Race of the Future

A couple TdFs back, I remember hearing the Versus commercials with the sound bite, "This isn't a bike race, it's a death march." That was running inside my head for Blue Mound, candidate for the 2016 Olympic road course. Welcome to the Queen's stage of the Tour of America's Dairyland.

I've had some horrible experiences on a bike over the years:
-stomping both feet ankle deep in icewater before riding through 20 degree temps, having to cut my icy shoelaces to get out of my shoes
-riding 130 hilly miles on a touring leg alone on a loaded bike, with a jar of nutella and no money
-riding to work with a windchill of -30, truly scared my extremities wouldn't make it without damage
-doing a 200km brevet on a fixed gear, 20mm tires, a carbon saddle, and zero training miles

Simply put, Blue Mound put them all to shame.

Lap one, cat 4/5, 50 starters. We take it easy, unsure of what lies ahead. Bomb through the downhills at 45+. At the first climb, the field shatters wide open.

Mike's in the lead group of 8 and they get a gap. I have no long road sessions and zero hill miles in my legs (I don't think Snake Alley really counts), so I'm lagging. With a lot of room to aggressively corner on the descents, I recover a few spots to find myself time trialing in 12th or so. My group of four is cooked. I either have to pull at 21mph or sit in at 19. I can't bring myself to sit in. We have yet to hit the real hill.

We hit the hill and hell begins in earnest. I can't tell you what really happened for a number of miles. My computer had inexplicably rebooted so I had no idea what mile we were on, and I'm not sure I wanted to know. We don't so much climb as scrape our souls up the pavement.

Match the riders ahead of you and you risk bonking with miles to go. Space out too much and find yourself alone. Nothing to do but just focus on the front wheel and my HR...161...175...somewhere in between... Looking ahead is a mistake, nothing but climb. Is that the last turn before the topout? Even the cheering fans on the hills are solemn. Cat 3s and women litter the course, some are retiring already. We are less than halfway into this race.

Rollers, we recover. We pick up Adam. He's been somewhere in the top ten, but now faded back to us. He hasn't trained much this spring, and hasn't raced at all. He rode a thousand miles around Lake Michigan in under two weeks, took a single rest day and suited up for this race. He's in the pack with us.

Again I pull too much, but I try to ease up a little more this time. We come together, maybe 10th-18th, we've picked up a few from behind us. No one's pushing it. I put in a few weak digs to thin the pack, but it doesn't thin as much as I'd hoped. We enjoy 50 mph on eight miles of downhills, but the hills come too soon. A couple go off the front, a couple off the back, none to be seen again. I'm in with three others, and we approach the mid-lap climb. One ditches us.

And on. We pick up Mike. This is not a good sign. He's a climber, suited for endurance races. This should be his day. He's been dropped by the lead group. Turns out his biggest cog is only a 23, and his legs are failing. He asks if I have a 25, and I consider giving him my wheel, but the fact is, it's been misbehaving, the chain twinkling on the spokes while torquing in my climbing gear...which is most of this race. I'm afraid stopping to swap wheels would mean the end of the day for both of us.

The penultimate climb comes. Can't remember from the map...one, two, three miles long? I am just mindlessly chewing up rpms now. I'm third of four in our group. Mike is out ahead, but cutting diagonals across the course. Red/white tails him, then me. Chronometro behind me. He'd told me he didn't have many matches left, but I keep waiting for him to pass me like everyone else has.

Mike pulls off and dismounts. I approach the feed zone, still on the climb, but after all this, it feels like a flat. Shift and hammer. I put away chronometro for good. Red/white is out ahead but pretty far. We approach the turn for the finish. He's probably written me off, and he's chasing Kristen from BH and another woman. They've been trading spots with us for a five miles. Sometimes they're so relaxed they look like they're on a cooldown ride; other times they bury us.

I downshift and go hard on the final pitch. Twenty meters separates me from red/white, then fifteen, but he sees me and my chance is gone. A little dig and he's on the flat, 150 meters to the line, and rides away.

I finish fifteenth. As always, I have to pat myself on the back with the "little" victories: Chronometro lives in the area, and has trained here a lot, and I still held him off. Nearly half the field abandoned, not to mention half the cat 3 field as well. Still, it stings to know I was riding inside the top ten for a spell.

Mike remounted and finished 19th. Al "I'm not much of a climber" Urbanski finished 6th in the 3s, but to be honest, at this point the only way Al could surprise us would be by sprouting wings. But the out-of-nowhere hero finish of the day belongs to Adam Clark: after a rather unorthodox training strategy, fading and recovering, he finished 7th!

Hero.

Best Day Ever (on 2 wheels)

One year ago this weekend I unpacked my first proper geared road bike, and this year I was in the Tour de France. Sorta.

Snake Alley, 2009
Sometimes life ties you up. No racing for the last 6 weeks, and not a lot of training miles either (not to mention there are no Snake-like hills in these parts). Couple that with the fact that I haven't been built like a manorexic climber since age 23 or so, and let's just say I didn't have high hopes for Snake Alley. What can you do? There are no real tactics, it's just...go hard, climb, bomb the downhill, pedal through a few turns, repeat. Try not to bonk.

I mostly raced about 1% inside my red zone, which was the plan, but I finished two spots out of the money in 17th, whatev. Max had a mechanical and Mike finished in 8th. His magic climbing beans are continuing to pay off this year. (Molly cramped, toppled, rubbed it out and got back in, and in the 3s, Al worked his way from 45th to 12th, 8 of those spots on the last lap.)

So if you're not going to be a factor in a race, I figured, you may as well not be a factor in two. It's a long drive for only 40 minutes of racing. While it's not uncommon to double up, it's not something that a lot of people do at Snake Alley, save maybe the Masters/Pros looking for another paycheck. And they generally don't do it back to back.

So minutes after my race, the Masters are cued up, looking especially sparkling and fresh, and I'm dumping ice water over my head and trying to control the hyperventilation. I get to the line looking like hell...well, let's just say it's not pretty. The whistle goes and I'm off the back. Whatev.

So here's where the day starts to get fun. On my next trip up the snake, amid a few comments of "that guy's already dropped on the first lap? ouch"...I get to the Cuttin' Crew's Couch Corner, ride through a row of high fives, maybe pull a wheelie for a microsecond, and the Crew is going nuts. Within a couple laps, about three switchbacks full of fans are in on the fact that I'm rolling back to back races, and they are pouring it on.

If you've never heard a deafening crowd chanting "A-VI! A-VI! A-VI!" You should try it sometime, with your own name, of course. I was laughing out loud at how ridiculous it was, throwing wheelies when they called for them. I had fans inches from my face, yelling GET UP THERE and a guy in antlers with a flag running me over the crest. In short order I was lapped by the leaders, and I wonder what they must have thought as they were climbing the hill, and the crowd was going insane for...who? Somebody later told me you could hear it from the start/finish, three blocks away.

What to say about this? 22 laps up the Snake. Best day of racing ever. Teams are good for a lot of things, but when they are inciting a near riot on your behalf...well, you just don't get that anywhere. So first and foremost, this is for them.

god's speed

Somehow in the trip south we gained 30 degrees and lost all the clouds. Maybe signing God's code of conduct did the trick?

Brilliant day, brilliant race. If they were all like this, you could come home happy with the result no matter where you ended up.

First off, team results: Molly attacked too hard on the hill, got separation, and chased back on to finish 13th of 23.

In the 3s, Al "I wouldn't bother putting wheels in the truck cuz you'll never catch back on" Urbanski got in a break of seven, built a three minute gap, but 61 miles in, flatted. The truck guy gave him some wheel and pushed him off, yelling GO! Chased back on for 5 miles, catching them in the last half mile. Went for a sprint move but finished fourth. Just out of the brick trophies, but hot results, the hottest of the day. Stan flatted earlier, but was right near the "team couch" so he opted for that.

Cat 4s set out with Cuttin' Crew and xXx up front, controlling the easy pace. A couple danglers get nothing. Squawking in the pack that "if we're going to control it, we should at least push the pace." - Uh, plenty of room up here if you want to show us how it's done.

My 45 minute crit seasoning shows, because at 47 minutes I fade for a few moments. Recover in the back, move up through the field just in time for the first hill. Ouch, but not too bad. Hill 2 shoots me out the back, along with half the pack. I see 3-4 danglers out ahead, if I can only get to them, maybe we can work it out and get back on. Start the second lap trying to do so, but a fruitless effort. I catch them and it turns out they're no use for pulling. I soldier on, averaging 22 mph and somehow getting stronger. I sweep up a dozen or so, nobody can hang on.

I find Andrew (teammate) and Andrew (Yeoman) from Pegasus. Maybe we can all work it out, so I slow up. Turns out I'm doing all the pulling. I'd lost my water bottle but now I'm sticking around teammate Andrew to use his. I absentmindedly drink too much and almost drop him. Sorry dude! Finally I have to go, I hand it back and press on, collecting spots.

I spot a guy on the killer hill out ahead. I gotta get this guy, who cares if I'm mid-pack. I'm not done racing. I get close on the hill but he sees me. I catch him at the crest, drop him on the downhill but I take the lipped corner too easy and burn out a bit on mild cobbled climb. He catches up to me, then fades. Another guy in the distance, in green. Is he too far? Maybe. Gotta try, now THIS is my race.

He's got thirty meters on me in the corner. He glances back but I think he writes me off. I take the turn and start to build. He easily picks off another rider and sits up a bit, but oh no! teammates cheering me on! He sees me and starts to really wind it up. Twenty meters and closing, ten, can he hold me off? No. I get him in the final meters and hold it by inches.

Iron Mike Morell got his best finish ever at 6th, and looking for more hill races this summer. Rooster improved his endurance showings over last year and got 12th. Max at the tail end of the pack, 29th. Me at 41st, Brean shortly behind me (dropped from the pack due to mechanicals, but got back in it). Nordyke building early season conditioning, a bit behind him.

For me, everything went great today, except for that hill. I'm not too disappointed though, I haven't done any long rides or hills, so I'm not too surprised. All in all, a gorgeous day for riding. Back on the bus for the postgame analysis, $7 twelve packs of Stag beer, and the long ride back to the city. Good times.

I'd love to cover Super Crit but...

I'm a little fuzzy on the details. I'll try:

Pre-race:
Ella skips the clinic, we do half a lap, her mission is accomplished. It would have been nice to clock some more, maybe jump in the juniors race, but it's in the 30s, and she's done. She spends the day hanging out with Molly on the bus, and Uncle Stan teaches her all sorts of colorful new words. On the plus side, after a day with the guys on the bus, she no longer considers me stinky, even after 4 races.

Race 1, 4/5 Killer Bs
Andrew makes it into a break of 4, I block. The break can't get it together to share the load, he has back to back pulls, somebody kicks it up, and as a result, he gets dropped. I chase them hard, everyone lets me, but they stay away. Bunch sprint for 9th.

Race 2, Masters' 30+ 4/5
Mike and I line up. I can't remember much about this one. I win a prime, the one I wanted, for a chain. Try to stay out with a xxx'er, but it doesn't happen. They have 20 teammates in the field, but they want their own glory apparently? You never know with xxx. I think I soaked up a bunch for 17th, I can't remember how Mike does, but it's well ahead of me.

Race 3, Elite 4/5
A couple minutes of rest, gu, fluid, and back at it. I'm dying for 3-4 laps but somehow get stronger. I start patrolling the front and let Max slip off with another rider. The other guy fades but a new guy gets in, then another. 3 could stay out, but they fight for a prime (which wasn't even awarded, since it was only for the field!) and they fade. A xxx'er goes for a late prime solo, gets it, I chase him down since there's one lap to go, but when we catch him 2 xxx'ers counter and stay out for the win. oh, NOW they work as a team.

Race 4, Elite 3/4
Fast and pressing, the sleet starts coming. 55 minutes. I'm totally NAF for this one. Not A Factor. I barely hang on at a couple points. I'm just going for a start and a pack finish to count towards a Cat 3 upgrade, and I miraculously make it.

I have nothing left, but then why is my body kicking me out of bed at 5 am? Stupid, stupid body.

rinse, lather, repeat

Half Acre - Kevin's Crits 4/5

Thursday.
Check the team site for today's update. We've got some sexy results.
chicagocuttincrew.com

On a personal note, eh: I attacked at the gun and went a lap or two. Nobody chased. I guess I'm not much of a threat! I was bored, itching to go, and I just wanted to kick start it, and maybe get the pack going and burn off the weaker part of the field. I did this a lot. Most people didn't care, some other people tried the same thing. After a while I just played, attack, fade, recoup a few spots. Perhaps it was the lack of mighty headwinds, but the pack didn't panic over any attacks, and they all came back.

Eventually I rested, tried to link up with teammates for some kind of train, but at one to go, the whole bunch was pretty much intact, and I was waiting to get swarmed again, after burning so many matches playing games. I certainly didn't get swarmed, but I didn't exactly make it close enough to contest the sprint either, an improvement, though I only pulled 17th. Still, my late game is getting better.

If only I could race three nights a week all the time, I might get somewhere. Possibly keeled over.

getting the kinks out

Half Acre Crit Series

Wednesday
I skipped this one, so technically it shouldn't even be here, but since I've accidentally become the source of news for my team this week, here goes nothing:

Mike suits up for the third consecutive day. He cannot be stopped. Unfortunately, his bike can, and is, by a flat just a couple laps before the finish.

Brean has a "new" bad ankle to keep his mind off his "old" bad ankle, and hasn't been training much, but he decides to give it a go nonetheless. An early race mechanical suddenly leaves him with the nose of his saddle pointed south, and he spends the rest of the race mostly on the bars.

A few breaks try, nothing sticks, and with 3 to go, a couple guys get away for good, with Dave ? from xXx taking the win. Brean hangs in the sprint for 13th.

Mike was last seen coming up with a plan to convert the bus into a street sweeper before Thursday's race.

dodging the storm

Half Acre Crit Series

Tuesday
Fast as hell, cuttin' crew missed the break, chased for 5-6 laps to get back in, I burn out, Jeff and Mike made it in. The sweetest words I've ever heard: "they made the break" and I sit up and coast in the field. Ernie sees the 'lap of death' look on Jeff's face and drops him. Jeff gets collected with the remains of the field, including me. Mike gets a flat, Stan flies like the wind to get another off the bus, Mike rejoins the lead group...and flats. He's out. Jeff and I in a loose pack of eight. I try to protect/pull Jeff the last half lap, off to the side a bit in a crosswind, but it doesn't work out, turns out he doesn't need me anyway. He cleans the bunch sprint, I finish four spots back.

icebreaker 2009

Half Acre Crit Series, Cat 4/5

No prizes, no primes, no lights (!), just a bunch of guys shaking off the winter.

Monday
First the ladies: Jamie had a solid outing, but it had to be tough in a field of six. 20 mph crosswinds made it possible to ride in the gutter, leaving nothing to draft. They split into 3 and 3, and I missed the details, but she came in at 5th.

In the men's race, Mike and I were up front and staying out of trouble, pushing the pace, covering stuff, letting little gaps open that others had to close down, finding the gutters out of the wind. Nothing too fancy, but throwing the gauntlet down here and there, softening the pack without killing ourselves.

Unfortunately, the 3-5 minute tempo before the sprint put the hurt on me. It would have been nice to have a tempo/leadout/sprint train, but frankly, I wasn't quite up to the call.

But not a bad plan, considering we had no plan: Jeff was rested and ready for the sprint, and he lit it up. Ernie (Van Wagner/Yojimbo's) was the only one able to contest it, and he came around Jeff to take it by maybe half a wheel. Considering he's a tree-legged cat 2 trackie, not too surprising. Mike held on for 9th and I was 3 spots or so behind him, but they didn't map the placings that deep so I'll never know. We got a spot on the podium, a top ten...and a domestique in the bunch. I'm ok with that.

farmer wins tour

Yes, it's been a while. What started as a place to blog about single speed/fixed, and messenger nonsense...well, let's just say, any schmo with a computer and a bike can do it (and they all do), and Bike Snob NYC has pretty much cornered the market on alt.bike.news, to the point where I'm constantly amazed the guy has enough time and energy to bloviate on half the stuff he does. It's like those lifelong academics who can spend an afternoon debating formalism vs. de-constructionism. At some point, you're like, who the fuck cares? Ride already!

Plus I'm happy to hear from my bike shop source that the fixed gear trendsters are slowly moving on. I don't know what's next for the hipster masses, and I'm sure there will be a few left behind, but that's ok. One might say the same about me. I was about ready to hang this blog up for good, but surprisingly I still get a few hits on the fg vs. ss page. So anyway.

This post is not about my blogging needs, but about a teamless amateur who beat a bunch of pros in Argentina's Tour de San Luis. My favorite athletes never get on the Wheaties boxes. This was no ABR race neither, Team Saxo won the final day's sprint, and none other than Ivan Basso finished fifth in the GC. Read all about it at Podium Cafe.

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...