DC Cyclocross Race

I guess it's a bad habit of mine to start things late. I forgot until Saturday evening that my bike was still set up for mountain biking and would need some wrenching to be ready for the 'cross race Sunday. Unfortunately I didn't get home from Bill and Kim's until close to 12:30 am, and I thought it best to get some rest rather than try working on the bike while already half asleep. I got up when the alarm went off at 7:30 am, which as it turns out wasn't quite early enough. Took a hot shower, threw my stuff together, and was rolling by 8:10. It's a long drive to the middle of DC, and I pulled into a parking spot in the race venue at 9:25. Quickly taking the bike off the rack and throwing my shoes on, I raced up to the registration tent to pick up my number. Mike Klasmeier was there, trying to tell me I didn't need to change anything on the bike. Riiiight. I basically told him he was nuts and raced back to the car to get to work. 9:40 am, and my class (men's C) started at 10. My heart was working now -- if I executed the gear swap perfectly I figured I could just make it.

Okay, first things first, swap out the rear wheel for the one with the 'cross tire and 21 tooth cog on it. Second, replace the 32 tooth chainring with the 42 tooth. Excellent, I didn't lose any of the chainring bolts! Next, the longer chain. Things are looking good. Loosen the bolts for adjusting the eccentric bottom bracket and get the chain tensioned just right. Only one thing left to do. Swap out the tire and tube on the front to the Michelin Mud2. Oh, and air up both tires. With those two things accomplished I took a look at my watch. 9:55! F@$!, I still had to get my number on! That took about two minutes, including shedding my wool top because I could tell by the way I was already heating up that it would be too warm for racing. So, in jersey and tights I rode as quickly as I could toward the start... wherever that was. Even though I helped lay out the course the day before, no one had mentioned where we would be starting. This was cutting it too close, and I had to make a stop at a porta john on the way there, because there was no way I would make it through a 40 minute race with an overfull bladder. Ahhh... that's better.... What's all that yelling and hoopla? Finished with the porta john I picked up my trusty yellow Gunnar singlespeed, and watched with some chagrin as the tail end of 70 riders turned off the road onto the first dirt climb.

Laughing, already enjoying this, I started that same climb 10 or 15 seconds behind the last rider and with zero momentum. But this was the beginner/casual/learning class, and though I have only been on the bike a handful of times since the hundred mile race in early August and this was only my second ever cyclocross race, I still had a lot of dirt experience on the majority of these guys. It wasn't long before I was passing the true beginners, those who probably have never even been in a race, or never trained specifically for racing. The course was a great deal of fun, with it's up and down nature and all the turns in some sections. I was more comfortable carrying speed through them than most, and it was a blast to catch and then pass people going into a turn. But my legs were feeling pretty leaden after just the first lap, and I was fervently wishing for some of that stamina back that has been slowly draining away over the last few months. With my one gear I was losing some time to the riders using geared cyclocross bikes (almost all of them) on the long back section. Not so much on the slight rise, but on the gravel decline before getting back onto dirt. But I have to say I had as much fun on the last lap as I did on the first. I caught up to young Jake -- doing amazingly well in his first C race -- on the next to last lap. Hopefully I provided some encouragement to him to dig down and keep up the pace. He stayed with me for a while, and even passed me back up when we got to the straighter back section, but near the beginning of the last lap I gritted my teeth and pulled out a burst just before a turn that hurt like hell but sent me past him and 2 other guys. He must have stayed close behind though, because he finished the race in the next place after me. Kudos to him! I just have to encourage him to ride his singlespeed more. :) I ended up in 37th place, having passed 32 riders, not quite half of that huge field.

So, I found a way to make Sunday a rather exciting, and extremely fun, day. Next Sunday I suppose I should have my act together and start closer to the front and see how I do. If I'm able to train better next year than I was able to this one, I'll either race with the masters 35+, or with the killer B's. I wonder which would be more fun? Because that's what these cyclocross races are all about to me, having fun. It's the end of the year, the mountain biking season is all done, and the desire to train for 8 or more hours a week is long passed. The only thing left to do is enjoy myself and gain some weight. I'm not even sure I'll bother buying a 'cross bike (singlespeed to be sure) for next year. Maybe I'll just use my mountain bike again like I'm doing this year. It'll handicap me compared to everyone else, but what the hell, I love riding my Gunnar!

My First Cyclocross Race

I wouldn't say I got up early for my very first cyclocross race (Ed Sander Cyclocross, Lily Pons Water Gardens, Adamstown, MD, Sep 30 2007) , but I did manage to get there in time to check in, get my number, get into my shoes, and make it to the start line. In the rear of the men's cat 4 (c) (the newbie category), looking at the backs of about 70 other guys it turned out. The whistle went off and the mass finally moved forward after several seconds. Suddenly we were racing! Damn, this was fun stuff! I was able to move past a lot of people in the first half mile by being a little aggressive and knowing when to hit the gas to make the pass. I noticed right away that most of these guys bled off a lot of speed going through the turns. Definitely not mountain bikers. I was able to make a lot of passes by going much faster through the turns, either waiting behind a wheel and diving to the inside as someone took it wide, or taking an outside line and then making sure not to give the guy going inside too much room to straighten out the turn, forcing them to let up to make it around. The competitiveness of the race was exhilarating!

On my second of four laps I went through a very gravelly sharp turn a little too aggressively and slid out, in the same place I watched 20 or 30 other guys slide out in the later races. I really didn't feel like sliding in gravel, so I came down (gently!) on my hands and only briefly touched down on my right hip. It was only a second before I was picking the bike back up and getting ready to mount... and then I noticed the chain had dropped off. As I was riding singlespeed, This Was Not Supposed To Happen, in addition to being a real pain in the arse. I lost probably 10 or 15 positions while I worked on getting the chain back on (my punishment for putting a ramped and pinned chainring on a singlespeed), then I was back in the game. For the final two and half laps I worked on gaining back positions I'd already taken and trying to conserve energy for the steeps on the back half of the course -- not really a great cyclocross strategy, but I'm definitely at the bottom of the cyclocross learning curve, minus bike handling skills.

Finally the race was over. My legs didn't have much left for the steeps, but my energy systems were really just getting to the point of max output and I was feeling pretty darned good at the finish, which is not how it's supposed to be. Hmmm... I need to work on that. I placed 32nd out of 83 starters -- not too bad considering I started in the back, it was my first race, and I had the mechanical. I managed to bruise the inside of my left calf pretty good somehow, but got through my first 'cross race pretty much unscathed. What I need to do now is work on my mounts, and make the bike more reliable. For the bike I ordered a 42 tooth rampless, pinless Salsa chainring and a new chain. I'll also be putting v-brakes on the front and using a lighter tire next time. Hopefully I'll still be able to stop without disc brakes when things get wet. Mentally, I need to discard notions of conserving energy and just go as hard as I can all the time -- it's only 40 minutes after all.

It's fair to say I'm hooked. :) Now I know what all of the excitement is about when 'cross season approaches. Perhaps next year I'll build up a decent singlespeed 'cross bike, but for now I'm very comfortable with the converted mountain bike, heavy as it is. See you at the races!

A little ride this afternoon

Saturday. I didn't really want to get up at 7am, but my suddenly overactive mind wouldn't let me go back to sleep. After fighting it for an hour I finally gave up and crawled out of bed. The first thing I did (after feeding the cats) was a short 30-minute high intensity workout to try and raise my anaerobic threshold. I'm in pretty poor shape for racing, but I'm just going to go out and have fun. I'm always competitive once I'm racing, but I've never been upset if I don't place well once it's all over. It's just not something I want to stress over. After the workout it was time to eat some breakfast and work on getting my mountain bike ready for the cyclocross race. That included putting a 'cross tire on the spare rear wheel, and initially on the spare front wheel. I'd wanted to use the front wheel I bought from Mike Scardaville since it's so much lighter, but after removing the disc brake from the front of the bike and getting all set up to install the old v-brake from the old Trek Fuel, I realized I didn't have any brake posts for the fork. Sigh. After searching for brake posts for 30 minutes, back on goes the disc brake, and the new 'cross tire on the normal front wheel for this bike. I should just spring for the IRO Cycles Rob Roy singlespeed cyclocross frame this month. It's only like 279 bucks.

I finally finished working on the bike at about 1:30 in the afternoon. I took a huge load of recyclables to the county dump, went to the Common Market in Frederick to pick up some groceries (organic, naturally), then headed over to Bill and Kim's. Kim and I talked for a while, then decided to go for a short motorcycle ride (Bill was on his own tortuous ride somewhere near Charleston, WV at the time, on his way to Kansas City, MO. Crazy place to ride to on a motorcycle if you ask me). We didn't get rolling out of the driveway until about 5pm, so it was definitely going to be short. I asked Kim to take the lead, since she was the native and knew the roads around there well, and she did so readily, setting a very nice pace. Not slow (never that), but safe and definitely within reason -- a very happy pace for me. Within the first minutes of the ride I knew that's where I needed to be right then, sitting on that bike I've so quickly become comfortable with, the power at my command, sense of being in control of my life in that little space of time, my mind by need present and focused. It was amazing the sense of being unburdened of worries and stresses I immediately felt. Over the next hour and 40 minutes and 60 miles of following Kim around the back roads northeast of Frederick that wonderful feeling persisted. The weather was a perfect 68 degrees with clear skies and I thoroughly enjoyed the entire ride. Why had I almost completely stopped riding motorcycles the last two years? It's clearly beneficial to my mental state. Maybe I had just been stuck with a motorcycle that wasn't right for me, as this VFR so clearly is. Hindsight.

After a mediocre dinner at Famous Dave's that took much too long, with help from Kim I got the new Givi luggage rack installed in under an hour. It was a whole lot easier than installing a Givi Wingrack (that's a pain in the ass). The new rack isn't too bad looking minus the bags, unlike the Wingrack. With the bags the bike is, well, wide. I can live with it for now (forever?). Maybe some day I'll get the factory bags, which I think fit tighter to the bike and don't stick out so far. I'll have to take a picture later. For now, there's this one.

New Bike

I got a new bike a couple of weeks ago. No, it's not a bicycle. It's a replacement for the motorcycle (Suzuki Bandit 1200S) I sold to my friends Bill and Kim. The Bandit, though fun to ride in many circumstances owing to it's awesome low and mid-range torque, just never really inspired me. And it showed in how much I'd ridden it in the last two years. Since buying the Bandit in early 2004 I'd put just a little over 11,000 miles on it. Something was missing. The desire to ride I'd had in the early years when I had my first VFR800, that yellow beauty, had faded since it's demise and the subsequent purchase of the Bandit. I'd been considering letting the Bandit go and giving up riding motorcycles altogether, since I'd been spending most of my free time riding bicycles anyway, and Bill said they were considering buying the Bandit from me to have as a spare and commuting bike. He had been sending me ads for VFR's for at least a year, since he knew I really wanted another one if I wanted anything -- and his perseverance finally paid off, for I got a sudden and powerful hankering to buy one.

Hunting around, I found a silver 2003 in Alabama with 16K miles with all the after market additions I might want. Sargent seat, Helibars, factory bags. I was in negotiations with the owner for it, but Friday morning Bill sent me an ad he found on Craigslist for a silver 2003, with only 836 miles! And it was a 100 bucks less than the one in Alabama. And it was in Gaithersburg, which is a hell of a lot closer. I emailed the owner as quickly as I could and we made plans to meet up Saturday afternoon so I could look it over. The bike was so perfect it could have just come off of the showroom floor. I fell in love with it right away and took it home (well, to Bill and Kim's).

I picked it up from Bill and Kim's house Wednesday evening and rode it to work Thursday and Friday. That Saturday, a week after getting it, the three of us went on a leisurely 370 mile trip into West Virginia, taking a whole 10 hours. It was quite a bit more sedate than we would have gone in the past, I know. None of us were in a hurry, and I did most of the leading since I had a sorta plan about a route. And I'm just not so anxious to take the risks I would once have. I was immediately comfortable on the bike, just as I was on my first VFR. I was afraid the position would be too low and bother me too much, but that really didn't turn out to be the case. In fact, after switching to Bill's brother's 2000 VFR with Helibars for part of the day, I don't think I want to add them to mine. The stock position just feels right; comfortable enough, with a better feeling of control. I was hurting the last few hours to be sure, but still, being able to ride 10 hours on a bike after not riding for about a year... really says something positive about the stock setup.

The VFR definitely loses a lot to the Bandit in torque, but makes up for it in being easier to ride quickly, with quicker steering, much lighter feeling (though it's not really), and that awesome V4 sound that I love so much. One thing I hated though is that damn lean-surge at constant throttle. The VFR's have a fuel saving mode, that when the ECU detects constant throttle at certain RPM's (below 7k?) it leans out the fuel mixture, which for me causes quite a drop in horsepower, a problem unless you're riding on very level road. Inevitably the ECU would go into that lean mix mode, the HP would drop, I'd have to give it more throttle, the bike would surge when it came out of the lean mix mode, I'd have to get back off the throttle to maintain my speed, and then the cycle would repeat. Over and over, all day long. The only time I wasn't affected by it was when riding on the more exciting roads, where I was either on the throttle or brakes a lot more, or outside of that RPM range where the lean mix mode would kick in. A Power Commander is definitely on my list for immediate purchases, which will get rid of that problem.

I just really enjoy riding the VFR, and I'm looking forward to many future trips on it. With my best friends certainly, maybe alone sometimes. Riding it is somehow therapeutic. Riding my mountain bike is therapeutic too, but in a different way. Spending time on the motorcycle gives me a feeling of independence, of being in control of my own destiny, of responsibility for my life. I'm almost always calmer after getting off of it. Truly, if you want to ride and not crash, you really have to pay attention to the world around you. Staying alive is your highest priority, and it's your responsibility. You must be present when riding, or you won't be riding long. Perhaps it is being forced into the present for extended periods, giving my mind a break from all other stresses, that gives it it's therapeutic aspect. I'm glad the VFR is back in my life.

Pictures from Texas at Easter

I finally got around to downloading the pictures from my camera, including these from that ice event in Texas over Easter weekend.

Increasing My Endurance

I'm worried I'm not really in the kind of shape I need to be in to be competitive in my class (singlespeed or expert, depending on the race). Circumstances have somewhat kept me off the bike; I also just haven't been as dedicated to putting in the time, truthfully. The weather hasn't helped, but that would be true for everyone. Hopefully this year, instead of waning as the season wears on, I'll get stronger and finish at my peak.

In any case, I have three races in the next four weeks staring me in the face. Greenbrier, 12 hours of Lodi, and 24 hours of Conyers. Although, I don't think anyone has registered for Conyers yet, and I'm therefore not on a team, so it's not a sure thing I'll be going. Sunday I had the day free to do any kind of training I wanted. My first thought was to go around Greenbrier as many times as I could as race prep. But my biggest worry is my endurance. My skills have improved this year over last, no worries there. The most sensible training was therefore a long, hard road ride.

After spending a couple hours cleaning up the bottom bracket of my road bike and getting everything back together, I drove to Frederick to ride "Catoctin Climber" from "Scott and Jim's Favorite Bike Rides" (ride number 7). This is a 46 mile ride with about 5,000 feet of climbing, and the hardest in the book according to Scott and Jim. It was a late start; I clipped in at about 1:30 PM and started down the road, thinking, "This is going to hurt. This is going to be painful." But, that's what it will take if I'm to finish a 100 mile mountain bike race, or 4 to 5 laps in a 12 or 24 hour race. The first climb did hurt, coming as it did immediately at the start. But the hardest climb, Harp Hill (the steepest section of road I've ever ridden on my road bike) was just that. Hard. I wouldn't say it really hurt. The most tortuous part of the ride was the last 7 miles or so, when my lack of endurance was really showing. I just had nothing in the tank. It wasn't helping that I was dehydrated and my stomach was wigging out. Getting hydration, food, and stomach right has always been the hardest part of any long ride for me. The best part of the ride was after turning into Catoctin Mountain Park. No cars, little wind, it was a bit of uphill, and quiet like I haven't heard in too, too long. That section was too short to bring a lasting peace, but it was good to catch a glimpse. It makes me realize I haven't been on a backpacking trip in much too long. I did get chased by a menacing looking black dog on, I think Harmony road, the one before Harp Hill. He came from out of nowhere; never barked, though I caught snatches of a snarl as I managed to outrun him, having worked up some speed at that point.

So it was I finished the ride almost exactly 3 1/2 hours after starting, for an average of 13.4 mph (for all of you with calculators, I sneaked in an extra mile after I took a wrong turn -- I was tired). Pretty darn slow. Well, it's a start to increasing my endurance.

A Good Ride After Work

2 hours and 20 minutes of solid riding at Patapsco deserves a post-ride beer. I was flowing well, and my legs were with me for the entire ride. I may be in basic shape for Greenbrier after all. Not podium shape, but good enough to at least finish.

I suppose the weather will keep me in tomorrow. A good thing, since I haven't done my Taxes yet and I won't make any progress tonight. It will be painful I'm sure.

Another pic

The camera phone really doesn't take very good pictures, but you can get a sense of what Easter in Texas was like this year.

More pics from my trip to texas.

A New Bike?

I've recently been on a quest to lighten the Gunnar, my trusty, always ready to ride singlespeed, after I weighed it as 27 Lbs. Much heavier than a singlespeed should be for me, when I only come in at 136 or so myself. So now making it lighter has become my obsession, something to keep me up late at night combing through forums, comparing the weights of different components, and making notes of weights -- and prices of course. An expensive obsession to be sure.

The first thing I did was ditch the Nevegal on the front, which never had as much grip as I thought it should anyway, and replace it with the Ignitor I originally had on it. I also replaced the WTB tube with a Salsa (Kenda), and tossed the extremely heavy Continental tube that was on the rear wheel in the trash, replaced by the WTB one. That and removing the rock ring, which I've only really needed at Michaux, got me down to ~25.6 Lbs. Better.

Early last week I ordered a new WTB Shadow V SLT saddle to replace the heavier Speed V I'd been using, a Chris King stainless steel cog to replace the heavier Surly, and a WTB Nano Raptor 29er racing tire to try out. I put those on during the week, and Thursday after work I went to Gambrill, anxious to see what the recent changes would do to my ride. Brrr! The (hopefully last) big cold front had blown through and it was down to 40 degrees by the time I got on the trail at 6:29 PM; it would be 35 by the time I finished. My fingers were numb after the first 15 minutes (isn't this April?), but it didn't take me that long to figure out the Gunnar was feeling exceptionally fast. I'm sure some of that was the decreased weight, but the Nano Raptor with it's lower weight and very low rolling friction probably accounted for most of it. The bike accelerated much more quickly too, which surprised and delighted me. I was having a whole lot of fun! I had been concerned the Nano wouldn't have enough grip to satisfy me, but I didn't have any problems with it at Gambrill, though conditions were admittedly ideal -- dry and with most of fall's leaves swept away.

I finished the ride with the tough climb back up the blue trail to the lower parking lot. The time was 7:29 PM. One hour! I was frankly surprised. That was certainly the shortest time I'd ever finished a long yellow loop (previous best an hour ten?) and I'm not in nearly the shape I should be in at this point in the year. This weight obsession could turn out to be a very good thing. What to replace next, and do I have the money for it?

Easter in Texas. I sent that from my phone. Once I download some clearer shots from my camera I'll post them. Crazy.

What's new

I've been thinking about trying to spend some time actually posting to my blog. So... I upgraded my blog to the new layout system, picked a new template, and then played around with colors and fonts. I think the only thing I ended up changing was the page background color, which strangely wasn't included in the "Fonts & Colors" settings screen; I had to edit the HTML (CSS?) for the template.

If I think of it and have time I'll make a real post. I did set up the mobile blogging feature just for kicks. Might be fun.