2008 Illinois Cyclocross State Championships

Why do we race?

I'm not going to pretend that I can answer that question here, or anywhere else. I've thought about it a lot, and it always just leads to a litany of philosophical truisms, none of which are particularly insightful or unique. But sometimes I have a good answer.

I race for days like this one.

Coming into this race, I couldn't decide if I should focus on the Masters' 30+ race, where I'd yet to make the top ten, or put all my eggs into the cat 4 race, where, if all went well, I had a shot at the podium (though my highest finish has been 7th). Whichever one I did, it would be my last race as a cat 4.

I finally decided that I just love cross racing, and that I'd do both, damn the target races. I've learned a ton in this, my first full season as a proper sanctioned racer, but mostly I've learned that I love cross, and I just love to grind it out.

Grind. It. Out.

The kind of race where one day you finish in 13th and think "hell YES!" The kind of racing where, all of a sudden, at the 40 minute mark, you start reeling in and picking off some of the guys that ditched you at the start (hence my attraction to the longer and harder Masters' races, as the 4s are just about over by then). The hecklers, the pain, the tailgating.

So I figured I'd be happy with a top ten finish in Masters', or a top five in the 4s, with a little daydream of making the podium. The bike has pretty much fallen to pieces in the last few weeks, and as a result, I'd been hemorrhaging money along the way...a new tire, then another, chainring, chain, ss cog, brakepads, cables, and pedals. I hate installing/tweaking canti brakes, so I dropped it off to Justin at Turin. He tuned it and cleaned it up, and did not take any shortcuts: new bearings in the bb, and he "found" some bar tape and endcaps for me. That thing was dialed in, as dialed in as a $500, seven-year-old singlespeed can be. He pointed out that my front wheel was looking rough, but I explained that it was a twelve-year-old ex-messenger wheel, so I'd be happy if it just got me through the day.

Sunrise: it was 7 degrees outside. The Masters' race went off and it wasn't much warmer. My team hadn't shown up yet, and my family was tied up. A brawly start with 20 guys going sideways powering through the slush. I cleaned the 4 s-curves as best I could (with my slack turning radius) and found myself in 12th on the first climb up the hill. I thought "great, I have 50 minutes to pick off two guys and I'm in the top ten." 2-3 guys passed me, I passed 2-3 guys faltered in a turn, and I had no idea what my position was.

So often in these races, if you're not contesting for the win, you're locked in a man-to-man battle with whomever's nearby. I was ten seconds off Walid, a guy from Van Wagners/Yojimbo's. I'd finished just behind him in another Masters' race this season, but it was a "hundred yards ahead of me" kind of finish. This time, he was ten seconds ahead of me for most of the race. The thing about cross is, ten seconds can be ten feet away in a technical runup/barrier switchback, or it can be a hundred feet in a downhill. I'd close to three seconds, and he'd unwind again and ditch me. Somewhere along the way, my team showed up, and made up for lost time by chasing me through the turns with a bullhorn aimed at me. Good times.

I pretty much thought I lost Van Wagners, and I was just grinding it out, trying not to count remaining laps, and I crept up on him again. We were on the final lap, being lapped by the leaders, and maybe he was a little complacent and not seeing me. We turned out of the downhill, into a long smooth straightaway, and I caught his eye. Damn. He wound up the speed to keep me from attacking, and I thought "that's it...there aren't many places to pass on this course, and I just missed this one." But I noticed he faded, and fast. Perhaps I could still wind it up and get the corner before the barriers? I kicked it up, and it seemed I wasn't going to make it...he could literally just pause, hesitate, block me...take up too much space going into the barrier/corner...but he didn't. A rather sporting move! We went over side-by-side and I had the inside coming out. "You got me!" he said as I leapt back on.

He was there the rest of the lap, sometimes close. One mistake and he'd get the spot back (and they are easy to make in the snow, especially late in a race, when you're sloppy). I kept it clean to the finish to come in 8th, my best finish in a Masters' race. Almost certainly the top cat 4 in the race, not that it counts for squat, but I was happy to find out Walid is a highly regarded cat 2 track racer. Beating someone like that feels like a win for me.

It was hard not to go to the Cuttin' Cruiser and just start drinking hot spiked cider and chowing hot dogs. But I'd already purchased my second race number, knowing I'd lose momentum. So I defrosted my toes, hung out on the cruiser, cheered out the windows, sat in a pile of warm bodies...some prepping to race, some just spectating. Our fearless leader was fine-tuning the tandem for the 4b race, the squad was pinning numbers and taking practice laps, and the rest were drinking and whatnot, cranking Public Enemy, which seems to be the only disc on the bus. I was just trying to stay warm. I'd planned on bringing out the (now barred) Jordan jersey, and I didn't want to risk catching a chill first.

On to cat 4: The regional administrator (who's forbidden me from racing with uncovered shoulders) was tied up sorting results, and the start line official just laughed at me. Jordan was in. More bodies in the start, not so many of them strong. I was in 6th going into the first climb, and I knew the guy in 5th would fade soon. I could feel racers behind me, but I can't start looking backwards so early in a race; it makes me lose focus on catching the guy in front of me. I went over the double barrier to discover a patch of ice had formed on the inside line. I went down, but so did the guy behind me, and nobody passed us. He made a deep groan; the kind that makes you think he's not getting right back up. A brief "whew" entered my mind and I resumed the chase without losing any spots. I came around a few switches and saw him still standing there. Shit! It was my teammate Bradley. In retrospect I felt kinda bad, but I didn't bring him down (we both did the same thing on the same ice patch). I had been covering the corners supertight, thinking someone might make a move, but had I known it was him, I wouldn't have protected so hard. Hell, if he thought I was holding him back, I would have let him by.

I resumed the hunt, now in fourth. Somehow I slipped past a Pony Shop rider. I realized I was in third. The podium! It was a fine balance between chasing down the two leaders and making sure I didn't take a chance that would slide me out. At one point, he passed me on the climb, but I don't know what came over me, I countered on the outside, in the deeper snow, longer line, steeper rise...and closed it down. He never got so close again.

I "almost" caught Henry (Pegasus) in second, but he wasn't wearing down late in the race the way most were; he was still able to wind it up and get distance here and there. I rolled across the line in third...my highest placing ever, and good for a bronze medal! I finished 17th in this race last year!

Turns out...maybe a silver medal? Nobody (except for Henry) was thrilled to find out that the winner didn't hold an annual license, and was therefore ineligible (and didn't find out until the start line). So maybe we slotted up a spot, but who cares, we all know who really won the championship. I personally think the officials jerked him around, as they said "if he'd asked to convert to an annual license at the start line, they would have accommodated him" but not so after the race. Lame.

Unbeknownst to me at the time, our team President, Jeff, the owner/captain of the Cuttin' Cruiser, was presented with an all-around "Awesomeness" trophy from another team and a bunch of fans...for showing up, rockin' the bus, cheering, grilling, occasionally racing, and just bringing it. (Unfortunately he didn't get more than half a lap into the 4b race before an Official pulled he and Adam for riding a tandem.) That's why he's the prez.

One thing that can't go unmentioned. I got serious noise for rocking Jordan colors. A bunch of people knew my name, the rest called me EMJAY! and quite a few called me fucking crazy. The family showed up during the race, and even my father-in-law was running back and forth across the bridge so he wouldn't miss any action.

On a more somber note, the only thing that really sucks about getting my two best results ever, and hanging out with the most rocking (and occasionally ass-kicking) team, on the last racing day of a crazy year...Bradley broke his ankle in his fall. He doesn't seem to be too phased by it, but damn. We had the same fall, at the same spot, at the same time. I got a big purple bruise on my kneecap, and he got a cast. Damn.

Half the fun of cross is trolling flickr, ego surfing for action shots. These shots were swiped from ffonst's flickr stream. There's something about this one that really captures the day...the panorama, the desolate windswept spot overlooking the beach, somewhere between second and fourth place, just Grinding It Out.

vive le 2008 road season

No more alleycats.

It started as a crazy idea to race a crit on a single speed. But roadies are such dorks. LT, HRMs, watts, weight weenies, base miles, the kinds of things that can take the fun out of riding a bike...finish midpack, ok, I can do this. Maybe a time trial? I shaved my legs. I totally better back this shit up.

I need a road bike. Raid my 401(k), troll ebay, drive solo to Iowa for two races, come home with two medals. Sweet, I'm gonna tear it up.

Sadly, that turns out to be my best showing for most of the season. Join a kickass team. A little rough around the edges, brings it strong sometimes, and long on style. I'm not a bandwagon-jumping, rah-team type of guy, but they were the first team I've seen that made me think...yeah, THAT'S where I belong.

Little lessons, tiny mistakes, shine hard here and there, but when one small thing goes wrong...nothing. Excuses abound. No hill training, I neglect my bike, everybody gets stronger and my winter conditioning doesn't take me the distance anymore.

Whatever. It's fun. Lots of things go right. I took the penultimate turn at Downer's harder and faster than everyone in my heat. I absolutely threw my bike around the descent at Snake Alley. I stayed out of the red zone at Whitewater and saved it for the sprint. I took a few hard pulls out front that earned me the right to point at a spot at 5th wheel and say "coming in." I slipped off from the family just enough times to get my upgrade to cat 4.

So it is with some relief that I made it back to the podium this past weekend. ok, it was a beginners' heat. In ABR. In a time trial. (Technically, I've had less than 15 mass starts, so I can, in good conscience, race that division in ABR.)

But...it wasn't a gimme. There were some strong riders out there...some guys 15 years my junior, some with all the high end gear that can shave a minute or two off in the course of 9.8 miles. I dusted off the single speed and killed it in 22:56, for second place, averaging 25.6 mph. (It would have been good enough for 10th in cat 4, but I think I would have gotten over my laziness and set up and tested a proper TT config for cat 4.)

Our team aspirations of putting someone on the overall podium in the Fall Fling weren't panning out. Rather than show up for the final stage running low on money, time, and energy, I decided to go out on a high note.

and so. Adieu.

quattro stagione: stages 1 and 2

I tried my hand at the ABR Fall Fling: A four stage road race, split over two weekends, so us working stiffs can live out our TdF dreams. Much like a ghetto credit card, I'll be paying back the time to my wife with lots of interest. Race reports will be suspended for some time, replaced by drywalling or some other jobs on my list. But anyway, I couldn't do this crap if it weren't for her holding down the spot at home, so I dedicate my, um, victory results to her.

Day 1: Cat 4 road race, 40 miles, narrow going, a mild roller or two.
I feel ok, but I haven't touched a road bike in a month. My front tire is played out, so despite being 30 psi below its rating, it blows at the start line. I run back towards the car (not really sure what I'm going to do, since I don't have a spare wheel cued up) and an awesome guy named Raymundo hands me a Campy tubular that's probably worth more than my bike. I make it back to the start with seconds to spare. (Note to self, bring extra wheels, even if there's no wheel pit.)

I stay near the front, I do a couple pulls to keep my account in good standing, I creep to the redline a few times, I back off a couple turns at the front, but then again so does most everyone else. The road was narrow, the centerline rule was keeping us three abreast and slow, and a combine thirty feet wide took up the entire road for a mile, keeping us all even slower.

I hit a bump with one lap to go, my speedometer sensor starts clipping the front wheel, and since it's not mine, I don't take any chances. I pull over and fix it, but lose 40 seconds on the pack, at the wrong time. I waved off Brean because it would have damaged both of our chances to finish well. So I practice my time trialing, come in 34th, and my hope for GC glory is dashed.

Brean gets 3rd, Mike gets 10th, Trey, a friend-of-team, cramps up before the sprint and gets 32nd. Nadia, a junior and a Track Cat in her first road race, spaces on her start group, has to make up 35 seconds to join her pack, does so, but finishes DFL. Due to the magic of categorization, she finishes second in "beginner women" and gets a medal anyway.

Day 2: Wood Dale Crit: fast, smooth, not-so-stressful corners, a little kicker before turn four.
I'm working for Brean. Actually, they took away the double points for the road race, since a bunch of people crossed the centerline before the 200 M sprint marker, so they punish the top 20 equally. Which sucks, since Brean loses 18 free points on the deal, but Mike is now in the mix for overall classification, so I'm working for him too.

I decided to race Beginners/Cat 5 as well. Ten laps, and three in, Team Tati executed a move after the hill in turns 3/4, and came through with two hot riders. The second one sat up, and I was a couple spots back, and thought "No Fucking Way" and came around him. Unfortunately the guys in first and second either couldn't or wouldn't chase the guy off the front (Turns out it was Brian Hague, who did the same in the Beginners RR the day before). His 5 meter gap grew and long story short, that kid can TT, nobody would pull through, and we were all left fighting for second. Seven of us separated from the bunch to contest the sprint, and though I thought I'd saved enough through the last climb into the wind, everyone else did too. 8th place. BFD. I thought this Cat wouldn't be so tough, but a sprint is a sprint, and I didn't have it today.

The plan for the 4s race was for me to "get near the front" with 5 to go, my teammates to find me, and me to lead somebody out. I was not in the best form during this race, and was really worried I'd let them down, but I stayed up front, slipped back here and there, chased a break once or twice, worked a bit, backed off a bit, and decided to go for a prime even though the one guy chasing it was already 20 meters ahead when I decided (missed it by a wheel or so).

1/4 of the way throught the final lap, I managed to find myself in 4th, so THAT part of my mission was accomplished. A couple of strong guys from Mack were ahead of me, and two guys got separation while one Mack guy blocked me. I was determined not to let that happen again so I closed it up. I had no idea if either of my teammates were on my wheel, but I suspected I wouldn't make it to the lead out. Sure enough, I caught the leaders, but was swallowed with half a lap to go. Had one or both of them been on my wheel, it might have still kept them in the mix, but it didn't quite work out like that. Mike never made it up to me, Brean was close, but he had chased something down pretty hard with two to go and wasn't his usual sprinter's self. He came into turn three pretty hot and had to ease up, and got swept in too. He finished 24th, Mike at 30th, me at 32nd, and Trey (in his first crit) at 37th. Not exactly noteworthy, but Brean might still be one spot out of the money overall.

Nadia vindicated us all by grabbing another 2nd place in her Cat. She couldn't hang on to the pack at the gun, but linked up with another rider for some good pacing, sweeping up a couple dropped riders along the way. At least SOMEBODY around here is still on the podium.

Next week: goofy helmets and bars for the 10 mile TT, then one final crit.

Let there be 'cross...

and there was, and it was good.

The Chicago Cyclocross Cup kicked off today, nearly doubling in size from recent incarnations, on a hot and muggy day in Hyde Park. I love the mud, love the heat, love racing in the city and LOVE getting to a race and back for pennies in gas. But mostly I love the abuse.

Unlike last year, when I ran about double the pressure I should've, this time I erred slightly in the other direction; my tires folded like a weak hand at a couple points in particular. Nothing major, though I can't wait for a couple of spectacular one-foot-off, rear-tire-sliding-out, odds-are-that-guy's-about-to-bite-it pics to show up on flickr. I managed to hit the one speck of pavement, but that was from pedal strike. I also tried to bunny hop a barrier in warmup. Unfortunately my low pressure soaked up my launching energy, I clipped the rear wheel, and hit the dirt. So I showed up at the line looking like I'd already done a heat....and skipped the bunny hop attempts during the race.

Cyclocross races are often little more than a hole shot plus a time trial, making for the dullest of race reports, and really, I'm starting to believe race reports are for an audience of one: me, for when I'm old(er) and so decrepit I can't recall the details. For the record: started stronger than my usual single speed spin, holding around 20th. Got passed by about five in the opening laps, but I was just off a group of a dozen and I knew if I could keep them in sight, I'd be able to pick them off. That part of the plan mostly worked. I felt a little sloppy on account of bending my tires on a few turns, strong in the small bumps, and fairly clean in the runups.

My plan only seriously failed in one regard. I don't know if I was getting stronger as the race went on, or everyone else was just getting weaker, but I was able to pick off spots pretty easily late in the game, meaning I didn't get caught up spending half a lap attacking and defending each one. In the paved straightaway coming into the s/f area at the beginning of the final lap, I saw that I had 4-5 guys behind me. I was extremely surprised no one successfully attacked me there, as my lack of gearing put me at a slight disadvantage. But as I held everyone off through the technical parts of the final lap, I felt like I could keep position if I just stayed calm.

The one truly ugly part of the course was a 180 turn in the middle of a downhill. Nobody took it well with any speed, and lots of people slid out. I knew I just had to take it conservatively there, but...whoops. I went down. I might have been ok, as nobody had a decent line to get around me, but I'd dropped my chain (yeah yeah, it's a single speed, don't ask why it happened, crappy chainline, a million miles on the drivetrain, yadda yadda). I could not get it back on, and a well-meaning spectator was actually not assisting as well as he thought. Anyway, I lost 5 spots, and got one back to finish 17th (out of how many? 70-90 or so? christ this sport is blowing up).

Despite the single-digit placing I'd hoped for, I'm pretty happy with it on several accounts. I recognized some names in my neighborhood of the results, and they are some guys who are at least 2 Categories above me on the road and track. Back when they had a singlespeed division, I got schooled by one guy who never finished worse than second, and I passed him a couple laps in. Most of all, I did it on a bike that, in its best day was worth about $600 - and that was about five years ago. There were some spare wheelsets in the pit that easily beat that. It's fun to beat people on a singlespeed, but it's even more fun when they are riding $2-4k bikes.

EDIT: I realized that I overlooked what's really the best part of cyclocross: the crowd, the vibe, the fact that people I hardly know are screaming bloody murder for me, the fact that people I don't know at all are calling me singlespeed badass, having my team screaming my name when I clean another racer in the double corkscrew, the bus (with a couch to bring right up alongside the course)...and of course, Luke yelling for everybody because he knows everyone in Lycra within a hundred mile radius. (Sorry man, I didn't recognize you with the beard!)

EDIT #2: It seems USAC has me listed in 11th place after all. Hm. No arguments here.

Despite being off to a blistering start, I have to take a small hiatus from 'cross. My frame is going back to my man Spicer to repair a couple of cracks, and besides...the next two weekends are reserved for my first stage race, the ABR Fall Fling. Woohoo!

off the front! yay! off the course...waah.

Palos Meltdown, Beginner. I'm absurdly early but it's a good thing because the last 18 spots were gone 15 minutes before registration opened. Everybody's got front suspension mountain bikes. I've got a single speed 'cross bike. And a road kit. And stubble on my legs. Yeah, I'm that guy. 'sup?

A handful of other 'cross racers show up, mostly from Half Acre. Whew, at least I won't be the only goofball out here.

Race bell + 1 minute: in first place.

+ 2 minutes: off with a gap.

+ 4 minutes: off course.

I was operating under the instructions at the start: "At every intersection, there will be a marshal pointing the right way to go." Turns out I was on a fast dirt road trailing off to the right, with a not-very-clearly-marked entry to the woods on the left. No caution tape across the natural line, nothing. Whatever.

Grrr. At least my teammate Max took the win, introducing the full-suspension crowd to our little friend Eddy Merckx. We had a sneaking suspicion we were sandbagging, but standing around at the finish, seeing 8 year olds coming in DFL...um, that pretty much confirmed it. (In our defense, it was his first mountain bike race, and my 3rd, with the first two being in 1995.) The top 5 spots were 'cross racers, and half the race was plain old dirt road giving us a significant advantage...but anyway. It was a race; consider it reported.

Interesting notes:
1. Mountain bike races and their crowds are still a million times cooler than road races. At the start line, guys were like "Hey, howya doin? Nice bike!" - except for a few spandex crossovers bringing the roadie ice. Free PB&Js at the start/finish? Rock on! It seemed like there was a raffle prize for every two racers at the finish. I won a saddlebag. Presumably to hold my sand next time.

2. Trophies! (AND an age group medal) Holy crap, can you imagine getting a trophy two feet tall for winning a Cat 5 road race? Awesome! I plan on gazing at my trophy longingly for many years to come...on the mantle at Max's house.

3. I would have loved to hit Sport (225 racers...uh, wtf? though they seemed to stagger it out well by age) or better yet, Expert, at 32 miles for a killer pre-'cross training circuit. I suspect my head tube would've split asunder in a real 2-hour technical mtb race though.

Unfortunately, even the promise of a life-sized trophy won't be enough to get me in a beginner's race again. I'd have to crawl under a rock if I did that. Maybe I'll see how the bike holds up in Sport class...though I suspect in Wisco, it's a whole different game.

insert your favorite tri pun here

As much as I love a good road race, I had to skip the State Championships today, even though it could have been my last race as a 5. Instead...I played support crew to Ella in the (kids') Chicago Triathlon.

Technically, this was her third one, but since the lake was creeping with microscopic bugs last year, it became a duathlon, and her other event at Oswegoland was kind of a "Are you ok after the swim? Here, take a rest and when you're ready, you can do the bike" kind of kids' event. (For the record, she got second in that one to a kid named Julia who's also been spotted at Northbrook.)

She was pumped. One kid was crying, many were nervous, but she was digging in the sand or rocking out to thumpy disco on the PA. In the early heats, we noticed a number of older kids pulling repeated butterfly dives off the bottom of the lake when the water was too deep to run in, and she was practicing those in the interminable standing around period. They helped quite a bit, both starting and finishing the swim.

If you don't get in early, you end up kind of walking through the water in a pack while a half dozen swimmers open a gap, so she got a great spot at the rope and protected it, even joking around with another racer, making fun of the big stupid clown at the start. She got in the water pretty well, and she was 11th coming out. She picked off a few spots to get into 8th before reaching transition.

We'd walked through transition earlier, and despite picking out some landmarks (at this garbage can, look for the American flag and the big tree) she lost a bit of time because there were two garbage cans, a bunch of flags, and a few trees. Oops. Next time we really should buy a silly balloon. Still, she found her bike pretty quickly, and thanks to mom's number belt and her awesome "tri-suit" (actually a bathing suit for four-year-olds) she didn't have to put on a shirt. She also skipped the socks, and it paid off big. She was in third coming out of T1!

The girls ahead of her also had "proper" road bikes, so she wasn't getting free Huffy time, she had to reel them in honestly. She was pretty solid in the bike, and other than one punk ass little shit who blocked her a bunch of times, saying "that's racing," thankfully that leg was uneventful. In the future she has permission to call kids like that Big Fat Losers and point out that they started four minutes ahead of her.

She came in to T2 in second place, and held it starting the run. I saw the leader and fed Ella her time gap, 20 seconds. A cranky woman with sharpie-numbered arms and skin like beef jerky scowled and said "You shouldn't tell her that." I laughed it off because the funny thing is, you might think that we're typical uber-parents who are overgrooming their kids for sports (er, um, guilty as charged on that, these kids have a frickin' stable of bikes), and that we're just pouring on the pressure, but she's so much more suited for this crap than I ever was. I remember wanting to barf before C-league baseball games, and she's lining up with 40 bigger girls, trading elbows, about to tear off into a scrum in Lake Michigan, and she's digging it.

I laughed even harder when I found out that my wife was 50 meters away, and she fed Ella the same time info! I guess we're both a little uber...but hey, some kids are out here to finish...so what if she's out here to win? It's a race, for chrissakes!

In the end, she gained about half the time back to finish her heat in second place, as it turns out, to the same girl who beat her in Oswegoland last year. Her age group had one other heat, and after they sorted the times, she finished 4th of 83! Holy Shit! Not bad for her first "real" triathlon. The best part was that all day she kept talking how much fun it was.

As a footnote, I have to add that I generally find triathletes wound a little too tight. I won't go into the whole Tri experience, the dorky Tri jokes on everyone's shirts, the Expo, the carbon-fiber shoelace aglets that everyone has to have, the conversation I overheard from a racer who made a spreadsheet of the magnesium/sodium levels of 20 sports drinks because he was suffering from cramps...you get the picture (for the record, a number of roadies fit that mold as well, and I've been known to geek out on training, but not like that). Then you have to factor in that parents with our socioeconomic status are often prepared to fight to the bloody death over a bad call on the soccer field...But the one thing that really bothered me was the fact that many, many of the parents were simply not cheering for anyone but their own kids. I had a clown horn, a rattling noisemaker, a cowbell, a camera, a 6-year-old, a wife out there somewhere texting me every two minutes, and an eye out for a kid in a day-glo orange suit, and I still yelled for every racer that went by. A disturbing number of people just stood there, clapped for their own kid, and then watched wave after wave of kids suffering just roll by. It makes me want to show up next year looking like Mysterio:

spend it if you got it

...isn't a great policy for winning races, especially if you don't have a whole lot to spare.

Downer's Grove Cat 5, Heat two

Got into top five after a couple and mostly stayed there. Seemed to be able to attack at will on the hill and the s/f, feeling it out. Not a lot of cornering skills on display in my heat, but nothing too sketchy as the course was plenty wide.

No major splits but the field seemed to be snapping back a little less each time. With three to go, one kid talked of making a break, but it turned out he was all talk. Four of us had a bit of a gap after the turn four climb, but only two of us put anything into it. I poured it on and tried to keep it on, but didn't get much help, at least not when it could've counted.

When I saw that no one was really up for it, I backed off and tried to recover, but the bell lap set everyone off, and I got a little swarmed. I should've taken my chances in the bunch sprint, as most everyone faded with 50 to go. 13th. whatever. I don't think of myself as a sprinter, but then I see how the other Cat 5s finish and realize that I should just go for it.

To add to my frustration, I wasn't allowed to sign up for heat three, as they were "trying to give everyone a chance to race." Turns out both heats were only 2/3rds full, but they still wouldn't let me jump in. grrr. I realize that's what pre-registration is for, but there were 17 open spots in heat three!

final four, a long overdue (alleycat) race report

The Bicycle Film Festival just pulled through Chicago. A citywide scavenger hunt, a Blues Brothers-themed alleycat, loads of short films, and a block party were all on the agenda.

Tacked on to the tail end of it all was a sprints and skids competition benefiting the largest and most utilitarian member of our team, the Cuttin' Cruiser. The fixed gear gang were doing backward loops, barspins, one-foot-through-the-frame skids, 180s and whatnot, but to be honest, they were kind of a sideshow compared to the flatland bmx-ers leftover from the earlier comp.

I sat out the IRO sprints, mostly on account of the fact that it seems like the kind of thing you do in a wintertime bar. For me the main event was the sprint comp. Two blocks long, one-on-one. Fairly small turnout at 30-something contestants, but nonetheless fun.

I'm not particularly experienced at these, but it seems like there's not a lot of strategy: just go for 30 seconds. It's a little longer than a simple sprint, but not long enough that there are any options for drafting or playing scratch games. I wasn't sure if I was in the right gear, wasn't sure I could get to speed quick enough, wasn't sure if I could spin out if someone in a steeper gear was reeling me in late. It's amazing how such a short event could still break down to a beginning, middle, and end.

My plan was to start hard-ish, and keep an eye on the other guy, and stay just ahead of him while conserving my energy for the later rounds. First round was harder than I expected, nerves and adrenaline pushing me to a 1-2 length win.

Second round I had the benefit of racing a guy who popped his chain. One less trip to the red zone.

Third round I raced my teammate Daryl. He was one of the guys I'd hoped not to race, but it was impossible to avoid those guys in the later rounds. I held him off, but I was helped by the fact that he spent his morning finishing 6th at Glencoe.

That put me in the final four. Somehow one of the bracket winners (Simon?) had been accidentally set aside, and so when he surfaced, he was thrown in for a three-man heat. I wasn't thrilled about it, as it gave me another pair of wheels to watch, but what can you do. Simon took it, and tying for third won me a pint of Ole Grand Dad, a fitting and useful prize (and apparently a third place tradition for Chicago alleycats).

In retrospect, as tricked out as my bike is, the low-spoke-count wheels were a little heavy off the line, but mostly I should've just hammered harder off the line and not bothered eyeballing the two other guys. There's also a distinct possibility that I'm just not as fast as the guy that beat me.

If there's some silver lining, it's that my teammate Stanley beat the guy that beat me, to take home the win. I jokingly harassed him that we had unfinished business at the end of the day, but as he won the Blues Brothers alleycat the day before and finished fourth at Glencoe that morning, he had good reason not to take me up on it...not that I really wanted to.

Actually, the highlight of the day was that my family finally came out to see me race, and they got to meet the team, watch some tricks, check out the chifg scene, and learn how to evade masked strangers that want to shake your hand. One thing I found particularly funny: my kids were starving, but we couldn't go eat dinner until the sprints were done, so every time I won a heat, they were totally disappointed: "Not again!" Gotta love your fans.

this week's highlights...

...do not involve racing. I knew months ago I'd have to miss the Chicago Crit, and though I was able to see a few minutes of it in the morning, I almost wished I hadn't. It was painful to see such a gorgeous course, even worse to see the top 5 Cat 5 spots filled with a few names that I'd topped before. Enough about that. The news:

Until recently, the little man, much to my consternation, has nearly refused to ride a bike. Last week, he woke up on his 6th birthday, asked to ride his no-training wheel bike, nailed it in 3 minutes, and preceded to start ripping like he's been at it for months. He now wants to do bar spins, truck drivers, and feeble grinds. I need to find him a mentor, as I can do none of those things, except in video games.

The other news is that his big sister is now a bicycle commuter. She's in Girls Rock Camp, and it happens to be on my way to work. She rides 5 miles each way, most of it in the bike lane on Clark. I guess sketchy riders at the track won't scare her much after this.

Hopefully I'll have some actual results to post after Elk Grove or the State Road Championships. I have three more starts to get out of the 5s: I suspect my "antics" in a bulls jersey/single speed have not earned me any leeway, and I'm being held to the letter of the law regarding my upgrade.

On the 12th day of Superweek my road bike gave to me

A goddamned creaky drivetrain.

Holy Hill. More like Holy Shit.

When the the bike shop says get a new chain *before* your next race, you should believe them, especially when it has a variety of climbs every lap. With my non-access to hills like this, I would have been lucky to stay in the mix, but it would have required split-second shifting. Not two dropped chains, dozens of skipped shifts, and general redlining to make up for getting caught out of gear every 3-4 minutes. Excuses, excuses. I have little to report, as I was in trauma. A couple long easy hills, a couple short hard ones, a long medium and a long hard one, 5 laps. It would have been fun to race if I had a working drivetrain and, uh, hills to practice on within 50 miles of my life.

On the plus side, it turned into a killer climbing workout, and my legs are aching in ways they haven't for years. If I could only do this every week or two without driving out of state, I might be a decent road racer. Another highlight was drinking beer with the team on the hood of the Cuttin' Cruiser after the Pro rollout. Ice cream truck music, a fog horn, and Public Enemy: the Rock Racing Escalade has nothing on it. It will be a miracle if they ever allow us back in Wisconsin again. The team didn't have the strongest day (12th and 14th, earned some gas money), but you gotta have some fun somehow. Thank god half the State Police were tied up marshaling the course.

UWW race report

The official at the starting line said 7 laps. At the end of seven laps, I moved up through the field in the final mile, contested a three-man sprint to take second, to hear the sounds of....the bell? WTF?

(The flyer said 5.5 miles per lap, 43 miles = 8 laps, but the guy with the patch clearly said 7 laps...and that's what the counter said as well...)

I'm not a total idiot, there were a bunch of us that got screwed and left flat in the final lap. I would have been more likely to trust the bell (or lack of it) if the field wasn't so screwed at the end of lap six. Long story short, the Masters 4/5s started ahead, we caught them, they caught us, we commingled and some tried to do the right thing, some tried to gain advantage, but really, there's only so long you can expect two packs to ride side by side without interacting and taking a draft or two. So coming through the s/f in a 100+ mixed pack and NOT hearing a bell was not surprising.

Overall, it was a decent day, as my teammate Brean took second in the "real" finish. (Oh yeah, I'm on a team now, go Cuttin' Crew! Messenger trash, woo!) From what it sounds like, the field was whupped and unable to chase down the eventual winner, and even too spent to keep him from winning the field sprint. At least SOMEBODY on the team got a podium. It would have been nice to see what might have been with both of us in the final sprint...

4 bikes, no racing

No bike racing this weekend. The fam did some some running. Ella did her first 5k, in 29:54!

That's slightly better than Supermom's best 5k time, and better than almost half the field. I paced her and in the final half mile, offered her $1 for every adult she passed before the finish line. She earned $25 :) I figured I'd make her first race payout well.

Lang did his first one mile run, in around 14 minutes. He was hurting, but a little mid-race wager between us also brought him home strong, and a little richer.

I was hoping to race Fox River, but it wasn't in the cards, so I did the "Sisters" xXx ride. Soooo much easier with gears. I also rode 4 different bikes this weekend, one 'cross ride away from a pentathlon.

Sherman Park Race Report (by Ella)

"I started in last place because I couldn't get on my bike. Then I passed a lot of people. A [xXx] guy behind me was yelling 'You're getting beat by a girl, and she's half you're age!' at one of the boys I passed. Then he yelled 'All out! All out!' at me at the end. I got third place. It was fun."

-Ella, 8, in the 10-12 year-olds' unsanctioned one mile race. (No, it wasn't an alleycat - but the "real" juniors race was 3o minutes. We're not there yet.)

Gold star for mom, who used her James Bond driving skills to get her to the line THREE SECONDS before the start. Warmups are so overrated.

The sketchy start:

Photos courtesy of Luke.

Spring Prairie 4/5

This race barely deserves to be written up. The only thing that really bothers me is that I thought I felt ok, and I can't hang my dismal performance on any one thing, but maybe a few. Overtraining this week? Running too much last weekend after taking the winter off? Too little sleep? Getting soaked in my warmup and standing around for 2 hours to wait out the lightning? Being sketched out by the wet start and playing it safe in the back? Not climbing a hill like that in years? Probably that most of all.

Whatever. Bradley and I broke off at the rollers after the start/finish on the last lap. I drafted him for a spell, then tried to pull him back to the group, but he waved me off. I caught the pack after turn 1, only to fall out again just before the big downhills. I counted a three second gap, and thought "No problem, I can close that on the downhill." Problem is, on the downhill, three seconds is three times further away. 45 mph, chin practically on the top tube, but I could not close it. If only I'd shaved my legs and carried a couple of water bottles!

34th place, two spots out of the main field, a little better than halfway in the standings. Al, however, was in top form, and cleaned it with some solid blocking from the Crew and Pegasus, who had someone trying to bridge.

UPDATED: Messenger Worlds #1 - Berlin 1993

The Worlds are coming up "just down the road" in Toronto. I considered going, but I figure they'll have enough retirees without me posing. It got me digging around in the basement though:

"The U.S. would have been shut out of medals if not for Avi Neurohr of Boston. Neurohr won the 'Most Outrageous Uniform' competition by bunny-hopping onto the course wearing only a sock."
-Bicycling Magazine, October 1993

It had to show up here eventually.

*Update: Just to clear up some confusion, it was a single speed, but back in the stone age, track frames were hard to come by and pretty expensive. To tune your chain slack, you either had to replace your chain as it got stretched out, file out the drops a little deeper, and maybe cobble together a homemade chain slack contraption. It wasn't bulletproof, and I didn't want to drop my chain in the race, so I ran a derailleur without gears or cables.

Ghetto, yes, but I still finished around 40th, despite the fact that I watched at least 25 people skip the last checkpoint (changing a flat) and finish ahead of me. I was also placed in the 16th (and last) row at the start, instead of the 8th, where I was supposed to be. I was supposedly 2nd North American, but everybody knew the results were a total joke. 6 German newspapers reported 6 different winners (from their own city, of course), and nobody reported the fact that a Women's team beat all the Men's teams (Go Running Gags! Thanks for the place to crash, Katherina!)

I was on the news, but the interview was so painfully bad that I resorted to hitting on the reporter. My prize was a Cannondale MTB frame tagged by the messengers who hosted the race. It's still in my basement, unbuilt.

What else? The beer was good and plentiful. The Euros had road bikes, but most everyone else had MTBs with slicks. Boston and SF were the only crews I remember rolling deep on road single speeds. I don't remember meeting anyone from Chicago. NY thought they invented the sport, and the SF guys were pretty high on themselves, too, except for Marcus. He was the last person I saw in Berlin, yelling "BOS-TON!" across the train station as I headed to Amsterdam. I was bummed out to hear that he ODed before the '96 Worlds in SF.

I only noticed a couple riders on "pure" fixed gears (Boston and SF - though see the comments below, there were a few more, no doubt). Two NY guys thought we should skip the formalities and hand the prize to them. They rolled in on tricked out race bikes, and it was obvious they weren't riding their "work bikes" as the rules specified, but nobody really gave a shit about things like that. They ripped on my fellow Bostonians for staying out 'til 6 am in East Berlin the night before the race. (Uh, it's a MESSENGER race, in BERLIN! What, are you gonna come home telling everyone you were tucked in bed the night before?) I remember being very happy to beat both of them.

The Scandinavian teams were cool and wicked fast, and the Danish women were 6 feet tall and smokin' hot. The Germans were uptight roadies and they were about the only ones who took it seriously. Way too seriously.

The Americans were most likely to be tattooed and pierced. One guy worked as a messenger in Afghanistan, and he about cried when he took the stage to a standing ovation. I don't remember much about the intros, but racers generally took to the stage with a healthy amount of braggadocio: "Yeeeaahhh boyeeee! We're gonna kick some mufuckin' ASS tomorrow!" (NY) or elation: "this fucking rocks!" (everyone else). Of the three of us from Boston, nobody felt much like chest thumping or saying anything, so we just walked on stage in our underwear and mess' bags.

It was strangely legitimate. They shut down huge chunks of the city for us, and I don't mean a couple blocks across the tracks. On day 1, we ran through a ped underpass to deliver a package at the "Victory Column"(you might recognize it from Wings of Desire or a U2 video). On day 2, we raced right through Brandenburg Gate. Four years before, it was a checkpoint for East Berliners trying to drive $50 cars into a different world, and we were ripping laps through it. In the finals, we raced ten plus miles through the city, at one point, shunted right into traffic, in a plaza not unlike Times Square. I remember skitching a bus and looking over and seeing a family looking quizzically at my bare ass.

The only real complaint I had about the race was the "hassle" checkpoint. You got there, and you had to get a signature from one of the tables, where they would essentially refuse to take your package or say you were at the wrong table. You had to "convince" them in some way. They were trying to simulate the BS a messenger would have to do, so I don't think it was a terrible idea, but the execution killed the race for everyone but the first few racers to get in. Everyone else got stuck in line, waiting to get to an open table. The entire race was pretty much decided by a sprint from the start to that checkpoint. I had picked up 100 spots pretty easily in the bunch start, but that checkpoint allowed the 5 leaders to be off racing for the win while everyone else stood in line. To be honest, I was surprised the event was as organized as it was - seriously, a bunch of messengers staging a race? In Boston, we would've all ended up in jail.

There was definitely a thread of Euro racers that fancied themselves head and shoulders above everyone else. Another Bostonian and I came back from riding in the city, and there was a gaggle of Euro racer dudes sitting at a picnic table. Pat was kinda punk rock looking, pierced face and all, and he rolled up on his Pinarello (single speed, with a straight bar), right up next to their table. He did a nose wheelie in slow motion, gently placed his back wheel on the bench, then powered up into a wheelie with the front wheel crossed up. For one instant, he froze and looked like was going to do a trials move up onto the table, but he just set it down nice and gentle. The roadies didn't say a word, but all the messengers standing around went completely apeshit.

It wasn't a scene, it wasn't a posefest, it was a bunch of freaks throwin' down and gettin' stupid together. Maybe I will go to Toronto after all.

training weekend

Or, more accurately, coaching weekend. Highlights included watching my eight-year-old daughter thread the needle on her new road bike.

Highly anxious moments included watching my eight-year-old daughter thread the needle on her new road bike.

However, in no time, she was drilling nose wheelies, skitching tows, and telling cars to get their driving balls back. Kidding aside, she is totally capable of riding miles in traffic (taking the sidewalk when it's smarter to do so) without my input. It's a beautiful thing. I had to move the tag-along over to a ss road bike, so her brother and I could keep up. Another highlight was having him as a stoker, feeling him kick it up a hill so we could beat her.

In other news, my wife finally did the women's track clinic at the Velodrome, two years after offhandedly opting in. For those of you not in on the joke, my daughter asked mom why she didn't race on Friday nights. Mom replied "why not?" - not really caring one way or the other, but mostly wanting to show her that it's fun to try new things, to race, even if it's all a little intimidating. Of course, that's all I needed to start building up a track bike. A long-lost friend of hers, who had messengered in Chicago ten years back, heard this and gifted her a Campy Record pursuit tubular wheelset (coincidentally built by Marcus), with the only condition "that she race them." So that's how she ended up with the nicest track bike in the family.

And the only one to hang in the basement, unridden for two years. And by unridden, I mean "never borne the pressure of a human on the saddle."

I'm not giving her grief on the subject, since it's about twelve thousand times more difficult to be supermom than it is to be me (especially being supermom in a family that has me in it, who practically counts as one of the kids, but with a salary). She missed a couple women's clinics in the meantime, until this last weekend.

Six tattooed and pierced women in their 20s, two experienced roadies in their 30s, and my wife. I should point out that she's so busy being supermom that she takes about one bike ride per year, in a triathlon. She half-jokingly introduced herself as "I don't know anything about this, I'm just here because my husband built this bike and told me to come to the clinic. He told me to get a picture to make sure I wasn't running off to get a pedicure." She got the impression that some of the tattooed ladies were rather scornful of the subservient picture she painted. If they only knew that she's the Generalissimo around here, and she signed up solely to be a role model for her daughter. Tattoos don't make you tough, ladies, try being Supermom.

I half expected her to come home terrified from her first fixed gear experience. In short: loved clocking laps, not so crazy about the racing. Partly because she doesn't feel particularly conditioned at the moment, but also because she didn't come to prove anything, unlike many of her classmates. She enjoyed the team pursuit a lot more than the miss and out. However, she informed me that she's still planning on following through with her promise; she is going to race some Friday. Two more weeks until opening night!

debut

After so many years of making fun of lycra-clad shaven roadies...I've become one: Wapello-Mediapolis. Memorial Day weekend, 2008.

With all of 100 miles of training time on a geared bike, I was looking forward to a proper road race. I suspect I'm more of an all-rounder and climber, though I barely leave the confines of Cook county, hardly a training ground for mountain champs. In other words, I can't say that I'm crazy about my chances in a race that involves doing laps and beating everyone in a sprint. To be honest, I've never even contested a proper sprint, unless you count cars.

With that said, I didn't expect it to be so challenging. 24 miles? Cat 5? No problem!

The race turns out to be a three-legged u-turn. First we head into the wind, relaxed at 18-20* mph. Even this turns out to be enough to drop four of the starting 15. I count heads and think "If I beat just one of these guys, I'll medal." I tell myself that's how losers think. Winners think about winning.

(*Note: I accidentally reset my speedometer at the start line, so I'm not sure the wheel diameter was calibrated correctly. The speed figures are approximate.)

We turn into a tail-y crosswind, and it picks up to 24ish. I'm at the back of a long line, focusing on staying tight amidst the accordion efforts. Still waiting for something to happen. Somebody leads us through a patch of gravel and some panic braking almost leads to trouble. Adrenaline going, I find myself in sudden trauma trying to hang on at 28 mph...29...30...I find myself looking at a gap ten feet out, for the first a couple real points of panic: MY RACE ENDS HERE IF I DON'T GET THAT WHEEL BACK. I get it back. I look out from behind my pacer to see we're all separated: four ahead, seven of us a hundred yards back. Shit. This is why you don't hang out back here.

Everyone fades but three of us. We're all looking at each other, but I know I was just coming back from redlining, and not about to charge after them. I suspect we all felt the same. Suddenly, a fourth joins us, "Well, are we gonna get 'em, or what?" He sounds more than a little annoyed with our lack of effort. Green hits it, red hits it, white hits it for an anemic pull, and it's my turn.

The fear of getting dropped by the wayside seems to keep me from giving it 100%. What if they use me up and I'm off the back as they bridge? But then something else kicks in: who fucking cares anyway? What, am I going to sit in like a wuss to protect seventh? I may not be as strong as green or red, but I'm not gonna punk out like white jersey. I throw it all out there, and then some, and damn near bridge us all the way back. I'm about two seconds from dropping when green takes over and I slip in to hug his wheel tight. I recover, heaving. We're back in. Eight of us in the lead pack now.

We make the turn into the final third, and hit the first "real" climb. Actually five of the last seven miles are a steady climb, but the tailwind negates much of it. I'd told myself I would cover any attacks here, maybe launch a few soft ones to see what happens, and maybe a full attack. In typical fashion, I think too little and attack too hard.

I peel off left and look back, trying to see who's coming up, trying to not block anyone in...I lose focus for a minute, touch the yellow line, and the course marshal beeps. He comes up, gives me a warning, and by the time I slip back in, the line is strung out far (good!) and I get in at fourth. Only one small problem: there's a gap ahead of third. Strong white (who I believe was pulling up front since the gun) and green are off. Third is not closing it. Sixth and seventh are not coming up to help, and punk white is off the back. I realize I have to get it back. I go, and no one tails me. I'm out in no man's land...closer, closer, closer...then further, further, further...

Four of us group up and try to get them. We take pulls at 27ish, still climbing a bit, but we're clunky or maybe just not fast enough. I'm dying. I drop back a slot in the rotation after every pull for a couple extra seconds of rest. I get a couple looks like "you're up" but wave them through. I'm not pulling my weight, and we're losing the two leaders anyway.

I take 30 seconds in back to breathe, and hit it hard. Was it an attack? A last ditch attempt to get the group going? Whatever it was, we're about at the next uptick in the hill, and I go, holding 29+. I'm long and strong up the hill, and in the process, sixth is off the back. Three of us now, racing for third. I'm feeling good, so I stay there. I suspect they are leaving me out to save it for the sprint for bronze but I don't care.

True enough, I see a "1000 meters" sign. Hooray! No, shit! I'm in the front! Bad!

Three things I know about sprinting:
1. I have no idea where and when to start.
2. I have almost no experience at it whatsoever.
3. I know I shouldn't be in front.
Long story short, I pull over and damn near stop. I would have track-stood to get into the final spot, but stragglers were creeping up the hill, so I settled for drafting red while he wound up. I came around him just right, but I realized orange was doing the same to me...I'm not surprised to be in at fourth. All I can think about is how I should have dropped back into a tight spot after my attack, instead of being so damn careful not to box anyone in. Live and learn.

Turns out Strong White Jersey won it, leading wire to wire, and that he's been a, um, "successful" Cat 5 for a number of years now. WTF?

race report haiku

first road bike; first race
climb five miles for fourth. then
seventh at the snake!

I don't have time for a full report, but I did the Wapello-Mediapolis road race on Friday, the Snake Alley crit on Saturday, and I came home with a pair of medals. More details later, but I will say this, a tiny mental slip-up (I was expecting more) cost me top three in the road race, and I nipped two spots to get into 5th at the last topout of snake alley, only to freewheel my way around, thinking I had another lap. I did, however, get the last medaled spot, so I came home with a couple bits of hardware clanging around my neck. What's that kids? I can't hear you! Yeah, yeah, I know they medaled pretty deep, (and it's only cat 5), but hey, it's nice to come home from my first two (geared and sanctioned) bike races with something.

Y.A.F.G.B.A.

Yet Another Fixed Gear Bandwagon Article.

This isn't particularly fascinating, considering that "this single speed/fixed gear thing is really catching on" and "my-day-on-a-fixed-gear" columns are so frickin' commonplace these days, that I don't even bother to link them anymore...

But, once upon a time, after my first couple months messing, I stripped down an old Torpado and flipped and chopped the bars back in Boston...so for days gone by, I'll link another one from the Boston Globe.

Summary: Newbie gets a "Boston" Langster, gets the local messengers to weigh in on it, finds himself irresistible to the ladies (one lady, at least), gets the nerve to flip it to fixed, gets passed by pregnant joggers and old people walking, impresses a local hipster. Yawn.

Not very remarkable, but a lot of references to the "messenger tribe" - man is that getting old (ok, I've used it myself, plenty, but I think I'll stop now). But the messenger reviews are always interesting. They don't like the drop bars, as "risers have been popular in Boston since the 90's"...they don't think the carbon fork/seat post will be strong enough...they think aluminum is too fragile and steel is more appropriate for the rough stuff.

I always take it with a grain of salt when someone gets "the messengers' opinions" on something, because 10 guys will have 10 opinions. Like I've said before, the options are endless...when I was there, and I'm sure it's still true: there's messing in Boston with drops, flats, risers, fixed, free, brakes, brakeless, steel, aluminum, carbon...if I learned one thing there, it was that everybody had their own favorite, and lots of people switched it up just for kicks. Half the fun is just mixing it up.

Back to your day jobs, not much to see here. I think I may officially swear off these articles. Besides, my geared bike should be here in three days, perhaps in time to ride the Monsters of the Midway :)

It's on, baby. It's ON.

Breaking Away references notwithstanding, it's no secret that most bike fanatics love Italy. The land that gave us Campy, a framebuilder in every village, and Giorgio Moroder.

Michelangelo, of course, gave us perfection in oil and stone, at least the closest thing to perfection that anyone had achieved to date. Giorgio Moroder, on the other hand...if you're still scratching your head: he's the guy that did the background music for Flashdance and Scarface. As a matter of fact, if you picked a movie made between 1980 and 1984, when a character was looking wistfully off in the distance, and one shot was dissolving into another, cheesy dramatic synthesizer music in the background...that cheesy music...THAT's Giorgio Moroder.

Where am I going with this? I've wanted an Italian racing bike since around the time Giorgio was doing lines off his Moog. Somewhere between Pasadena and Chicago, there's a Pinarello with my name on it: aluminum & carbon fiber frame, 1350 gram clinchers, 17 pounds, race-ready with a where-it-counts mix of 105 brakes to Campy carbon fiber rear derailleur.

...and it's got the ugliest paint job ever. It screams 1983. It's the anti-Colnago. Oh well, all the better to fly under the radar. Say hello to my little friend.


I'm gonna have to change the name of this blog.

things you can learn from an 8-year-old

If you raced, and you didn't win, you'd better have learned something. Yesterday I learned what my daughter does at every swim meet: when you're doing multiple heats, write your start time and race number on your arm with a sharpie. It'll save you from getting to the line three minutes late.

With that said, it was a time trial, and an ABR one at that, so they were pretty relaxed about bumping me down a few spots and sorting it all out at the finish line.

A race report on a time trial is about as exciting as a paint-drying report. So I'll try not to put you to sleep. I've never been to one of these before, but it's a different crowd. The mean age is about 50 (even the guys my age looked like dentists, or roadies who have the money to line up in a crit, but not the cajones). Damn near everyone has a five thousand dollar bike and many have a $200 helmet. All the more reason to show up on a single speed, in a skull-covered tri suit. Seriously, other than my bling CF saddle, I felt a little ghetto. My bullhorns are little bent (from the accident that bought that saddle :), and my unorthodox brake lever mounts (one in the drops, one on the flats) meant the officials had to give my bike an extra look-over.

Imperceptible wind, 60 degrees...it doesn't get much better, especially when the wind can ruin a singlespeeder's day. I was killing it, holding it at 24+ mph for most of the first half, hitting 29ish on the downhills and keeping pretty steady on the mild climbs. I caught my "minute man," pretty fast, then before the turnaround, I caught my 7 and 10 minute men too. Halfway into the 30k, I hammered up the hill, pulled a nose wheelie stop at the cone, a u-turn, and hammered back down. I had 4-5 minute men laid out in front of me. I caught 3 of them immediately. There must have been a mild tailwind, because I was having no trouble holding it at 25-26 mph, and I had so many rabbits to chase. My 50 minute target time was totally in the bag, and my "daydream" time of 45 minutes looked possible after all.

That was the high point of the day.

I got a flat. I rode on it for over three miles. Sitting way back on the saddle, fingertips on the flats of my bar, I was still able to do 18-20 mph. A couple of race marshals blasting Nirvana at one of the corners helped me out (I'm pretty sure it was Sammy Hagar and his roadie wife, who, I found out later, flashed one of the competitors as he was sailing through the corner!) I was signed up for two heats, so I was hoping to get back and swap the tube. I tried to pump it up but I'd trashed it and it wouldn't hold, so Hagar let me borrow his wheel.

I tried to relax a bit on the ride in, since I'd put my all into the first heat...now I was having to save some for the second try. However, I started to watch the numbers of the riders starting out, and I realized it was coming up on my start time...so I put myself into the red zone just to get back for heat two!

I made it with three minutes to spare. Rip off one number, juice up, drain a gu, and line up...only to discover I should've gone three minutes ago! The judges were pretty cool about it, and let me start anyway.

So I did heat two on a heavy, not-so-aero wheel, and no speedometer. I fought as hard as I could, but I was clearly off from my first heat. I grabbed a few minute men, but unlike my first heat, got caught by a couple who started behind me.

There was one in particular who was in the distance for about half the race. I'd gain a couple hundred yards on him, then lose them back. Virtually everyone had "proper" trial bars and gears, many had those "Alien vs. Predator" helmets. Usually I can trail a bike for a few seconds and guess about whether I can catch, pass, or hang on to their speed, but it's hard to tell when everyone's in their submarine position with a smooth cadence.

So I finally start to soak up the gap on this one guy, and I think, "This sucks, I've spent $30 on gas, $45 on racing, I was on fire, and now I'm toast. This is my race. I.am.going.to.beat.that.guy." (I knew that he started minutes ahead of me, and technically, I had already made up my ground, but I wanted to cross the line ahead of him.)

So I kept at it, and this Winston Churchill quote popped into my head: "Never, never, never give up." I used to see that quote on a billboard, going to see my mother in Detroit, when she was in her final months of treatment. I remembered that one year ago this weekend, I surprised her by showing up on her birthday, a birthday that we all knew would likely be her last. That REALLY got me going. And, like I thought so many times in my marathon training last summer, "this ain't SHIT compared to cancer treatment."

So I damn-near-redlined and recovered, over and over, and reeled him in. When I passed him, I saw that he had no idea I was there, and I could also see that he was probably cooked. I thought he might be able to shift and bear down and get me, so I just laid it all out hard. I knew the finish was nearby, and I thought I saw it in the distance.

I was busy trying to figure out if I could hammer all the way to those orange cones a half mile away, when to my surprise, I passed the finish line! I pulled over to discover he was 3-5 seconds behind me and as he rolled by, he yelled "DAMN!" ...and not in a nice way, in a "if I had a wall to punch through, I would" kind of way. He continued his outburst coasting back to the lot...I cut back to the finish table to make sure they had my proper start time and the clock man said "I think you made that guy a little mad. He has a $5,000 bike and he couldn't catch you."

"Then my work here is done." (Grin)

After all was said and done, I finished in 53:24 on heat one, and 53:09 on heat two. Had I stayed on form, I coulda woulda shoulda medaled in my division in 4/5th place, with a time in the 46s. What did I learn? That with a $5-10,000 bike, I could rack up wins and medals well into my golden years. That riding 700x20s is a bit of a gamble, when even a little stone can give you a pinch flat. Though, I may have to take that risk again and do another TT soon. Maybe I can piss off someone else at the line.

UPDATE: I'm not sure why I thought someone did it in 27 minutes, maybe there was a sheet posted with overall records or something. The fastest time of the day was 42:24, so I wasn't too far off, given what happened. I ended up 18th in Cat 4...out of 21; lame. But I cracked the top ten in Masters' 30+ (ok there were only 11 in the field). Also lame.

Obama's Breaking Away

Everyone's favorite contender (mine at least) stopped by the Little 500 yesterday.

He could've undone his embarrassment on the bowling lanes by doing a Madison sling out on the cinders, but hey, I'll still vote for him.

If anyone out there has a fat plasma and HDNet, invite me over to watch it live in HD.

Criterium in downtown Chicago!

Word.

I don't know where to begin:
1. The city is hosting a criterium in downtown Chicago.
2. Four corners, a wacky chicane, and a couple of "Chicago hills."
3. Cat 5 to Pro!
4. Jumbotron, baby, JUMB-O-TRON!

Say what you want about our Mayor, but he's a big fan of cycling (and hey, let's not forget he's a big fan of scoring the Olympics). What better way to impress the committee than to host a big fat sporting event in the shadow of Buckingham fountain?

It reminds me of Berlin's similar efforts in hosting the first Cycle Messenger Championship, with the hopes of scoring the summer Olympics, but that's a story for another day.

Daley may be crooked and power-mad, but it's always fashionable to hate on messengers, and yet he sometime seems to shine their shoes: "The bike messengers are a breed unto themselves. I got to meet a lot of them so I know a lot of them. They've got a job to do, and like anything else, they are respecting the laws on the road and all that, and the rules."

Word to the Mayor. What's next? Do you think he'll close down the streets for the Tour da Chicago?

The press release just popped today, so settle down, registration's not open yet. Find out more at www.chicagocriterium.us

bringing sexy back

I kicked off my sanctioned road racing career. I did NOT shave my legs, slather on the embrocation, wear padded shorts or a lycra jersey. I came home with a crisp roadie tan line on each arm, and I'm not happy about it, but wife beaters aren't legal. Apparently my old company jersey just doesn't fit like it used to (guess which one is me). At least I wasn't hanging out the front of it...

I did race single speed, with a straight bar. You run what you brung, and that's all I got.

Yeah, yeah, what was I thinking...here's a snapshot of what was running through my mind:
-I haven't been dropped yet.
-wtf am I doing here?
-wow, I haven't been dropped yet.

I'm not gonna sugarcoat it, not even in your Breaking Away dreams does someone win such a thing, but it was fun. Highlights:
-Not getting dropped
-Not crashing

Open Cat 5 was fast and tight and occasionally frightening. I was in the mix most of the race, but was damn near off the back with 800 meters to go. At 300 meters, about half the pack either bonked or gave up, and I clawed my way back to finish 22/50. The Crew took 4 of the top 5 spots, executing a brilliant leadout train. Despite what I've heard about "Crash 5" races, it was surprisingly clean.

I wasn't sure what to expect in Masters 30+ Cat 4/5, but let's just say it was neither fast nor tight. It did however, make me feel 10 years younger. Woulda, coulda, shoulda, but let's just say if I had but one more gear and a collaborator, it would have been a different story, but every surge was countered with a good long rest. The course was a brilliant motorcycle racing track with about 8-9 turns (none too tight to pedal through) but the crosswinds were murder. Since "breakaway" was clearly not in anyone's vocabulary, I was free to hang at the back of the pack, and hide from the wind on whichever side I needed. There was lots of yelling and some panic braking. One guy alongside me told me to watch my line (which was totally straight btw), though he was literally so far away from me, that someone else could almost have ridden between us. One guy was even using hand signals and calling out "slowing!" My primary goal was to stay off the pavement in the company of such knuckleheads.

I "almost" got a prime - meaning I came from the back to take 3rd, though I was 30 yards off the winner. I probably could have taken the wind-sheltered gutter a little more aggressively before the final turn, but I was convinced there was a crash in the making. While the Cat 5s had started whipping it up at this point, these guys were snaking out wide, back and forth, looking backwards, like they've seen on so many Tours de France. I'd hoped to be at "the front of the middle third" by then, but I played it too safe. I might be spinning a different yarn had I gotten mashed up. It ended like a abbreviated version of my first race: the sprint started late, finished early, and I soaked up as many spots as I could while half the pack was in oxygen debt, finishing 21/50. I gotta get me a proper road bike.

I came around fast on the rest lap and got permission to do the Cat 4/5 race, but it was full at 75 racers, and after they counted everyone up, they came in and pulled me out. It's probably for the best, because it was longer, faster, had a bunch of crashes, and from what I heard, was even more chock full of angry roadies yelling about somesuch thing. The Crew had a nice pull at the end, but they needed one more man to take it all the way to the line, and they got nipped.

Good times. At least it didn't end like this.

Epic with a capital E

There aren't a lot of multi-stage off-road races. It's a brilliant idea, but the European tradition of six day classics just hasn't mated itself often to the off-road scene. It's unfortunate, as it looks like fun, but the logistics have got to be a nightmare (Could you just hike over that mountain and hand me my feedbag at around noon? Bring a wheelset just in case.)

However, organizers of the Cape Epic haven't let that bother them. Sadly, it's in South Africa, so unless there's a sponsor out there looking to send a blogger, it just ain't gonna happen for me anytime soon.

There's so much to scope out and plan for in the most basic race...mud, singletrack, rocks, roots, climbs, DHs...it would seem ludicrous to try to do one on a single speed. But then, single speeders are kind of ludicrous anyway.

So when these two cats found each other and formed a 'team' to run the Cape Epic on single speeds, well, let's just say, they were guaranteed a podium finish (415th overall). Sounds like fun, but then again, if I had a custom IF Ti ss off-road machine, I'd be happy to ride it for 61 hours myself.

Which got me thinking...hmmm, the 24 hours of 9 Mile is coming up, and while I don't have a race-worthy ss mountain bike, I do have a ss 'cross bike...ludicrous is as ludicrous does...

it's getting sloppy out there

This is what happens when you start to see alley cats crop up in places like St. Augustine, Florida: accidents, cops, tickets, and collisions.

Part of me wants to say "rock on."

However, more of me wants to say "this is grown folks business and you best handle your ride first."

For obvious reasons, my heart's just not into 'cat racing at the moment, but it's true, there's nothing like it, and I surely can't hold it against anyone for wanting to give it a go. But that's the kind of pack you stay out of.

Photos from the event. Whiskey and wheels, indeed.

Why post it? Well, there are lots of 'cats sprouting up everywhere, but I thought this one was worth mentioning if only because it's in a dinky little town with nary a courier in site (iirc, the site of the oldest jail in North America) and because two, yes TWO, of the competitors launched on or over the hoods of cars. A coincidence?

one guy you don't want checking you into the boards

Dhani Jones: Cincinnati Bengal, occasional rugby player, linebacker, special teams captain.

And, according to the Bengals' profile, Dhani will "continue to eschew a car in favor of the Fixie, his fixed-gear bicycle."

Word.

Matthew Manger-Lynch, 1978-2008

The Tour da Chicago is no more.

For the "official" rundown, read the Chicago Tribune version of events; please skip the hundreds of snarky comments. The local news, for lack of anything substantial to report, cobbled together a story from youtube clips. It was less than flattering.

There's so much more to the story, but this much needs to be said: Matt was out front. He was riding boldly and aggressively. He made a bad decision. He couldn't undo it in time. From what I hear, that sounds like him.

Matt's family are sportsmen (and women), adventurers, outdoorsmen, risk-takers, achievers...and they welcomed the other racers with open arms. We should all be so lucky to have a family like that, a family capable of celebrating a life so vigorously in the wake of such an event. Their response was uplifting and inspiring; some even urged the racers to continue the Tour. The idea was not well received.

Had things happened differently, Matt would probably be taking a long pull, without any complaints, at the front of the Stage Four right about now.