and found the answer.

That is right. The man who has made fun of facebook for like 10 years (before it was invented, he made fun of it) and doesn't know how to turn the volume down on the computer.... has a facebook.

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Also, Mac™ almost winning a sprint ?!? Something is up.

revenge at penultimate cap city

2010-12-06T16:04:00.000-08:00

I guess I have been holding a grudge against Cap City for three reasons: 1) They marked me as a DNF two years ago at Alum Creek 2) I went back for revenge last year (for the dnf) but failed to bring toe spikes, and lost catastrophically on the run-ups after leading the majority of the race. 3) I rode a really smooth race at Big Run, but lost to three old guys. Normal people would forget this and go on with the great well run series, but not me.

My warmup was a sluggish pace at best and consisted of 1.5 laps (I usually do about 5, or like 3+trainer time) so I felt really cold (for once) at the start and decided to stay warm I needed to go hard at the start. I needed to rip some "B" field legs off since I have pretending to do the "A's" this year.

The first lap I tried to produce a fast lap (jPows style, fast forward to 9:20) and really test the waters (more like me being dumb style). I did exactly that and had 15 seconds ahead of the BIG pack after lap one of six. The next five laps were boringly hard, as I wasn't feeling too hot but still pushed my limits. Each lap, a group of 8 (smartly riding together on the windiest day ever) would get about 5 seconds on the 3 loooonnng back to back to back straights. Then I felt I needed to open it up more so through the rest of the course I would put back a few of those seconds. I bet the group was getting pretty annoyed and the spectators because it looked as though each lap was similar with a different guy leading the chase group. With two to go, a singlespeed dude was trying to bridge across to me. This was a good motivator as I tried to keep my 15 seconds to him now as he had his 15 on the rest. I managed to hold him off and get the overall "W" in a Cap City B/Masters race.

Onto the A's now for good if I can kick this sickness by Sunday.

waiting for revenge

2010-12-03T15:06:00.000-08:00

I have recently found myself waiting (but still being excited) for these last two weekends of racing to pass before starting anything really different at all. The bikes aren't suffering too bad after some cable replacing, lubing, stretching and a good bit of cleaning the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. My legs also seem to be doing alright so I have done a few short intervals (like the ones on a taper week) to keep them fresh but no where near overtrained. I have been kept busy with homework all week and have only managed 1.5 hours on the bike this week, all on the trainer too (.5 hour recovery ride, 1 hour with some LT and very short sprints) so no worry there. But I find myself not just saving a rebuild/reclean on the bikes and the legs; but rather everything else I usually don't do:

-not cutting in trail in my backyard
-not full on cleaning of the basement
-not really getting into my new basketball league
-not digging too deep into trainingpeaks.com
-not flushing out my computer and downloading new stuff
-not finishing any major blog posts

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Anyway, here are some more pictures from John Bryan last weekend.

Keep in mind all these photos are copied/stolen without any permission. But I will thank Jeff, Chris, and Julie for the shots so I don't get sued. Man, Erick strung it out at the start. I request more sand next year so I can fall more.

cat 3 for life

2010-11-29T15:23:00.000-08:00

Seriously though: white booties, too much or not enough?

Julie kicked things off right with a win in the 3/4 woman's race. After a few cat4 sets of races, I was up in the junior field along with Julie in the singlespeed. Then the course began to change for my first race, junior 15-16. The mud was a lot slicker than the two laps I took before my race, and the whole course was totally (texturally speaking) different than Saturday's preride. The freezing of the night before left the ground hard for the early woman race's, damp for the cat4's, slick for the cat4 master's, and downright wet for the junior/singlespeeds. It was weird but it was what we were all dealt. Then it started reversing this process leaving a sticky consistency for the cat3's, then a bit drier for the elites and elite masters. Not realizing this I had to dab about 53 times for a three lap race in the juniors. Mistakenly I think, they started the first wave of 17-18 year old juniors and singlespeeds, waited thirty seconds, then let the rest of us hundred juniors mass storm the course at once. This lead to some mass confusion/traffic so I jumped early knowing that when you lead first into the passing zones, it already starts to open gaps. After the first lap I had passed a dozen of the 15 singlespeeds, and all of the older juniors besides one. I then dropped the pace down a few notches and tried to stay upright. I managed to do that and caught but didn't pass all but one junior and two singlespeeds, which I was very alright considering. I quickly jumped the tape and made my way to staging for the cat3 race. This was a bit more important to me but having just won the race "I needed to win" I was pretty darn relaxed. I managed to swap transponders, have some dude rip my junior number off, drink a bottle, and let my legs harden to rocks all during staging. This is what happens when you combine cat3 open, cat3 35+, cat45+ all together when everyone and there brother is there to win so they do the 3's. And they all are called up individually by one dude. I got the wholeshot but got jumped going into the first grass turn. I let a few more pass and then said enough. My legs felt like bricks but I knew if I suffer hard for a lap or two they'll come around and I could still make the front group. Exactly as planned and perfectly executed I suffered with all my might battling like no tomorrow for two laps and attached myself to the winning lead group of six. The break was established, like pee-break established. Like the first five guys were talking about who was going to attack established. I sat in for two more laps letting one bike length gaps open into corners I knew I could recover faster through. I would let a bit open through the bunnyhop logs and recover in various spots, I felt smart. I sat on and I studied. I knew where and when to go but just blew it. Our group got 3 to go (of 7?) when I decided to try and move up. One fellow Indianian had about 5 seconds and I felt like bridging and then attacking. I went too fast into a sloppy "S" weave trying to jump past three guys (I was 6th wheel for the first four laps) and smacked against the soft ground. Both feet clipped in, rear wheel misaligned, I access the damage and spend the next fifteen seconds fooling around on the ground letting the group ride away. I guess I must have been on the edge more than I thought since I COULDN'T close the gap back and lost a few more spots. Ahhh... another year as a cat3.... In the end 11th overall (3 old (35+) guys beat me at the end, embarrassing...just yanking) 8th in the 3's Open, 4th Ohioan letting the podium slip by me with 200 meters to go NOT KNOWING.

This instantly started the next part of my day, Pit-Monkeying for the faster dude/dudettes I know. I yelled so much that I lost my voice for Monday. My dad and Jeff dueled for a bit and ended up 4th and 2nd 45+ to Brent. But Brent had Rhino's so that is basically 3 minutes a lap :) The elite open races seemed very tactical and relatively boring for two laps but then it got super serious and shed all but the very very best. I helped pit for Flecher and Johnny and watched a bunch of people's bikes so I had no time for cameras between all the mayhem. I'll probably write even more than this novel tomorrow with some more photos.

no luck this year

2010-11-22T12:31:00.000-08:00

I almost missed writing Kirtland. But in reality, I should have skipped it. After a poor start, I felt pretty good for working on the course the past two days. I was on my teammate Jeff's wheel as he rode us up through into the top 15, his usual. On the first lap, we only got crashed twice and quickly jumped away without too much misery. The second lap though, I went a little hot into a turn with someone in front of me going not quite as fast. Me, trying my best to avoid them swung left into the tape and did my flip it out the tape of the handlebars trick. Except this time, a stake was there and got split in half and jammed into my bike. Broken brake pad, out of true front wheel, and both sides of my brakes shoved beneath my rim. I managed to break loose the brakes, open up the cable, and ride away in last, again. Man, everything happens to me so early in the race I always have to make my way up and I hate it. Seriously, what should I do different, get the hole-shot and get in everyone's way so I can have a clean first lap?

So I grabbed my pit bike and got back three places until the same turn next lap, this time I wasn't so lucky (ha) I wrapped my whole shifter in the tape and created a big superman over the bars and onto my shoulder. Breath knocked out but still in tact, I take a lap (like a crit, ya know) and gather my stuff together and jump back in with the Mac after his flat. He tows me around for a few laps until the leaders are coming up and my race is ending, and I pull to the side. Devastated I couldn't even get a finish, but I still got my forty minutes of racing in. Another day. States.

za course

2010-11-20T15:37:00.001-08:00

Click above for more detail than needed

We got about 75% of the course set up today and have the police patrolling every so often tonight hoping it will be together tomorrow morning. We showed them the permit and they were more than willing to help out, one even came a half hour after we talked to the first cop! I think boredom has set in as the weather has gotten colder and crime is going down with it. Gangsters get cold too ya know.

Anyway, the course is pretty sick-nasty awesome. There are a few new lines and some cooler downs added but all with sweeping turns to keep the speed up. That seemed to be the main issue today (besides running out of stakes after an hour) was trying to add as much time as we could to the course without adding too many slow turns or stairs that would make the course less fun After Ehrlinger finished his first hot lap in 5:28 we knew we needed to put in as much as possible and specifically Lynn, Nick, Bill, Julie, and Dad came through as always putting in another minute or so to the course. It seems to have a little less flow but at least we all won't be getting lapped right away, and Lynn will have a much easier time officiating. Plus, after 15 laps of a course, the flow probably sucks anyway. 10 or 11 sounds much more reasonable.

Notables:
Up Amphitheater with all three switchbacks included
2 sets of stairs like last year, one cleared side so ridable (pull off toe spikes for stairs, seriously I bet that is a three seconds a lap)
Long Soccer Field in the back added (old school one)
Double Pit entrance but single lane in and out..... not that bad though

Ground was tacky today, dry all around though, about the same as last year (predicted average speed for 'A' race winner, 22mph)

Less straight-away parallel to Marginal
1 Port-a-Pottie

Still up for tomorrow is trying to tape/flag (sadly flag) the amphitheater, doing one more lap with the leaf-blower to get all the glass for sure away, sweep up the steps, pop up the tents, and watching people smile on a fun but difficult course.

Quote from Dad::: 12 people and 6 hours later we had a 1 mile course!! Wow this race promotion stuff is hard.

kirtland weekend of awesome

2010-11-19T12:22:00.000-08:00

One of the best cyclocross venues in the world is this weekend. Just off Marginal next to the Burke Lakefront airport landing strip, this is one of the most artistic parks for being in such a terrible neighborhood. The main features include an amphitheater and about 5 sets of FULL length staircases.

Stop by tomorrow if you want to see the course. We are starting around 10am and should hopefully done with the course by 2pm if not earlier. Pick up a few sticks or just ride a few laps, it should be fun.

Plymouth Cyclocross Festival

2010-11-16T13:39:00.000-08:00

Friday night we traveled via aeroplane to Massachusetts to visit my grandma/aunt/uncle/cousins. It was a quick flight but we still didn't get in bed til midnight. I felt pretty crappy all Saturday morning and the race was nothing at all to write home about. But, the course was. It was one of the best courses I've ever ridden (I need a post on that) It had a solid amount of woods, grass, two-track, sand, everything.

Both days had a pretty legit descent in it with three 180°s and you were still flying down it.

Sunday I actually had a good race. I was in the 4th of 5 rows at the start but moved up into the top 10 early making some fun yet dangerous passes. I couldn't quite make it across much more since it was already strung out and I was hurting so soon. So for another two laps I rode/towed a big group of about 8 for the final 8 spots in the top 20. It was so fun until I got crashed two laps in a row in the sand pit. And get this it was the same guy, but me, being completely mind boggled after a tough climb (close to a minute?) didn't get around him and fell for it again. The rule is if you can't feel you can ride something 90% of the time, DON'T do it in the race, ESPECIALLY after you just bobbled it last lap. Why didn't I explain this to him earlier?

So I ended up getting popped by that big group with two to go and rode of the race by myself, catching the tail end of it when someone would crash on the euro descent.

It was a fun trip but I wish on Saturday I wouldn't have been hurting so much, then proceeding to sleep for 14 hours straight.

We all need to do some more east coast racing.

will. oughby.

2010-11-11T11:55:00.000-08:00

These past few days have been some of the most productive I can ever remember. But, with production comes stress and busyness. LOTS of busyness it was, between double washing the bikes, working on my mom's bike too now, two chiropractic appointments, lots of homework, of course trying to hit all my workouts and packing for this weekend I have had very little time (and daylight) to get much else done including blogging. But finally today, everything was scaled down a bit, and I have a few hours to myself where my mind isn't going 200 miles an hour. Phew. In all honesty I can't really remember that much about the race this weekend. I guess my running skills were well below par as expected but not by THIS much. My toe spikes/shoes had no bite in them so each time I ran it was very "shuffly" and as the course got more torn up throughout the day I would guess about 1/4th of the course was being run, time wise that is...7 minute lap (for the faster guys) with AT LEAST a minute on the sled hill/ across the sled hill, another few seconds for that big log in the back, another 15 up the barrier steep up, then another 20+ for the 180°'s that were getting destroyed in the back. I was still having an ok time pedaling but would lose probably 30 seconds a lap to the group I should be in between those few spots, and that adds up quickly. Either way, I have no excuse for getting lapped with 4 to go. Or pulling off my glasses on lap 3 and not being able to see the rest of the race.

part 2

2010-11-03T12:47:00.000-07:00

I felt really tired getting up Sunday. Then I debated tire choice (Grfio vs. Files) all morning but in the end didn't ride a lap on the Grifo's but still raced them (and man was it a file tread course, too). Then I realized I had a slow leak in my front tire at the line but didn't swap it out. This is what happens when you're tired. You forget things, like how to ride fast.

The course was a touch drier and power-sucking, compared to a more slippy and sliding day on Saturday, making pure power much more needed. I did not have this pure power combined with my 10psi in front tire led to a crappy race. At least I had a good start and rode smooth (zero crashes!) In fact, Jeff Craft passed me at 28 minutes then I stayed near him til 35 minutes until I officially hit the wall and let another 4 people by. I should have switched bikes but I put in backwards and tangled into my dad's bike since there was little room in the pit. Plus I was not feeling too hot anyway.

Then I got lapped.

my favorite weekend part 1

2010-10-30T17:27:00.000-07:00

I finally put most of it together in a race and didn't get lapped. In fact, I think I was pretty far from getting lapped but that was because of Brett's extra long course.

The course was super supple, grippy but squishy and slow. But all the racing was extra close in part to the flatness of the course.I had a great 5 laps sitting on a solid group containing John E., Erik Lesco, Dad, and I. My dad did most of the suffering, pulling us up the field (he ended going faster and faster up to 6th!!!) until we individually pealed off. Mine was off a stupid mistake trying to take the "fast" line through the ditch. Luckily I only lost three spots, but then I started fading the last three laps. Each lap, the official was ringing the bell and I crushed myself thinking it was the last lap only to have to do another. She apologized and all was good besides getting passed by one more each lap I fell apart of.

So, besides three untimely crashes, I finally felt good, rode smart, and had zero bike problems. Looking forward to trying to clean up those mistakes tomorrow in part 2.

Looking extra baller in the new black kit.

the best weekend of the year

2010-10-28T17:55:00.000-07:00

Is coming up quickly. But first, I need to make up some excuses for last weekend. Sparknotes Version: Good Warmup, Good Start, Back hurt, No finish. Monday I come to my senses and finally believe something is still wrong after a serious jerking-forward motion after dropping my chain on Sunday. So I hit up the local massage place, not much better. Wednesday, me and mom finally get me to a real chiropractor who takes some X-rays and notices a few things:

I have an extra segment of vertebrae in my sacral vertebrae that is quite crammed. My right pelvis was 1/2 inch lower than my left one. And, my whole spinal column is twisted to the right slightly all the way down. So much for me just needing to learn how to htfu these past few weeks.
The Doc already gave me some good treatment and is convinced within about a week I will better than ever. But, I am still allowed to race this weekend which is better news yet and I don't feel like complete crap going into a weekend.

what happened

2010-10-18T17:07:00.001-07:00

This video from the Dark Knight is probably the easiest way to describe how my race went on Sunday. I've never been pushed around in a bike race more than that and don't intend to ever again. But this last Sunday was different, I thought the race would come to me instead of me pushing my way through it. In the 'B' field, each and every week last year, I went to the front and made this race. This year I continue to get suckered into believing I belong at the back (which I probably do) and start there, work my way up a small margin, then get put back there sooner rather than later. No more.

Some more stats on the course. It was rumored to be a little over a mile long and had 71 turns a lap. Paul won the race and averaged just over 5.5 minute laps = 12mph. I bet at least 20 of the turns were full on 180*s. Anyway, for me personally I did 9 laps (going a minute slower a lap will get you lapped fyi I need to work on that) during the race and approximately 6 laps warming up. 9+6 = 15 X 71 = 1065 turns in a two and a half hour time slot on Sunday. Let's just hope this improved my cornering a bit. You definitely need to focus. It was a great use of land for sure. Please mud, come on....

a.d.d. l.i.s.t.

2010-10-13T09:16:00.000-07:00

But first, I got some good pictures of this year's cross set ups (finally)

Single A vs. Double B

New Fangos, Classic Pauls

Black vs. White

Aluminum vs. Carbon

Single vs. Double

The geometry is split between the bikes except the BB30 on Single A throws everything off by about a quarter cm. But saddle, stem, and handlebars all remain the same. Also, I have a Nokon on my A bike, which makes the shifting feel that much better. Then, this year I managed to get together 3 wheelsets.

Ksyrium's with 32 Fangos for the slick. Campy/DT Swiss with 32 Grifos for everything. Classic Mavic/Shimano setup with 32 Grifo File Treads for Dry/Ice.
And now the extra list.

WHAT TO BRING TO A RACE:
WARMUP TIGHTS
TRAINER
ROAD SLICK
NUTELLA SPREAD
CHAIN LUBE/ GREASE
BUCKET WITH SPONGE/CLEANER/BAR TAPE CLEANER/RAGS
SHOE DRYER WITH DRYING SOCKS
TOE SPIKES AND FASTENER
TOWELS FROM HOTEL
POWERTAP HEAD W/ HR MONITOR
IPOD
EXTRA COMPRESSION SOCKS
WARM HAT
PINS
1000ML WATER BOTTLE
HEED AND GELS
CAMERA CHARGER
SLIPPERS
USB CABLE FOR CAMERA
TWO SETS OF BOTTLES
LAPTOP

all the little things

2010-10-12T12:52:00.000-07:00

This weekend we ventured south for the biggest weekend I'll hit all season, UCI3. It was also one of the warmest weekends of the year, seriously. Friday was quite literally the worst course of all time. I hate to rag on promoter's as I have done good and bad on all types of courses whether I preferred them or not, but, seriously, what were they thinking. I hated it so much that my back started hurting after about three laps so I cooled down enough to get pulled. I thanked the official and got out of there. Saturday went a lot better, but still not the best. My front row start position of almost 180 racers benefited a lot even though I totally sucked at starting this weekend. I think I still managed to finish in the top 40 after cracking hard the last two laps and getting passed by a group of 8 in a row. Sunday has like this 4 minute power climb in it followed by a sand pit that totally thrashes you if weren't enough thrashed from the prior two days of racing. Anyway, my legs weren't cooperating the best but I suffered enough to make myself not look like a complete fool in 36th place. I put in a demonstration presentation at the top of where I would have liked to have been racing this weekend, for a top 20 Friday and top 30's Saturday and Sunday. I feel like my slow motion skills and technique have been the only thing keeping me racing this past few weekends. But, the legs are starting to get some twinges of speed back after the worst month ever. Let us all hope they come back soon. I generally consider after this weekend the start of the real cross season so let's see what happens, cross your fingers for some mud. I've still got a dozen weekends more of cross to race hard and have fun.

Getting outsprinted for 35th on Sunday. Whoop-de-do.

getting better

2010-10-04T14:19:00.000-07:00

We made the trip down on Sunday to one of my most favorite cyclocross series for their first race at a downhill derby park. The course was slick, with slight rain during the races but not too much before hand. I had the perfect bike setup today with 32 Grifos and had the course dialed better than people faster than me.

I lined up front row with my teammates (Jeff Craft, Nate Loman, and Dad) and about 30 other of my best Cat 2-3/Master's friends. I clipped in instantly but me and Jeff agreed about 50 meters into the race we shouldn't race for the whole shot on the rather wide open course. So the TLE crew filed in about 4-7th into the first grass section.

Jeff quickly jumped up to the guy riding in first and soon everything started coming back with him pulling. Then he got a little bit of a gap and started opening it up. I was on my dad's wheel when he decided he wanted to go across a 15 second gap in 30 seconds. So wish I had my powermeter on for that one. Anyway, I let my dad and Jeff get a little gap going through the road section on lap two and couldn't close it ever again, but I was still third on the circuit. I kept it really close, loosing only about 5 seconds a lap only on the uphill road thing (see second to last photo.) We did seven laps like this, with Nate yo-yoing between us four on the front crashing back to me about once a lap. In the end, I reeled in Nate (by reeled I mean he fell) but he caught sight of me and took off. So, fourth place and off the podium/prizes but it was to only teammates and 45+ riders (old guys are still fast) but I was still a little disapointed in the legs on the pedaling parts but on the non-pedaling parts I got a lot of confidence back. Thanks to Julie and VeloArts for the shots.

winds with a d

2010-09-29T17:46:00.000-07:00

I guess I should look on the bright side and mention I finished my first "A" race this year, even if a lap down. I also looked very Pro going over those set of planks. But that's now how I am.
Wrongs of the day:
- Getting Lapped
- Having the worst legs, ever
- On the windiest day ever
- Breaking a shifter on my "A" bike about 1/2 hour before the race
- Getting Lapped
- Trying to set-up the "B" bike enough (not enough brakes)
- File Treads
- Getting Lapped
- Giving up on a good placement less than a lap in
- Starting at the back and finishing there too

Thank you once again for pulling my overweight out of shape self around, Bill. Ok, this is it. I am done fooling around. I've had one month of DNF's and more excuses than ever before. That is enough. It will all change this Sunday. Bring on October.