Rusted Chain

Mark Today...

2012-01-27T08:01:00.001-05:00

...as the day I cracked for good.

Jonny Bold: "At What Cost?"

2011-11-25T09:19:00.001-05:00

Much of this hit home for me as I struggle to recover from injury: a top Masters competitor takes a hard look at his motivations for racing and training after suffering an injury during a cyclocross race, worth the time it takes to read.

Hello Trainer, My Old Friend

2011-11-23T22:03:00.001-05:00

Tossed out this tweet earlier today:

It didn't take long for @bthreeton tweet back with:

Because my fitness sofly creeping
Left my legs while I was sleeping
And the saddle sores that were planted on my taint
Still remain
Within a sweat-ty chamois.

But my old buddy Gerald Berliner went to town:

Hello trainer, my old friend,
I've come to ride on you again
Because a rain cloud softly creeping in,
Left its drops while I was riding,
And the mud that was splattered in my face
Still remains
Within the sound of cadence.

In restless dreams I rode alone
Paris-Roubaix streets of cobblestone,
'Neath the halo of a street lamp,
I turned my bike to the cold and damp
When my thighs were stabbed by the crash of my neon light
That split my tights
And touched the sound of cadence.

And on the naked ride I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more.
People riding without sqeaking,
People drafting without looking,
People falling off and no one even cared
Coz no one dared
Disturb the sound of cadence.

"Fools" said I, You do not know...
Doping like a cancer grows.
See my blood test so that I may fool you,
While I take my Epo so I can beat you.
But my words like silent freewheels fell,
And echoed
In the wells of cadence.

And the people bowed and prayed
To the aero carbon god they made.
And the sign flashed out its warning,
In the peloton that it was forming.
And the sign said that the bikes of the prophets were stolen from the local malls
And tenement halls.
And vanished in the sounds of cadence.

Got a cycling related song parody? You know what to do: hit the comments.

Old Man Bones

2011-09-17T08:53:00.001-04:00

Keeping the Rickety Equipment Running After a Late Start

Racing bikes is hard.

Of course, it should be or it would not be a satisfying challenge. On top of the race itself, you've got pre-dawn workouts, dealing with the whole weight-loss/nutrition calculus, juggling race/workout/family/work schedules, bike maintenance... the list goes on and on.

But for me, the most difficult issue to deal with is the fact that I started racing last year at age 49. You see, my mind plays this trick on me when I saddle up: it lets me think I'm 40 or even on good days, 30 years old. Love that feeling!

The thing is, after a little time, my body always has it's say and finds some way of reminding me that I've been around for half a century. Usually, it manifests itself in comparatively benign ways such as finding myself dropped by my younger, stronger brethren or a little creakiness in the morning. After some rest, my mind and body reset and I can once again regain that fountain of youth feeling the next time I get on my bike.

I never use my age as an excuse for poor performance: I always feel like whatever shortcomings I have are ones that can be overcome with training or experience. I'll admit, I do tease a bit when I manage to beat a "youngster" up a climb or on a town-line sprint.

Injuries I've sustained up to this point have been the kind any cyclist could face, regardless of age: road rash, bruises, a separated shoulder, run-of-the-mill soreness.

This time, I think it might be different.

Last week, after finishing atQuadCross, I had a little back pain - no more than I have after other major exertions under race conditions such as I did at Battenkill. I did have that one small spill in the race, did I hurt myself worse than I thought?

I stayed off the bike Monday and Tuesday but had a location shoot Tuesday that required a lot of hauling of heavy gear and being on my feet all day - not very helpful for healing.

As the week progressed and particularly after this past Wednesday's Minuteman Road Club CX Training Race, the pain became more focused near my right hip and, at times, I could feel pain down the right side of my leg and along my calf. Walking normally became difficult.

I started to worry whether I would be racing on the weekend at Green Mountain.

I awoke Friday morning with the plan to do an hour spin on the trainer to make sure everything was working but could barely achieve 75 rpm for a couple of minutes - it hurt THAT BAD.

Pinched nerve? Inflamed hip labrum? Beats me.

I knew right then I was out for racing today. Very frustrating: mentally, I have been so eager to race that all the difficulties that surround training have been inconsequential and easy to overcome but being hurt like this is a major setback.

Seeing the doc on Tuesday to hopefully get a definitive answer as to what is going on. I don't want him to tell me to slow down.

I can't.

I won't.

Quad Cross Photos by 20# Skull

2011-09-12T21:23:00.001-04:00

Fellow MRC cyclist/photog Todd Prekaski, aka 20# Skull, got this shot of me contemplating a remount right after the start. Every one of those guys, and more, eventually passed me:

"Must... hold them off... a little longer!"

More photos from QuadCross are here in 20# Skull's Facebook gallery.

Here's my photos.

Race Report: QuadCross 2011 - Maynard Rod & Gun Club

2011-09-12T14:37:00.000-04:00

Yesterday morning could not have been more perfect for bike racing: sunny, temp in the high 50's, rain-soaked ground dried to merely slightly damp and only 1.4 miles to drive to the race.

This field would soon be wall-to-wall cars, bikes and cyclists.

Yes, I drove: wanted to have my full armory of tools/parts/comfort items available just in case.

At registration, my waiver sheet had no number stapled to it so as the guy handing my case started to look for advice about what to do, I jokingly asked for a low number. He returned and with a shrug, tore off the number attached to the sheet below mine. I assumed he knew what he was doing.

I got #109, a front row start! Sure beats row 4 where I would have been based on the race predictor (25th).

I ambled back to my car to prep the bike and myself and as I did, I could hear the distant sound of the paint ball battlefield way on the other side of the gun club property: shouting and constant "automatic gunfire". I suppose it was no worse than racing bikes on the 10th anniversary of 9/11.

After Ted Packard of QuadCycles led us in a moment of silence to recognize the anniversary, we were lined up, and ready to go.

Got a good start and held my position all the way up to the fire road and that's where the attrition began. Lucky for me the field was already strung out pretty far so it took the whole 6 laps for me to drift back to finish at 26th. Always looking for silver lining, I found it when I checked last year's QuadCross results: I came in 41st then.

Turns out they swapped my number for the guy who's sheet was below mine - results showed me as 11th and him as 26th. There was no denying the fact that many more than one person passed me during the race.

Not wanting to screw the other guy out of a good start position down the line, I told everyone I could (officials, scorer, QuadCross folks) about the problem. As of today, no resolution. I've done enough squawking about it, its up to the other guy to follow up now if it's an issue to him.

Before "the line" was established.

Highlights:

Terrific course laid out very well to use the best features the land had to offer. I liked in particular the tight turns and off-camber sections right after the Newbury Comics double-barriers
Good bike handling skills due to much MTB action this summer and the Meyerson clinic
At two separate times, two different guys dumped in front of me in the twisty section after the double barriers. I was very nimble in dodging them. BTW, that was the best laid out part of the course
Ran a Michelin Mud2 up front pumped to the low 30's and a Jet (chevron) 40psi (due to roots/rocks) in the back for the first time. Worked great.
The smiles I got as I cheered/photographed the Pro and single speed race. Pretty much lost my voice though.
Met at least 3 online-only acquaintances in person for the first time. NECX is such a friendly community!

Best of all, my wife came out to see me race for the FIRST time, it was great hearing her voice cheering "Go Rusto!" - thanks to everyone else who urged me along as well!

Lowlights:

Fitness: I need to get more training in at the level of intensity of a race.
Should be registering for Cat 4 45+ masters races when available from now on, damn kids are killing me!
At the top of the last 180 after the barriers (by the corner of the clubhouse), I needed to do a tiny dab, could not get out of my pedal and flopped over like a fish.
Whacked my rear wheel on the small barrier below the run-up hard enough to knock it out of line. Had to reposition it at the top, losing a couple places in the process.
Sore lower back this morning

I hustled home after my race because I thought I was on duty with my daughter but it turned out a playdate was arranged in my absence. After dropping her off, I returned and took a bunch of photos of the Cat 3 Masters, Pro and SS races...

Gotta love smiling through the pain.

Right after the start of the Pro race, I walked up to the pit area to start going "upstream" on the course for a different vantage point for photos when a huge pickup truck loaded with paintballers in the back comes DRIVING UP THE RACE COURSE from the woods.

A moment of panic and some yelling ensues but then me and another guy pull up some stakes to let the truck through because, you know, THE PROS ARE COMING ANY MOMENT NOW!

Just as we get the stakes and tape back in place ANOTHER CAR COMES! Crap, there's no arguing with the people inside, we have to clear the course before the cyclists come by. And they do come barreling by, just a minute later.

I made my way down to where the two vehicles got onto the course, helped repair the tape and stayed there, turning back three more vehicles until the end of the Pro race when finally some "official" officials came and relieved me.

Why IS there a trash can here?

The Zanconado Single Speed field was populated with a significant number of racers who were in their second race of the day, I don't know how they do it - one race totally wiped me out.

Jeremy Katz of QuadCycles rails a turn in the SS race.

The smaller field allowed me time to actually get into the woods along the race course without having to bushwack or dodge racers coming my way. But the easy access came too late: I got poison ivy on arms from the earlier trek. By the end of the day, I got some great shots of the SS action and was able to to witness MRC teammate, Doug Kennedy, take 3rd.

Doug Kennedy on his way to 3rd in the Single Speed race.

I'm grateful for all the hard work put in by QuadCycles, Newbury Comics and others to make this a terrific day of racing. Fingers are crossed that they can use this location for years to come!

Blunt Park - August 21, 2011

2011-08-21T14:09:00.000-04:00

Flying in the face of the "don't race cross in August crowd", I headed to Springfield today to do the Cat 4's at Blunt Park.

@bicykel: Gross, don't get any diapers stuck in your wheel during the race.

Despite a very late night out, I got there nice and early (and dodged the godawful mess from some major festival or other they had there last night) to get some pre-ride laps in. I should actually count them as "training laps" considering I only put in 2.5 hours on the bike last week. Even so, I now wonder if 4 laps, even at an easy pace, was too many.

Got a nice front row position at the start and the marshall did the usual countdown announcements of "10 minutes to go", "5 minutes to go" then finally when he said "about a minute to go" - he IMMEDIATELY followed that with "GO" and totally caught me snoozing.

Despite that flub, I made it through the acorn covered hole-shot in about 10th place or so. The course was in good shape as far as I could tell: a couple of rooty spots, a couple of deep potholes on the single track, but overall I thought it was a good course though with not very much up and down.

The first half of each lap featured a number of logs across the course. After the first lap, I followed the example of those in front of me and merely rode over them instead of dismounting/remounting (thankful for all that MTB action this summer!). The last log was just a bit higher than the rest and situated right after a turn in the midst of a lot of loose pine needles, so that one I did carry the bike over.

Special pat on my own back for noticing during the pre-ride that the ground immediately after was very bumpy and would have made a quick remount dicey, so I went an extra bike length before getting back on: very helpful.

Next was one of the long straights followed by a buncha turns, short straight, more turns then the barriers, there were FOUR, which were set at exactly the right distance apart for me to take TWO steps in between. This meant I pretty much felt like, and probably looked like, I was galloping through them.

The barriers were followed by the "climby" portion of the course which was really not very, but there were turns, loose dirt and roots that made you pay attention then finally back onto the start/finish straight.

The race itself pretty much settled out to me and about 4-5 others dicing back and forth for the duration. This group shrank to 3 and re-combined to 5 again later in the race. I passed a coupla guys and 2-3 passed me. I remember Dylan McKeon, a young (18?), tall Cyclonauts guy who was able to get ahead of me on the straights but every time the turns came along, he'd falter, slow or, once, fall and I'd go by him. I really felt like I was handling the bike very well today.

At some point, I realized that I forgot to turn on my 'puter and gave myself a little kick for squandering a good data collection opportunity. Once you get the stats bug, it hurts to have holes in your data. I started it up and figured I could get a decent estimate of mileage, laptime and distance later.

Another guy who was ahead of me for at least 2-3 laps went down pretty hard on a 180 right hander that had some exposed roots on the inside line - he must have slid his front wheel on them and boom, down he went. I dodged him and got a good 10 yards ahead of him and yet another guy passed him too. It took him a full lap but, kudos to him, he battled back and got ahead of our whole group.

Last lap, I had 3 of our group ahead plus one additional guy who was further ahead earlier but fading. I waited until the last series of turns to pour it on, thinking I could get ahead of at least a couple of them but it was too late: I should have made that move at least a 1/2 lap before the end. Lesson learned.

Finished 12th, 4 places ahead of the race predictor, happy with the result.

I was pleasantly surprised to see and hear both Doug and Coley cheering me on at separate sections of the course, looking forward to reading their reports.

Sunday Random Bike Pic

2011-08-14T22:37:00.000-04:00

wherewillyouspendeternity.tumblr.com/

Norwell Circuit Race - Cat 5 - July 31, 2011

2011-08-01T16:52:00.001-04:00

Woah, two months since my last post. Hehe, oops! Synopsis: been riding A LOT, training has been much more structured than ever, mixed in some really fun MTB rides including a 3 hour "epic (pics to follow in another post), got majorly shelled by the CRW Thursday fast group and started doing some CX training. Phew. On to yesterday's race...

PRE-RACE

For some reason, I listened to my wife who thought leaving at 11 for a 1:45 race was crazy. I regretted waiting until nearly noon to leave when I found myself sitting at a dead stop in Rte 3 South traffic at 12:45 with 8 miles to go. Arrived at Norwell Town Hall at 1:00 got my numbers and geared up. Was on my bike at about 25 past and rode up and down Bowker Street a few times as it has a hill similar to the one the leads to the start/finish on the course.

Made my way back to Town Hall and found shelter from the 90º+ heat in the shade of a tree with some other Cat 5's waiting to race. I was looking around for the guys the road-results race predictor might be in the top 5 but didn't I.D. any of them. Soon enough we were staging up and rolling along behind the pace car.

As we poked along down Forest Street, I re-ran my game plan in my head. This plan mostly consisted of avoiding the mistakes I made last year: being on the front too much, being out in the wind too much, burning all my matches before the finish... And of course, there I was, out in front. Again.

Ready to roll.

RACE

8 TO GO: As soon as we made the first turn onto Circuit Street and headed up the hill, one guy immediately stomped on it and when the two of us got to the top, he asked, "Wanna go?"

"I got yer wheel," I replied, figuring if he was the real deal and too much for me, I could fade back easily enough an recover for the next 7 laps. But just as I was going for his wheel another guy got on it first so there were 3 of us on a break on the first lap. But it didn't last. Just as guy #1 called out to us to keep our pulls very short, the pack gathered us back up again. I'd say we were out there maybe 1/3 of a lap.

7 TO GO: My plan on the start/finish hill was to stay light in the pedals, keep my cadence on the high side as I climbed to the top to save energy for the end. Others who could at first seemed stronger passed me but I was passing them over the top as they were gassed and soft pedaling. I made my way towards the front again on the descending portions of the back "straight" on Circuit.

6 & 5 TO GO: only thing to report here is one guy who kept calling out, "Coming up the middle!" and "Hey, hold your line" all the while scaring the crap out of me because he wiggled around so much. It's one thing to have the occasional bump with another rider in the pack but this guy seemed to use the guys around him as a physical navigation aid. And why ALWAYS come up the middle?

Meanwhile, I was maintaining a position on the inside that seemed to work well compared to when I am on the outside: on the outside, it is so much easier to get squeezed further out and be in the wind and lose position. If this happens on the inside, you can grab a new wheel as everyone squeezes inside to carve the turn. Risky as you can get run right off the road, but it was working for me. Except for that telephone pole planted on the right edge of the pavement where the road narrows to one lane - there's a slight dogleg right there and every time I went by, I said a little prayer that nobody would bump me over into it.

The 5 TO GO lap was our fastest at over 24 mph, but it didn't seem so fast to me. I seem to remember the whole race was faster last year. There was another abortive break of 4 that petered out on the slight incline on Forest.

4 & 3 TO GO: At the top of the start/finish going into 4 TO GO, there was a good separation between the first 10 or so and the rest, I was at the back of that group and swung to the outside as this big dude came by. I need the rest I would find in his draft. He was a bit wobbly but good shelter for the next half a lap compared to the skinny guy I was just behind. I stayed in the top 10, looking for stable wheels to follow and stayed alert if they started to fade and new blood came to the front.

The two mini-packs melded back together soon after that.

2 TO GO: The start/finish climb was definitely harder this time but it seemed to be for everyone around me too, a lot of huffing and puffing. I was able to hold position at about 10th wheel. As we rounded onto Forest for this second-to-last time, the pace slowed WAY down, a harbinger of things to come... And we were beginning to lap some stragglers too.

BELL LAP: The pack EXPLODED up the start/finish hill this time, leaving me behind as I was climbing the same pace I had on the earlier laps. Over the top, the main field must have had 30-40 yards on me. CRAP! I hoped if I didn't panic, I could reel them back in on the backside of the course where it is mostly downhill.

Just when I needed him, the same big guy from mid-race comes around me and had enough energy in him to give me (with a the help of a few burnt matches) a decent slingshot. Soon I was on the back of the pack and weaving my way to the front again.

This last time down Forest is where I squandered a number of places: I was probably about 15-17th wheel and still picking my way through a bunch of guys who had hit their limit. I should have been on the outside (no yellow line rule on this part of the course) and really drilling it. Once I could see the turn to the start/finish up ahead, people were already on it and going up. Damn.

I made the turn in the drops, got out of the saddle and gave it everything I had as I went up just right of the middle of the road. I could see the leaders up ahead and felt like I could at least reel in a few of those trailing behind. I passed three who were fading fast then noticed somebody all the way on the left who was powered up and just ahead of me. This was my little "race within the race", right there in the last 30 yards.

We both hit the line, throwing our bikes forward - he might have nipped me but I definitely let out the better "Howard Dean scream" as we crossed.

I finished in ~~12th~~ 13th place, one spot higher than the Road-Results predictor had me. 10 places higher than I finished in this race last year.

Lake Desolation

2011-05-30T12:31:00.002-04:00

Such a misnomer. I wonder if it was named "Lake Desolation" to keep the curious away. Didn't stop me. I left Saratoga Springs this morning after delaying my ride a half hour to allow a thunder storm to pass by and made my way along rolling countryside until I got to the bottom of the climb in Middle Grove.

On the way up, along with the clicking sound I've been chasing for weeks in my drive train, I started hearing an ominous "thunk" as I climbed. Hrm, I wonder how tight that front skewer is. Dismount, tighten skewer, sound gone. Phew.

27 minutes later I arrived at Lake Desolation. I was 4.5 miles further and 993 feet higher in elevation than when I started.

Initially, it looked pretty desolate:

But pedaling a bit further, I discovered the lake was actually quite nice:

Well that was so good, I figured I'd try it again. I turned around and headed down, looking forward to the possibility of a 50+mph descent, but the sudden fingernail-on-blackboard screeching sound coming from the rear end of my bike had me braking to a stop to see if I had something stuck between my chainstays and the rear tire.

Nothing. So, I continued down but the sound reappeared when I got up to 45 mph again. Stop. Think.

Could my REAR skewer be too tight? It certainly was: I could barely get it open. My flat-induced frustration must have given me some Hulk-strength yesterday as I remounted the wheel. Loosen skewer, and continue - no more screech.

Passed a couple of cyclists making their way up and thought: there's something to chase for the second climb. At the post office, I turned around and went hunting for them. More familiar with the turns and rises along the way, it certainly felt like I was going faster, but about 1/3 of the way from the top, one of the two was already on his way back down.

At the summit the second time, there was no sign of the other rider, who evidently continued on (there's a nice loop that goes this way). So I turned around and started to think about coffee.

On the way down this time, I did manage to break the 50mph barrier (according to Strava) and got back to Saratoga Springs in time to enjoy another tasty latté at Uncommon Grounds followed up by some delicious pie served by my hosts:

A little touch of Battenkill

2011-05-29T17:55:00.000-04:00

Well, sort of.

Rode out to Cambridge from Saratoga Springs this morning. But first, I flatted 3/4 of mile from the start. I pressed on even though I now had no spare tube and one Co2 cartridge left.

Route was a nice change from what I am used to: instead of short, steep climbs every mile or so, I had two very long, steady ones and a few shorter but shallower ones. Saw quite a menagerie of road kill, including a very freshly killed doe (I cropped out the icky part):

Route had me do about 2 miles of Battenkill-style hardpack but rest of it was very well paved rural highway and secondary roads. Legs felt great the whole time but my back, just as it did during the Battenkill race last month, started hurting at about 45 miles and kept it up all the way to the end.

Afterwards, I rewarded myself with the following at Uncommon Grounds on Broadway:

TIP: Little Things Mean A Lot

2011-05-17T08:16:00.000-04:00

Noob bike racers (like me) have SO much to learn. If they're lucky, they'll be friendly with one or more racing veterans who'll take pity on them and teach them not only what it takes to be fast and safe on the racecourse but also take the time to clue them into the little things that, taken together, can make a huge difference.

Sure, these are things you could Google or read about in Friel or simply ask about, but who has the presence of mind on race day to think of them?

Sometimes they keep you from looking just like the doofus you might imagine you are.

So, I take this opportunity to give thanks to anyone who has ever taken me aside and said, "Uh, um, not like that, like THIS." Just some of the help I've received in the past year:

What gear I should be in at the start of a crit.
How to warmup before a race.
How to carry my cross bike on long portages.
How to manage watts on long climbs.
The list goes on and on...

Last year, as I was prepping for my second road race, a teammate came up to me and told me I did not have enough pins holding my number to my jersey.

I was ready to snap back with, "What? Four isn't enough?" when I remembered the annoying flapping sound of my number oscillating in the wind during the PREVIOUS race.

Thanks, dude.

Spotted: 1979 Columbia Trans Am

2011-05-16T18:35:00.000-04:00

I was trawling through a folder where I put images I intend to blog about when I rediscovered this series I took last December of a 1979 Columbia Trans Am that was locked to a railing somewhere along Newbury Street in Boston.

What initially caught my eye was the shopping bag seat cover and "Deluxe decorated chainwheel cover":

Casting my eyes forward, I beheld the awesome fork rake...

... and funky handlebars but then I noticed the truly unique feature of this bike...

... Shimano Positron shifting! According to the late, great Sheldon Brown, Positron was Shimano's first attempt at indexed shifting. Back then, they thought that expert cyclists already knew how to shift and so they targeted Positron shifting at entry level riders.

The plan backfired for two reasons: 1) since it was aimed at inexpensive bikes, the system had to be so cheaply made that it was not very reliable 2) this also meant that indexed shifting got tainted with the "beginner" label, slowing adoption of better made systems by experienced cyclists.

The bike looked completely stock as far as I can tell, who knows if those are the original tires. Here's a page from the 1982 Shimano catalog (click here to browse the whole thing):

(click to see 1982 Shimano Catalog at Sheldon Brown's website)

Dig the features listed in this print ad for the bike (from Mr. Columbia):

(click to see the Columbia timeline at Mr. Columbia's website)

Sunday Random Bike Pic

2011-05-15T22:25:00.000-04:00

17th Annual Sterling Classic Road Race - May 7, 2011

2011-05-10T21:35:00.006-04:00

The Sterling Classic has been hosted by my club, The Minuteman Road Club for 17 years and this year marked the second time I competed in the Cat 5 35+ field. Since Battenkill, I made a few trips out to the race course to remind my legs what they would be getting into going up the start/finish along Meeetinghouse Hill Road.

I also engaged in various religious, non-religious and black arts rituals in an effort to prevent a repeat of last year's horrendous weather. As in the case with Battenkill, the week leading up to Saturday had me so busy with work and personal commitments that my "taper" was dangerously close to a "full stop", training-wise. I found myself still packing up the car and cooler well past 11 pm Friday night.

Head hits pillow, eyes close, alarm goes off. :: sigh ::

The forecast was looking very good with temps to be in the 50's and 60's with a fairly low chance of rain.

Coffee and oatmeal made and eaten, I headed out to Sterling. After a drive around the course, I head to the staging area at the school, check in with Ian R who gave the volunteers their last minute instructions. I'd be marshaling later after my race.

Pin on my number, set up the bike and start warming up along the roads near the school. Easy pedaling with a few jumps here and there to wake up the type II muscles... knowing that they would get a much more intense stirring when the race began.

Silly bike: even though I gave it a very complete tune up a few days earlier, my drive train was making an annoying clicking sound that I could not pin down. I decided that it would either be lost in the noise of the pack or could work to my advantage, letting others think I was more of a noob/fred/doofus than I really am.

Before I knew it, 8:35 rolled around and it was time for my field to assemble. Jorge H, our former club president call myself and fellow club members John R and Doran A to the front of the field and took our picture.

Yeah, we're all smiles NOW.

The pace car rolled and we started heading into town.

The driver of the pace car kept us honest by going less than 20 mph and I maintained my position at the front all the way in. My race-induced tunnel vision was fully engaged as I was completely unaware of anyone to either side of me. Looking down at my computer showed my HR already starting to climb, surely due to some anxiety about what was soon to happen.

My plan: stay with the main group and not do any ill-advised breaks for the lead like I did last year. If I found myself near the front at the end, unleash myself upon Meetinghouse Hill like no tomorrow and deal with the consequences later.

On the way up to the start, I made one more incantation to "race my race" and not freak out at the beginning if anyone took off on the hill. Up we went, the dozen or so people along the way cheered and I remained in front as the race began.

No wincing, cramping or heavy breathing. Yet.

I let a few people slip by me on MHH and as expected, regained position as we continued under the 190 overpass. Nothing much to report on lap one except that at one point on Route 12, an unattached rider got a few yards ahead of the rest of us and wove his bike back and forth across the road.

Taunting? Showing off? Just feeling good? Beats me. My thought was either he was a ringer or a douche, maybe both.

For the rest of the first lap, I was variously pulling or in the top 10 wheels. Coming back around to MHH, again I lost a few places on the way up but gained them back on the next climb and after. I felt calm and reasonably strong.

When we turned from Rowley to Heywood on lap 2, I did a little seated acceleration just to keep the others on their toes, the pace was THAT leisurely at that point. The course takes a little descent right after the turn so I didn't sacrifice any matches. I got pretty far ahead and somebody who caught my wheel asked if I was serious. I barely had time to shake my head "no" when the pack swallowed us back up on the next incline.

When we got onto the newly paved North Row Road, I was maybe 3 rows back when I heard the dreaded crunch and "UGH!" and "Watch out!" that's concurrent with somebody going down. Hyper alert for the possibility of the tangle being in my path, I saw John R going by to the left of the yellow line, on his ass with his bike laid out before him. And then I heard another crunch as somehow, somebody else was across the yellow line and hit his bike.

At that instant, said to myself, "Now, it's up to YOU!" and felt as if John crashing out of the race passed on some additional "mana" and responsibility to me. I became more resolute in concentrating on my game plan.

This time, along Rte. 12, a different unattached rider had the lead position with me as second wheel. After a minute pulling or so, he began drifting to one side then then other, looking for me (or someone else) to take over. I let him know the futility in this and advised him to instead, hold a straight line and just slow down until somebody got sick of going so slow.

That somebody was me.

But I didn't pick up the pace that much and as we passed Dunkin Donuts and began the gradual climb back into town, others grew impatient with MY pace and I let them by. Somewhere along this section, I realized that John R had miraculously rejoined the race. Woot!

Once again, I drifted back through the pack up MHH but this time, just as I was regaining contact with the group as we turned onto Heywood, two guys were 30-40 yards up the road with no one seeming to care.

Following the example set by my Cat 4 team mates in races earlier this season, I saw a chance to help John. As I passed him, I said something like, "latch on" or "let's go get 'em" and I turned on the gas. Later, somebody else confessed that he grabbed my wheel before John did but I assumed John (and a bunch of others) followed suit. I hammered hard for a good long minute until we swallowed up the break.

Could they have sustained the break? A more prudent mind would likely have said "no" but as I found out watching the 4's later on, you ignore a break at your peril: a solo break early in their race maintained a 1 minute lead for many laps all the way to victory. And you never know if you got a ringer in your field when you are racing the 5's.

Soon after that, John had a near miss at a SECOND crash on North Row. Meanwhile, even though I fired off a bunch of bullets catching the break, the peloton graciously resumed it's pokey pace, allowing me to recover once again.

We hit Rte. 12 at a reasonably fast clip, me taking a fairly wide line just in case a squirrely noob-bot lost his nerve on the turn. The pace continued to slowly increase and when we got to the DD's this time, the race was finally ON. Of course, this was the moment my quads decided to hint that they'd had enough, but I was able to continue to feather on the power without upsetting them into total crampage.

Unfortunately, others in the field were feeling a bit better than I was and soon enough, dribs and drabs of them began passing me as we rounded the turn past the fire station at the bottom of MHH. I had to stop this erosion of my postion in the race, but I knew if I got out of the saddle on the hill, I'd be a knotted mess of cramped muscle on the ground.

Meanwhile, John was ahead, in a pitched battle up the hill to the finish and was beat there by Mr. Swervy Pants from early in the race, who later confessed that he was a former Cat 2 racer returning to the sport after many years. That's two 2nd place finishes for John in a row, the last one being at Blue Hills.

For my part, I progressively shifted to easier and easier gears while ramping up my cadence. This seemed to the way to go as I reeled in three of the guys that had just passed me and, breathing as hard as I ever have in my life, wheeled across in 16th.

It's a wonder I didn't grind my teeth down to little stumps.

Turns out, I matched the climb time I recorded on the way up the first time, when my legs were "fresh". Go figure.

Afterwards, I got some constructive criticism from John R regarding the amount of time I spent on the front. I don't know, I wasn't working that hard when I was up there and yes, even if I wasn't working very hard, everyone else behind me had it easier. Could less time up front have left me with more joules for the finish?

Interesting footnote - while rooting around on Colin Reuter's road-results.com, I stumbled upon this happenstance: I finished one place ahead of the SAME GUY I beat by one place in this race last year:

(click for easier viewing)

This year, the ride back to the staging area at the school was much more pleasurable and after a quick change and repacking my bike in the car, I was headed back up to Meetinghouse Hill Road. Of course I brought my camera along and got photos of the mens 4's before I went on duty as marshal above the start/finish and later, the mens 3's, and both the pro 1/2 men's and pro 1/2/3 women's races (many more photos here):

Battenkill Picture-palooza

2011-04-16T17:35:00.011-04:00

Well, maybe not THAT many photos. I was certainly kind of busy ruining myself that day. But Kevin Jones got a couple of great shots of me (many more shots by Kevin here in his SmugMug gallery):

Slogging my way up Meetinghouse Road. Somehow after the cramping episode, I was able to get out of the saddle long enough for Kevin to grab a couple of frames.

The whole story is written there in my face.

Air in, fire out.

After my race, I grabbed my G10 and got some shots in the tent-area near the podium:

Todd Prekaski (always thinking NECX) and Gary Sclar, amazingly able to smile again the moment he got off his bike.

Carl Shimer displaying a nice encrustation of salt.

Todd Prekaski on his 5th? 6th? cider donut.

Here's our friend, Tom Keane (right) on the podium after getting 3rd in his Cat 5 45+ field. Joining him are team mate Dana Brown (2nd place, on the left) and winner Rejean Rochette (center). At least the guy on the far right isn't scratching his nuts.

In other news, I took the MTB out two days later for a "recovery ride" and managed to fall off it about half dozen times. The last time I went down, I broke the saddle. Of course, this happened when I was about as far from home as I could possibly be.

The nose of the saddle had some plastic bit that held the rails to the seat top, when it broke, the front lifted off and would slide completely off the back of the rails, leaving my tender bits in mortal danger. I did not relish the prospect of having to ride home like this:

So, I start pawing about my jersey pockets looking for some way to secure the saddle for the ride home. This is what I came up with:

Where the rubber meets the load. It actually wasn't all that uncomfortable.

Earned my Boy Scout knot merit badge with this one.

MacGyver himself would be proud but would have given me points off for leaving my Swiss Army knife home. I replaced the broken saddle with a vintage 3ttt unit off my ancient Bianchi Nuovo Racing road bike.

The rest of the week found me settling back into a regular training routine capped off this morning by a nice 3.5 hour ride that included a visit to the Ride Studio Cafe for a choicified latté.

I felt so good about it that when I got home, I treated myself to the summer haircut:

Coefficient of drag reduced by .02

2011 Tour of the Battenkill

2011-04-11T20:29:00.006-04:00

Well, yesterday was the culmination of a winter’s worth of hard work for me. I’m just as proud of the preparation I completed as I am about the result I was able to achieve in the race.

After doing 20 or so minutes of spinning/tempo/jumps up and down Rte. 22, I was at the point where I was thinking, “let’s do this thing already”. Scott Sweeney mentioned he had an upset stomach and Todd P, Jeremy and Matt seemed to me to be pretty antsy too.

Jeremy had announced his intention to be at or near the front at the top of Juniper Swamp. Sure, I thought, I’ll go for some of that.

Lined up on the center line maybe five riders back with Jeremy just in front of me and Scott and Todd to my side and behind. After a couple of minutes we were on our way.

The first couple of miles, I had some pretty good butterflies in my stomach as I was a) unsure about some of the wobbly guys around me (not my team mates) b) being hyper attentive to staying near Scott, Jeremy and Todd and c) riding on the centerline. Soon enough, the pack thinned out just enough so that the front was only 2-3 wide which left plenty of room to maneuver. After some jockeying around, I think I was around 8th wheel.

We wound our way along Rte. 313 at a fair clip when suddenly, it seemed to me, everybody slowed down a few mph. Well, most of you know me well enough to not be surprised to find out that I swung to the left and kept the pace up at the mid-20 mph place that it had been. I could almost hear Jeremy say, “There he goes again.”

Just before the turn off 313, I settled back into a slot near the front of the pack as we wound our way to Perry Mill Road. It’s only 1/2 mile or so longer than Oak Hill but oh, that extra 1/2 mile at 8% avg gradient (w/some 12% thrown in) is a killer. I stayed in the front 10 or so and hoped the descent towards Juniper Swamp would allow my HR to return from the stratosphere.

No such luck: we turned onto J.S. and were headed up with me still huffing and puffing, but my legs felt pretty good and I was able to keep up. The road surface was well packed (by previous fields?) and you could actually climb out of the saddle if you carefully kept your rear wheel to the ground. At the top, nobody seemed to spank it hard and so we settled into it once again.

The next 24 miles, from 13 to 37 are kind of a blur for me but I remember these few things:
I can’t recall exactly when it happened, but it was in this stretch that I had my last glimpse of Jeremy and the lead group as they gapped the rest of us (6?) over the top of some hill or other.
When we weren’t headed into the wind, my super-thin (and black) base layer had me feeling pretty hot, so I put it into my head to be careful about water consumption (I carried three bottles and was on vapors at the end).
As we went on, I began to get gapped on the hills, a little bit, maybe 4 or 5 bike lengths but then hammered onto the last wheel ahead on the descents. I knew this was going to cost me in the long run.
There were a couple of husky guys who were in the same get-dropped/hammer-back-on cycle and I let them pull me back on a few times, glad they were around. They were good wind blocks too.
One guy got his chain royally tangled up as he shifted on a climb, thought that was the last I’d see of him but he heroically made it back to our group.
Scott appeared steady as a rock the whole time.

Nearly two hours into the race and I realized that I didn’t take any Endurolytes since before the start. I reached into my jersey to pull them out when suddenly we were descending Carney-Cassidy Road and I thought better of one-handing it just then. Sure enough, on the next rise, I got out of the saddle to narrow a gap and BOOM: right quad cramped. My Garmin data clearly shows the moment when my cadence went from the mid 80’s to 25 rpm when it happened. I shifted to an easier gear to get my cadence back up but it was too late: they gapped me real good.

I kept them in sight for few minutes but every turn seemed to put me into more wind and I knew I would not finish at all if I kept trying to close that gap on my own. I was prepared for the likelyhood that I would finish this race on my own so I settled into finding a groove that I could carry for the next 27 miles.

These next, long, miles consisted of getting low to the wind, doing what I could on the ascents and pushing as hard as I could on the flats and descents. One part of me was half expecting a huge pack from our field to come and overtake me, the nagging thought of this helped keep me from converting the race into a sight-seeing ride.

Soon, however, I also had to deal with some serious lower back pain. Not like any I’ve had before, it was really low and overlapped the top of my hips. Strangely, it would come and go with no correlation to the effort I was putting out.

Meanwhile, I passed a couple of guys that either Jeremy’s and/or Scott’s group had dropped. I thought they’d cling to my increasingly feeble wheel, but they didn’t even try. A couple of those dirt road descents in this last third of the race were pretty hairy, with loose dirt and crushed rock dust about 2 inches thick on top. I could see some pretty wavy tracks laid down by earlier passers-by but kept an even keel as I went along. I passed one guy getting medical attention in that stretch.

MRC Team mate Matt Pierson climbing Meeting House Road. Photo Courtesy Beth Trickett

The ups and downs of Meeting House Road were torture, the pain enhanced for a moment when 5 guys went blasting by me on one of the rises: “Here comes the rest of the pack!”, I thought. It took me a moment to notice they had different colored numbers on and were the leaders of a field that started after ours. Phew.

Onto Stage Road and, like on most of the last climbs, there was no spark left in my legs so I shifted all the way to 39/27 and ground my way up. I was keenly aware of all the people set up on their front yards or end of the driveways, cheering, ringing bells and enjoying the passing parade of pain. It definitely gave me a lift when I really needed it.

I was in heaven when one lone lady leaning on her mailbox shouted to me: “One more climb and then five miles to go!”

The last miles had me, forearms my bar tops, in tri-mode, pedaling towards the end. Somehow, after all previous agony, I managed a 20 mph avg for the final 4 miles. That last turn into the finish straight was a real treat with people hanging over the barriers, cheering as I crossed the line with no one else in sight. My assumption was that I finished barely in the top 20 and was going to confirm that later on BikeReg, I felt good all right about it but was not exactly jazzed.

Afterwards, I greedily grabbed a bottle of water that was handed to me and downed right away. I wandered with my bike along the vendor area until I came upon Len near the start-finish line and gave him the short version of my race. Then he gave me directions back to the high school which left me dreading getting back on my bike for the short ride back.

I bounced back a bit after I changed/ate/drank and returned to the podium area with Jeremy, Scott, Todd, Matt and connected with Carl “Old Salt” Shimer and Gary “Wasabe Chin” Sclar.

Finally, I wandered over to the posted results, looked up my field and found to my surprise that I had finished 12th.

Cool!

What, You Think I've Been Doing NOTHING?

2011-04-09T16:18:00.001-04:00

If you go by the amount of activity here, you could come to a number of conclusions. You could assume I gave up on cycling. You might think I got so busy with work and had no time to devote to it.

Granted, there was a long gap between outdoor rides that ran from Jan 4th through March 2nd - all that snow!

As it turns out, I've been on a roll training-wise like never before. Gliding right into indoor training from cross season and dodging the nasty cold I usually get during the early winter has me approaching the spring in better shape than I have ever been for this, the 3rd incarnation of my cycling life. I've been eating well all winter and combined with the workouts, have got my weight down to where it was in July of last year.

Good looking numbers:

The entries in my log for January through March look more like what you'd expect during mid-summer from me.

I programmed workouts into my Garmin Edge 500 from both Joe Friel's "The Cyclist's Training Bible" and Sally Edwards' "Heart Zones Cycling". I also participated in a structured weekly CompuTrainer workout with seven others and even did two simulations on the CT of the Tour of the Battenkill race course (one in January and one last week).

------

Phooey, wanted to finish this post a week ago but got really busy with work. Here's the quick catchup: tomorrow is the Tour of the Battenkill. The MRC has it's largest ever squad of cyclists entered. We've got a strong 4 man team in the Cat 5 35+ (yes, I'm racing DOWN one age group) consisting of myself, Jeremy Cratty, Scott Sweeney and Todd Prekaski.

They are all up there as I write this, pre-riding part of the course, plotting strategy and probably having a couple of beers. I've got to usher at a concert at our church tonight but then straight home for a small snack and to bed.

Dialed in the bike earlier today, packed the cooler, loaded the car and laid out the bike duds. In the morning: coffee, cereal and a good poop. Then it's off to Cambridge, NY with me.

Stay tuned.

Bandit Cross - Wrentham, MA

2011-01-09T00:56:00.002-05:00

A handful of the New England cyclocross community, including Adam Meyerson, Jerome Townsend, Colin Reuter PLUS two Rutgers team riders who drove up from New Jersey took the snowy challenge at the Wrentham Development Center yesterday.

After carving a course into the snow and ice, a practice lap or two, Geoff Williams of cyclocrossracing.com, after a week of online exhortations, functioned as "race official" and started the assembled riders in two 20 minute heats. Surprisingly, I don't think there were any crashes during either heat, though there is one great endo recovery at 1:47 in the video.

The terrific song, "Winter" is by Dumptruck, lengendary Boston area band from the late 80's. Here's a link to the album "Positively Dumptruck".

Bandit Cross - Wrentham, MA 01.08.2011 from Russ Campbell on Vimeo.

First, A Little Catching Up

2011-01-03T12:40:00.002-05:00

This week between Christmas and New Years is a traditional time for taking time off and taking stock so I thought I'd play a little catch up on recent goings on. Shortly I'll take stock of the year just concluded and look ahead to what I might expect in 2011.
--

The Ice Weasels Cometh - December 11, 2010

I think I took this race way more seriously than nearly every other person there that day, which was my great loss.

My race report was typical for Cat 4 cannon-fodder: Racing a bit above myself in the 3/4 heat, I started great, passed a few people for the first two laps or so, got passed by a few. Then the next few laps saw me transform from strong and in control to sloppay as all get out and wishing the damn race was over already.

Meanwhile, I was blind to every generous beer/donut/cabbage/money hand-up offered to me.

At some point, they must have realized I was a zombie. They stopped shouting at me to take what they were waving in front of me and instead proffered their gifts to those who actually had peripheral vision. The course was very dry and in some places a lot of dust got kicked up as you can see below. I spent the last two laps feeling like I was pushing a car, finishing (gulp!) 61st of 65.

I did rally and got some good photos of the shenanigans that followed. Many more photos from Ice Weasels viewable here.

Ryan White prepares to quench his thirst. © Russ Campbell

A couple of days after the race I discovered that during a pre-race drivetrain teardown and buildup, I reinstalled my Rotor Q-ring rotated 90º out of whack, effectively making it HARDER to pedal instead of easier. Not that it mattered much.

--

New England Regional Cyclocross Championships - December 18, 2010

With a couple of trainer sessions and one hour of outdoor training (ha!) after Ice Weasels I felt confident that I would do well in this race. I really did FEEL good that morning as we lined up.

After a slightly too-short warmup, I lined up 4th row and had a very good start, crunching my way past a few people who couldn't clip in and then, as we made our way to the "death spiral", I picked up a few more spots on the way into the center. Right at the middle, however, there was a major traffic jam, I was on the inside and was forced completely out of both pedals and had to "Fred Flinstone" for a few feet until I could clip in again.

As we exited the DS that first time, a rather large front group had formed and I was just off the back of it. I worked hard to reel in the guy in front of me but even as I did, that front group strung out very quickly as it wound it's way to the far side of the course past the mostly frozen sand pit (was that a volleyball court?). I was very nearly at max effort and fully warmed up, finally.

I bolted past a coupla more guys at the barriers which were between the two long straights along the roadway and one more at the fly over then passed more pedaling up the run up (which had a diabolically placed chunk of ice/snow right at the middle at the top).

The first 1 & 1/2 laps done, I spent the next part of the race in a no man's land that felt like somewhere just behind mid-pack. A coupla guys visible ahead of me and when I was on certain parts of the course, I could see a coupla guys behind me. I knew this would not be good - without someone to chase or be chased by, the mental task of keeping the pressure on would be tough.

I bore down and over the next two laps caught up to the two guys ahead of me. My best moments in the race: I made an artfully timed and executed inside pass on a turn on the far side of the course to get by one of them (SKILL!) and a short time later, passed the other guy on a straight (POWER!) and got maybe 10 seconds in front of them both.

Along the roadside straights, I could even see Stefan not too far ahead and made him my next goal but that lasted about as long as it took to process the thought: I crossed the start/finish with 2 laps to go, my dilithium crystals failed and I dropped out of warp.

BRAIN: "Scotty, give me more power!"

LEGS: "I'm giving her all she's got, Captain!"

There just didn't seem to be anywhere on the course to get a little rest and at this point, I needed one bad.

Two turns before the fly over, the guys I passed earlier came up behind me fast and I let them by rather than foul them up with my now rather non-existent bike handling skills. The rest of the race was just survival.

Finished five minutes behind infamous sandbagger M. Brier, placing 21st of 42 over all and 14th of 22 in the 45+ class. Drove home, unloaded all the bike stuff and loaded up all the photo stuff for a location shoot later in the day.

--

Random stuff

I finally replaced my 25+ year old Blackburn wind load trainer with a spiffy new Kurt Kinetic fluid trainer. Much. Quieter. Easier to plunk bike into as well. Hello, BSG season two.

I'm riding a MTB again after, oh 20 years by way of a used 2004 or '05 Specialized Stumpjumper on loan from a fellow MRC member. Needs some tuning up FD-wise (won't shift to largest chainring) but functions well otherwise. Have done 3 rides on it, all in various amounts of snow, notably a couple of days after Christmas at the Delaney Project in Stow when Gary D and I tried riding in the post-blizzard drifts:

Post Blizzard MTB ride @ Delaney Project from Russ Campbell on Vimeo.

Well, we DID get pretty tired, pushing our bikes through the snow, so it definitely counts as a workout and not just "play".

The following day, I did a solo MTB ride in the Stow Town Forest which went "much" better. That morning a phalanx of XC skiers laid down a nice 12" wide lane of densely packed snow around a few of the trails which made it possible to ride as long as I did not stray too far to teh side. This is not to say I was going very fast, it was hard work: 4 miles in an hour, with many abrupt stops when I got into the deeper stuff.

On New Year's Day, I got in a nice 90 minute "gentleman's ride" with some of my MRC brethren. Easy pace, mostly, with a 1/2 hour coffee break in Concord Center about 3/4 of the way through. It was fun shouting "Happy New Year" to other cyclists we passed.

Next up: year end assessment and planning/prognostication for 2011!

Yes, I'm "Training" for This

2010-12-09T08:28:00.000-05:00

Colin "briefcasing" his bike over the barriers at the 2009 Ice Weasels.
Photo courtesy of PainFace @ DoubleHop

Everyone else seems to be winding their season down, while I've been ramping things up after Thanksgiving. I've been living my cycling life vicariously for four weeks by reading race reports and watching various chainstay, handlebar and seatpost cam footage. I totaled 6 rides for the month of November.

Despite the lack of activity, and one big-eatin' holiday, I've only a put a coupla pounds on during my "convalescence". Workouts since have gone very well in this c-c-c-cold weather we've been having around here, although yesterday's was cut short due to some major calf-cramping I just could not shake.

Gonna wait until mid-day today when it's (hopefully) just above freezing to get one last hard ride in before mixing it up Ice Weasels Cometh on Saturday!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2010-11-25T07:33:00.000-05:00

The Secret Eye Was Upon Me

2010-10-22T23:51:00.000-04:00

So, I'm reading Squat Lobster's account of the Cat 4 35/45+ race I was also in this past Sunday and when I got to his video, I enjoyed seeing some of my MRC team mates come and go through the frame of his camera:

MRC Cyclocross Cat 4 35/45+ Lap 1 from Bob T. on Vimeo.

At the end of the video, when his camera has fallen off his bike (jelly side up), I couldn't help but wonder if I was one of the guys zipping past. Enter some frame-by-frame analysis and BINGO, there I am!

rusto rides over squat lobster's camera from Russ Campbell on Vimeo.

Race Report: Minuteman Cross, Cat 4 35/45+ - Lancaster, MA

2010-10-22T17:55:00.001-04:00

With not much of a warmup (sigh) because I was running around the course photographing the open Cat 4 race, I lined up 6th row, which was closer to the front than I thought I'd be with only one other cycocross race under my belt. Did my best on the first lap to just maintain position, passing some people on that first big climb then being passed later on in the turny bits of the course.

Somewhere in lap 2, Mark Van Lier passed by me (from starting in row 8) and I gave chase. Tried keeping him in sight the rest of the race. Played cat-and-mouse with Sweeney for a while too.

Full gallery of the Cyclocrossracing.com/Minuteman Road Club CX Race

Lap 3, as I exited the last barn turn and approached the copse of trees by the bleachers, I snagged my left brake handle in the tape, stretching out 6 ft or so diagonally across the track - dang stuff broke so easy in the wind but wouldn't when I got caught in it. It slowed some BikeBarn guy down a half-second while I cursed a blue streak and finally freed myself.

Had to do a half dozen foot-plants on turns but was glad I had the instinct to do so, woulda definitely bit it in a few cases if I didn't.

I can hardly remember going up and over the flyover, I guess it wasn't an issue for me.

Last lap, I tried to stick with Scott but couldn't, Van Liere was out of sight but I had some guy on my tail so he would have to do for me to have any last acts of heroism. As we left the corner field before the finishing straight, he was actually breathing louder than I was, so I began to hit the gas. He matched my every move, likely tucked in behind me tight to stay out of the wind.

I kept shifting up and going faster and still I could hear his huffing and puffing behind me and as I hit the line, I practiced throwing my bars "just in case" but I don't think he was coming around.

Result: 34th of 76 overall and 17th of 40 in the 45+.

I'm very pleased with how I did. My ankle/foot did not pose a problem (but did need a bag of ice when I got home) and each lap was faster than the one before (9:19, 9:09, 9:08 and 9:06). My only self-criticism was that even though my remounts went without a hitch, I did flop my ass down on the seat really hard every time - I'm lucky that the barriers were in the forgiving wood chips.

Later, when the results were up, I did not find myself on the print-out so I pestered JD between races and he reviewed the tape, found me and even complemented me on the throw.

The rest of the day, I spent taking shots of the rest of the action. I took so many shots, it required quite a few man-hours of editing to create the gallery I posted online.

Pre-Race Workout

2010-10-16T21:30:00.003-04:00

Spent the day doing course setup for our race tomorrow, the CyclocrossRacing.com/Minuteman Road Club CX Race.

7 a.m. start with NO COFFEE. Big mistake, felt kinda logey all day, but soldiered on through staking/taping the course, pruning tree branches, clipping off exposed roots and toting 55 gallon drums. Oh, then there was the hauling of logs, hay bales and walking back and forth along the course dozens of times to move my car and it's load of tools to a more convenient location.

Meanwhile the wind was gusting to 25 mph and threatening to make our racecourse look like either a drunken Christo installation or a field of bedraggled TIbetan prayer flags.

Right around noon, I was pretty cooked and, it being two hours beyond the advertised completion time, quite ready to go. Just then the call comes in that the flyover is on it's way to the site.

Ok, I'll hang around a little longer. What's next?

Unloading the components from the trailer, that's what:

Here, hold this for a minute, would ya?

Ok, once the guys assembling the flyover seem to have things well in hand, I head home and finally swap out my front brake pads (long overdue) and install the shorter handlebar stem I've wanted since I got the XO1 in August. Both operations go quickly and smoothly.

Next I get the car loaded up with my standard race armament PLUS a few extras just for this race (I'll detail these later in my race report). But I keep wondering how the flyover is coming along, so I head back over to sneak another peek:

My those steps look steep! I trotted up... gonna be some sore thighs tomorrow! The crew also added a little skirt to the end of the ramp so descending cyclists can transition back to level ground less abruptly. Nice touch!

Ok, back home, dinner and now let's wrap this post so I can get some proper rest.

EDIT: I forgot that I got this vid-clip of an early test drive:

Minuteman Road Club Flyover - nearly finished! from Russ Campbell on Vimeo.

Providence Cyclocross Festival - Day 1 - October 9, 2010

2010-10-13T08:09:00.005-04:00

A beautiful Saturday morning greeted New England 'crossers as they competed on Day 1 of the Providence Cyclocross Festival. I was signed up to race but I was still feeling cautious about my ankle which left me free to photograph the goings on.

Fellow Minuteman Road Club member, John Smith bought himself an upgrade to Cat 3 over the weekend by winning the Cat 4 35/45+ on both days. Chris Pare took 3rd on day 2 in that category.

Doug Kennedy also had a great weekend, placing 4th and 7th on each day. He bumped up to Cat 2 as a result.

I covered the Cat 4, Cat 4 35/45+, Cat 3/4 Women and the U15 Juniors (1-4). Full gallery here.

Competitors make their way past the Temple of Music in Roger Williams Park.

Michael Weiler descends in Roger Williams Park.

Todd Savage leads fellow Minuteman team member John Smith up at the start of the 35/45+ heat on Saturday.

A victorious John Smith (Minuteman) as he wins the Cat 4 35+.

The Night Weasels Cometh - October 6, 2010 - Shrewsbury, MA

2010-10-07T23:53:00.006-04:00

Rained like the dickens while we were stringing tape along the course but it eased up in time for the first heat of the evening, the Cat 4 Men. This didn't mean that the course was easy to navigate, there was plenty of slippery messiness to be had.

Since my ankle was still messed up, I was fine with the role of photographer, while the light lasted. One Cat 3 racer who shall remain nameless, remonstrated me for using my flash... it WAS hard to see out there, so I don't blame him. I didn't want to be the cause of anyone's crash so I took more slow shutter speed pan shots and saved most of the flash shots for the finish line.

Colin, Chip, all the volunteers and the crew from Ski Ward all did a terrific job. Everyone had a great time!

A gallery of photos is viewable here: click for mud

Minuteman Road Club Cat 4 crew after the race

Matt Pierson hurdling a six inch pipe

Peter Goguen, 14 year old Cat 4 winner

MRC Member Rob Bauer shows why his nickname is "Pain Face"

Jonny Bold ripping it up in the P/1/2/3 race

Ankle Update

2010-10-04T09:46:00.001-04:00

So it's six days since I sprained my ankle/foot. Two days to go before The Night Weasels Cometh.I had a string of assignments through the weekend so I couldn't stay off my feet at all, but the ankle brace I picked up at CVS did a good job of helping me to function.

Every day, it's been getting a little better.

This morning, I taped it up and got on the trainer for some intervals and it held up really well but the bad news is that when I got off, laced up my running shoes and tried to simply JOG around the block, it was a no-go after 100 yards.

So, if you had to ask me right now, I'd say that I'll be photographing the race Wednesday night, not participating in it.

My Own Worst Enemy?

2010-10-01T00:00:00.003-04:00

Short post only to report that I have been finding new ways to maim myself.

Two weeks ago, I unwisely jumped on a BMX bike for the first time at the track in Billerica (I was quite the sight in my roadie bike shorts and jersey), went off course and my right thigh lost a fight with a rather sharp rock as I fell, leaving me with a 5-inch gash that provided me with a nice view of what things look like underneath my skin. (Sorry, no photos)

My wife is becoming an expert at rolling her eyes at me when I come limping back into the house.

Fast forward to this past Tuesday, I'm scheduled to have the stitches removed at 1:30pm but in the morning, I decide to do a little 'cross workout, concentrating on nailing down my remounts. Somehow, I manage to completely miss the saddle and sort of sit down on the rolling rear tire while simultaneously riding over my left foot with my ankle bent to the right at a rather unnatural angle.

Boof! Down I go and instantly I know that the workout is over.

Coupla hours later it's my PCP who's rolling his eyes at me when I ask him if he would check out my ankle after he is done taking out the stitches.

So, I've been hobbling around with a brace on the ankle. It's improved a lot in two and a half days. I'm thinking I might just be alright for the Night Weasels Cometh this coming Wednesday...

Crossin' Over, Catching Up - Plus QuadCross 2010

2010-09-15T20:26:00.013-04:00

The month of August usually sees my cycling mileage drop significantly, mostly due to a 3 week vacation that begins when my daughter's summer camp ends late in the month and the beginning of school, which for her was the Wednesday after Labor Day this year.

Oh yes, we do some traveling during that time: we had a most enjoyable time on Martha's Vineyard despite the squally conditions pretty much the whole time we were there. This was followed by our traditional father/daughter-only trip to Cape Cod to visit my mom, body-board in the Eastham Surf and do some rides with my brother, Doug.

A New Ride

But this year, I added a 2005 Trek XO 1 cross bike to the mix just before the hiatus began and, while my "saddle time" has dropped about to about the same level as it did last year, mileage is WAY down due to all the time I've been putting in riding the "new" bike around at speeds averaging less than 11 mph.

The bike is pretty much stock except for a 42 tooth Rotor Q-Ring and chain guard and a nice Specialized Toupe saddle (same as on my road bike) added by the original owner. It's a 56cm frame (1cm larger than my LeMond) and so, I have a bit of fit tweaking to do. Mostly likely purchase will be to get a 100mm stem to replace the 110mm one that is currently installed.

Just before we headed to MV for a few days, I got some basic pointers on my second ride on the Trek from MRC's Bruce T who gave me a handful of things to go practice on my own. Surprisingly, much of it came pretty naturally - except except for remounting: I quickly developed the "double-hop" habit.

Third ride in, while starting a lap in the too-rooty Stow Town Forest, my front wheel found a grapefruit-sized rock hidden in the leaves and stopped cold, sending me sailing over the bars, landing hands-and-knees down on the trail. The bike pitched over and hammered the saddle on the ground, bending one of the seat rails.

I got a nice, deep gouge just above my left knee and a bruised the heel of my left thumb. With my first cross crash out of the way, I soldiered on. The gouge did not affect my ability to ride, but the bruised hand pestered me for another ten days. I had to swap out the Toupe saddle for the Bontrager one that came stock on my road bike.

In between the MV and Cape Cod trips, the couple of workouts I got in with various MRC members started to give me an inkling for the kind of efforts that would be required to do a cross race.

Huge efforts.

While on the Cape, I got one decent 40 mile tempo ride in with my brother on my road bike. Wow, a bike that has brakes that actually bring you to a stop and not merely slow you down!

Back from vacation, I did another solo ride in the Stow Town Forest that consisted of one high intensity lap of about 15 minutes then some dismount/mount practice followed by some easy trail exploration that included another, more spectacular, fall.

I was poking along a mountain bike trail that ran along the side of a steep hill and got a little too close to a tree, which grabbed the left sleeve of my jersey. As my jersey sleeve was ripping, the force was pulling me to the left - and down the slope. Next, my left arm was pulled off the handlebar and even though I was intoning (out loud), "I got it... I got it...", the front wheel lurched 90 degrees to the left.

At that instant, the tree, satisfied with the amount of jersey it had captured, released my left arm, allowing me to tumble to the right and down the hill about 10 feet, with the bike coming to rest on my back.

Obviously, I didn't have it.

I lay there for a moment, waiting for something to start to hurt. Fortunately, nothing did. I gathered myself up and pedaled home.

More Serious Training

My next three rides were great: a cross workout with a large group of about 8 others where we did five 6 minute hot laps followed by a 20 minute tempo-level fartlek session. I pretty much played "catch up" the whole time.

The second ride was a 40 mile road ride with Doug K and Smudger (two of the strongest members I ride with regularly) that was billed as "easy-to-moderate" but ended up, for me, to be "hard-to-moderate", in that order. As far as I could tell, they only had to wait up for me a couple of times.

The third was the following Monday morning, Labor Day: a very welcome cross skills workout with Gary D, Stefan and new-to-me MRC member, Able. We spent a lot of focused time on run-ups, tight turning and most beneficial to me, barriers and re-mounts. With their help, I finally began to minimize the double-hop and maximize the number of smooth remounts.

Later that day, as if I hadn't punished myself enough over the labor day weekend, I took my family to climb Monadnock Mountain, where my wife and I had gone on our first date. We got about 3/4 the way up when my wife tweaked her knee and we had to, carefully, make our way back down. Not summiting hit my daughter pretty hard, her recurring lamentations adding to the difficulty of getting my wife down safely.

Really Serious Training

The Wednesday after that, I headed down to Wrentham to participate in the MRC Cyclocross Training Series. After some course maintenance (try riding your bike while carrying a 5 lb. lump hammer in one hand) we did a bunch of hot laps. This was the closest thing I would get to racing before the following Sunday's QuadCross in Bedford, so I was hankering to find out what kind of shape I was in.

Well, I learned right away that racing cross means driving your heart rate through the roof, keeping it there, while simultaneously pedaling like mad until your legs feel like bags of rocks. Good thing we took a 2-3 minute break between laps. Here's my HR plotted against elevation for the afternoon:

See how it ramps right up to 170 bpm and stays there until the lap is over? We'll be looking at another fun graph shortly...

The next two days saw me working more on skills than fitness, especially dismounts/mounts.

This past Saturday found me back at Monadnock, as I promised my daughter we'd give it another go. We made the round trip in four and a half hours in perfect weather. Probably not the best thing to be doing the day before a race, but a promise is a promise.

Here I am, resting my weary legs atop Monadnock Mountain.

Now, compare that Wrentham graph above with this one from the hike:

HR barely exceeded 110 bpm even on the steepest sections.

First Race

And so, finally, we come to QuadCross 2010 this past Sunday. My first 'cross race!

I was registered to race in the Cat 4 heat along with a good sized MRC contingent. I got the benefit of not one but two warmup laps around the course, which really helped as there were lots of spots where you could either screw up royally or make a smart play to pass someone. I might have missed these features if I'd only taken one trip around.

10 o'clock rolls around and I find myself lined up in the 2nd row. And then we wait for about twelve minutes. So much for the warmup.

When the whistle is finally blown, I'm stomping on the pedals with all my might but my legs are telling me they want to continue the nap they'd just been enjoying. Off we all go and a bunch of people get by me right away in the first few turns. As much as I try to remember the rest of the race, only certain details have stuck with me:

At some point, I was playing cat-and-mouse with a Threshold rider and, as we approached the sand pit with him in front, I was determined to go by him. I got off my bike first cut to the left inside of him and blasted by only to fumble the remount a bit and watch as he blasted back by me once we took the left onto the parking lot straight
I did OK on the barriers and on the incline right afterwards - I ran up if someone was in front of me and rode it if not.
I felt like I was able to keep a bunch of others behind me because I was more aggressive through the tight turns, swinging wide early into the turns, cutting close to the pole, then wide again under power on the exit.
I was able to pass 3 or 4 people during the race but a few more than that got by me.
Even though my lungs and legs were completely on fire, I felt like I achieved some sort of strange equilibrium that allowed me to still function and continue to race.

Putting the hurt on a NEBC guy.

As I was nearing the start/finish to end my third lap, I was hoping to hear the officials ring the bell, signifying one-to-go, but there was silence as I went by. Two laps to go and I spent a lot of the 4th lap convincing myself that this was "only" a 40 minute ride, not some unending century on a hot June day. It would be over in less than 15 minutes, I told myself.

This seemed to do the trick, because by the time I started the fifth and final lap, I had a bit of a second wind and reeled in a couple of people who had been ahead of me for a while. Of course, right after I did, somebody else passed all three of us. And then it was over.

Just to the side of the course, past the start/finish line was a bunch of MRC guys to great me and the others from our heat. But I needed a few minutes to slow my heart and lungs down a bit before I could talk:

Heart rate and elevation. The horizontal gray line is at 170 bpm.

I finished in 41st place out of the 76 who showed up to race in the 4's. I gotta figure at 49, I was one of the oldest in the field...

Big congratulations to teammates, Chris Pare and John Smith, who took 2nd and 3rd respectively in the Cat 4 35+ race, Paul DiBetetto and John Plumb who took 4th and 5th in the 45+ 4's and Doug Kennedy who snagged 2nd in the Intermediate 3's.

Next races: Cat 4 Mens at Night Weasels Cometh on 10/6 then Cat 4 Mens Master 35+ on Saturday in Providence 10/9.

2010 Gran Prix of Beverly - August 4, 2010

2010-08-06T15:45:00.001-04:00

The 2010 Fidelity Gran Prix of Beverly was hot... and fast! Still, I wanted to be out there rather than on the sidelines - even though I really enjoyed photographing the action. As I watched, and photographed, my Minuteman Road Club team mates race in the Mens 4/5 heat, it was evident from the expressions on their and everyone else's faces that it was an extremely high intensity race.

On the second lap, just at the 3rd turn, there was a crash, sending the pack into neutral behind the pace car. Word that one of the riders down had broken his hip actually beat the pace car back to where I was standing at the final corner. A broken hip - kind of makes my shoulder separation look like a mosquito bite.

Throughout the race, MRC's Chris Pare maintained a good position in the top 10 on the outside with John Smith holding a spot on the inside a few places back.

Nearly halfway through, frequent riding buddy, Jerry De Zutter of 545 Velo came around the corner with a significant lead and no one giving chase. I'm pretty sure he took ~~the~~ a prime lap before being reabsorbed up by the pack and then finishing 14th.

Later on, there was another solo breakaway by Gerald Harris who later took 9th. Meanwhile, the heat and pace were taking their toll, producing a fair amount of attrition at the back as people began to fall off the pace and get pulled by the officials as they came around the start/finish.

A sprint finish found Kenneth Thoman (Comprehensive) in 1st, Edward Uhring (unattached) 2nd and Colin Reuter (Back Bay Bicycles) in 3rd. MRC's Chris gave John the best lead out one could ask for, allowing him to finish 7th. Chris himself came in 24th.

I took pains to get nice, sharp photos of my team mates racing... once their heat was over, the pressure was off and so I got a little looser with my coverage of the Women's and Pro/1/2 races, not really paying attention to the race per se, but spent the time noodling around with some slow-sync and motion blur.

There are a A LOT more photos from the race in this web gallery.

Norwell Circuit Race - August 1, 2010

2010-08-02T08:37:00.005-04:00

Did the Norwell Circuit Race yesterday, the first race back after crashing at the Nutmeg Classic in June.

I had my ups and downs: I was among or near the top 10 for nearly the whole race until the last time on Forest street when all the "sleepers" behind me woke up and got moving. If, as one of my MRC teammates reports, our race was split into two groups, it seemed like the whole front group engulfed me on the final climb which means I probably placed around 25th I'll update when the results are posted on BikeReg. [UPDATE: I placed 22nd, just behind team mate Scott Sweeny.]

The good:

stayed near the front for most of the race (the sounds of the two crashes reverberated in my mind for a couple of laps)
kept my wits about me when some numbskull wouldn't hold his line ON A STRAIGHTAWAY and I had to put my hand on his hip to let him know he was drifting into me. I was directly behind another guy, so no room at the inn for him, but the drifter kept coming and nearly pushed me into the cyclist to my left.
there were a couple of instances where I got gapped a little by the few people in front of me but I was able to steadily regain contact without panicking

The bad:

not enough warmup: the first time up Circuit Street sucked big time, shoulda done some short jumps to get the Type II muscles fully awake
spent too much time in the first three laps out in the wind - not in the lead, maybe 5 wheels back but to the side, pulling a bunch of lunkheads behind me - I should have worked harder to find a slot where I could rest up a bit
my rear brake was rubbing (sigh) on the Circuit Street climb when I got out of the saddle, I couldn't tell if it was really slowing me much but I chose to spin my way up instead (the good thing was, except for the last time up, I didn't lose any places doing so)
absolutely nothing left for that last climb up Circuit Street, I struggled up as bike after bike surged by me

I'd be kidding myself if I thought I was doing very much more than hanging on by the skin of my teeth the whole race, but I'm proud of the fact that I did most of it towards the front of the pack and not tagging along in the back.

Looking ahead on my calendar, I don't see any opportunities for further road racing for me this year. I am planning on photographing the upcoming Grand Prix of Beverly and the Salem Witches Cup so watch out for the galleries that will result.

[UPDATE 8/11/2010: I totally forgot about the Jamestown Classic, on Oct. 11th, so I still have something to aim for this season!]

Sunday Random Bike Pic

2010-08-01T09:35:00.002-04:00

Jul 15, originally uploaded by b_Ren0.

The Hidden Damage

2010-07-31T15:58:00.002-04:00

So, all of a sudden, with one day to go before returning to racing (Norwell Circuit Race), right at the start of a 40-mile easy group ride, my front derailleur doesn't respond to my repeated flicks/click of the lever or even to tugging directly on the exposed part of the cable as it runs along the side of the bike's down-tube.

Hrm, I think to myself, this sucks.

Somehow or other, I managed to get the thing working again and get through the ride today with minimal shifting between chainrings.

Upon returning home, I take another look at my setup and remember that although my bike came out of last month's crash almost completely unscathed, the one obvious thing that happened was that the newly-installed FD cable housing that runs from the shifter to the barrel adjuster on the down-tube got a wee bit kinked. Well, it turns out a lot more happened to it than that.

Reluctant to do anything major to my drivetrain the day before a race but anxious about having a mechanical that would take me out of the running, I loosened up the cable locking nut and tried to thread the cable back through the housing. It took some effort to pull the housing away from the shifter and once I had it completely off, it was plainly evident what the problem was:

Whoah!

My guess is that as the bike and I tumbled over, the housing smacked the ground and drove the end right through the little plastic cap. The frayed end of the housing did no damage to the cable itself but was pressing on the side of the shifter, impairing it's proper functioning. it's a wonder that it worked for the last six weeks at all.

I had an extra set of cables and housings on hand, made the swap, adjusted the FD and the RD and things were ship-shape again.

Only thing left to do before tomorrow is get a good night's rest...

Sunday Random Bike Pic

2010-07-18T20:32:00.003-04:00

2010 CRW Climb to the Clouds

2010-07-18T20:23:00.003-04:00

MRC mate, Tony W, and I set out at 7:20 from CCHS and ambled our way towards Wawa, with the goal of maintaining 20-ish mph on the flats. We'd latch on to groups of various sizes along the way and move on – there was the usual mish-mash of folks who could hold a line and wobbly "freds" on fancy Cervelo's, Treks, etc.. It was hot, but dry, so we were never miserable due to the heat, but it was easy to forget to hydrate as I barely worked up a sweat the whole way.

I was loving the 12-27 cassette I picked up this week: that 27 tooth cog helped me spin up every ramp without a hitch. Mile Hill Road was still a load of work, but I never felt like I was going to plotz as I worked my way up.

At the visitor's center, we watered up, etc. and just as I was going to suggest to Tony that we go, Bruce, Jeff L and Brian (also of the MRC) roll up, providing a good excuse to extend the stop. It seemed like Bruce knew every other person there – he'd turn around and there'd be someone else he'd say "Hello" to.

Soon, we were underway again (Brian a little bit before we did, with the expectation we'd pass him later on).

The next leg is my favorite part of the ride with long, curving descents and high speeds winding back down the mountain, into Princeton and to the first official CRW rest stop. It was great doing the next 25 miles or so with a squad of friends. Before I knew it, we were at Berlin Orchards, the location of the 2nd rest stop.

Bruce and Jeff watered up quick and got going right away to finish up their metric. I was starting to get those "warning cramps" in my quads and hamstrings, so between glugs of water and chomps of pbj, I did a little stretching in the hopes that I'd get 25 more miles out of my legs before anything dramatic happened.

Tony and I got going again and made our way back into Harvard, up the last big climb of the day and into more familiar territory. Down Stow Road then left on Old Harvard. During this stretch, we reeled in a fairly large group of 12-15 guys who were keeping a pretty decent pace of 22-24 mph. In fact, it was just ONE cyclist setting the pace with everyone else benefitting from his effort. We must have logged 10 or so miles with him at the front almost the whole time.

When we finally crossed into West Concord and were less than 7 miles from the end, I got up out of the saddle to close a small gap that opened up with the guy in front of me. In that instant BOTH hamstrings cramped up solid - GAH! I got off the road and managed to dismount without aggravating the crampage as our ticket home faded away. Bleh.

A couple of minutes stretching and I was back on the bike with Tony providing a very welcome "tow" back to CCHS. For the 100 miles, I logged the bike time as 5 hours, 21 minutes with 5,810 ft of climb.

Song stuck in head: Friday I'm in Love - The Cure

Climb to the Clouds this Sunday

2010-07-15T21:12:00.002-04:00

Had my training scheduled "just so" as this Sunday's CRW Climb to the Clouds Century loomed ahead. The plan was to ride hard Wednesday with the MRC as usual, spin for 90 minutes Thursday, do the MRC FMR (Friday Morning Ride - short but intense hill intervals) and "rest" on Saturday as I do 10 hours shilling tripods at a trade show.

So much for that plan. I picked up a gig today that kept me away from the bike and my wife's PT appointment Friday morning means I'm driving our daughter to camp then part two of today's gig starts soon after and continues into the afternoon.

I did manage to snag a 12-27 cassette, new chainrings and chain (all Ultegra) and a new tire at Landry's today, I'm hoping that 27-tooth cog helps some on Mile Hill Road.

So, the new plan is to get home quick after the shoot and do a 2 hour moderately paced ride before the sun goes down. When I get back from the trade show on Saturday, I'll do all the prep for Sunday morning: load my bike, gear and food in the car, mix up bug juice (and have extra powder dosed into baggies), lay out my kit, have a decent dinner and get to bed early.

The First Week Back

2010-07-04T18:12:00.003-04:00

Well, it's the end of the first week back on the bike since the crash and I must say, I'm pleased. I've logged five rides of distances up to 63 miles totaling over 210 miles.

Did a decent job on the Wednesday night ride, though I faded pretty hard the last couple of miles. Managed a respectable sprint at the end of this week's Friday Morning Ride. Had a fantastic (and fast) ride out to Wachusett Mtn. (no summit) and back with former MRC member and current Spinx Team rider, Tom Ball and tri-guy Bob Crane. I topped all that off with a one hour run (longest ever for me) this morning with fellow MRC guys, Steve K and Jim L.

A little shoulder pain here and there but so far, my body is repairing itself admirably. My bike, on the other hand, needs serious attention: it's making all kinds of new sounds "down there". Tomorrow will be an easy ride and much time in the driveway doing a good tear-down/clean/lube/adjust.

Dang It All!

2010-06-27T06:52:00.003-04:00

Got all geared up to ride at 6 a.m. this morning with some of the MRC guys and about 5 minutes before I had to leave the house, I remembered that I cut the adjustable strap on my right Specialized bike shoe when I crashed because the release had completely come off.

I rushed to the basement to take the SPD pedals off the old Bianchi (in hindsight, I should have just rode THAT bike) and then up to the garage to put them on the LeMond. Thing was, I simply could not remove the KEO's from the LeMond: my shoulder hurt pretty bad as I tried. If I want to get the pedals off, I'll have to remove the cranks, put them in a vise and get some extra leverage using my long torque wrench.

Very frustrating. Silly of me not to remember about the cut strap.

After some foot stomping and mild curses, I headed inside to look online to see if I could get replacement parts for the shoe. Specialized has the buckles in stock but no straps in black... why in heavens name would they not allow online shoppers to backorder parts that are out-of-stock is beyond me, especially since their current shoe line uses the same straps. There are no other online sources for the straps and buckles in the U.S.

I could order grey/white straps which might look a bit strange, but I held off since it's Sunday and who knows WHEN I'll actually get the parts. I'll check in w/Landry's later today. While a new pair of shoes would be tempting, I'd rather put the $$ into some Speedplays...

Now, I'll tip-toe upstairs and change into shorts & t-shirt and try to adjust my attitude by running a few miles.

UPDATE 8:00 a.m. - Felt like I could run 4 miles but my right calf started to hurt right as I finished one lap of 2 miles. And I still need to mow the lawn today.

UPDATE 5:30 p.m. - Landry's came through again: got me a new strap and buckle for the damaged shoe. I was so happy, I bought some Speedplay Zeroes.

Tomorrow, back on the bike!

On Foot

2010-06-26T09:06:00.001-04:00

Two weeks after the crash and I'm healing pretty well. Put the sling aside over the weekend and managed to get a couple of 2 mile runs in with no incident. Managed do the route at 7' 30" per mile pace. Shoulder movement has improved quite a bit but a photo assignment last Saturday revealed that if I go beyond my current range of motion, it hurts pretty bad.

Running out of Vicodan, which I've only been taking before bedtime, but I seem to be able to sleep through the night now without rolling over on the injured side and waking myself in extreme pain.

6/22: I'm writing this from Baltimore Airport, waiting for a connecting flight to Louisville to visit the in-laws. Plotted out a nice two-mile loop in a residential neighborhood across the way from the hotel where we are staying and packed some running duds but, as we pulled into the airport parking lot in Manchester, NH, I realized that I did not pack my running shoes.

Crap!

The hotel is a stone's throw from a sprawling shopping mall, so I'll probably go buy a pair of shoes later today. I'm planning on returning to training on the bike when we get back home this weekend. It really sucks to get hurt just as I was nearing peak fitness and getting used to dicing it up in races.

Meanwhile, this past Saturday, two of my MRC teammates did very well in the Purgatory Road Race: Doug K won the Cat 5 35+ quite handily and Len E took 4th in a very strong Cat 4 35+ field. Great job, guys!

6/26: Leaving KY in a couple of hours. Got some decent New Balance running shoes and a Timex Triathlon watch that has an HR strap, have done 3 runs of varying distances/speeds over fairly hilly terrain. Anxious to get home and get back on the bike tomorrow if the weather allows...

Nutmeg Classic Criterium - June 12, 2010

2010-06-12T16:06:00.010-04:00

Alternate title: "4 Hours of Driving, 16 Minutes of Racing"

Pre-race: Arrived at Walnut Hll Park in New Britain, CT for the Nutmeg Classic Criterium at about 8:15 a.m. rested but not quite ready after an extremely busy week of work, including a couple of all-nighters. As I wandered about looking for where to park, I saw fellow MRC'ers, Bill T and Rob F warming up and they told me where to go. Got parked, registered and on my bike by about 8:30 and started doing loops on the neighborhood roads adjacent to the course.

Newbie racer lesson learned: use 8 safety pins, not 4 to attach your number to your jersey: with 4 pins, the flapping of my number was sure to drive me batty during the race. My Minuteman Road Club teammate, Stefan, also showed me a better way to pin the number on as well.

After lowering my coefficient of drag, I resumed my warmup. Every lap around, I got a view of Stefan jamming to who-knows-what on his iPod as he warmed up on his trainer. Couldn't tell if he was singing out loud...

As we rolled up to the start of the 4/5 Masters 30+, the 4's race was just finishing and about 10 riders from the front, mid-pack, two guys crashed HARD 10 yards from the finish line. Hate to see that right before you start your own race.

Stefan got a good slot at the front and I was right behind him. I was feeling pretty confident despite the lack of training this week. We started off pretty briskly and I set to the task of looking for some good wheels to hang onto. I had this big truck of a guy in front of me for a while but then found myself inside and in the wind (which Stefan came up behind me to alert me to, thx!). Got in the draft of some heavily tattooed guy who looked pretty strong and hung with him for laps 2-3.

Lap 4, I'm finally feeling pretty settled in, maybe just ahead of mid-pack. There were already a couple of half-hearted "breaks" and I noticed this one African-American guy who I remembered from the Thompson Raceway bike race last year and thought, "HE's who I should stick with".

After we came around the long, sweeping left that leads to the start/finish straight, I was on the outside and accelerating when I heard that sickening sound of bicycles tangling/crashing. Looking ahead and a little to the left of me, I saw the blur of cyclists going down and thought I would be able to squeeze through between them and the curb, about 18" to my right.

Sadly, their momentum took one of the bikes directly in front of me and I hit it, went over the bars (letting out a stream of expletives as I "flew") then down pretty hard. In that instant, I prepared for the next guy behind me to run me over - luckily, this never happened. I grabbed the top tube of my bike and dragged it and myself off the course and sat down in the grass to triage myself.

A little road rash here and there but my left shoulder was hurting pretty bad. One of the other two guys who didn't resume racing was still on the course with little birdies flying around his head (it turns out, he did split his helmet nearly in half). The third guy was on the side holding his RIGHT shoulder. I think two others crashed but tried to rejoin the race.

The on-site doctor thought I might have a slight dislocation but recommended I get an x-ray at the conveniently located Central Connecticut New Britain General Hospital: 3/4 of mile away on the other side of the race course, visible from where I crashed.

I hung out with an ice bag on my shoulder as Stefan, Bill and Rob finished and then Stefan drove me over to the ER. Outcome of ER visit: AC Joint Sprain, Motrin and Vicodin (whee!). I'm definitely going to visit my primary doc asap to get his opinion as I think something is definitely going on worse than a mere "sprain".

Bike triage: as far as I can tell, my bike survived unscathed. I fully expected a twisted up front wheel but everything seems fine. No head contact and my kit has no tears. The surprise happened when I walked back to my car after the crash and went to take off my bike shoes: the little release lever on the ratchety strap on my right shoe had been completely torn off. No matter how I tried to get it to release by prying at it with a screwdriver, I could not get it to release - so I reluctantly cut it off with my pocket knife.

At a clinic I participated in this spring, the lead teacher told us, "There are two kinds of bicycle racers: those that have crashed and those that will." I am now a member of the former group.

4:47 PM UPDATE: A little online research and comparison to my x-ray makes me think I've got a Type II AC Separation, but hey, I'm no expert. I'm waiting for a call from a sports doctor my primary physician recommended.

Crash mars 37th Sunapee Road Race

2010-05-22T21:51:00.004-04:00

Many fellow MRC Cat 5'ers were sitting in good position today when the crash occurred in the Cat 4 group ahead of them. Officials stopped the race to clear the injured, which took over an hour and ended things for the 5's. Our own Rob Follansbee evaded the carnage to take 9th in the 4's.

What next?

2010-05-19T10:31:00.006-04:00

It's bad enough cyclists have to deal with inattentive drivers and the repercussions of fellow cyclists who ride without regard to safety (also note all the motorists who roll the stop signs), but now the haters are taking it to a new level by actively causing cycling accidents.

One of several crashes caused by tacks repeatedly thrown on racecourse:

Leonardtown Criterium Crash - Pro/1/2 Race from Bryan Vaughan on Vimeo.

Be sure and check out the comments in the Washington Post article, it never seems to take long for the "all cyclists are elitist/scofflaws" crowd to show up.

Video: Team Sky TT training outside Amsterdam

2010-05-17T10:12:00.005-04:00

Watch for the water bottle tossed by a passing motorist at the team at 3:20. If you can't stand techno music, mute your sound now.

[via cyclinginquisition.com]

Sunday Random Bike Pic

2010-05-16T23:18:00.003-04:00

Race Report: 16th Annual Sterling Classic Road Race Cat 5 35+

2010-05-11T08:07:00.008-04:00

Saturday 2010/05/08

Distance: 24 miles

Time: 1:15:50

Average speed: 19 mph

Weather: ungodly

Rolled out from the school in a steady rain. Whatever warmup I had done beforehand was sapped out of me on the way over to the start. As we climbed up Rowley under 190, I dropped my chain -DOH! I was able to get it back on without stopping but lost many places doing so. So I started picking my way forward through the pack, avoiding a considerable number of wobbly cyclists as we wound up and down the rollers on Heywood and North Row. At one point, I managed to pull off my sunglasses and traded the fog and droplets obscuring my vision for dirt and crud going directly into my eyes. Meanwhile, I was gulping down mouthfuls of water thrown at me by the rooster tail peeling off the wheel in front of me.

Managed to work my way the front 1/2 of the pack on the way to where Rte. 12 passes under 190, when I thought I heard Doran say something like "When is somebody going to do something?" (asked him later, it wasn't him). I was talking to John R the other day about possibly being a "rabbit" to tease some riders into expending energy early in the race.

Well, moments later, I was near the front of the pack, so I opened it up a bit on that long descent on Rte 12. I kept it at 28 mph as far up the incline on 12 back towards downtown as I could but started to fade and the pack finally passed me by. Doran later told me no one took the bait, making me the only one to expend energy early in the race.

I spent the first half of lap 2 on my own, trying to determine whether or not I could make it through 3 laps. At the midway point of lap 2, on Rte. 12, I didn't feel as spent as I did earlier so I started the hunt for people I could catch and pass. There were two guys up ahead that I started to reel in until I got to the start/finish when they pulled away and then three more people passed me.

So, me and these 5 other guys bringing up the rear had our own little race for 30th place during the final lap. Every time there was an incline, they would catch and pass me, but over the top, they would sit up and I would pass them again and get a lead on the descents. I got a really good lead the last time down route 12.

When we hit Rte. 12 for the last time, I was able to stay ahead of the others until a slow-moving Cadillac appeared right at the turn onto the finishing climb. The cop there frantically waved him on as I shouted, "GO! GO!" I was right on his bumper when he finally hit the gas and got out of the way. The other cyclists caught up to me at this point and I was sure they would pass me. I lost all sense of self and became only lungs, legs and bicycle for the next 100 yards. Of those 3, only my bike was in good working order.

The cheering section on the way up was a great help and somehow I managed to stay ahead of the others. 30th place!

The rain really came on at that point, cold faucet only, for the ride back to the school. It was a miserable two miles. When I finally made it to my car and tried to dismount, both quads were threatening to lock up forever. I looked down and they were somewhere between blue and purple in color. Took the better part of an hour to stop shivering! Hypothermia? Maybe.

Summary: I wish I'd paid attention to how much energy I was saving while still with the pack, I'm sure I would have finished with them despite the grinding start/finish hill. Two races, in each, I pulled an ill-advised move that ended up putting me well behind. Here's hoping I stay smart in the next race...

Full results

Wells Avenue training criterium 5/2/2010

2010-05-05T14:23:00.002-04:00

Damn, I hate having to compose a blog post TWICE: after an hour of writing, Ecto (the app I use) only published the first line and lost everything else. This version is a bit briefer than the original, I may pad it with more detail later.

Did the "C" race on Sunday. Short version: I did not podium but did not crash or get dropped.

Longer version:

I got a lot of really good advice, wisdom and lore from Alan H, Michael C, Rich M, Bruce and others beforehand. I didn't sleep well the night before but was surprisingly calm once I got out of bed.

When called to the start, I found myself in the 4th row next to teammate, John R - he was on the inside and I was one row outside of him. At the start, everyone clipped in without incident and the pack slowly came up to speed.

I felt like I did a great job of looking for steady riders to draft in the early laps and stayed in the middle or to the front of the pack the whole time. Only gripe was that I migrated to the outside and kept finding a particular manhole cover on the back stretch that is slightly below the road surface.

I felt like I was working pretty hard but also felt like I had power in reserve, if needed. We were averaging 24 mph as we sped around. I observed that John was in a much better position, ranging from just in front of me (but still on the inside) to the very front of the pack.

A car turning off the course compressed the pack at one point and John, in a moment of inattention, lapped wheels with someone in front of him and nearly went down right in front of me but made a great recovery without affecting anyone.

A few laps in, as we approached turn 1, a rider up ahead of me pulled the left side crank right off his BB! There he was, coasting straight ahead, holding his left leg up with the pedal and crank dangling from his cleat. Lucky for all of us, he was on the outside and caused no trauma to the pack.

Prime lap (lap 7 of 17): on the backstretch another car was on the road, so we went "neutral" and I mistakenly assumed the VERY NEXT lap would be the prime (as that was how the race official described it should happen). Coming round the final turn into the straight, I found myself 2nd wheel and figured, why waste the opportunity. I managed a sprint and got out front but just before the line, the guy I was sprinting against shouted that it was NOT the prime lap... and at that moment, they rang the bell announcing the prime.

I think it was on that lap that somebody went down hard (heard the yelling/crash/helmet-on-pavement). He lay there until the end of the race until an ambulance came and took him away.

Bleh. Matches burned. Spent the rest of the race hanging onto the back of the pack, getting gapped by a few bike lengths occasionally but able to sprint back up and latch on.

On the final sprint, another rider took a dive. It was rumored that he bounced along the granite curb as he went down... OUCH! He was treated and was able to get himself home.

Conclusion: I'm very happy with how I did, I learned much and will definitely it again!

(Hehe, when I went to post a link to this on Facebook, the Captcha system wanted me to type in these words: "involved imperil")

Sunday Random Bike Pic

2010-03-28T07:08:00.001-04:00

, originally uploaded by Old Chum.

Train in Rain (and Snow)

2010-02-27T14:33:00.001-05:00

Indoors, that is. After last weekend's tease, I re-sentenced myself to the basement trainer sessions and to finish up watching BSG season one. I did get out on Monday before descending back into the depths:

MONDAY 2010/02/22

Distance: 22.9 miles

Time: 1:17:25

Averge speed: 17.76 mph

Weather: 43-46º, 49-43% humidity, wind WNW 9 Gusts 16 to NE6

Started out much too hard and fast for this early in the season on my "CC" route which is pretty flat. Not much to report except that all the sand, frost heaves and potholes made for a more interesting ride. By the time I was coming back into Stow, I was "pre-cramping" in both calves so I shortened the ride by about 2 miles via some shortcuts back towards home.

Sunday Random Bike Pic

2010-02-21T16:41:00.001-05:00

Bicycle Art - Downtown Portland, OR (Explored!!), originally uploaded by Brandon Christopher Warren.

Ah, The Great Outdoors

2010-02-20T20:53:00.001-05:00

Distance: 38.2 miles

Time: 2:09:22

Avg. speed: 17.7 mph

Weather: 36-46º, 61-46% humidity, wind NW9-W12

Song stuck in head: Kitchen Girl (Old-time banjo song)

So nice to do an outdoor ride this morning. Last one was way back in November.

Even though the thermometer gave a reading colder than I think I have ever rode in, it didn't seem so bad once I got going. But the pre-ride prep in the garage was pretty chilly, needing to pull my gloves off long enough to stretch my booties over my shoes and zip them up (I've moved them indoors for the time being).

As I rode to the meeting place for today's ride, I realized I had completely forgotten how to pair and reset my cyclocomputer - all the while being careful not to take a dive on the extremely well-sanded neighborhood streets along the way.

9 a.m. rendezvous with Smudger, Kyle, Ian, Bill P and Stefan at Stow Plaza and we set out a few minutes later, heading west along 117 to turn right on Harvard Road to meet up with Skip and head up into Harvard. We looped partway up Stow Road, went left on Westcott and pretty much ran the Wednesday night route in reverse all the way past Fruitlands and back to Harvard Center. We kept a pretty modest pace, just under 20 mph. I was keeping up with the group very well but all the while, my heart rate was higher than expected (about 160 bpm), which I chalked up to adrenaline.

From there, we took Littleton road out of Harvard and passed on climbing Pinnacle Road. As soon as we made that decision, I was partly hoping we DID go up Pinnacle: Littleton Road is a terrible gauntlet of frost heaves, pot holes and loose pavement. This wouldn't have been the first time I nearly shook all my fillings out. There really wasn't a good line along this stretch all the way into Littleton Station where the road condition finally improved.

We zig-zagged across the railroad tracks to pick up Harwood Ave. which we road to Nashoba Road and went around Nagog Pond. The pace picked up appreciably during this stretch, the short climbs along the way started to stretch our little group out a bit.

We rode a little way east on 119 then south on 27. I was starting to find myself fade little bit on the inclines at this point - I didn't feel tired but my legs just were giving me the horsepower needed to keep up. We then went west on Newtown Road, then picked up Arlington Street which we rode into West Acton and finally made our way back to the start along Central Ave., Martin Street and Red Acre Road.

With a two month jump on last year, things are looking good.

Sunday Random Bike Pic

2010-01-31T11:15:00.003-05:00

TPE - TKY - TPE, originally uploaded by pommes king.

Shut Out of Harpoon B2B in Less Than 1 Minute!

2010-01-19T22:25:00.003-05:00

That's right, I was awake and alert at 7 a.m this morning, fingers at the ready to hit "Reload" on the B2B registration page.

"CLICK"

Furiously, I typed in the required information on the page and hit "Submit". To my astonishment, the slots were all taken by the time my submission made it to the B2B server.

Now all I can do is hope I can snag someone else's slot for the ride.

2009 Rehash - 2010 Goals Set

2010-01-17T21:31:00.001-05:00

Got a 1 hour trainer session in yesterday and again today - this momentum will help me get caught up on the backlog of Heroes episodes I've collected since the fall. Felt pretty good, considering I hadn't been on the bike or trainer since early November. Sheesh.

Good news is my period of winter laziness was much shorter than last year - as long as I stick to it. Let's take a look back at 2009 and see how different it was from 2008:

I bumped my total mileage up 9.5% from 2,640 miles to 2,889.
My total "saddle time" was down 2%, largely due to the complete lack of indoor trainer sessions early in 2009 and the very late start of road work (May).
For the same reason, I only logged 101 days with rides in '09 while in '08, I got in 112. Can't complain as most of those 101 days were on the road and not trainer sessions.
Average monthly weight for the year was 172 vs. 2008's 177 lbs. (I'm starting 2010 at 169)

Things I'm happy about as I look back on 2009:

Went from getting dropped to not only keeping up with the MRC Wednesday night crew but having a few very respectable performances.
Rode 3 centuries during the year: Climb to the Clouds, Chatham-Provencetown and back, CRW Fall Century
Regularly mixed in some good core body exercise as well as started to log a few running miles.

Disappointments:

No Wells Ave. races
Couldn't afford to buy a CX bike.
Didn't enter any races
Got sick in the late fall and stayed off the bike until new year

Ok, enough about the past - what about the coming year? How about a few goals?

Complete the Harpoon B2B
Centuries
- Mount Greylock
- Climb to the Clouds (set new PR)
- CRW Fall Century (set new PR)
Enter 5 Wells Ave races (early season)
Enter Sterling Classic
Enter 5 Charlie Baker time trials
Save pennies for a CX bike and race it in the fall
Make running a regular part of weekly workouts
Set PR's for 20 and 40 miles

Is that too many? I didn't want to make it too easy!

Sunday Random Bike Pic

2010-01-17T20:21:00.002-05:00

In the snow, originally uploaded by Saskya.

Sunday Random Bike Pic

2009-12-27T11:40:00.006-05:00

Matt on CBC, originally uploaded by andy_c.

Click the image, as it's best viewed larger than this.

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-24T09:00:00.005-05:00

091220-116, originally uploaded by rusto.

UPDATE: This photo has been selected by Suburban Assault as a "Hump Day Pic of the Week". Thanks, dickdavid!

Even Naked, You Must Ride With Protection

2009-12-23T09:34:00.003-05:00

With a few months of basement-bound indoor training ahead, it warms my heart to find news articles like this one:

Two young men caught cycling with no clothes on have escaped charges of offensive behaviour, but received a warning to wear protective headgear.
Local policewoman Cathy Duder was unfazed when she came across the two nude men, both in their early 20s.

"They were more shocked than I was, trying to cover up their bits and pieces with their hands," she said.

...

Ms Duder issued them with a stern warning for not wearing helmets and then sent them directly home.

[via BBC News]

Sunday Random Bike Pic

2009-12-20T07:26:00.004-05:00

bicycles in the snow, originally uploaded by michenv.

How Different My Childhood Would Have Been

2009-12-08T08:48:00.004-05:00

Soak in this wonderful custom tricycle crafted by Sasha White, of Vanilla Bicycles . With a stainless steel front end, Phil Woods hub and a cherry rear deck with the Vanilla script inlaid in stainless steel.

[via Burstoid (some NSFW pics)]

Sunday Random Bike Pic

2009-12-06T12:29:00.003-05:00

Vintage Cycling Photo: Track Bike, originally uploaded by rusto.

Sunday Random Bike Pic

2009-11-29T20:27:00.001-05:00

28 Days Later

2009-11-22T18:36:00.001-05:00

Distance: 34.5 miles

Time: 2:08:52

Avg. speed: 16.06 mph

Weather: 50-48º, humidity 61-68%, wind ENE10-11

Yes, it's been four weeks since I last saddled up and rode. :: sigh ::

Easy-to-moderate ride with a fellow church member up into Harvard and Bolton. We kept the pace down to a level where conversation was possible as we went.

Had no trouble with any of the climbs, bike seemed to be in good shape despite the long idle period. It was good to be out there again!

Sunday Random Bike Pic

2009-11-22T18:29:00.001-05:00

San Sebastian Bicycle Bits, originally uploaded by protorio.

Post Ride BS-ing

2009-11-21T10:32:00.002-05:00

Gender Equality is Goal of UCI Proposals - But There's a Hitch

2009-11-19T09:33:00.002-05:00

I didn't know that in the Beijing Olympics last year, there were seven track events for men and only three for women. It's admirable that the UCI is trying to even up the opportunities for gold for men and women track cyclists.

UCI president Pat McQuaid... described track cycling’s current medal bias for men as “way out of line.”

But this positive move does not come without it's cost, it would "likely would deny American phenom Taylor Phinney a chance to compete in his specialty event" (individual pursuit). Phinney hopes his Twitter campaign to raise awareness of the problem will save the event, saying that losing the pursuit "would be devastating".

Cyclo-cross: It's Impact on the Land... and the Public

2009-11-19T08:05:00.004-05:00

A cyclocross event to be held in West Seattle had it's permit by the Parks Department shortly before race day has put a spotlight on not only the environmental impact of the racing itself, but how communication between cycling advocates and the larger community needs to improve.

Read the comments below this post to get a glimpse of not only how members of the same community can have different ideas about how public property should be used, but the varying ways in which both sides get their points across. I'm sure you've seen a similar dynamic elsewhere.

Meanwhile, it would be prudent for race organizers to plan ahead for such trouble by taking the time to produce documents like this one (PDF) that they can present to permitting agencies and the public to show how limited the damage from hosting a CX race would be as well as having in place a post-race restoration plan which might include donations to maintenance funds and having volunteers actively participate in restoration.

As cycling's presence on the public scene continues to increase, we have to be sure that the public at large gets the right impression of who we are and what we do.

Sunday Random Bike Pic

2009-11-15T09:52:00.001-05:00

through a world turned upside down, originally uploaded by sandcastlematt.

Wha-wha-what??

2009-11-11T09:22:00.004-05:00

A former "roads minister" in Australia holds forth on cycling and shows that he is no friend of cyclists who share the road with motorists, but it sounds like cycling advocates there are not doing themselves any favors by the way they interact with the powers that be.

Meanwhile, Washington D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty wasn't helping cycling's public face by using a police escort to enable him to get his daily bike ride in and riding on limited access roadways.

Sunday Random Bike Pic

2009-11-08T00:58:00.002-05:00

bicycle ballet, originally uploaded by raysto.

Northampton Cyclocross 2009 - Day 1

2009-11-07T22:43:00.014-05:00

Excerpts from Saturday morning's heats of the 19th Annual Cycle-Smart International/Verge New England Championship Cyclo-Cross:

I've uploaded all the of the shots that made the cut to this web gallery.

I got fixated with photographing the participants traversing barriers, ignoring good action elsewhere on the course. It didn't help that I had my 9 year-old in tow - my attention was half on keeping her entertained, informed of what was going on and making sure she was warm enough.

Looking forward to seeing what More Bacon at Double Hop produces from tomorrow's races.

POLL: Do you prefer the Picasa slide show (above) or Flickr embedded slide show (below)?

One Month Late

2009-11-04T07:13:00.005-05:00

The terrible cold that I caught last year, in October, has finally arrived. Sore throat, head/chest congestion, all of it.

Sunday Random Bike Pic

2009-11-01T11:27:00.001-05:00

Andrieu Lecondeguy, originally uploaded by andy_c.

Forkless Cruiser Bike

2009-10-28T23:05:00.003-04:00

Unusual bike designed and built as a "graduation project" by a student in Finland:

Signal Cycles

2009-10-27T07:52:00.002-04:00

Sweet video for cyclocross bike maker, Signal Cycles (via):

Signal Cycles Cyclocross from Benji Wagner on Vimeo.

Jumpstart

2009-10-26T12:48:00.001-04:00

cycling 091025-013, originally uploaded by rusto.

SUNDAY'S RIDE

Distance: 36.2 miles

Time: 2:07:22

Avg. speed: 17.06 mph

Weather: 60-61º, humidity 47-44%, wind WNW 14 G21 - WNW9

Song stuck in head: What Can I Say - Boz Scaggs

--

Easy-to-moderate effort ride that wandered around Sudbury, Stow and Acton. To make it to the start point (Fairchild Center in Sudbury) on time, I had to pretty much do a time trial for the 4 or so miles from home.

Near the end, we cranked up the pace to 25+ for a few miles, switching off lead postions in turn. I felt pretty good considering the utter lack of saddle time lately (save a 1hr trainer session on Saturday

Sunday Random Bike Pic

2009-10-25T19:44:00.002-04:00

4B's, originally uploaded by Luke.

From the creative dismount department

October Slump

2009-10-24T09:47:00.004-04:00

Same thing happened last year: a little sniffle, a lot of work... and suddenly, my average weekly mileage plummets towards zero.

OK, here goes: finish this post, get off couch, dress and do a trainer session... NOW!

Tweed

2009-10-05T07:36:00.005-04:00

MassBike, the cycling advocacy organization, hosted the Boston Tweed Ride on Sunday. Bostonist.com snapped some pics of the outing when they reached the Weeks Foot Bridge that spans the Charles River to link Cambridge to Allston.

They had a great weather for a social ride, although tweed usually makes me think more of the misty, rainy, raw weather found in Sherlock Holmes movies or this video:

Adjustment Time

2009-10-04T22:25:00.001-04:00

Distance: 25.3 miles

Time: 1:14:22

Avg. speed: 20.3 mph

Weather: 63-67º, humidity 79-69%, wind WNW2-calm

Wildlife seen: muskrat

Song stuck in head: A Glorious Dawn - Melodysheep

First road ride in four days: very busy work schedule this past week – which I can't complain about given how slow things were in August and into September. I got one interval ride in this past Tuesday and one trainer session in Friday morning and that was it for all of last week.

Much "non-training guilt" as well as facing up to the realization that I would have to pass on doing the Major Taylor Century today. Scratch one goal that I set just four weeks ago. I've also been feeling just a bit off the last couple of days.

Yesterday's heavy rains gave way to fair, mild weather today and after doing the Sunday morning family stuff and minding the ranch while my wife did her power walk, I got my self suited up and rode the "CC" route. I started very easy and steadily increased my effort until, when I was passing the Minuteman Airfield, I was in full TT thrust.

I was able to keep this up all the way back along South Acton Road, where at one point I was holding 28 mph on the stretch just before the hairpin turn onto Red Acre Road. Not too shabby.

But the front-end creaks are back, not so much as before but there. I'll have to check the skewer again and find out if I need to lube the areas of the headset bearing where they contact the inside of the head tube (when I took it apart that one time, they were dry).

Anyways, I did alright along Red Acre but faded on the second tier going up Pomposittcutt. The last couple of miles were uneventful.

I've been feeling dog-tired ever since I got off the bike, I hope I'm not coming down with something more serious.

By the Numbers - September 2009

2009-09-30T21:28:00.000-04:00

September numbers not too bad considering 5 days lost to "Camp Daddy" (G's school didn't start until 9/9) and client calls finally coming in toward the end of the month. I have to work harder on getting to bed by 10 p.m. so I can wake up sharp and ready to ride early.

No surprise my weight spiked a bit after nearly two weeks of eating all kinds of naughty things like restaurant food, fried fish, real eggs and Mom's cooking.

TD Bank Mayor's Cup - Boston on the race map!

2009-09-27T21:28:00.002-04:00

Sunday Random Bike Pic

2009-09-27T06:19:00.001-04:00

Theft, originally uploaded by ibcbulk.

Leaf Peeping

2009-09-26T15:11:00.005-04:00

Distance: 31.7 miles

Time: 1:53:45

Avg. speed: 16.73 mph

Weather: 33-57º

September mileage total: 452 miles

Easy paced ride with Smudger and Ian from Stow, up into Harvard, through Littleton and Acton then back. We started at 7 a.m. and the weather was as cold as I've ever ridden in, but I was bundled up nicely, wearing full-fingered gloves, bib tights a nice eBay wool bike hat with the top layer being one of the new MRC Wool Jerseys. Ian, on the left, is wearing his with an MRC wind vest over the top.

We poked along, chatting and admiring the scenery–a nice change from having to mind the wheel in front of you or dodging cars/pot holes, etc. and made our way up Stow Road, right on Slough and then left back down Woodchuck into Harvard center. I expected to feel some windburn as we sped down the hill, but didn't.

Through Harvard center and up to the top of Prospect Hill, near the Fruitlands Museum where we were treated to this view, looking west:

This was about the point when I realized that I had my Canon G10's ISO set to 800. Oops. You'll notice the excessive noise on Ian's jersey (now fullly visible with his wind vest off).

We wound our way up Poor Farm Road which turns into Pinnacle and keeps going up. How nice it was to enjoy the climb as we went up instead of gasping for breath like I usually do on long climbs.

At the summit, Smudger was calling his dad to arrange a rendezvous for coffee in West Acton as Ian led me down a side street to a decommissioned observatory owned by Harvard University. I'd rode past this place dozens of times and had no idea it was there.

The Oak Ridge Observatory, in Harvard, Massachusetts, formerly operated the largest optical telescope east of Texas in the U.S. Owned by Harvard University, it was operated by Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO), part of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) until August 19, 2005.

There used to be a radio telescope there as well, used in Project Beta, to search for extraterrestrial intelligence. It's a shame it's not still in use, Ian said due to excessive light polluition. Cool location nonetheless.

We ambled down the north east side of Harvard into Littleton and then turned east towards Acton.

When we got to West Acton, John's dad had rode out to meet us at a nice little café called ~~Little~~ Sweet Bites, where he treated us to coffee and croissants. Such a nice man, courteous and kind, easy to get to know. I hope I am still able to get on a bike and pedal around when I am his age!

I made it back home before 10 a.m., just in time to pull two air conditioners out of their windows and mothball them for the winter.

View the whole set of photos from this morning here.

True Grit

2009-09-25T19:13:00.007-04:00

Yesterday's "return of the creaks" had me re-inspecting various parts of my bike this afternoon. I'm beginning to think I should create a webpage dedicated to chasing down creaks, squeaks and noises... if it hasn't already been done, of course.

FIRST, I made sure it wasn't the front quick release. Still creaky, so it won't be a no brainer this time. Grabbed a handful of handlebar while from the front of the bike and held the front wheel between my thighs and torqued. No creak.

Ok, how about the BB and cranks? I've removed the cranks so many times this year that I no longer feel the dread that used to precede the operation before. Off came the cranks and what do I behold but some nice souvenir sand from my CRW Fall Century spill deposited on the inner sides of both cranks, where they contact the BB bearings and more sand on the BB bearing surfaces themselves:

So with every crank of my pedals, I was powering a nice grist mill, with micro-fine sand as the product. A couple of wipes with a cloth, from the center of each area outward and it was all cleaned up. I hope that none found it's way INSIDE the BB bearings–they didn't feel gritty when I rotated them by hand.

Grease, torque, reassemble. Test ride: creak! Ah, but this time I got the creak not only when I cranked out-of-saddle but when I applied the brakes, which points to headset/stem looseness.

Loosen stem clamp bolts, turn headset tension bolt 1/6 turn clockwise (using hex bolt vertex as guide), tighten stem clam bolts and test ride: Fixored!

Solid

2009-09-25T18:46:00.002-04:00

YESTERDAY

Distance: 25.3 miles

Time: 1:12:29

Avg. speed: 20.98 mph

Weather: 74º, humidity 70%, wind NNW5, sunny

September mileage total: 420 miiles

Good, solid ride yesterday along the "CC" route. Moderate-to-hard effort the whole way, average heart rate was 166 BPM. 30 seconds faster and I would have hit a 21 mph pace for the ride.

As it was, I set two PR's on the ride: fastest time on this route and highest average speed for a solo ride over one hour in duration.

NOTE: I held back a bit on out-of-saddle climbs because the "creaks" returned and I was afraid to do damage if the noise was an indication of a serious problem.

Shifting Gears

2009-09-22T22:21:00.002-04:00

Distance: 18 miles

Time: 56:22

Avg. speed: 19.15 mph

Weather: 74-73º, humidty 62-64%, wind SW9-WSW9

Not much time to ride today, so intervals seemed appropriate, what with the Jamestown Classic looming ahead of me I need to concentrate more on burst speed than my recent attention to endurance.

20 minutes of warmup at 150 BPM, (only) 5 x 30 second all-out sprints with rest between each until HR dropped to 140 BPM (usually about 2 minutes or so). Really wanted to do 8-10 intervals but quit when the 5th was pretty lackluster. Return home at 160-165 BPM.

Another busy day tomorrow, may have to be a trainer workout...

Assessing the Damage

2009-09-22T00:20:00.001-04:00

Took a closer look at my bike this morning while performing a post-century tune up. Things got scratched up more than I first thought.

The bar tape I knew about. Bummer. I really hate having to rewrap that bar.

Moving along, I found some additional scrapes on my left brifter as well as a series of mystery scratches midway down the lever:

These mystery scratches were definitely NOT from the spill: they were not linearly arrayed like the crash induced scrapes, besides, my hands were ON the levers when I went down–I was, after all, trying to stop. I wondered if they were from leaning my bike against something. I checked the other brifter. SAME random scratch pattern there at the SAME height. I got on the bike and put both my hands on the brakes and looked down to where they contacted the levers.

Ah-hah! The scratches are from my wedding band and since my weight has gone down so much, it was slipping off my left ring finger pretty easily so I've been wearing it on the right hand since about July, thus creating the mystery scratch symmetry.

Left pedal took the brunt of the slide (along with my calf), getting the silk-screened "KÉO" logo ground almost completely off. I guess if I was sporting Speedplays, I would have had the side of my shoe ground down instead...

Continuing to look along the left side of the bike, the last of the damage found was some scratches on the rear quick release lever.

With the bike up on the workstand, I also found my rear wheel a bit out of true. Just had them trued about two weeks ago.

And, since I did my powerslide into a big patch of sand, everything below water bottle height was coated in a beige, sandy dust:

Maintenance performed this morning:

disassemble, clean, reassemble cassette
remove chain, rinse clean w/gasoline (I was out of eco-friendly degreaser), lube re-attach
rinse down whole bike, scrub underside of downtube, inside of fork, chainstays and under brake calipers
adjusted rear derailleur, cleaned jockey gears (you might know them as "derailleur pulleys")

Sunday Random Bike Pic

2009-09-20T21:48:00.002-04:00

Destinazione forno, originally uploaded by Hop-Frog.

CRW Fall Century

2009-09-20T21:33:00.007-04:00

Distance: 109.8 miles

Time: 6:58:57

Avg. speed: 15.73 mph

Weather: 37-71º, humidity 93-38%, calm-SW1

Song stuck in head: Old Style - Orbital

September mileage total: 377 miles

Been a busy week and had no time or inclination to make posts about the last two modest workout rides of 30 and 18 miles before today.

Roughly the one-year anniversary of my first century, last year's CRW Fall Century, I was looking forward to besting my performance from last year where I spent the last 25 miles wishing it was over. I felt like I had the right amount of training and rest under my belt and the bike was tuned up nicely. One chink in the armor was that I didn't get a very good night's sleep last night.

It was VERY cold this morning as I rode up to Acton-Boxboro High School to meet some other folks and start the ride. I decided against any leggings as I knew I'd want to take them off not long after the start and did not want to have to figure out a way to carry them. I did have on a medium weight base layer, arm warmers and some thin booties that are great at blocking the wind.

At the high school, while waiting-and shivering, the other participants and I were treated with the appearance of not one, but two hot-air balloons taking off nearby and then flying overhead.

Soon after, Chad, Pattie, Chris P and Lisa L showed up and we got going. The cold penetrated my fingers and legs but was worst on my cheeks. But it wasn't long before I forgot about it and paid more attention to spinning along with the group.

I confirmed with Pattie that she was expecting to ride at an endurance pace today: she is riding in the Kona Ironman in a few weeks and this was her last century before the taper. Good, I should be able to keep up with her then. This was to be Chad's first century and I knew Lisa was apprehensive about keeping up. So, I didn't think I would set any records for a 100 mile ride but thought I would be going at a respectable pace.

Just like last year, an ambiguous road marking led us and many others (20+) the wrong way for a couple of miles. Lisa realized the error, got us turned around and going the right way again.

At about mile 20 or so, I made sure Chad knew I would stick with him if he started to flag. But then I noticed that Lisa was nowhere in sight, so I doubled back to find her struggling up a climb a short ways back.

I kept her company and thought we could reel in the others if she could stay on my wheel but by mile 35 she was starting to cramp or have spasms in her quads. After a little discussion about what she could do about it (drink more water, take some donated electrolytes, etc.) she decided to press on to the first rest stop at 52 miles.

She did pretty well on the flats and of course, could coast down the descents but it was very slow going on the hills, both of us in our easiest gearing and plodding up at a very low cadence (50-60 rpm, sometimes less). And the biggest climb awaited us after the rest stop.

Lisa's cramping got so bad, on one hill, she got off her bike and walked it up.

About 10 miles from the rest stop, I was descending pretty quickly behind and to the right of another cyclist when the two of us came up fast behind a third rider, who was poking along in the middle of the road, where it started to curve to the left. It was the bottom of a pretty steep hill and it doesn't make sense that anyone could be going all wobbly slow like that after descending such a big hill. I mean, he was going like 10 mph in the middle of the road.

It all came off pretty fast but the descending rider in front of me started to pass the slowpoke on the left (he may have even called "on your left") and as he did, I prepared to pass same slowpoke on the right. I should have called "on your right".

Well, wouldn't you know, ol' slowpoke suddenly realizes a bunch of cyclists are bombing down this hill and he's in the frigging way out there in the middle of the road so he decides to swerve to the right just as I am coming by, driving me to the sand-covered shoulder of the road which is rapidly curving to my left. Ahead of me, beyond the shoulder, is a torn up section of rocks and dirt. All at once, I put on the brakes, yell, "JEBUS!" and end up on my left side, sliding along in the sand.

Slowpoke keeps pedaling along, saying, "sorry" as he put-putted on down the road. He didn't even stop to see if I was ok. Douche.

I turned out to be fine. A few other riders asked how I was, which was appreciated. Lisa rode up and I checked out myself and my bike. Damage: 10 day old bar tape scuffed almost down to the handlebar, left pedal ground down on the outside, left calf suffered some road rash. I'm pretty lucky that's all it was.

I didn't see Mr. Road Hazard later when we arrived at the rest stop. It was a few minutes after noon. Lisa decided that she would keep on going and reassess when we got to the 75 mile rest stop. First thing I did was peel off the arm warmers and base layer: it was pretty warm out by that point. I loaded up on PBJ's and Fig Newtons, replenished my drink and made sure Lisa was well fueled before we started up again.

Of course now we had to face "big climb" for this ride. I told Lisa to take her time and I would ride up to the top, turn around, ride back down to where she was and ride up again with her. She actually made the climb without stopping or walking. Progress. As for me, this particular hill is not as tough as Mile Hill Road on the way to Wawa.

We continued along, Lisa seeming to freshen up a bit on the flats but still having no horsepower for the hills. I'm sure the pain came on the instant she started up any incline. I continued to ride up the hills at my pace and either wait for her at the top or double back to meet her and go up again. Even though I wasn't going at the pace I would have preferred, I was getting extra climbing miles under my belt.

We arrived at the second rest stop just before 2 pm fueled/watered up and left. ETA to finish at this point, in my mind, was 4pm.

Lisa really seemed to be doing better, it certainly helped her to know that there wasn't any more substantial climbing to do. On the flats, she was comfortable keeping a 20 mph pace and she even took the lead for long periods of time. Still, any incline over a few dozen yards long slowed her to a crawl.

When we got to Westford, I started thinking about the things I had to do after the ride: a good sign that I was ready for it to be over.

Finally, we found ourselves back in Acton, rolling down Concord Road. The course goes across Rte. 27 and zig-zags it's way back to the high school but I steered us ON to 27 to shortcut us back a little sooner. We arrived back at 3:40 pm.

By the time I got home, I had been about a minute shy of 7 hours on the bike.

Ah, Silence

2009-09-15T21:00:00.000-04:00

Distance: 30.8 miles

Time: 1:32:02

Avg. speed: 20.8 mph

Weather: 73º, humidity 59%, wind NW15, sunny

Song stuck in head: Midnight Cruiser - Steely Dan

Creaks eliminated (see below), I wanted to get in at least one more ride before Sunday that had some climbing but could only afford about to spend 90 minutes or so on the bike.

My "DD" route seemed fit the bill: 30 miles with a couple of pretty good climbs. Stealthily, I made it up Stow in 5' 50", not bad but I really did a number on Taylor Street, keeping my speed at 15 mph or better the whole way up. Having a fairly strong tailwind didn't hurt.

Chasing the Creaks

2009-09-15T10:39:00.002-04:00

Just spent 90 minutes chasing down the creaks that were coming from "down there" on my last ride.

First thing I looked at was the cassette, I loosened the retaining ring and tightened it back down to spec. Creak still there, definitely sounding like it was coming more from the front but hard to tell exactly where because it only occurred when I was really stressing the bike out of the saddle. Of course, that made it harder to pinpoint the location of the noise because I was farther from the source.

I went for the next most easy thing to check: cranks. Pulled them off, noticing that I forgot to add the washer back in when I replaced a pinch bolt a couple of weeks ago. Grease > torque > test ride... still creaking.

I got off and grabbed the handlebars from the front, pinched the front tire between my feet and twisted. Creakkk. Ok, time to take apart the stem/headset assembly – which I had never done before. I discovered some nice rust between both the top and bottom bearings and the seats in the frame where they sit. No surprise really after all the rain I've ridden in.

Cleaned up the corrosion, reassembled and did another test ride. Crrreakkk.

Sheesh, where the heck is that noise coming from? What haven't I checked. I know it's somewhere between the handlebars and the front... wheel... no, it couldn't be THAT simple, could it?

I unclamped the front skewer, wiggled the wheel a bit, lined it up and clamped the skewer back down.

Creak gone.

So, how much of a ride can I put in now that I killed all this time?

Loggin' the Logey Miles

2009-09-13T22:27:00.001-04:00

Distance: 39.2 miles

Time: 2:01:26

Avg. speed: 19.35 mph

Weather: um... warm and sunny, low 70's

Song stuck in head: Jeremy - Pearl Jam

90 minutes on the trainer yesterday. Watched some more of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

Today's ride was one of those where, even though the results are pretty good, you just feel "bleh" or "meh" and maybe a touch of "feh" about it along the way. They can't all be awe inspiring workouts.

The ride was the MRC Wednesday night route which I chose because I needed to get at least some good climbing in before next Sunday's CRW Fall Century. I plan on taking it pretty easy the rest of the week with some easy-to-moderate effort rides and resting on Saturday.

There was some foot-dragging at home that ticked me off a little bit and I ate a sandwich a little too close to ride time, so as I started off, I had some stomach discomfort and was still simmering over not being able to head out as early as I wanted to.

The early goal was to ride with a moderate effort up to Oak Hill and then work it hard, staying in the saddle, on the way up. I gained some new insight into where my LT might be after the last couple of rides(168 BPM?) so I targeted 158 BPM as "tempo" and kept it around there for the trip to the climb. Once on the hill itself, my HR got to the low 170's and pretty much stayed there the whole way up. I was breathing pretty hard so my guess is I was somewhere in high zone 4. Made it from the stop sign to the mailbox at #223 in 9' 50", a respectable time for going up alone but my reaction was "bleh".

Over the top and into Harvard Center, I started feeling some raindrops. I guess I would have still gone out if I had checked the radar map, but my thought was "Feh, I just replaced that smelly bar tape last week and now it's going to get wet and stanky all over again." Lucky for me, and my bar tape, there was no more rain.

Next up was the Fruitlands climbs. I planned on attacking these out-of-the-saddle but on the first ascent, either my headset or my bottom bracket made a disconcerting creaking sound – staying seated silenced it – and I did the climbs. The last substantial climbing was Scott Road/Bare Hill Road which I completed in the same logey state that I started the ride with.

The rest of the ride back, I alternated between semi-hammering and nearly just poking along. I was surprised to see that my stats were actually respectable. Average speed was only about 1 mph slower than when I ride this route with the gang on Wednesdays during the summer.

Sunday Random Bike Pic

2009-09-13T10:39:00.002-04:00

Bicycle Chainwheels, originally uploaded by Leo Reynolds.

What Are The Odds?

2009-09-11T18:59:00.001-04:00

Distance: 20.76 miles

Time: 1:00:00 (I don't believe it either!)

Avg. speed: 20.76 mph

Weather: 45-59º, humidity 93-69%, wind NW1-NE6

Song stuck in head: Dissident - Pearl Jam

Ran tight on time yesterday morning so I took a chance that I did not burn myself out too badly on Wednesday and rode the 20+ mile "time trial" course. I knew I'd be taking a rest day today so I didn't worry about being the consequences.

The only mistake I made was heading out with out warming up at least a little bit first. If I had, I think I would have set a personal record for the route. So off I went, a little sore, a little stiff but focussed and determined. I set my mind to the task of maintaining a 160 BPM or so HR, 95 RPM or better cadence and pedaling nice, even circles the whole way. I saw this as a good training ride for the Jamestown Classic.

I was making terrific time almost all the way to the turnaround point until a tentative driver appeared ahead of me, nervously put-putting behind another cyclist. I allow the "cager" about 20 seconds to pass the guy (it was a flat straightaway) when I got fed up, put the hammer down and passed her on the right and then passed the other cyclist on the left.

Around a bend and next, I found myself facing a large dump truck, unsuccessfully turning out of a lot under construction. He saw me slowing (and maybe my look of exasperation) and backed up out of my way.

I finally got to the turnaround point in 30' 35". Not bad but at least a half minute later than I would have without the two hold-ups along the way. I decided that I still could post a decent time as I felt fully warmed up and might benefit from the slight northerly wind.

Along with the time check, I peeked at my average hear rate and was surprised to see it in the upper 160's – my perceived effort was leading me to believe it was about 10 BPM lower. No matter, I kept the level of effort where it was and could live with thigh burn or running out of gas.

I worked hard all the way back down Boxboro Road, across South Acton and onto Red Acre Road. I stayed in the drops the whole time, even while out-of-saddle climbing up the few short hills along the way. Near the end of Red Acre, I finally started to fade a bit but was betting on the likelihood of having a tiny rest while waiting for traffic to allow me to make the buttonhook left onto Pompossiticut.

No such luck: remarkably, there was no traffic on Rte. 117 so I pedaled right onto Pompossitcut with no respite. Up the hill and over I went. On the way down, I looked at my elapsed time: 57 minutes – dang, I thought, I'll have to hurry to cross the line in less than an hour and I have a little more than a mile to go!

I rode the rest of the way back at over 22 mph, including a fairly weak 25 mph "sprint" (I was totally spent) across the line when I moved my speed sensor.

Elapsed time: 1 hour flat! I could hardly believe my eyes. Yesterday, I turned in a ride of exactly 2 hours and today, a ride of exactly 1 hour. This odd coincidence made up for the frustration provided by the slowpoke driver and the dumptruck.

Cadence average was 100 RPM, the highest I've recorded for a non-spin ride. HR average was 168 BPM.

NOTE: ~~iTunes 9 no longer lets you get a URL for the songs in the ITMS, so I'm linking to Amazon now.~~ Figured out how to do it. :)

Forty In Two

2009-09-09T19:59:00.001-04:00

Distance: 40.4 miles

Time: 2:00:00 (no kidding!)

Avg. speed: 20.18 mph

Weather: 66º, wind NW10

Song stuck in head: Wichita Lineman - Glen Campbell

My wife and I attended a meeting in Belmont this morning, so I slapped the bike to her car and rode out from there after we were done.

From where we were, there were two short hill climbs right away, so I didn't get a good chance to warm up before I got to them. Consequently, I rode for quite a while with a semi-burning feeling just above both knees. It began to fade when I got to Rte. 117 on the Waltham/Weston border.

I dislike riding on 117 for two reasons: traffic and road condition. But I went that way because I was curious about how long it took to ride from Belmont to home, in case I ever make the trip in by bike for an appointment. Lucky for me, it was about 10 a.m. so rush hour was long over and I was surprised to find that the shoulder is not as bad going west as it is when you are headed east. The one exception being the stretch between the RR tracks and the entrance to Drumlin Farm. But since there wasn't much traffic, I was able to ride out into the center of the lane a bit more to avoid the worst of it.

At some point, I realized that I was keeping a decent pace along the 117 rollers and did a quick check of the computer to see what my average speed was. When I saw that it was 19.9 mph (Monday's avg. speed was 19.97 mph), I challenged myself to wind it up over 20 mph for the whole ride.

Once I got to Rte. 27, it was early enough for me to hang a left and ride out my "CC" route the rest of the way. The wind was roughly out of the North which gave me a good boost down 27, along with one panel van that sucked me up to 27 mph at one point.

On Fairbanks, it was a different story: the wind had a westerly component to it and now it was bearing down on me from my right-front quarter. Into the drops I went and kept shifting gears to maintain a 105-110 rpm cadence. As I turned onto Hudson Road and then Sudbury Road, I was going full into the wind. Nevertheless, I was able to keep my speed over 20 mph most of the time.

The hill on Boon Road (just past Honey Pot Orchard) always seems to bog me down. The climb is less than a 1/8 mile in length and only a 6-7% grade, I tend to slow to a crawl on it every time as I did today.

After that, I did a good job of keeping speed and cadence up. Somewhere along Boxboro Road, I checked my avg. speed again and saw that it was up to 20.1 mph. Now a 20+ mph ride was only mine to lose. On the two short hills along Boxboro Road, I stayed in the drops as I climbed and discovered that I don't raise the rear wheel like I sometimes do when I climb out-of-saddle on the hoods.

The wind was now behind me again, so it was a bit easier to keep my speed up. Onto S. Acton Road and then Red Acre I went, and started to feel a tightness build in my legs. Only a few miles to go, I got over Pompositticut and it's poorly maintained surface and resumed my battle against the wind. Down Summer and Concord then a sprint (27mph) to home and I reached down to move my speed sensor (stops the computer).

When I checked my elapsed time, it read exactly 2 hours. That's 2:00:00 flat. So, a new PR for me: I rode OVER 40 miles in exactly 2 hours. Average heart rate was 157 BPM, just like Monday. Cadence was 97, right on target.

Reading List

2009-09-08T22:15:00.001-04:00

If you don't already, I highly recommend the snarky ramblings of Bike Snob NYC:

"It struck me then that, in a certain way, arm wrestling and professional cycling aren't all that different. While most people have arm-wrestled at some point in their lives, relatively few are aware of the world of professional arm wrestling. Moreover, to the uninitiated, it also looks a bit silly. The same is true of professional cycling."

Say It Ain't So, Shoeless Russ!

2009-09-07T17:36:00.001-04:00

Distance: 30.8 miles

Time: 1:32:24

Avg. speed: 19.97 mph

Weather: 54-65º, humidity 82-57%, calm-SSW4

Songs stuck in head: Dust in the Wind - Kansas, Walk On By - Dionne Warwick (wtf?)

Meant to ride with Carl (MRC) to Wawa and back, starting on the Hudson/East Berlin line this morning. I was originally going to ride to the rendezvous point (only 13 miles from home) but slept a little late so I had to pack up the car and drive there. Once I arrived at the parking lot, I got the bike set up, tires pumped, gloves on, helmet on... hey, where's my shoes?

Fook! No shoes! What I was wearing on my feet just would not do for a 50+ mile ride.

Crestfallen, I took off the helmet and gloves, put the bike back in the trunk and climbed back in the driver's seat to wait for Carl. He rode up right on time, took the bad news graciously and went on his way. I motored home, got set up again, put on my delinquent shoes and finally rode off, an hour later than planned.

Since I had wasted a good part of my time window driving to and from the rendezvous spot, I had to cut my ride short. So, I decided to try to channel my frustration into power output and rode my "DD" route (~30 miles) as hard as I could.

I made it to the bottom of the Stow Rd. climb in 45 minutes flat, with an average speed a bit above 20 mph. I felt very strong going up, especially the last few hundred feet when got out of the saddle and "sprinted" to the top. Time up was 5' 40", I think a personal best. I was able to keep my speed up across Pinnacle and the little rises leading to the Oak Hill descent. I kept the pressure on for the trip down, achieving a top speed of nearly 38 mph.

I didn't exactly bound my way up Taylor Street but maintained a pace that increased as I went up. I was really able to open it up as I went down the other side on Liberty Square Road and then onto Summer/Central in Acton. Even on 27 south towards home, I didn't feel like I was burning out as I went along, pushing as hard as I could.

Turning the corner onto my street, I initiated a "finish sprint", getting up to 27 mph that I maintained until I passed my driveway. Sheesh, just a whisper below a 20 mph avg. speed for the whole ride! Avg. HR for the ride was 157 BPM – sure didn't feel like it was up that high. Cadence avg. was 98 RPM, right where I want it.

It seems that the long layoff did me some good, if today's effort was any indication. The last two days of tune ups/maintenance appear to have finally rid the bike of the various creaks/clicks/squeaks it's been plagued with.

Bikes Crushing Cars

2009-09-06T20:19:00.002-04:00

Graffiti in Milan, Italy by "blu" via unurth.com:

Goals for the Fall

2009-09-06T16:53:00.002-04:00

This is what I hope to accomplish this fall, before the really cold stuff drives me indoors:

• CRW fall century, September 20th - Two weeks away. I really enjoyed this ride last year, even though I was totally spent at the end. My hope is that there will be a few MRC members doing the ride as well.

• Major Taylor Century, October 4th - I'm looking forward to exploring some new riding routes in the Blackstone Valley, Eastern CT and Rhode Island.

• Jamestown Classic, October 12th - This would be the my second ever road race. The first was a crit, circa 1987 in CT. Participation will depend more on being able to escape family duties on a holiday (Columbus Day) than fitness/experience concerns.

• Sadly, the Wompatuck training series has already ended and the Wells Ave. series has only two more sessions, neither of which I can make. I'm targeting both for next year.

• Get out to some cyclocross events with my camera.