Velo Picante - yo soy como el chile verde...picante pero sabroso!

SF Enduro II - take 2, 2 years later!

2010-03-23T13:17:00.000-07:00

About 2 years ago Murphy of the Gestalt Haus infamy decided to put together and event he coined "Mixed terrain Enduro." His original description was something like, it's about 100 miles, with a metric ton of climbing, and any bike you pick will have a disadvantage. As it turned out, the ride left Golden Gate Park in SF, hit a few City locations, then ventured across the Golden Gate Bridge into the land if illegal singletrack, errr I mean Marin. So basically, lot's of road connecting a shite ton of fireroads up, some more really steep fireroads up and some hairball, crazy rocky descents down, and then you had to come back across the bridge. 2 years ago I did it on a rigid 29er singlespeed ouch!

This year...would be different....SF Enduro II
3/21/2010 account

Ouch Ouchie F*ck!

I did not pick the right gear. I shudda known after test riding the gear on a few dirt roads near my house that the gear selection would be too steep. Alas, I was dead-set on not letting the spinny gears( 32x19 29er) that got the better of me two years ago repeat it self.

So I used Sheldon's gear inch calculator and also calculated the more commonly used "gear ratio" in the mountain bike world. I should have let my track experience bias my decision towards gear inches...alas, I'm dumb and that's why I ride a one speed on the mountain ;-)

Since I was riding a 29 inch wheel, the gear-inch conversions are closer to a road\track bike than a standard mtn. bike with a 26" wheel.

So the "gear ratio" for my two extreme gears was:

44/12 = 3.67 ratio OR 106.1 gear-inches
44/34 = 1.29 ratio OR 37.5 gear-inches

typically I run:
32/19 = 1.68 ratio OR 48.8 gear-iches. Hard, but do-able for expert level races, but insane for 100 mile races ;-)

Any who, I figured, the hard gears isn't what killed me in the hills last year, it was the spinny-ness on the flats, so I biased my gears to big bigger and give me an advantage on the road\flat\dh sections:

My thinking....
44\26 = gives me my typical 32/19 ss gearing. So with 44\30 and 44\34 I would have to "easier" gears for the hills and a plethora of hard gears ( 44/23 - 44/12) for the flatter stuff. Well that was plain dumb, especially since all the climbing was pretty much up front, with a road spin back from Fairfax to SF. Just as a gauge, a typically granny\granny setup, with a 29" wheel, gives you: 22/34 = 0.65 ratio and 18.76 gear-inches and on a 26" mtb wheel thatz a 16.8 gear-inch.

Seriously, the race was long enough and I went hard enough in the beginning that there were a lot of steep sections where I was walking. The downhills were fun, cause I chose a 29er mtb with suspension, disc brakes and some selection of gears! However, even the downhill experience was completely untainted. Once again, not being a wise man and learning from people's mistakes, I did NOT run a chain-guide for my single chainring setup. So I must have thrown my chain at the very least 20 times. Fortunately, I got faster at it and I race 'cross so I can remount pretty quickly ;-)

All i all, really, really hard time. Lots of mental battle fought, nausea from who know why, maybe going to hard in the beginning, not enough rest, I don't know. All I do know, is that it took about 70 miles before I started not feeling nauseous?! And no damnit, I'm not pregnant...err...that I know of ;-)

Murphy's put on some really sweet events and some really hard challenge your soul types of events. The first Enduro was really hard...lot's of miles, lot's of unknowns, lots of hills and only one speed, but I had a lot of fitness and so that evens the playing field both physically and mentally. This year's enduro took the cake for insanely hard and diabolical!

There were a few times, when I just felt I couldn't get enough air and I stopped and either laid down or leaned against a tree, closed my eyes and took ten deep breaths, rallied my spirits and pushed on. I was also fortunate to have paired up with my buddy Erik(TWW), whom I've raced with and ridden with. I swear, if Erik hadn't waited for me to put my chain back on 20 times and waited near the top of hills for me, the mental difficulty of this event would have been almost 90% worse. For me part of it was that we had an unspoken team established and I didn't want to let him down and I'm sure part of it for Erik was that he knew he would save more time getting back through Fairfax and SF with me in tow, rather than going it alone, but he was also not "racing" it, but rather out getting some training miles. Whatever the reason, I'm indebted to Erik and want to thank him profusely!

As always, the event was well run, the maps were awesome, the checkpoints were very strategic and the volunteers AWESOME! They were willing to give you a pep talk, get you water food, I tried to get them to put on some chamois butter but they drew the line there ;-)

The map was this beautiful, color, glossy, double sided 11x17 print...it was sooo glossy that in my morning grogyness I thought they were laminated and slipped into my rear jersey pocket, well protect from flying out by my camelback. Lo and behold, when I pulled it out to read it on the way up to CP1(East Peak lookout)...I had in my had one gigantic spitwad....dooh! Thatz what the large zip-loc bag in my backpack was for...oh well, once again Erik to the rescue with his map...whew! Thank you to Jenny O and Sean for volunteering!

As we exited the East Peak checkpoint I was laughing diabolically. Erik asked me what was up and I said I knew this descent from having ridden it with my buddy Josh C. This rocky ass fireroad, Eldridge grade, would be awesome on a mtb and I felt sorry for the poor suckers on 'cross bikes. I said let's show these 'cross weenies why a mountain bike was the correct weapon of choice for the course. Sure enough....we ran into 5 or 6 rides with flat, those that weren't on cx bikes were on mountain bikes with skinny tires. Don't get me wrong, I mean no disrespect, I paid my dues on the flat for rockin' 29 inch mtb tires, 2.1 Motoraptor up front and a 2.1 Prowler in the rear.

We collected a few riders who had flatted and rode together up to the Pine Mountain entrance after making a left on the fireroad. We had Evan(RalleyCat), DFL Dan, Christon, Erik, myself and I wanted to say may a couple more but my mind is blank now as it was then ;-) We made our way to CP2, which was situated some wherez on the Pine Mountain Fire road...strategically, so you couldn't take a shortcut up San Geronimo ridge to CP3 ;-) Damn it! Here we found Jason and Lee, chillin' in a grassy meadow! While I layed on the grass resting up, Jason rode my bike around, checking out the 1x9 and reminding me that the rear end was having some problems shifting ;-)

CP3 was the intersection of San Geronimo Ridge and White Hill Fire road, typically part of the Pine Mountain Loop and the Appetite Seminar, so it was sorta familar territory. There we found Brooklyn and some other volunteers(sorry mind was fried!). We got our bearings and took off quick towards CP4 which was rumored to have water! Supplies were gettin' low!

There were two time bonuses, one was a Tamarancho loop and the other was a ride out the the Radio Towers above Lucas Valley. Before the beginning of the race I already knew I would do the two times bonuses 'cause gosh dang it, I was going do the Enduro justice and do the whole kit and caboodle. Somewhere along the line I talked Erik into the same thing.

CP4 was really cool. It was the first CP where you the option for a time bonus and as such it became the nexus for riders crossing paths. We were in need of water, but only Cliff bars were available at that point, so after scraffing a bar we shot off on the loop. I started fast and excited and soon the fatigue set in and then i was just crawling along and then I ran out of water. Shite! Fortunately Erik saved me with some water. After our lap CP4 had water...thank you, thank you!

Some riders were there before us and skipping ahead, some riders were there while we were re-fueling for the loop and some riders were there after we completed the loop. We saw the Mouse-kateers at this checkpoint, which raised my spirits, Paule, Chris, Russ, and Tommy T. Meanwhile, Sasha, Erica and Nancy? were tending to our needs, all worried about why I was laying on the ground ;- I'm ok, I just need to rest! OH yea and somebody had beef jerkey which was pretty magical! Thanks!

So with the first time bonus in our legs, Tamarancho loop, and then arriving at the Sir Francis Drake intersection from the B17 extension trail of Pine Mountain. We were spit out at the base of Gunshot, which if you've ever been up it on a geared bike, it's a helluv a grunt even in your granny gear and that was only half way up to the CP5. I already knew I was screwed with my gears and then we still had time bonus two which we could opt for once we hit CP5. We were deliberating doing this last time bonus because, you essentially added on another few thousand feet of climbing before heading home on Sir Francis drake and then wiggling back to the bridge. Then Murphy made a comment that none of the faster guys before us opted out of it. Well, it was decided, we're sticking to the plan and doing the whole shebang!

We hit CP5 and I literally collapsed on the god damn ground to rest. My buddy Ed Lagrando was their to heckle me and jump start my spirits, while he and Joel captured my agony on film.They told us only a few people had gone off to do time bonus two. At this point we already knew we were doing it, it was just a matter of getting some food, water and rest before taking off. It was a daunting task to see the Radio Tower a whole valley away :-(While we were fueling, Tommy T, Chris and few others were around.

And we're off. As we are hitting' some pretty high speeds, easily 30mph, I'm starting to second guess or choice to descend all this fireroad, to climb up another double-track to the Radio Towers and then double back to go home. As we 'cross the rode and headed up to the Radio Towers, I felt good about completing both time bonuses and it was about the only thing that kept me going. I paused in a grove of tree to rest my head against a tree while still clipped in. I took a few deep breaths, enjoyed the shade and continued on.

We could see one person snaking their way up to the Towers and we ran across another person coming back. The checkpoint was really quite a prettty grassy knoll. The lovely checkpointers were Ryan+friend, Arena and some other peeps whom I'm totally blanking on. We waved hello and they said go circle the Towers and come back to get checked off, some how I knew they were going to say that and continued over down and up the small climb to the towers.

Upon return, we had a pseudo Mexican fiesta, Margarita Cliff blocks, corn torilla chips and salsa. It was at that momement that I could a glimmering flicker out of the corner of my eye. The sun was getting low in the sky and the angle of the light was just right to make the bottle of Knob Creek look like it had descended from the heavens. Since I'm on the wagon, I had the true sense of knowing what hell will be like ;-) And off went, bidding our goodbyes and giving thanks. We were almost home free, now to climb all that god damn fireroad we came down to get here!

Finally, cresting CP5, I felt elated, knowing it was pretty flat from here back to Murphy's crib. Meanwhile, one of the volunteers(sorry forgot her name) got me some cheese and bread which pretty much saved my life at 65 or 67 miles into this EPIC! Joel and Ed snapped some more pics, why I blabbed on deliriously about who knows what? As we were getting ready to rock'n roll we picked up Kentaro and Justin.

Both these cats were crushing it with us in the lead group for as long as I can remember. They eventually separated from us. Justin I think we kept catching due to his flat on a cx bike and also to the fact that he couldn't bomb the rocky shite like we could...mtb win again ;-) Kentaro on the other hand had been crushin' it on a 26" cannondale hardtail and was getting tired of riding alone I suppose.

We took off down the fireroad and we lost poor Justin as soon as we started bombing down hill; Kentaro, Erik and I were all on mtb's! We made our way out to Sir Francis Drake, after getting a little bit twisted around, then pacelined our way back thru Fairfax, San Anselmo, Ross, somewherez around Larkspur or Ross, we came across Julie Bates, Liza, May Woo and Kaitlin. I yelled hello and gave Jules a nice little push. She's battling back from injury #507 and she'll still out there whoopin' it up on the 70 mile version of the Enduro! Yea!

Erik was a monster pulling at the front. We tried gettin' somewhat organized to do some rotations, but with all the Stop signs, stoplights and general fatigue it was just too complicated and Erik, like a big German diesel, would be back up front!

Finally, we cross the bridge, we wiggle thru the Presidio and we see Kentaro fall off. We can see he's fiddling with something about 100ft away. I say to Erik.,"lets do one final make sure Murphy's house is indeed the final checkpoint." Much to our dismay, it wasn't on the big map....it was actually on the small piece of paper that was given out at the beginning of the race which tolds us where to pick up the "big map" or manifest for the race. We'll I counted ourselves fortunate for 1 having kept the little scrap of paper and two for knowing where Murphy and Emily's crib was...wheew! Kentaro made his way to us and was like, I 'm bonking, we made sure he had food, a map and knew where he was going. Then I said, follow us. He stayed with us until we turned on two California as we wiggled over to the last stop. The slight uphill on California and we lost him. Erik and I continued on feeling confident since we knew he had a map.

We roll-up, it's fairly dark, I'm checking to make sure it's the right place and yup, sure enough, the green subarua wagon is parked outside. I yell to Erik this is it man! In we go. Toss our bikes down and somebody tells us to go check in with THE Sheila Moon. We walk back and find her by the fire. I collapse in front of the fire and proceed to sleep with my head propped up on my camelbak ;-) Not really, I was so tired I couldn't sleep, but from my prone position I handed Sheila my checkpoint card and was warmed by the fire.

It felt so good to be done!

For the full Enduro(two time bonus included), Erik and I tied for second, but seriously Erik was top dog for fitness, I just brought survival skills and navigational skills.

And here's somemore numbers:
92.2 miles,
~12,000ft of climbing
10hrs40mins elapsed from the start
and according to Strava only 9hrs and 7 minutes of riding! So either all my rests added up or I was walking to slow for the Garmin to register ;-)

And the GPS track....
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/27616549

Pictures will be forthcoming I'm sure....

Thanks for reading,
Isaias

http://sfenduro.blogspot.com/2010/03/results.html

Roadie crosses over to mountain biking for a day

2010-03-15T11:33:00.000-07:00

Cool Mountain Bike Race
3/13/2010
2 laps ~20ish miles
open SS 35-99
3rd place

First I digress....As most of you know I'm not really a roadie, but I play one on TV. Seriously though, I got into cycling because of mountain biking, but in the last few years I've become intrigued with road racing. Some dirties may wonder why bother? Well, it's really frick'n hard. I've done everything from being a competitive expert mountain bike racer, geared and singlespeed. I've raced endurance events where I logged over 100 miles and 18,000ft of climbing. Yet I've had no "real" success on the road. It's takes a lot of fitness, but also a lot of finesse. The strongest rider doesn't win. The strongest, smartest rider wins.

Any who, the point of the digression is I've been training really hard since October of last year. I miss 'cross season because of the knee injury incurred at SSWC09 in Durango. And in year's past I'd been close to some top 10's as a Cat4 on the road. So this was my year to properly train for a winning road season. All this amounts to the fact that I've not been riding my mountain bike a whole lot, because 200 miles a week is easier on a road bike ;-)

Mountain biking is where my roots are and so I always come back to it for fun and relaxation. Sure I'm still racing, but it's just a different scene from road racing scene. In my plan for roadie domination this year, I wanted to make sure not to burn out. Out in Caly we got a long season, starts in Feb and goes till September! Since I want to be competitive on the road for the duration of road season, mountain biking is my outlet to stay fresh.

I'd ridden my Swift the day before to make sure everything was dialed in. Last minute tweaks, adjusting my new Ergon grips and new Wolverine rear tire. The last time I rode it was probably about a month ago! And now I find myself lining up at Cool in the Open SS 35-99 class, ready to throw down. Being that the category is open, I know that I'm up against pros for the top spots. I push that thought out of my mind and focus on the task at hand, the start.

The categories ahead are going off in waves, Pro men\women, expert men and women. While we are waiting I'm nervously chatting with people, man it really has been a while since I've done a mtb race! I keep peeping my Garmin and see that my HR is getting elevated the closer our group moves to the starting line. We get the 30 second head's up to start and I force myself to take a deep breath and get ready for the pain I'm about to experience.

The whistle blows, I drill it and am out front with two other guys. They take a weird line, which makes me think I'm off course, I slow a bit and they merge back onto the course. We racing down pavement to double track which leads into a small hill and then a descent, followed by some rolling stuff. The hills are really not much, but at race pace my HR is pegged and I'm breathing hard. I keep the two leaders insight and dig to stay close. I can hear somebody breathing down my neck, but I focus on the guys ahead of me. We start catching riders from the previous waves. On the first real hill, I'm so red line I'm not actually able to climb much of it 'cause I'm totally redlined, it's muddy and there are riders from the previous wave strewn all over the hill, some walking some riding. Any who, I dismount quickly and begin jogging. I can see the leaders pulling away at the top of the hill. I'll get them I repeat to myself and hoof it up the hill passing people left and right. Sometimes it's just faster to run a section....both cyclocross and single speeding teach you that ;-)

One guy passes me, he's on gears no prob. We hit a flat section then another climb, one ss guy gets buy me. Hell no...he make it to the top of the hill before me. We crest the hill he eases up I 'cross hop onto my bike and drill it passing him to never see him again. For that matter, nobody else every passed me. Which meant as I made my way through more of the field, I was pretty much in no-man's land for most of the race. I kept passing geared riders hoping I would see some single gears but nothing. Finally near the end of the lap somebody yells to me on a hill, good job, keep on your gear, the leaders are about a minute up.

A minute no problem, I can close it. And then I'm no man's land from pretty much the second lap. I think to myself "shit, I've been going hard for a long time, am I gonna cramp, can I do this." The negative self talk started to bring me down, then I realized I gotta short circuit this shit and focus on the race. Joie, my partner, has been reading this book "Mental Training for Peak Performance," admittedly I though it was kinda hokie and a bunch of psycho-babble. But I happened to pick it up and read a bit a few weeks back and part of the book was about this exact thing. It said you should think about positive things, smile and focus on the task at hand.

So I did, I thought of Joie, who's been so supportive as I rehabbed my knee after injury last September. She' s been my biggest supporter and the biggest inspiration as she is so motivated and dedicated to training. She even created a training schedule for me! And I'll be damned if it didn't work. I thought OK, let's see what my HR is at, it's too low, I got ride at tempo and attack the hills. I don't know how far back my competitors are and I don't know how close the leaders are. This was my strategy and I kept picking people off, but never saw the leaders till the end of the race.

Turn's out it was an old friend Chris and some other fast dude. They finished like 10 minutes ahead of me! Chris and I used to race expert together and well I got phat and he went pro ;-) I was happy with my result. No cramping, although they were close. My hammy were whispering to me. The previous day's track workout taxed the hammys and well riding a singlespeed mtb taxed the same muscles. I finished the race and was like whew. My lungs felt great, what really hurt and was tired were my legs.

I got on the podium, which is always awesome, but more importantly I learned an important lesson on the mental fortitude required in any type of racing!

So I'm ready for some more mountain biking, but my focus is road this season. But it's funny you know, getting on the podium on my mtb has made me more hungry for the road!

Up next, Murphy's Enduro Numbero Dos and then the Big Sandy. Yes I know, there both mtb-ish races. We'll sortuv, the Enduro is mixed terrain and 90+ miles. Any way you add that it's a lot of good, fun miles. All to get ready for Copperopolis domination.

Last but not least, I'd like to thank Sam of Singular Cycles for believing in me and thinking I was worthy of a bike sponsorship. Sam had asked me to be a test rider and racer on the dirt side of things for Team Singular. I'm happy to say I'm happy to throw down on the dirt to help promote the Singular brand in the US. Sam is based in the UK. On the road side, I'm still happily a Mouse and plan to bring some glory to the pavee side soon!

Cheers and Thanks for Reading.

SS - poetry and revelry

2009-10-21T11:06:00.000-07:00

I know this from a few weeks ago, but I just finished watching it and it sure made me wish I could pedal my damn bicycle on the dirt!

yee haw soil saloon!

20090926_6415

2009-09-27T12:31:00.001-07:00

20090926_6415
Originally uploaded by Bici Girl

when you can't race 'cause you busted your knee, at least you can always be a dirtbag and give money feeds

Urban Outlaw #1 - Year 15 dfL

2009-09-10T16:45:00.000-07:00

09/09/09 Race#1

DFL Urban Outlaw race celebrated it's 15th anniversary last nite, also the first race of the season. For those unfamiliar with the series, let me expound on series name: cyclo-cross dress race series. In order to avoid the exorbitant $5 racing fee, you can don your best cross dressing outfit! A huge thank you to all the major players on the DFL squad for organizing these sweet race and providing refreshments after wards. The courses border a bit more on the jungle-cross side of things(more technical) vs the euro style(more grass), which makes them that much more fun for me, but then again I am a mountain biker!

I'm usually looking forward to these early races to test the fitness I've gained from a full season of road and mountain bike racing. However, this year training's not been so good for too many reason to list, but alas I've had a fun year of bike riding! So come the first race of the series, my 7th year at it, I was looking forward more to the camaraderie and fun of seeing all my friends dressed up and riding as hard as they can for an hour then race tales after wards over a cold beer. It always fun to catch up with peeps whom you haven't seen since the last 'cross season and what better way to do it than all dressed up in your sunday's best,er maybe your sister's sunday's best ;-)

Last year there was a huge bottle neck before the real action started, so it was decided that we would do a Le mans style start. We essentially had to run what seemed to be forever, cause I suck at running, but in reality was only about 100meters, to our bikes. Keep in mind that this is a huge mass start of about 100 people with abilities ranging from first time riding a cross bike to seasoned pros!

Pics from Scotty Paz.
and
Pic from Plattyjo.

and more pics from DFL photographic historian Mizz Pamela Palma

After receiving some instructions about being nice to each out on the course somebody yelled go and we were off. Hoof, hoof, hoof, god I really hate running, huff, puff, god I really suck at running. Whew. OK, I'm done, kidding. I scramble to find my bike, grab it and start running with it over my head to find an open spot to put it down and mount it.

Since the DFL races tend to border on the more technical,I usually choose to race a mountain bike. To keep it somewhat fair, I rock a single-speed and usually with mountain bike gear of 32:19 on a 29er. I think a typical 'cross gear would be more like 42:17. So I'm spinning out like a mofo, lungs are searing, hear is throbbing as I try to pick my way thru people. I'm so anaerobic that I have to remind myself that this IS a cyclocross race and that I should be passing people not settling into a good pace. About 15 minutes in, I find my legs and my racing wits and start attacking. There are quite a few steep run-ups that can be ridden,even on a ss, but you need a clear shot at it. I tried cutting around people to get a clear shot, but inevitable somebody got in the way and i had to dismount or just fall over ;-)

As we went around and around, I started to get a feel for where I should pass people so that I could take advantage of the descending ability of the mountain bike and also to have a clean line of attack for the climbs. I did this for a few laps and then I really thought I would stop racing at one point, because although my feet were pushing the pedal I had no power left. But I heard friends cheering and heckling and thought just keep going you'll get a second wind and i did, I eventually got 3 or 4 winds ;-)

I was quite happy to see that although I was in a great amount of pain, I was able to recover and keep attacking. More importantly...I was not lapped by the leader! yea!

Good times! Or better yet from the title of popular cyclcross video, pure sweet hell!

It hurts so good! Next up is the Livermore Series race. Which I will also be doing on the Singular Swift singlespeed. I'm gonna man up, however, and put a 17 tooth cog on to give me 32:17, which will give me a few more gear inches.

Merco 2009 - first suffering of the year!

2009-03-04T13:50:00.000-08:00

Merco Crit and Road Race Report -2009

I've gone over and over the races in my head for the last couple days. It makes my adrenaline flow each time I revisit the last few moments of each race. I also beat myself up a lot for not being fit enough to carry my team mates close enough to the line, but at the same time I have to be realistic. I knew coming into this first race weekend, that my fitness would not be ready for a win until the May time frame. So I did my best to play a supporting role.

I also realized how perfectly everything must flow together in order to execute pre-defined tactics. Road racing is as much about tactics as it is about have a base amount of fitness. As I said, I knew my fitness at this stage in my training was decent, but not great. Therefore I had to rely more on tactics for this go around of racing.

Sat-
For the crit we had Ryan, Jeff, Ed, James and myself. The plan was to get Ryan to the line protected enough to take the sprint. I knew I had to be efficient in the early part of the race so that I could help to ramp the pace at the end. For the most part I followed my friend Lloyd around the course. I did so because I know he's pretty sneaky and efficient about moving around within the pack and always staying near the top 15.

For the most part this worked for me. With three to go it was getting squirrely, as expected. Coming thru the start finish I moved near the front and then after the chicane I move to third wheel on a group the was setting tempo and stringing out the pack. We did this for about a lap, on the second time around I could sense the pack was getting ready to surge so I move to the front to keep up the temp and pulled for a lap.

The effort was taking it's toll and as we came around for the final lap I was gassed and as the pack was swarming me, I saw Jeff dragging Ryan up to the front for the final go around. I managed to grab back on to the pack and that's about where I finished. Nothing spectacular, but I felt that I put in the one good effort I had in me to keep it safe during the final laps.

Personally, I felt much more comfortable in the pack. I sucked wheels like a mofo and took turns in the middle of the pack even though it scared the shit out of me at first. As the race progressed, I felt more comfortable riding shoulder to shoulder with peeps. Not too bad for my first race of the season.

Sunday-
For sunday we had a larger crew: Josh, Ryan, Sam, Hank, Paul, Ed, Jeff, Nick and Liam. The plan was to keep Josh, Ryan and Sam protected so that Josh could be led out for the Win!
First lap was pretty uneventful. I worked on moving around the pack and chatting with people. The plan to get Josh to the front in the final lap was to start stringing it out as we made the left off of Cox Ferry road and onto the left-right-right-left of Keyes road.
So the second time around people were waiting for the Mice to do something. I also felt like when we were riding in the pack that peeps were purposely boxing us in. I had to work pretty hard to get out of the shelter of the pack.
At about mile 37 attacks started happening and the Mice took control. I remember seeing Hank, Paul and Nick go after stuff. I could tell the pack wasn't letting it get away as they accelerated to swallow the break, so I stayed in the pack saving my legs for the last few kms. As one attack after another was swallowed I realized that we would have to get decent positioning even before Cox Ferry road. By the look of my HR profile there were 4 surges before Cox Ferry.

Once on Cox Ferry there was a few more surges and the biggest hill. This is really when I knew the Mouse would have to take control well before the turn off of Cox Ferry onto Keyes road. I remember Sam saying something about take control or something to that effect. At that point Hank, Paul and myself started driving the pace at the front. Things simmered down and we reintegrate with the pack.

Then another surge takes place. I'm by Ryan's side and he asks me to let him out of the pack. I do and then follow his wheel. He goes to the front and set a fierce tempo, I let him know I'm on his wheel and to let me know when to take my pull. He continues on and then I take my turn then a few Paul or Hank. At this point the pace is high and am frick'n redlined and all I know is we have to keep the pace hi. I wonder to myself, how many more surges do I have left in me?

The pack is still pretty much together. Before the turn onto Keyes road and I know we have to be moving up. I starting calling to the Mice and charge to the front. I believe it was me and another couple folks we were first through the turn. I'm unbelievably in the hurt locker and looking for somebody to take a pull. Can't remember who it was, but somebody did and I'm resting a bit. The pack starts coming back together and before you know it the 1k sign marker is coming up. I'm positioned ideally for the final left hander before the final hill. I hear Ryan or Sam say go now. Already in the hurt locker I dug deeper than I can remember and entered the pain cave and drilled it. We made the left turn safely as I merged onto the wheel of one of the godspeed guys. My vision is blurred and i'm sitting and churing as hard as I can to keep moving. We hit the hill and I completely and utterly implode. I'm standing, grunting, swaying the bike to keep moving up hill. I'm swarmed by the pack and I only hope the Josh, Ryan and Sam made out of there.

I finish the grunt up the hill and spin as fast as i can to recover and then stand to sprint, but nothing comes out. All I could do to cross the finish line was to stay standing and use my weight to mash each pedal stroke to help me cross the finish...whew. That was about one of the hardest efforts I can recall putting out!

Josh, Ryan, Sam....I'm sorry I didn't have the tiny bit of juice to get us up over that last little hill. Damn it! I'm pretty sure you guys would have gone 1-2-3.

After beating myself up quite a bit I realized that road racing is about racing as a team. And that getting tactics to pan out as planned is really difficult. But on the bright side, we had a plan and we were so god damned close. The fact that Josh, Ryan, Sam and I were in the right position near the end is awesome. That hasn't really happened for me before.

Now I know that it is only a matter of time before we get the Mouse train dialed in. Not only that, but we have quite a lot more new mouse horsepower this year: hank, paul, liam, ed and nick! I'm proud and excited about this effort and it's only the start of the season!

Nice work fellas! Ladies you rock and the results speak quite loudly!

evil_dirty_xmas_elf

2008-12-23T23:48:00.001-08:00

evil_dirty_xmas_elf
Originally uploaded by javabob

Happy Holidays from Santa's Evil Elf ;-)

DFL GGP 2008

Cyclocross group runup

2008-10-21T12:02:00.001-07:00

Cyclocross group runup
Originally uploaded by wilmatthews

what an awesome shot from the notrious McClaren run-up!

I can see Jeremy(A40), Anthony(A40), Josh Chauvet(Mouse), Isaias(A40-mouse kit)..purty cool.

fun, fast and steep...macaframa

2008-10-09T15:11:00.000-07:00

2927688182_f99ed045ec_b
Originally uploaded by barifett

Macaframa Alleycat
Find more Bike Rides in San Francisco, California

1st -Al (oaktown)
2nd -?
3rd -Dirty Dave(SF)
4th -javabob(SF)

How we were out done by an east bayer is a mystery...oh wait, maybe not, Al is fast as shit and he didn't get lost this time. Rock on man!

The film premier of Macaframa was amazing. Even if you are not a fixed gear aficionado, the cinematography is amazing. My favorite scene is a golden sky at dusk, shot between two tall, dark buildings, a silhouette of the Bay Bridge is in the background and a ride is slaloming down a steep ass street. Everytime the rider skids you get an awesome silhouette of the rider and the bike. Sick!

Fixed gear tricksters are the new skate boarders. Quite Simple.

But com'on folks...you gotta wear a fuck'n bucket on your head. I've seen too many people saved by their helmets, myself included, to not wear one. I do these races cause they are fun as hell and wear a helmet.

Nice work Macaframa Productions.

my 3 pennies worth...
Isaias

trackfights_7_me_Darren

2008-10-08T09:46:00.001-07:00

trackfights_7_me_Darren
Originally uploaded by javabob

Final Track FiGHTS

BRIGED ATTACK
Originally uploaded by javabob

Pre-race-faces

2008-10-01T13:49:00.001-07:00

Pre-race-faces
Originally uploaded by maxwell.merkle

Mountain mambo crew. Fun times, brutal race, great peeps, and awesome prizes.

Snake hurt a lot!

September 2008 Rallycat Box Dog Bikes 187

2008-09-23T17:54:00.001-07:00

September 2008 Rallycat Box Dog Bikes 187
Originally uploaded by boxdogbikes

post ralleycat party at Thieves Tavern

ay que sexy

2008-09-23T17:52:00.001-07:00

IMG_4350
Originally uploaded by scottypaz

action shot from saturday dfL

A40 - ala dfL

2008-09-23T17:50:00.001-07:00

IMG_4457
Originally uploaded by scottypaz

saturday's dfL final

dfl cross #2

2008-09-17T15:26:00.001-07:00

dfl cross
Originally uploaded by fixotic

thatz how we biatches roll in the Park

IMG_4047

2008-09-17T15:00:00.001-07:00

IMG_4047
Originally uploaded by scottypaz

DFL#1

dee-eff-el......a lesson in ouch!

2008-09-12T10:52:00.000-07:00

This photo sums up how I felt

this is me in action

since my cx bikes is outta commission, I decided that riding a light 29er(thanks francis and mike) would be comparable, after all 29" wheels are better than 700c wheels! Only problem was I had a 32\21 gear on the bike from SSWC. Just ask Meredith how funny it was to sit behind me while I spun at about 150rpm.

Anywho, I managed to stay near the leaders. I couldn't see Cam, but at some point Cesar rolled passed me and I stayed with him as long as I could. Then I saw Hunter and we went back and forth a bit, before he pulled away. And then Brad, I never saw either, but saw that he finished just ahead of Hunter and I.

Today my lungs and body are completely sore...of course I'm not sure how much of that is from cross and how much is from the drunken disorderly behavior following the race.

Somehow I thought I was a climber that night.

Traaaaaaaaaaaaackkkkk Fights!!!!!!

2008-08-15T17:16:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to give a shout out to the Sexual Camel team for pulling together and pulling off a great event in such a short period of time.

KF(Kirt Fitzpatrick- the brains behind this operation- broken frick'n neck and all)

Ok, so what the heck are Track Fights(TF) anyway? When Kirt, the brains behind TF, explained it to me, I had to keep stopping him and asking him to repeat the idea. Being that I have dirt roots and some roadie experience I kept trying to relate it to my race experience.

The trackies totally get it...it's basically a points race on a criterium course instead of a track and on a road bike instead of a fixed gear bike. Clear as mud right? OK, so imagine a crit course, where every three laps you are sprinting for a winning finish! So in the B's race they did 24 laps, which means sprinting for a win (i.e. points) every 3 laps for a total of 8 all out sprints. The A group did 36 laps or 12 sprints. To add a bit more excitement primes are also thrown in!

Any how, here's how my race went....
I understood what needed to happen to get points...win the sprint. Ok, easier said than done. Since I'm not a sprinter, actually to be perfectly frank my sprint sucks donkey balls. So I started off by trying to break away or lead out my teammates. Then I realized, man I'm getting a good workout, but zero points and I'm not really working on my weak point, which is sprinting. I did manage to win one SportsBasement Prime by breakaway ;-)

Sprinting, sprinting, sprinting...man, I get winded just writing that. I'm really excited to continue attending Track Fights, every Weds from August 13-Oct 1, starting at 730pm(B group) and 830pm(A group). From doing Larry Nolan's sprint workout, on the old fremont course, I know training my sprint will improve it.

So unless you want me to be whooping your asses all 'cross season, you better come out to Track Fights. I've already got some monster fitness built from racing road and mountain all year and now I'm working on my achilles heel, sprinting! Here's the results, obviously I got some work to do!

The ugly lap card girl

Suffering Part 2 - Howell Mountain Challenge

2008-08-14T12:23:00.000-07:00

Howell Mtn Challenge
Open Expert SingleSpeed
2/7
dist - 30.41 miles; time - 2:33:53; climbing - 4948ft

So last year I did this race on my 26" singlespeed with a gear of 32/17. I suffered immensely and post race my achilles, shins, ankles and legs all hurt for 1 week after. This year, I was to be aboard a 29er ss. As I didn't want to ride my rigid Raleigh after torturning myself on it for 90+ miles in Murphy's Enduro ride, I decided to find a suspension fork for my bike. My craigslist deal fell thru and so I posted the request for a fork to my list of mtb buddies.

Here's a nice picture of the beauty!Ty responds to me with, "you can borrow my fork, with the bike attached!" For those who don't know what Ty's riding these days, allow me to fill you in...beautiful steel 29er ss built by Pereira. In my mind I was like "are you f*ck'n kidding me! Yes!" The gearing on this bad boy was 32/20 with 29" wheels, so like a 32/18 on a 26er. After suffering like I did last year, I knew the slightly easier gear would be perfect, especially consider the amount of climbing!

On to the race already....so I down a Pomegranite Rockstar Juiced, slather up with sunscreen and go ride the bike around the track for a warm up. The twenty minutes warm up on the bikes was the longest I'd spent on it. Yikes, racing a totally new bike made me a little nervous. Did a quick little jaunt up the starting incline to the first singletrack and then went to line up.

My buddy Nick Hanni was there and I'd promised him a battle, since he beat me off the podium last year! The good thing was that we'd both raced the day before, he did Carrera de San Rafael and I did Patterson Pass, so I'd say an equivalent handicap.

The started us off in wave #5 behind the pro\expert women. I felt suprisingly relaxed. I lined up next to Nick and Rich Blanco(Sycip guy who I've known and raced with forever...fast sser). Also in the mix was Allan from TWW, Daniele new Mouse and a few other friends like Johnny Blackwell in the sport cat(they started in the same wave as us).

So the whistle blows and Rich takes off like a bat out of hell. I jump on his wheel, just as he slows down, Nick comes flying by, so I hop on his wheel...ya see, being a roadie translate to the mountain ;-) We create a bit of a gap, I'm on Nick's wheel into the singletrack, but I can hear Rich making his way back. I'm totally frick'n redlined, but still turning the pedals. I recover a bit on the first little descent into the meadow before heading to the fireroad climb.

We hit the fireroad climb and I gotta slow a bit. Rich and Nick pull away and i can see the other gain on me. We hit the runup at the top of the fireroad and I'm right in back of Rich. Nick is off in the distance. I spin like a mofo and see one other guy right in back of me. I get on his wheel as we head past the airport. We latch back on to Nick and Rich. I sit in recover and just before the descent, which will lead to the first singletrack climbing, I jump and get around the train. I figure I could out descend them.

The attack is good, caught them by surprise. They are working to get back on my wheel. We start catching some of the previous starters. Rich and I are now chasing Nick who's up ahead somewhere. Finally I had to slow down a bit. Rich and Nick take off for a bit, but I keep them in sight as I recover. We hit a few of the climbs and I start closing in on them. Finally catch them as Rich starts pulling away. Nick says I'm feeling really bad. I tell him to sit in recover and then get back into it. He didn't manage to get on my wheel so I took off to chase Rich.

And that was the rest of the race. Rich and I blew thru all the categories that started ahead of us, first the womens field, then the junior experts and some other younger experts. By lap three we were passing some of the pro\semi-pro field! I kept thinking to myself, is this really happening? While I was hurting, I was still able to recover and still keep attacking.

Finally in the third lap after one short climb that lead into a descent, I spun past Rich who was walking, dismounted ran to the top of the hill, jumped back on and got ahead of him. He yelled out to me, "So thats how you do it." We had fun battling it out. Every time I saw ahead of me on a climb I'd yell out to him, "I'm coming for you Blanco," to which he would respond, "I know!" Good times.

So I bomb one of the final singletrack sections, I'm on 29er and Rich is on 26er, after the race he said he had to work really hard to stay with the momentum of a 29er. Anyway, we hit the final, longest, steep climb. I hit it first and immediately and forced to dismount as my legs are just about to cramp I have almost no juice left. Rich is on my tail. I was suddenly struck with how hilarious it was that the race leaders were basically walking\trotting side by side up the steep climb. We actually walked past some lapped riders...yea, the hill was that steep. As he started to walk slightly faster than me, I said to him, "damn your running background," to which he laughed and then responded, " i haven't run in a while."

So he beat me to the top of the climb and I could see him quickly pull away. I pushed, pushed, pushed my bike and jump back on and gave chase. And now, the final fireroad climb...ugh...my left hamstring is swinging with cramps, so I massage it and use the right leg, oh f*ck..my right hammy is cramping...ok I'll stand, oh f*ck there go my quads. So i'm doing this up down in the saddle, slide back in the saddle trying to push my legs like pistons all the while breathing as deeply as I can and trying to convert the lactate in my legs back into energy(pyruvate...ok so I'm a bit of a sports science geek).

Ok, I hit the top of the climb and I'm like whew, just got the whoop de doos and we're pretty much done with the race. I rail those, walk the 3rd one cause lapped riders were in the trail. I hit the fireroad and spin, spin. Past the lake and spin, spin. I passed Ray Storm somewhere around here, but then again maybe that was in the second lap...I was delirious already and then I remember Ray telling me about talking to a leprechaun in the forest...i laughed and joked back...the humor really helped dissipate the pain.

So I'm spinning like a mofo past the airport, i'm pretty much in the home stretch, I'm bombing down the fireroad after the hike a bike and I can see Rich on the lower part of the fireroad. I yell out in frustration and start spinning like a mad man. I come across the grass section spinning like an eggbeater....hit the pavement, make a left, then onto the track and I sprinted the entire track distance as hard as I could. It musta been a scene to see me spinning at 200rpm!

I cross the line and go directly to give Rich a high 5. Man, 42seconds back from Rich, who took 1st place. I got 2nd...no frick'n way! I'm so excited as this was another one of those races where the podium has always been elusive...usually only by one or two spots!

After checking out the results, I saw that I would have come in second the geared expert category! So I know I would have taken first in the expert field on my geared bike...yes!

Post ride meal was at Silverado Brewing Company with a mixed group of Mice, Sheila Moon and Altezza40....good, good times. I drank a bit much and had to have Andrew drive home ;-) Good IPA and excellent Tri-tip!

race profile

wow...thatz how you suffer! double race weekend.....Patterson Pass\Howell Mountain Challenge Double whammie...Part 1

2008-08-11T16:45:00.001-07:00

So after Downieville I had planned to take a break from both mountain and road and rest-up for 'cross season. So I kinda took a break from regular bike training and took up a less traditional type of training which involved mostly drinking and commuting to the Caltrain. I guess I did accidentally get some decent training in as I did Murhpy's crazy 90+ mile mixed terrain enduro. While a great ride and fitness builder, it took me two weeks to recover from 'cause I had the bright idea to do it on my rigid singlespeed.

Anywayzzzzz....now I'm thinking, well I had decent finishes at Pesky(11th) and Leesville(12th), so I knew my fitness was on an upward path. Along the way I managed to claim 3rd place at Skyline Park mtb race and 2nd place at Downieville(my A race of the year). Next up was Districts which I was not sure I was going to do, but jumped in last minute cause my weekend cleared up. I ended up with a decent finish around 11th which motivated to do some more races culminating with the Giro di SF on the road side and SingleSpeed Worlds on the mtb side.

The race details:

Patterson Pass RR
Elite 4
12/63
dist - 66 miles; time - 3:25:10 ; climb - 5709ft

Next up, Patterson Pass and Howell Mountain Challenge. I'd heard Patterson was a brutal race due to the hills, wind and heat. Yup, Patterson Pass RR lived up to it's reputation. It is the most fockin' brutal race I've done this year...maybe ever. The hills were not only steep, but also windy. And in order to recover on the course you had to be really smart about sucking a wheel. It was difficult to find shelter from the wind, which constantly changed direction.

After talking to Ben about superweek he made a suggestion to me. He said "drink your warm up and use embrocation, forget the trainer." So I gave it a try at Districts. What does this mean you say, it means drink "something dirty" like a Redbull, Monster, Rockstar.
I found Rockstar Juiced to be my favorite. The guava flavor is pretty sugary, but the Pomegrante is my favorite...not too sweet.

Dave, Ryan and I roll up to the race start about 7am. Get reg'd and start the process of getting race ready. In between gettin' "Juiced" I throw on the kit and slather on some Leg Salsa Pro Glaze on the legs and go roll around on the bike.

From having studied the course profile
I knew a break in the early laps would not stick. It was going to be a race of attrition and then blow apart in the 3rd lap up the big climb. My plan was to race quite a bit smarter than I have been. This mean not leading up the climbs, not taking all the wind at the front of the descents and sucking as much wheel as possible till the 3rd lap.

The whistle blows and we're off. The pack is pedaling slower than a sunday ride with grandma. As we start making our way up the first climb the winds is already blowing like mad. We crawl up the hill. Nobody want to go to the front because it's so windy. Ok, we made it up the first climb. I move nearer the front, top 10 for the descent. I'm a better descender than the average 4 so I want to make sure I don't have to ride my frick'n brakes all the way down. Turns out that the winds is a pretty big factor on the descent. So I stayed with the plan and just sucked some wheels as we descended.

The first big descent basically rolls you in to the next significant climb which is about 500ft without the supper steep section of the first 1200ft climb. Again the packs sticks together. Then in to another longer windy descent and thatz the first lap.

During the second lap we hit the climb with a bit more speed. Somebody yelled out that we should rotate on the front, so about 15 of us took turns haphazardly taking short pulls of the the windy climb. The tricky thing about the big climb is that there is constant wind and a constant grade for the first half. Then you reach a short plateau, where normally you would be able to rest and recover a bit, but not at Patterson. As you come around the corner to the flat section, you are immediately blasted with a fierce headwind. So the pack stays together here, then comes the super steep pitch where we started dropping people. I made up in the top 10 and maintained position on the descent. On the second hump, it was obvious people were hurting. Although my legs did hurt I was already feeling much better than the first lap.

1 lap profile

As we are coming around for the 3rd lap, I'm just waiting for the attacks to begin. I sit in, rest and get ready. The front of the pack accelerates and I go with it. We end up down to about 15 guys. We are trading pulls up the climb into the wind. Then Kurt, from wheelgirl.com, comes around the upward bound train and just rides away from us. I tried to jump but didn't have the juice in my legs. Two or 3 other guys jumped and went, it was a Davis guy, a godspeed guy and a pac state guy. Our pace has quickened and now I'm in survival mode, telling myself not to get dropped this god damn far into the race. I find a good pace and suckwheel like a mofo. My legs recover and I come around 6 or so people and re-insert myself in the paceline. I figure if I slow down it is to me benefit to make people have to go around me. I kept doing this as we headed up the hill. Then we hit the steep pitch and I'm struggling not to start rolling backwards. I'm standing on my pedals and humping the damn bike for all I'm worth. I make it to the top about 6th in our group.

We hit the descent and there's about 7-8 of us. I start talking to the guys around me and organizing a chase group. Turned out that Pacific State Bank had a guy in the break and was kinda just sitting in. I got really annoyed and so Taylor, Colavita, and I tried to initiate a break in our chase group. We managed to drop a few guys up the second climb and now it was like 5 of us in a group. You know it's really hard keeping people motivated in a chase group, people pull to hard or don't soft pedal when they pull of the front. It's interesting trying to work with people who aren't your teammates, but at the same time if you are nice and encouraging(I learned this from Ben) people will listen to your constructive criticism. Finally I got the group rotating pretty well and was whooping and hollering as we were really moving pretty good.

At one point I said, alright, let's catch the leaders and we upped the pace. I think we dropped 2 more guys and along the way to the finish we picked up 2 more guys. I told them to hop in, sit in and recover and then work with us. We are about 3 miles from the finish and there is slight little stupid insignificant little bump before you pass under H580 towards the finish. All of a sudden my legs are just not working any more and I'm standing on the pedals struggling to turn them over.
I watch the 6 guys in the chase group i frick'n organized creeping away from me. They hit a little descent and I'm hosed because I can catch back on. So after all that hardwork, I come in to the finish stretch and sprint across the line alone. Lame, lame, nitecourt in it's 5th season laaaaame! So I got 12th instead of 6th. I know I could have taken the guys in my group at the line had my legs not given out on me...whatever!

Cool thing is I've made quite a few allies this year. Next year, if they haven't already upgraded to the 3's, I'll have a good 4 guys to work with on top of my mousemates!

After the results were published I was amazed to see that 1/3 of the field did not finish the race....yea, Patterson was that frick'n hard!

We couldn't get to El Charro fast enough. I tried to enjoy my delicious chicken torta and not be distracted about the fact that the Donut Wheels was just across the street. Drove home, dropped the boys off, went home and passed out for 2hrs. Then time to get ready for the mountain bike race sunday!

Another almost there experience or District Road Race

2008-08-04T13:20:00.000-07:00

Road Race Championships (Districts)
Fort Ord,CA
Elite 4
11th/28
Teammates: Sam, Ryan, Jake
61.19miles, 2:58:23, 3400 climbing
6laps, ~10miles/per, ~900ft climb/per

I feel like my fitness is finally coming around to make me competitive in road racing, however I still lack a bit of tactical finesse to know how to win or even crack the top 10. But I'm encouraged by the fact that people are watching to see what the Mouse is going to do in the race.

The pace at the beginning was a bit ridiculous, ala sunday recovery ride. I knew that I wanted to be at or near the front when we came into the rollers leading into the first short power climb that leads in to the long descent which then leads to THE climb. Any who, I did this, had a clean lines thru the descent, all you really have to do is stay in the drops and tuck as much as possible and you fly downhill without having to tap the breaks. We hit the left hand turn to go up the big hill and I drilled it. As I'm about 1/3 of the way up, before the flat spot, I'm like ow this hurts. I brought the heart rate down a couple beats settled in and still made it to the top of the climb within the top 5. I couldn't help but think that each time up the climb would get significantly harder...which it did!

Anyway, we quickly realized that the race was going to come down to the last lap and it would be a race of attrition rather than break aways..lame! A couple guys, Tim and Pac State Bank guy tried attacks, but got reeled back in. At one point, Tim had a huge gap on the field at least 200-300 meters. I think he was chasing another guy that had gone of the front. I pulled of the front and went back about 5-6 riders, spun my legs to rest. Once reset, pulled out of the pack a bit and spun up like a madman and went to bridge up to Tim. I looked back and I got a gap. Didn't really look like people were chasing. But by the time I caught up to Tim and we did one rotating to rest, baaam...the pack was right back on us ;-( I guess the pack was motivated to keep it together as it was only the second lap.

I spent the rest of the race chatting with a few of the guys whole looked strong and strategizing a break away in the 5th lap. Fast forward, we hit lap 5, we're back to the climb. I drill it up the climb again, now I'm really f*ck'n hurting. I stand up to maintain pace, I'm starting to drift back a bit and there comes Ryan...flying past me like I was standing still and baamm. The break happened.

I grunted my way to the top of the climb and start drilling it at the front of the group and I hear somebody yelling at me. It's Sam telling me not to chase Ryan and I was like oh crap, you're right, I just got excited! So we successfully integrated into the chase group and messed up the paceline. On Berkeley got really pissed. But he directed at my like, you killing the field on the climbs, but then you don't do any work to break away. I felt like the Mice were doing a lot of work, I exchange a few explicative with the guy, gave him the bird and said I don't see you working up there. I realized that anger was not going to help, took a few deep breaths, talked myself down and got back to the paceline riding a bit easier.

Then we look up the road and we see Ryan falling back to us. We're like crap, now it's really time to work to catch the rest of the break, who got away pretty frick'n quickly! At some point, the 1/2/3 men's break came thru, near the 180. As we were trucking thru it, it was a bit a hard to tell if our leaders were mixed in with the pros. Sure enough they were, I recognized Alex(yellow kit with the bumble bees on it) hind in the pack with the pros. We hit the 180 and we're now working as efficient as I've seen a rotating paceline work all year, but the break is no frick'n where in sight? It's like they disappear. I think they might have paced with the pros?

We hit the climb the final time, my legs are roasted and feel like I'm gonna go backwards. I stood up and found that I could keep up a good pace as I stomped on the pedals. Then as we hit the midpoint, the Village Pedaler guy guns it. I tried to hop on his wheel, but the legs had another idea. I kept humping the bike up the hill. And then it was Davis guy, Sam, Specialized master guy, and Pac state bank guy. We caught up to a group of 3 pros and got around them. Sam drilled the descent and I just stayed on his wheel trying to recover. As we hit the final 3k the Davis guy began pulling a head. Off in the distance I could see the village pedaler guy, but i figured he was pretty much out of reach. It would come down a sprint between our little group.

Knowing that I'm not the sprinter type I decided I would go from near the 1k mark and possibly give same a better chance at sprinting to the finish. We hit the 1k and it was Sam and Davis guy, I hopped on there wheel for a bit, trying to rest and stay out of the wind. Then about 700m to go, I was like f*ck it, I'm going for it. I got about 200meters and was really hurting. Fortunately Sam was right there and came around me along with the Davis guy. Then it was like slow motion. My legs were dying, Sam and Davis guy were pulling away. I'm stomping on the pedals and not going anywhere. I'm neck and neck with Pac State Bank guys and he got me by about a wheel length at the line. Crossing the line I almost hurled, but my stomach was empty so nothing came out.

Overall, I felt happy that we had a strategy to get Ryan the win, we communicated throughout the race, I felt like my fitness was definitely good enough to keep me in the race and learned a bit more about tactics. Oh and I also learned that racing with such a small field is really tuff. So I think the fact that we finished near the front on a tough course is a good accomplishment and I also think we would have finished similarly even if the field was full.

I have to say I'm really impressed with Sam's improvement in fitness. Right on man! Good race analysis too. Man, I need to get one of those powertap thingys. Ryan...you were so close. Damn those cramps! Now we gotta kill it at Patterson Pass, you and me 1-2 baby! And Jake, nice work hanging in there till near the end. Hopefully it was a good opener for Timpani.

So still a few places shy of a top 10 and still 0 points, but I'm even more motivated now! Next up Patterson Pass, Howell Mtn Challenge, Dunnigan, Challenge, Giro. So if I want to get out of the 4's this season, I guess I gotta get some wins this late in the season!

Garmin data coming soon. I look for some pics too.

Districts data...

2008-08-01T11:16:00.000-07:00

Ok so here's what I pulled from my Polar watch for the Districts road race at Fort Ord...

Here's a 2 lap zoom. My data agrees with Bev's recon: 10.9 miles/lap, ~30min/lap, 865ft ascent/lap>>>>

Here's all 6 laps>>>>

Goldsprint - Happy Friday!

2008-07-24T17:56:00.000-07:00

Now thatz a fock'n ride! The mixed terrain enduro debut....

2008-07-21T16:56:00.000-07:00

Murphy and crew put on a wicked, epic ride. Start was in SF and headed into the further reaches of Marin via road and dirt and then for me back across a windy Golden Gate Bridge in the dark with no lights! Great support and awesome volunteers at all checkpoints. Super cool camaraderie. Lots of suffering. Whenz the next one?

From Sport Tracks-
93miles
11:24 hrs:mins
10,000ft+ climbing
11,000 calories burned

Motion Based data
Summary Data
Total Time (h:m:s) 11:25:21 7:16 pace
Moving Time (h:m:s) 8:54:39 5:40 pace
Distance (mi ) 94.30
Moving Speed (mph) 10.6 avg. 38.5 max.
Elevation Gain (ft) +18,466 / -18,403

Temperature (°F) 60.6°F avg. 64.4°F high
Wind Speed ( mph) W 18.6 avg. W 23.0 max.

Food ingested:
4 cliff bars
2 Cliff z-bars
1 Odawalla berry bar
2 GUS
4 beers
1 shot Jack
5 handfuls of chips
4 100oz Camelbak refills
6 electrolyte pills
4 Camleback electrolyte tablets
1 Calcium\Magnesium pill
10 fig newtons
10 dried dates (ohhh...no wonder I was blowing up the riders around me...just ask Dave(road bike), Jarred, Kevin, Andrew )
1/2 PBJ sandwich
1 roast beef sandwich(i sware this saved me after the pine mtn descent. I was close to bonking. thanks Jarred!)

2008 Leesville Road Race July 5th 109

2008-07-09T14:58:00.001-07:00

2008 Leesville Road Race July 5th 109
Originally uploaded by rodneycox68

This sums up the road conditions at Leesville Gap pretty well ;-)

Interesting article on Specificity from Friel's Blog...

2008-06-12T14:23:00.000-07:00

Hmmm....maybe racing road, mountain and 'cross is the very reason that i'm only mediocre at each discipline?

***************
Joe Friel's Blog

Specificity
Posted: 05 Jun 2008 09:55 AM CDT
I believe the three most important principles of training are 1) specificity, 2) specificity, and 3) specificity. I'll give you an example.

I've been coaching Ralph for 5 seasons now. Great guy and a very good athlete. He is both a triathlete (Olympic distance) and a bike road racer. During this time he's been successful in both sports qualifying for Triathlon Worlds several times with one top 5 at Nationals, and he's been a contender in his cycling age category (50+ and now 55+) with top 10s at his state road championships.

For the past four seasons I had told him that he would be a much better cyclist if he quit doing triathlons or a much better triathlete if he quit bike racing. While there is an obvious overlap between the two sports, they are not the same. There are many differences in how to train for these sports. The outcomes in bike races are largely determined by anaerobic endurance efforts lasting two to four minutes during key episodes such as on hills and with cross wind. The outcomes may also be dependent on sprinting ability. Neither of these, however, is critical to the outcomes in triathlons. Here, with few exceptions, the most important limiter is muscular endurance. The successful triathlete has the ability to produce a moderately high power output but hold it for a long time. Just the opposite for cycling. There success is dependent on very high power for very short (relative to triathlon) periods of time. If nothing else, any time you are training to be good at one of these abilities (anaerobic endurance or muscular endurance) you are not training the other one. So something is lost in training.

You can't train to be good at everything at all times. This is the principle of specificity. Basically, this principle says that if you want to be good at something you must exactly and precisely train for its unique demands.

Ralph didn't doubt my explanation of this for the past four years. He certainly understood it intellectually. But emotionally he wasn't ready to give up either sport. He loves both of them with a passion. Then something happened this year which changed everything and gives us a good lesson in specificity.

Ralph's cycling and running came along quite well this winter. In fact, his running appeared to be ahead of previous years. Then it happened in February. Ralph's Achilles began to act up. It wasn't too bad at first but it refused to go away. And it kept getting worse despite very little running and, finally, no running at all. So he was forced to give up the spring triathlons and focus only on bike racing. From that point on it has been amazing to see what has happened. His functional threshold power (FTP) has risen more than 20 watts. It's never been this high, or even close to it, in the last 4 years. He now finds himself near the front of his training group which includes several much younger riders instead of riding mid-pack and struggling to stay on during climbs. His bike sessions are remarkably different. The power numbers are 10 to 20% greater than for similar workouts done in previous years.

Even though the Achilles now appears ready to go again he's decided to stay with bike racing only for the remainder of the season. He's having too much fun to go back, he says. He refers to it as his new-found youth - at age 56.

Specificity is a powerful principle. Ralph's experience is a good lesson in this for all of us. If you really want to be as good at something as you can possibly be you need to keep this principle in mind. That doesn't mean you should never do anything else. Aerobic cross training and seriously lifting weights in the Prep and early Base periods is still beneficial, I believe. But the closer you get to your most important races the more like the races your training must become.

That's specificity.

Mt Hamilton Road Race.....

2008-06-09T10:34:00.000-07:00

Mt Hamilton Road Race
May 25th, 2008
Cat 4 Men
21/100...not what I was hoping for, but the race was great! And I got to ride with a teammate Ben almost the whole race...that is until he flatted his tubular 5 miles from the finish...dooh!

Race Profile from Garmin Forerunner 305

Race Profile from Race Website. Looks like I have good agreement with my Garmin data.

Ben and I on the rivet.

there is a god and he created....

2008-04-29T15:57:00.000-07:00

Whiskeytown lake for mountain bikers big and small ;-)

Gezus, I've been meaning to update this dern blog thing...So here's some race profile images from the last mountain bike race I did in late April. Put this one on your calendar's boyz and girls. This is epic like Downieville!

Boggs3 - grassrootz racing at itz best!

2008-04-07T16:17:00.001-07:00

The beer in hand and crazy look pretty much sums up the weekend. I had a frick'n blast! Thank you Carlos and Bikemonkey for putting on a great race: good vibe, live music, great food\beer feed, great course, frick'n awesome timing system complete with live results via - 20 inch flat screen at start-finish area.

I've pretty much been a roadie all season, but this weekend I was committed to riding on the dirt with my old mountain bike team, TeamWrongWay. Yup, I said "old" team. This weekend was kinduv a big deal for me on the personal front because it would be my last race flying the TWW colors. I joined TWW in my first year of becoming a "real" mountain biker, 2002 I believe, and the rest as they say is history....

Aha, those were the days of Keith whooping my a$$ on his goddamn rigid singlspeed! Post ride beer and burritos at Andale were awesome. Those were also the days of some epic climbing battles between Loren and I! Man, we had quite a southbay riding crew back then: Keith, Loren, Jerry Brown(remember that guy), McCrimmon, Allan, Schlachter, Todd, I even remember Mark Davidson coming over the hill to join us on occasion.

The following year was unforgettable. This was the year that we became racers! Dave Ambrose, Jenny, Paul, Rich, Brenton, Alan, Jason Tandeta and myself took NorCal racing by storm. I can't remember how many races we did that year, but if there was a race we were there. I even remember a time up at Weaverville (Lagrange classic)when Vic, Bigfoot racing head honcho, said "we can start the race until all the TWW folks are all here!"

Or how about the 8.5hr frick'n epic in Tahoe in the summer of 2003! Then 2004 brought the year we all got into the endurance thing and there was 9 of us lined up to start the Cascade Cream Puff! That was so much painful fun!

The Skeggs rides that Nick lead for years and years still live on to this day! I've met so many cool people by being part of TWW. It was up at Skeggs that I meet: Lauren Constantini, John Hillstrom, John Street, Kyle Brooks, Matt Leonard, Ty Brookhart and numerous other folks whom I'm still friends with!

TWW helped to transform me from a "commute on my mountain bike 2 work" rider to a full blown expert racer. I went from thinking of riding a singlespeed as an impossibility to racing on a singlespeed! So while I won't be flying the TWW colors at the races anymore, I'll always be part of the TWW vibe! Yea, yea, I know that's pretty frick'n cliche and all, but thatz how I roll bitches.

It was great to see everybody out this weekend! Paul, Jenny, Ethan(and twins), Keith&son, Kathleen& her high school racers, Bob, Schlachter factor, Mike, Johnnie H, Dave McCrimmon, Pete, Kirt, Erik, Kyle, Jenni and Dawn.

So how about "I coulda been a contenda's" decisive victory over the 2nd place team? Don't say I never gave ya anything ;-)

Peace out yo!

Some cool stuff from my Garmin Forerunner 305....

Singlespeed frenzy

2008-03-28T16:58:00.000-07:00

Ya'll....been busy riding single everything...29er singlespeed and most recently a fixed gear. Yea, yea, I know, I know, fixies are trendy and for hipsters and blah, blah, blah. But you know what! The first Tour De France was done on fixed gear bike and god damnit, I'm a cyclist and I'm frick'n taking the fixie back from the hipsters.

There is no doubt that riding a fixed gear changes the way you think about riding. If you're not paying attention for a second, bump, bump you get bucked. Even the most mundane things like whipping your nose, grabbing your water bottle or signaling a turn are a bit difference. 'Cause no matter how much you ride inevitably you coast. We'll see what it can add for my training regimen.

So on my cheapie 29er ss(raleigh XXIX) I recently changed my 20 tooth cog to a 18 tooth cog. With a 32 tooth chainring up front to a 2:1 ration, since I'm familiar and still think in the 26" world that is equivalent to a 32:16! ouch! I never run that stout of a gear before. And man, let me tell you, riding that shite at Skeggs is tuff. Especially when the ride looks like this(up, down, up down...)...

(oh yea, I got a new cyclocomputer thingy...it's called the Garmin Forerunner 305..purty sweet!)

The rest of my time has been spent riding on the road and racing on the road. No spectacular results yet, but I'm taking my time building my fitness this year. The road season is long (Feb-Sept) and mountain biking season is thrown in the middle. This weekend I'm doing the Ronde van Brisbeen: crit saturday, circuit race sunday and the bonus will be "goldsprints" on Saturday nite.

Matt Peterson - 1977 - 2008

2008-03-11T15:52:00.001-07:00

We miss you buddy!

But we will be strong and we will RIDE ON!

For information about Memorial Services and Rides please click here --> Link

ridin' to work is cool!

2008-01-30T15:33:00.001-08:00

I've been digging the commute to work....it's about 2hrs and 45 minutes, 50 miles and pretty cool. I go through golden gate park while it's still dark. It's cool to see so many people out and running in the park even at that early hour.

I make my way over to the great highway and turn left. Roll that till I hit the sketchy Skyline junction...you have to cut across one lane of freeway traffic to get to skyline, then cut across two more to stay on skyline! As long as you take your time there is usually a break in the traffic.

Any who, here's an example of the spectacular morning views....

So a 3 hr ride or 50 miles isn't really a big deal on the weekend, but during the weekday it seems like a big deal. Not sure why really, maybe just because I'm expected in the office and I actually have to be productive the rest of the day. In any case, the other day I had the feeling that riding into work wasn't as epic as it used to seem. I guess that's a good thing?!

29 inches of rigid steel love

2008-01-14T13:06:00.000-08:00

So i've deliberated over getting a 29er for quite sometime now. Any how, with the loss of my 700c cross steed I felt a void in my life...that the other 5 bikes in my stable could not fill ;-( Anywho, I'd been trolling CL for cheap old road bikes(for my "City" bike fixed gear conversion) and cheap 29ers.

I did a scan last monday, got a hit on a 29er and by the end of the day I'd setup a date to check it out. Weds I rolled into Saratoga, test rode it, sized it up and said "aight I'll take it!" And that's how the love affair began.

Needless to say I was anxious to get it out on a ride. That day would be sunday. After quite a few drinks and stuff the night before, making the 9am ride time was a chore, to say the least, but with a bit of espresso and some toast I was ready to roll.

The plan was to ride from my house, across the bridge and into the Headlands. I'd done a loop out there before but was not entirely familiar with leading the ride alone. Fortuitously, Darren and I ran into OMD(mouse team mate) on the bridge. He knew a loop and so we followed.

I don't remembered exactly what we climbed but it was labor intensive. I found that turning the pedals was easy on the 29er, but my cardio was definitely feeling more taxed than when I ride my 26" singlespeed? I've got a 32/20 on the 29er and a 32/17 on the 26er. I'll have to crunch out some numbers to see if that makes sense. I tried thinking about it on the way back, but after 4 hrs of rigid single speed love I was too fatigued to think clearly about it.

As we rode back home we passed by Velo Rouge cafe on Arguello and decided that would be a perfect place to stop for a post ride meal and beer. They have awesome panini's with salad and they have Chimay! We sat outside, the sun was shinning and it was alllll good! What a way to finish a killer ride!

Aside from a very strict diet ....

2008-01-07T16:20:00.000-08:00

of over eating and binge drinking I discovered XC and skate skiing. Holy Crap what a frick'n technical workout. Skate skiing is especially technique driven. A few times I cursed aloud and stomped on the ground in frustration at getting the V1 skating technique down. My inner quads, hip flexors, back and calves were crazy sore!

Given that skate skiing was such a workout I can't wait to incorporate it into my winter training regimine. Hopefully it will help me to come back bigger and stronger for next year cycling season!

Other news is that I got into the SSWC08 race! Woohoo! So I guess that means I have to fix the rear wheel on my SS. I was doing a nite ride a few months ago and a small fricken tree got wedged into my rear wheels. Fortunately for me my reflexes were quick enough to stop before I broke any spokes, but still the wheel wobbles back and forth enough not to be rideable. However! I'm also considering getting myself a 29er!
I've been debating it for a while now and think I may just pull the trigger in time for the SSWC festival.

Hope everybody had a good holiday!

CCCX#5 - Fort Ord - overcoming your fears

2007-12-03T12:46:00.000-08:00

CCCX#5
12/02/07
Fort Ord
Elite Men - 16/22

I got back to training a bit more regulary. Unfortunately I don't know how regular since my Polar S720i pooped out on me. I usually ride, turn on the watch and download the data to my computer. It's purty cool 'cause the Polar software shows a cummulative bar plot of the time spent on the bike each week.

In anycase I feel better. There was a huge sand section, probably about 100ft long. Sand scares the crap out of me. I had the tuffest time in the GGP sand section. Not sure why, I used to be good at it. In anycase, I would be damned if I was going to fear this section each and every lap!

I kitted up and practiced it like 20 times. I ride up the paved section, down the sand and back up. Surpisingly it really made a difference. I tried different lines just to see what the bike would do and also tried pushing big gears with power vs easy gears with high cadence. High cadence is the winner for sure. People caught onto my little training session cause they started heckling me ;-) Good times.

I had a good race. I battled it out with Tim Cannard(singlespeeder) and managed to keep him in back of me. I also caught my buddy Nick(Ritchey), who is recovering from a knee injury, and kept him in back of me. I really busted my ass on the road sections to open up a gap, because I knew I sucked in the singletrack and they would catch me. While they did make up time on me in the dirt track, I was pushing my cornering abilties to the limit. Which made me happy cause I really suck at cornerning. All of this was not without mishaps ;-) I went into the bushes a couple times!

Due to such crazy efforts on the pave and dirt I also held off my teammate Grant and long time rival Jay. And poor Jeff Patton, he's always ahead of me and for some reason I always catch him at the end. This time he had a good excuse, he exploded his rear wheel like a firecracker. Good job man, you've proven to be a very much improved and worthy adversary this year! Bring it on!

Good times. My team mates JohnnyK and Matt T pulled of 6th place and 3rd place finishes.

Good times!

Ouch! I finally depleted my fitness or GGP 07

2007-11-27T14:05:00.000-08:00

Cycling is so chaotic, in so many ways. You train like a madman, and you feel great and you do great for a while. Then you hit a slump and you refuse to believe you are over-trained so you train harder. Which leads to a dowardspiral of sucking. Then you are forced to take a vacation and you don't do shit for a whole week, well nothing bike related. You sooth your soul with good food and booze. Then you come back and you have an incredible race.

Now a different but equally chaotic pattern develops...no enough time to train and to much recovery. You think to yourself, "my legs will surely atrophy," but you have another good race and then you trick yourself into thinking maybe I don't need to train as much as I thought.

So another week goes by and now you are stuffing yourself with turkey, pie, beer and really anything you can get your hands on. You haven't done any exercise and quite honestly it feels purty good ;-) But your wasteline is expanding and so part of you can't wait to get back on the bike. Although throwing training to the wind and staying up late watching a movie, then TV, all the while driniking beers is hard to contend with ;-)

To add insult to injury, you come home from the Turkey day holidays and your bike is half way disassembled. You tried to start the shimano to SRAM conversion a few weeks ago, but work and the holidays got in the way. So now you are motivated at 12am, your going the distance and not really for speed, but you'll be damned if you don't get the bike together in your time of need.

You finish it and things are good, new bar tape, new shifters, new brake cable stradles to make the braking better, purty much a recipe for disaster ;-) 730am comes around way to early ;-( I grumble, roll over and then pop out of bed. If I can get some coffee going and Meredith out the door in time for her race I'll count that as my first small success for the day. And she's off.

Next up, retreiving mom's car from wherever the hell I parked it 5 days ago. OK, OK tryptophan haze wearing off, oh yes, now I remember where it is.... It was nice to sit and chat with mom, over coffee and toast, before heading off to the race. As I'm getting ready to roll I get a text for help from my team mate Megan, she's lile "we've got not feeders!" I text back, I'm on my way and the world felt like a better place because I felt like a contributing team member.

Speaking of heading off to the race...it was really cool to ride there from home. Last year I was making the trek across from the east bay, but now i'm a City mouse and it felt really cool to be able to ride to the local venue ;-) God I love the Citay!

So I roll into GGP in time to see the women's C race coming around for their 2nd, maybe 3rd lap. I relieve JK of his feeding duties and take over feeding the A40 ladies: Courtney, Megan and MO. MO and Meg aren't looking to excited about racing, but they knew that going in and had a good time anyway. Courtney, I could see struggling, but I could also see the eye of the tiger behind the pain. She went on to finish 3rd with a decent gap on the points leader, Dana, but behind Marrisa, second in the point series.

So to my race. Let's just say that missing the start was just the beginning of the disaster for me that day. Jeremy is telling Lander and I that our race is about to start, being that we're all a bunch of jokers I can't tell if he's messing with us or not. We're like no, he's like ya "go take a look". Sure enough the entire field is lined up about 100yds away. I frantically throw helmet and gloves on while one of my teammates released my bike from the trainer. I begin to run towards the start area, but a large mass of men is charging my directions. I slip behind the passage way near the start finish and wait for the field to go by and the tuck in behind. Holy crap my HR is pegged now.

We go into the first turn off the pavement and into the sandpits and we're bunched up in no time. I quickly dismount and scramble around a few peeps. And the rest as they say is history or rather I was history. Chased the whole time, hurt a lot, enjoyed beers afterwards. Thanks to Murphy for the Speakeasy Prohibition Ale and Big Daddy IPA

My pain profile or "the way to succeed and the way to suck eggs"

CCCX4 - Manzanita Park or how not training sometimes helps recovery!

2007-11-16T10:38:00.000-08:00

CCCX#4- Manzanita Park, Prunedale
11/11/2007
CAT A MEN
Score 31/36

After not riding much all week I was a bit worried about the race. I
was also worried cause I didn't have time all week to fix my broken
shifter. I thought saturday would be enough time to swap out the
shimano groupo for the sram groupo. Alas, I didn't have all the parts
nor the motivation. So I called up Geoff and said " hey buddy old pal,
old friend for life. Can I borrow your bike tomorrow ;-)" Although I
was a bit mentally and physically unprepared I still had a good race
minus a mechanical.

After Geoff's race he noticed that his saddle has slipped a bit. I
yanked on the saddle a bit and it seemed fine....alas it was not.
Unforunately I wouldn't find this out until about 3 laps to go. So im
JRD(just riding along) and just as I make my way down the u-turn bumpy
descent I heard a crack and suddenly feel saddle slide....oh crap. I
knew exactly what happened. Just as I was getting to the descending
sections the saddle decided to stand straight up, ready to sodomize me
should I make a wrong move. At any other time this might have even
been erotic, but not during a race ;-)

Anywho, I start losing spots. Up to that point, Grant and I had been
battling it out, swapping place. We were gaining ground on Lander and
Jay, who both got a call up. Bummer, Grant was making me push myself
to my very limits. I haven't breathed so hard all year. In anycase,
the remounts sucked cause I couldn't jump back on the bike due to the
lack of saddle. After the double barriers I near\start finish, I'm
cursing as I carefully remount. Then as I make the u-turn to come back
down the bumpy dirty section, clank, clank, and there goes Geoff's
saddle. Fortunately I'd already yelled out that I need a bike change
as I came up the run-up. Dave was waiting at the dirt\pavement
junction with his steed. Dave you rock. Team you all rock...the words
of encouragement, the feeds...it's awesome to have team support during
the race. Thank you!

I grab Dave's Campy powered steed and hammer in hopes of catching back
on to Grant. But there's no way. With the time lost on the bike due to
the saddle and the change I lost at least 40seconds. I decide to just
give it all I got till the end. With two to go I hear somebody coming
up on me after the double barriers, so I spin up to not let them pass.
Turns out it O'dell(or whoever the leader was) and somebody yells out
" Yea, way to outsprint the leader." Any how, being mentally
incapacitated due to lack of oxygen I decide to take a feed on the
paved section instead of sprinting to stay ahead of the leader, so as
not to get lapped...duuuh! In anycase, I come thru after the leader,
Rod says " your done." But I was so pissed at myself for not staying
ahead of the leader that I forced myself to do one more lap at race
pace. The cool thing is that nobody else came by me...which means
although I got lapped at the end the second place guys was way back!
And had I not had a mechanical I wouldn't have gotten lapped...which
was my orignal goal!

CCCX numero quatro....hmmm, this lack of training thing seems to be working for me ;-)

2007-11-12T11:23:00.000-08:00

CCCX#4
Manzanita park
Elite Men

The timbukt2 party was fun, but no real craziness. I think mostly cause the kegs ran out to early. Murphy said "if I would known the would run out of beer I would brought a keg!" He's the guy that's been bringing the Speakeasy kegs to the Pilarcitos races!

The gold sprints were super cool....that was the most intensity I got all week...seriously...this week me and my bicycle were strangers as I played host and hostage to my japanese customers ;-) So many possiblities! I talked to Murphy about intra-competitions and inter-team competions(A40 vs Roaring Mouse, etc).

Timbuk2 office is a super cool space.

Race-

After not riding much all week I was a bit worried about the race. I was also worried cause I didn't have time all week to fix my broken shifter. I thought saturday would be enough time to swap out the shimano groupo for the sram groupo. Alas, I didn't have all the parts nor the motivation. So I called up Geoff and said " hey buddy old pal, old friend for life. Can I borrow your bike tomorrow ;-)" Although I was a bit mentally and physically unprepared I still had a good race minus a mechanical.

After Geoff's race he noticed that his saddle has slipped a bit. I yanked on the saddle a bit and it seemed fine....alas it was not. Unforunately I wouldn't find this out until about 3 laps to go. So im JRD(just riding along) and just as I make my way down the u-turn bumpy descent I heard a crack and suddenly feel saddle slide....oh crap. I knew exactly what happened. Just as I was getting to the descending sections the saddle decided to stand straight up, ready to sodomize me should I make a wrong move. At any other time this might have even been erotic, but not during a race ;-)

Anywho, I start losing spots. Up to that point, Grant and I had been battling it out, swapping place. We were gaining ground on Lander and Jay, who both got a call up. Bummer, Grant was making me push myself to my very limits. I haven't breathed so hard all year. In anycase, the remounts sucked cause I couldn't jump back on the bike due to the lack of saddle. After the double barriers I near\start finish, I'm cursing as I carefully remount. Then as I make the u-turn to come back down the bumpy dirty section, clank, clank, and there goes Geoff's saddle. Fortunately I'd already yelled out that I need a bike change as I came up the run-up. Dave was waiting at the dirt\pavement junction with his steed. Dave you rock. Team you all rock...the words of encouragement, the feeds...it's awesome to have team support during the race. Thank you!

I grab Dave's Campy powered steed and hammer in hopes of catching back on to Grant. But there's no way. With the time lost on the bike due to the saddle and the change I lost at least 40seconds. I decide to just give it all I got till the end. With two to go I hear somebody coming up on me after the double barriers, so I spin up to not let them pass. Turns out it O'dell(or whoever the leader was) and somebody yells out " Yea, way to outsprint the leader." Any how, being mentally incapacitated due to lack of oxygen I decide to take a feed on the paved section instead of sprinting to stay ahead of the leader, so as not to get lapped...duuuh! In anycase, I come thru after the leader, Rod says " your done." But I was so pissed at myself for not staying ahead of the leader that I forced myself to do one more lap at race pace. The cool thing is that nobody else came by me...which means although I got lapped at the end the second place guys was way back! And had I not had a mechanical I wouldn't have gotten lapped...which was my orignal goal!

Okay, so this was just to be a one paragraph updated, but I got so frick'n excited recalling the race that I couldn't help myself ;-)

Cheers
Isaias

Daymn! I'm sore...or Pilarcitos #3

2007-11-05T11:45:00.001-08:00

Pilarcitos#3
McClaren park
11/4/2007
CAT A men -24/34

http://www.pilarcitos.com/results/CrossResults/2007/McLaren.html
It was a gorgeous day for racing! We rolled up at about 8am and it was warm enough to walk around in a t-shirt! Dave had dropped off the team tent the day before, so I rolled up and finished popping up the tent. MO got reg'd and I finished up my coffee and chatted up the roaring mouse folks in the tent next to us.

As Dave said, this is no really a 'cross race in the traditional euro style, but more of what's been labeled "NorCal" 'cross. In other words, it's very technical and more like a mountain bike race. One of our friends, Erik the German guy, was there and raced his carbon hardtail and did really well. He said it was easy to pass people as he maintained traction due to having front suspension. And man oh man was this course bumpy! However I disagree with Dave's sentiments about it being over and done with. I love this type of course, but yes it's a mtb course not a traditional 'cross course ;-)

Personally I had a fantastic race despite being stuck in my larger chaining for this first 5 laps! Thanks to Geoff for finally convincing me to take his bike. I was so anaerobic that I couldn't comprehend that he was giving me his geared bike and not his singlespeed. At one point I yelled I need gears and he was like "it's got gears damn it!" So as I rolled up to the bike pit before the double barriers leading into the run up, I ditched my bike, ala ghost riding it, and grabbed Geoff's bike, shoulder it and went bounding up the run-up. Sweet hand off thanks! An aside...man oh man, Geoff's bike handled like a dream with the Flexus tubulars, SRAM shifters and Paul brakes! I'm in need of upgrading my bike!

So by now I'm like sweet, I'll stop losing times on the hills because I can spin now. Doooh! I've never used SRAM and I can't shift into an easy gear. At this point I'm yelling at people, "Hey how do you use SRAM double tap shifter?" Nobody new. Finally Meredith, who was feeding me out on the course, took my question and did some reconnaissance and found out. On the next lap she rode along side me and explained to me how to use it! Not only do I have a hot, cycling girlfriend, but she's also a great team mate!

That's not the end of Meredith's support. Before the race I'd decide to carry a GU with me, so that I wouldn't fade near the end. Well, with such a bumpy course the little GU packet shook its way right out of my pants ;-) So I was like crap I need a GU. I yelled out to Meredith, “I need a GU." I missed our first handoff and said meet me on the other side of the course. Sure enough, when I got to the paved climb, before the descent to the other long paved section, there she was! I grabbed the GU, grabbed the water bottle and swallowed it all. Yuck, Cliff Shots are too thick for racing! All the while MO is yelling at me..."Nick is only 10 seconds up on you." I focused and applied more power to the pedals.

It's crazy, I felt so good for this race. My legs felt great and my cardio wasn't too bad either. I worked really hard and was actually hanging with the leader for the first lap. Some of the fast guys like Jason Rawles and other fast dudes didn't catch me till the second lap! I would attack all the flat and I had power. I would attack the hills, mostly because I had too for most of the race since I was stuck in the big ring! Maybe being stuck in the big ring made me push hard an have a better race? In any case, every lap I kept getting smoother and smoother thru the technical sections. My legs started to feel like they might cramp, but they never did.

In the end I put in a hard sprint finish and while aerobically I felt like throwing up, I could have done a few more laps because my legs didn't feel that bad!

I felt like I’ve recovered and am making a come back! I had a blast with the team. Watching the women’s race unfold was so exciting. It was especially cool to see both Megan and Courtney shooting up the run-up just ahead of the one-two combo of mouse girls, Dana and Marissa, followed by hot little green Jersey of Meredith about 5-6 back. Meredith had a tough race ahead of her because she had totally roadie gearing, as in 39 front ring, 26 biggest rear cog! She could’ve used a nice 34 or 36 in the front. Fortunately, no other races have this much climbing! Congrats to Courtney for a decisive victory!

Gary went off next and didn’t seem to be suffering to bad, or at least he didn’t show it. Unfortunately Gary had to bounce off to work and missed out on the festivities and Sausage roast. We also missed Gary’s delicious food ;-(

Next up was Glen, JK, and Geoff in the 35+ A cat. JK and Geoff to be having a great race, but Glen seemed to be suffering a bit. Sorry we didn’t get a chance to catch of before you bounced. You missed out on some tasty sausages.

Next up was Lander and myself in the A’s. You already know how my race unfolded and I’ll let Lander tell you his side of the story.

Then our biggest field, men’s open Bs: Matt T, Dave, Ty, Nick, and Anthony. The race started of by a spectacular lead out by Anthony. Seriously he opened his gap to like 10 seconds on the field. Just a few seconds off was the rest of the A40 crew! There are some cool starting shots that I’ll post later. A bunch green in the front line! Anthony was having an awesome race, maintaining a sizeable gap on the field. Ty was next followed by Nick and Dave. By about the 3rd lap or so all of a sudden Ty was gone. Fortunately, Geoff and I had already talked about heading out on the course in support of the team.

As soon as Ty didn’t come around I was like oh know, I bolted up hill so see how I could help. Sure enough Ty had snapped his carbon seat post in two Geoff got him his bike and was swapped my seatpost\saddle on to Ty’s bike. But it was not Ty’s day. According to him “mercury is retrograde,” whatever the hell that means. Ty you are such a hippy ;-) In anycase, a flat took Ty out the next lap and he was done for the day. I guess mercury affected Anthony too, because he flatted twice and lost his impressive lead!

In the end we had our German friend Erik in 3rd place, our other mountain bike friend, Jeremy, in 5th and then the green: Matt T, Nick S., Anthony battling back to 16hth, and then Dave, with poor Ty dnf, due to “mercury in retrograde.”

Was also cool to see some of my roadie team mates from the Mouse throwing down on the dirt. Dave Parrish, Ammon Skidmoore and Darren Leva!

The party afterwards was a blast. German Sausages, kraut and spicy mustard. Murphy Mack had the Speakeasy Prohibition Ale flowing. An then for some after racing entertainment, Timmy and I had a little wrestling match. I’m not sure what happened, but I turned around and Timmy is putting Geoff in a crazy wrestling move called the “honey mooner.” Knowing Geoff wasn’t a wrestler and wanting to defend our team honor I challenged Timmy to a duel. I took him down, put him in the “honey mooner” and said how you like A40 know beeeeatch! Not to be defeated so easily, Timmy and I went another few rounds on the hard grass. I’m so sore today and honestly not sure if I’m sore from the race or wrestling. I do know that all the bruises and scrapes are from wrestling as I didn’t go down during the race. Pure comedy!

Good time once again! A40 rocks! Pictures to be posted shortely.

Thanks for Reading…Isaias

Getting ready to rock the first Pilarcitos race....

2007-10-01T16:53:00.000-07:00

I'm feeling refreshed from a 7 day cruise to the Western Caribbean. Prior to leaving for the cruise I'd managed to lean down to 150lbs. My goal was not to gain back those 5lbs! Boy was it hard...who here has ever been on a cruise?

Food, food, and more food 24-7! No joke. Fortunately I'm a foodie snob, so while there was a lot of food is was only decent to good so I didn't overeat much. However, I am a lush and probably drank my daily calories between beer and tropical drinks while sunning by the pool.

We managed to hit the gym about 4 times...ok really probably like 3 times. However I did run for like 40 minutes, on the beach to boot, when we first got to florida. I figured what better time to start running than on the cruise. I think people got a kick out of watching me max out the incline on the treadmill and then proceed to sprint ;-) I figured my run-ups suck so I had to practice them some how! Did I mention how much I hate the stupid gym bikes? They actually had spin class bikes, but they wouldn't let us use them unless there was a class and there was only 3 stupid classes the whole trip...lame!

I managed to get in about 1.5 months of 10+ hour weeks in prior to the cruise, both long and short intensity rides. I was feeling a bit burned out by the end of this big jump in volume, but new the cruise was coming and that I wouldn't have the time(or desire) to really go to the gym everyday. So I really lived it up and now I feel mentally and physically recovered.

This week I'll return to the bike and a bit of running, maybe throw in a bit of mountain biking. Then saturday we embarch on the BORP 100 mile fundraiser. So we'll see how my first cx race of the season goes at the Pilarcitos season opener at Brisbane! Regardless of the expectations or results, I'm excited to kick off the season!

nice dresses

2007-09-13T16:35:00.001-07:00

nice dresses
Originally uploaded by Bici Girl photos

A40 dressed to tha 9's!

IMG_7583.JPG

2007-09-13T12:31:00.001-07:00

IMG_7583.JPG
Originally uploaded by scottypaz

DFL 2...cool sunset in the background...what stark contrast beauty and pain!

Flickr

2007-09-13T12:30:00.001-07:00

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

god damn that hurt......

2007-09-06T11:44:00.000-07:00

DFL numero uno....

I woke up at 6am worried. I thought to myself, will I look fat in the outfit I picked out?, will the thong ride up too far --i've never raced with a thong before, will the boys stay inside the short shorts?

I've realized the best way to get my legs ready for a hard effort is to put in a hard effort the day before. So I decided to meet up with my teammate Ty and ride up to his pad in La Honda. So a nice little climb up Kings mountain and back home was the perfect way to open up my legs.

Partial Altezza40 Team Photo

I think it worked. My legs were tired coming into the DFL "ride", but the commute to the "ride" was good enough to warm up the legs for the pain I was about to inflict upon them. I've been doing the GGP cx rides and re familiarizing myself with the pain that only 'cross can inflict. We usually do 3 hot laps, followed by about a 5min. break, then another 3 hot laps. According to my watch it takes 15 min for 3 laps. My legs feel good under these conditions.

Enter DFL Numero uno....Dylan ran us for 50 minute, actually about 56 according to my trusty Polar watch. I entered new pain caves yesterday. The lack of recovery time really frick'n hurt. However, I was able to find new ways to recover like spinning high cadence in a few sections and focusing on relaxing. Only a couple people caught and passed me. For the most part I kept catching folks. Never really saw the leaders, but I know I wasn't too far back. We all know the chaos of a DFL starts ;-0 If you're not positioned well you'll loose sight of the leader in a millisecond....which I did.

I had fun battling it out with Gabe and then with my teammate Grant. We would go back and for passing one another. I pulled a little DFL trick and took and inside line, cut Grant off and hit the run-up before him ;-) Hey all is fair in love and racing right? Knowing Grant was just in back of me kept me pushing a high pace. What a frick'n awesome workout.

Gotta hand it to the DFL guys, the put together a wicked course. Love the new singletracks! Total I counted 6 logs, one was ride-able(right before the small hill), the other one I tried(near the end of the lap with the sand pit in front of it) and almost bailed so I started shouldering the bike for that one. The sketchiest turns was the one into the double log barrier. It was sandy, dusty and loose. I finally figured out I had to reduce enough speed just to roll into the sand and then dismount quickly to jump over the logs.

Also like the new run-up\ride-up after the small paved section after the double logs. The dirt was so soft, but if you kept churning a gear you could make it through it, but if you lost just a bit of momentum it was faster to run it and then remount before the short descent. I bombed that thing so many times not even clipped in....dang I got install those crank bros shoe shields!

Anyhow with about 3 laps to go I thought we were done. It was very surreal. It felt like there was a sudden quietness, but I hadn't heard anything about last lap so I soldiered on. Took a beer feed from Nick and upped the pace again. Finally coming back around the start finish I heard something about 2 more laps. I was feeling surprisingly recovered so floored it to keep anybody from catching me .

HR ave\max 179\188 (disregard the first 30 mins of plot that was commute to park)

It was good fun to see all the familiar 'cross faces, plus a lot of new ones! It's crazy how many people were out. I would estimate at least 100 "riders" and then 30 spectators. I got lot's of compliments about my short shorts. I hope to round up some pictures.

Doesn't do the costume justice, but it's a mean racing photo...thanks bicigirl.

More pics

Things to work on: I need to start running. The run-ups were killing me. I took them slow and steady, made sure to breath rhythmically and take steady steps, but I had no explosive power. Also need to work on remounts. A couple time I swear to god I almost pinch flatted from flopping my ass down on the saddle. In the final run-up to the finish I managed to squash the tip of my pee-pee. It hurt so much I couldn't even think. I grabbed and icecold Coke from the cooler and stuck it down my pants...ahhh! Who knew Coke had some many uses ;-)

Till the next time...peace out!

The legs are feeling tired...but suprisngly good

2007-09-05T14:11:00.001-07:00

So I showed up at the GGP cx ride last weds tired and feeling like I was going to be decimated by the fast guys. Instead, I was killing it. Go figure. The day that i'm under slept and fatigued from intervals the nite before, I'm on fire. I'm not sure I understand this phenomena. Any theories, explanations, hypothesis? I'm open to discuss? Please?

Anyhow, Funkster wasn't there, but Cameron, Nick , Cesar, David (Orange Jersey East bay velo guy - as ive been referring to him) and a few others who I don't really know. The point being is that I was chasing these guys all of last year and now I was keeping up with them, if not passing them.

The legs feel good, not sure why exactly. Been putting in a decent volume of riding. At least 10 hrs per week. A mix of riding, mountain, cross and road. Sometime I commute in and out of work(1hr each way). Sometimes it's a 1.5 - 2hr mountain ride, sometimes a 5hrs mountain ride. Then of course there's super intense cross practice for under an 1hr. I've also had some time to recover from the road season, which I feel I burned out in around April.

I think probably the most important thing I've done is back to back long rides. There just seems to be nothing like long rides to build fitness.

OK, OK i'm no artist or photoshop wiz either, that's supposed to represent legs on fire ;-)

Hopefully this fitness carries over to the Giro di SF this weekend!

'cross season begins.....

2007-08-24T14:43:00.000-07:00

About a 2 month agos I had the realization that 'cross season was closer than I thought. I hadn't even touched my 'cross bike much since last season. I decided a good starting point would be to ride my 'cross bike as much as possible. So I started commuting to work with it--so much so that the little knobbies are almost entirely worn off.

Next I decided, I should actually go out and start riding on the dirt. Leonard had some crazy urban\'cross loop he did in the Citay so I hit him about shown it to me. Man it was crazy. I was all over the frick'n place. The geometry felt so different from my road and mountain bikes.

So now I'd been riding my 'cross bike around, but hadn't done any really 'cross training. I figured it would be a good idea to re-build my endurance(base) after tearing my muscles down with a full road season and a few mtb races.

Last year Lauren Constantini invited my to come out to do a 5+ hr 'cross ride, with other fellow 'cross enthusiasts. The ride started at the GG bridge and took us into and through the Headlands, we hit trails like middle green gulch trail, coyote ridge trail, coastal trail ...in anycase, this ride has become known as the Elmo ride.

Any who, long rides on the 'cross bike were in order so contacted Brian Rodgers who I knew would be familiar with the route. We finally connected one weekend and did the epic ride, which as it turns out, would really be the kick-off for my training. Con incidentally, it was also Meredith's first time on her 'cross bike for that many hours and on those kind of trails. She was a trooper and stayed strong throughout the ride. She also became familiar with the arm\hand numbing, triceps aching descents with a rigid fork. I think she's already realized how fun 'cross season will be ;-)

About 4500 ft of climbing and 5hrs later we were done with the ride and back in my hood. We both salivating at the thought of real food and decided to ride straight to Rosamunde's Sausage Grill about a block from my house. We rolled up ordered some Brat's and German potato salad. Suddenly our days effort was re-payed and it was good ;-)

The next day I did another 3hr's on the road from SF to Santa Clara to meet up with Meredith and a bunch of friends for a BBQ! With to big days in my legs I felt really motivated to train for 'cross. Monday was a commute in and out of work for a total of another 3hrs. Tuesday I took the day off to rest my legs for a thrashing at Funke's GGP cx ride.

We'll it's a good thing I rested my legs 'cause there's nothing like going anaerobic for a few laps to make you realize that nothing but 'cross racing get your ready for 'cross! Showed up and saw lots of familiar faces. We did a warm up lap, a couple recon. laps and then did 3 hot laps. Holy crap! I seriously feel like I haven't had my heart rate pegged like that for a long time. The little bits of running really peaked my HR. However, I was able to recover and stay close to Funke, Nick and a couple other fast 'cross dudes. We took a break and did another 3 hot laps. Again it was utter pain, but at the same time bliss. My legs held up, I was able to go hard and some how recover, and maintain position at the front of the pack.

I know it's still early in the season, but it felt good to go hard and be able to keep up with some of the faster guys out there. I'll continue getting in some large volume training rides and then start tapering into shorter more intense rides as we head into peak season in October.

So I got a couple more road races: Giro Di SF and possibly challenge. I'm planning to keep up the mountain biking to keep the technical skills sharp. Will probably switch to riding the SS mostly. Then enter October and we will be fully immersed in 'cross! Can't Wait!

My foray back into mountain biking

2007-08-13T12:55:00.000-07:00

Team,

As most of you know I've dedicated myself to the road this year forgoing many mountain bike races and rides, surely angering the mountain biking gods. The anger of the gods probably explains why I've had some miserable road races...yea, that's it ;-)

Any who, 'cross season is on the horizon, so these days I've been more focused on 'cross training. However, racing Downieville left me with an appetite for mountain biking. So I go my butt back in gear and hit up the Weds nite Skeggs ride. Since my dualie was down in the nether regions of the Southbay I had no functioning mtb. So I figured it was time to rebuild the singlespeed. I reasoned that it would also be good training for 'cross ;-)

At the time HMC was still a couple weeks out and I was about 90-95% sure I wanted to race. After riding my singlespeed last Weds nite the deal was sealed, I was racing HMC for sure. I felt good and had such a blast riding my ss that I decided, against my own better judgement, to race the ss.

I've not raced HMC in 3 years. Gosh, what a mistake. The course is awesome. Great buff single track, albeit a bit dusty in sections (but com'on it's august), a couple climbing sections (or walking sections on a ss), and the super fun\sketchy whoopty-doos (god I never now how the hell to spell that). The temps were warm and on the 3rd lap I was feeling a bit under-watered as I only raced with two water bottles.

Any who, as this is only my 3rd mtb race of the season the butterflies start rolling around in my stomach as we line up for the start. I take a couple deep breaths and remind myself that this is just for fun. I positioned myself in the front row of our start wave. The sport ss and expert ss groups were started together.

And they're off!! I have some trouble clipping in, but keep pedaling. I see my buddy Nick(Fusion) leading the group with about 3 others in tow. I fell back to about 8th, but as we neared the top of the pavement-dirt junction I made up a few spots as people tired out. I'm breathing pretty hard as we hit the singletrack. I keep my spin going as we cross the field before the hike a bike. As we start climbing the fireroad I force myself to push harder and catch some people before the hike a bike. I catch Paule(Roaring Mouse) and we both grunt and move on and catch a couple more guys.

I dismount at the foot of the hike a bike and run, rather jog, past one guy as I trudge up the hill with my bike. I can see a pack of 4 guys in the distance. I get my spin on and keep them in sight. I'm 4th or 5th by now and am trying to make sure I spin enough to keep Allan and the rest of the sports class SSers of my tail.

We hit the airport and I 'm spinning like a motherf*cker to make up some time. I find and pass Julie(RM) before the 1st descent and just as she starts turning down a fireroad, which is the wrong way. I yell, Julie no that's the wrong way....foreshadowing of my own future I suppose ;-)

Any who, my HR is frick'n near maxed out so I focused on spinning fast but being smooth. We hit the first singletrack and I start catching the women. I see a SSer making his way thru the womens field and now I'm super motivated to catch him. I'm spinning like a mad man and politely but quickly making my way through the women's field. Eventually catching some of the experts.

As I make my way thru the rock garden section(creek bed) I can see an SSer up the road. I floor it and see him crest the top of another small climb. Eventually I catch up to him and just kinda sit on his wheel waiting to see what he's got in the tank while at the same time recovering a bit. Finally, on the fireroad grind before the descent to the whoopty-doos I decided to pass him so I can be first in the singletrack. This was a good move as I almost never saw him again.

The rest of the race was pretty much spent by myself. At some point I started catching some more sport and expert folks. This one time I came up on a geared guy and I said hey can't I get by you I don't have any gears and he says to me....you have one gear. I fricken LOL and he lets me buy. I catch another gearie and ride his wheel for a while. Then I realize I was settling in and the fear of being caught by the women creeped into my mind. So I asked the guy if I could get around him on the descent and that I'd let him back in front on the climb. He totally let me buy and then I never saw him again!

I guess we're in the 3rd lap somewhere and I'm wondering if the other singlespeeders are walking as much of the climb as I am when I spot my buddy Nick walking! Hah! I guess I'm not the only one fighting cramps I thought. I finally catch up to him on a singletrack and we start motoring. Just then we come up on Meredith and I'm like hey watch out cutie were going to sandwhich you! To which see responds I like the sound of that !! Gotta give it to my gurl, even when she's hurt' she's still got a sense of humor or is that a sense of fantasy...hmmm.

Anyway, I'm intent on getting around Nick and sure enough we hit probably about the steepest climb in the race and he says go ahead I'm cramping. So I hop off my bike and hobble up the hill ahead of him as I'm fighting cramps as well. On one of the hills I was so gassed pushing my bike up the hill that I just put my head down and pushed my bike without looking. I got all swervy and went into the leaves and Nick is frick'n heckling me....hey are drunk or something. Man, with that much lactic acid in my legs and that little oxygen there's no doubt I was drunk on pain!

I hop back on my bike, try to pedal, I can't I hop back off and push, then back on pedal, pedal. I can hear Nick in back of me, but he's not gaining ground. I hit the whoopty doos one last time. No sign of Nick....dooh....until the last one. I and I can hear him say something. As we starting descending to the last flat section before the turn off to the finish my right hamstring is about to cramp and lock out....so I wave Nick on. I try and hop on his wheel, but it's hard to keep up with him on a 29er.

I grab one last cup of water and continue to trudge toward the junction where you turn to either do one lap or multiple laps. Well, in all of my fatigue I choose to make a right and I'm trucking down the road and I'm like....wait where the hell is Nick? He couldn't have gotten that far in front of me? Then I remember, well if the beginners do one lap, then that's probably the direction of the finish....doooooh! I 'm going the wrong god damn way! I was almost at the point of entering the trees again! I must have lost a good 4-5 minutes out and back.!

At this point I'm cursing my own stupidity and frantically spinning like a mofo to make my way back before any ssers make ground on me. Just as I reach the junction I see Pat and I exclaim oh shit and spin faster than I've ever spun on my SS. I'll be damned if I'm going to let him pass me at this point. Well, I successfully intimidated him with my crazy spinning that he didn't even bother chasing.

I hit the airport, the final hike a bike( in the down direction this time) and hit the fireroad spinning like a bat out of hell. I hit the final stretch of open field into the final singletrack. I poop out sprint across the grass and quicly hit the track. I spin up my gear as fast as I can and sprint into the finish. Whew! I'm done and my legs and lungs are searing!

Congrats to my buddy Nick! He edged me off the podium and took 3rd. I got 4th outta 6 and none of the sport class single speeders ever caught me, so all in all I wasn't too disappointed with my finish. Definitely way better than I expected.

Good fun! Allan "le sandbagger" took first in the sport SS class by like 3 minutes. Meredith took 3rd in sport women. Tim took 1st in sport and Julie took 2nd in expert. We saw Mike Urbina at the start of the race, but never caught up with him afterwards. Was good to see everybody: Eryn!, Mike U, Allan, Tim "le sandbagger duo", Julie, Paule, John G, Dave Watt, Teisha and a few other familiar faces.

Can't wait for 'cross season and this was good training! Looking forward to more battles with my buddy Nick! Anybody get pictures?

Downieville Classic 07...cramps gallore!

2007-07-16T16:34:00.000-07:00

Team,

Oh boy, I'm so sore today. Everytime I stand-up from my chair I get shooting pains thru my outer hamstrings. Not really sure if it's muscular or tendors...ouch!

The climb went fairly well. I set a steady tempo, picking people off when I could. I got into a battle with about 5 people on the really steep climing near the top. It was cool cause we just kept going back and forth. I would pass them, I would need to recover, then they would pass me, I would recover and pass them back.

Finally on a real steep pitch, I floored it and spun past them all, kept on the gas and I never saw them again! In the process of the climb I almost lost my breakfast of coffee and a peanut butter sandwich like 5 times. Whew! At one point I was so hot, I thought for sure my brain and lungs would explode. I back off a bit, recovered from riding at make HR of 187 and suddenly felt way better and went on the attack again.

I hit the first feed station at 52 minutes. Took a water bottle and dumped the whole thing on my head...I gasped as the cold water ran over my head and down my back...whew...feel better already. I hit the highest point of the race, which I think is packer's saddle at 1:07. The next highest peak I hit at 1:12. So I guess my time for the climb was somewhere in that range. I felt better than last year, but not as good as two years ago.

I hit the baby heads section at full speed and flew past a few people.
Any who, I escaped the race with only on real crash. I grabbed to much brakes after coming up on two guys in a technical section. The next thing you know my front wheel is out to the side and I'm going over the bars. I tucked and rolled. Took the major impact on my head and left leg. I jumped up, rotated my bars and kept on rolling!

I also managed to burp all the air out of my tubeless front tire. Again I rode up on a few people in a steep, tight, technical section and I grabbed too much front brake (gosh dang-it...such a frik'n roadie!). My front tire got caught up on a big rock, I nose wheelied on the rock, but held my balance. In the meantime my weight on the front tire allowed all the air out of my front tire. I was like oh crap, oh crap...I'm falling but managed to jump off the side of the bike with out getting hurt.I quickly flipped my bike over in the bushed and discharged on CO2 into the tire and baam! my tire was inflated and ready to ride. God i f*ck'n love tubeless!

The rest of the descent went well. I was flying and picked off more riders along the way. By the time I got to 1st divide I was solo. I put in a hard effort on the pavement to make sure nobody snuck up on me.

I pounded like 4 bottled waters at the finish line as I waited to see more TWW jerseys. I swapped war stories with a few of the guys hanging around the finish area. Johnny H was the next to roll thru. I saw many others but was starting to bonk so I don't really remember the exact order, but I saw Josh, Patrick, Frank, Michel, Dan, Paule, Julie and a few other mice. Then I had to go get myself a beer! About 3 sips into my beer and I was already tossed. If you want a cheap date just take me to the races and then give me a beer ;-) After my first beer I headed over to wait for Meredith and the rest of the crew to come in...Cerkel and Eryn!. I can't say I remember seeing Cerkel or Eryn! come in, but I knew they were okay as I saw back at camp.

Thank you to Big Sky Brewing for the post race "recovery" beverages and thank you to Matt Cerkel for hauling them up to the Sierras (Your cooler is safe with me..although mostly empty).

All together we had: Mo, Eryn, Cerkel, Dan, Kat, Patrick, Frank, Josh, Chad, Michel, Jeff, and me. Not our largest TWW showing ( i think we had like 18 people in '05!), but it was cool to see some new faces at the Downieville race: Dan, Patrick, Josh and Chad. Also had a few friends from my 'cross team Lander and Geoff. Unfortunately Lander descended the last ten miles from Pauley Creek to Lavezzola road on foot as he busted his collar bone...ouch! Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures, but hopefully somebody did.

La-la-loyd (Rachel Lloyd) took the All-Mountain Challenge on the Women's Podium and Jason Moschler took it for the men. Jason Mochler set a new course record at 1:53! He bested Mark Weir by about 3 minutes, who bested his previous course record of 1:58! That's crazy! Oh yeah, Jason Moschler did it on a frick'n hardtail! Damn, that is loco!

Although we were all initially excited about the race being saturday so we could party all nite long....it didn't really happen. We were all whipped out. The remaining TWWers got together with the Roaring Mice for a bit of a pasta and chicken feed. We then proceeded to make a descent dent in the "recovery" beverages before topping off the nite with smores and then passing out in our camping chairs around the fire. I think it was about 11pm when we finally went to bed....frick'n light weights ;-)

Sunday was pretty mellow. Sleep in, make pancakes and drink lots of coffee. Roll into town around 2. Check out some DH results, then sit in the river drinking beers...ahh, the tough life.

I already can't wait till next year. I gotta get on that elusive expert podium! I got 8th/23 finishers. I reason that if I didn't flat, crash once, and possibly pushed it a bit more up the climb, I coulda rounded out the podium at 5th place. Winning time in my category was 2:12. Two years ago, if hadn't pinch flatted on 1st divide, I would have pulled a time of about 2:14. I've got one more year to try and hit the podium in the 19-34 category and then I have to contend with the 35+ category whose winning time was 2:03, the second place was 2:09, while 5th place was by Aaron Bonar (Sycip guy that I'm always chasin' in cross) at 2:14!

Will post some pictures as I get my grubby hands on them!

B-game Crit

2007-06-25T13:19:00.000-07:00

Wow, it's been a while since I updated my blog or even done a race report. So here I am doing it, before the excitement of this weekend's race wears off.

Burlingame Crit
Cat 4 Men
Teammates: Chris Lollini, David Parrish
Place 22/61
Course map
Pictures...coming

My training has been full of ups and down this year. Most recently I was coming off of a 5days on\5days off regimen...not the best consistency. But leading into this weekend's race I got a good hard workout at the Park Ride, read as I felt like puking and my lungs hurt the entire time. Weds was my regularly scheduled mtb ride up at Skeggs, where I also thru down some hard intervals to prime my legs for saturday.

So overall I was coming into the race feeling purty good. However as I'm not a sprinter I would definitely be working for my teammates Chris and Dave. Dave's been tearing it up at the Park Ride lately. And Chris well, he's our sprint master....duh!

God, 7am is an awful time to race on a saturday...ie. wake up at 5am. Anywho, showed up, had a little trouble with reg ( i took over Ammon's spot), hopped on the trainer and got a solid 22 minutes of easy spinning with one effort. Jumped off the trainer, hit the restroom and off to familiarize myself with the course. Did one easy lap and tried to find the good lines and made not of the broken pavement section. Not sure where I read it, but the "buttery smooth"description of the course didn't really match the reality ;-) I came thru the start\finish area with about 6 minutes to go before start. Plenty of time I thought. I went thru and did a hot lap to see how to handle the corners. As I rolled up to the S/F line riders were already line up and I was 3-4 rows back. Dooh! So much for positioning.

The whistle blows, I click in to my pedals and quickly dart thru the field and move my way into the top 20. I think it took about a lap and I made my way over to Chris. I told him, I'm working for you, what did you need. And BAAM, just then an attack went off, so I chased it. A couple guys got far off the front I chased for a while, then got stuck in the middle of the break and the pack. As I saw they weren't going to stay away I eased up to reintegrate into the pack. Just then I heard Chris telling me to get back in the pack and rest up. I did as I was told and felt great in now time.

No sooner had that happened than more attacks went off. I chased it down and then reintegrated into the pack. I felt nervous, but more confident about moving around the pack than in crit's passed. I learned to make my way towards the outside of the pack so that I could follow surges that came up along the side. This is actually how I gained quite a few positions a number of times thru the chicane sections.

I'm still nervous riding crits and for the life of me I couldn't find the damn lap cards. I stayed focus and tried to relax as much as possible. With about 5 to go, I heard the horrible sound of crashing. Thankfully I was far away enough only to hear it and not experience it. The fight or flight response of the pack was intact as soon after hearing the crunching of bikes the pack accelerated and I was right there on the hammer.

I could see Chris comfortably sitting near the front. At one point, I don't even know when it happened, I realized there was a mouse at the front. Turned out that Dave was responsible for stringing us out. As I had sensed the pack accelerating I went with a surge on the right side of the pack and made my way near the front only to find Dave finishing up with his strong pull. I offered Dave my wheel, but I think he put a little to much of his juice into that effort and he didn't latch on.

Shift the focus back to Chris, I'm working trying to get back over to him, but the pack is going fast, people are getting jittery and yelling. We approach the last turn, I take an inside line.... to pass a few folks, but it ends in a bunch sprint (about 30people) and it's over!

In retrospect I realize that I should have gone to the front to driver the pace with like 2 to go. Because with 2 to go the pack started bunching up and bunching up toward the end of the race is never good. Sorry Chris! Next crit I will be stringing it out for you with two to go and you'll be assured of any sprint finish!

Great to see many Mice faces out there. Thanks Larry, Scott, Matt for cheering. James was racing masters, how did it go? While Rick was reprezent'n in the 3's.

Finished up the day with another 3hours in the saddle. Road over to Woodside and up Kings Mountain for a little hill tempo workout and then back to B-game to pickup my car. Legs feel really good right now. I'm already looking forward to bringing some glory to the Mouse at Leesville. Who's with me!?

Thanks for Reading!

Skeggs Trailwork and ride

2007-05-21T10:52:00.000-07:00

Hey Team,

A great day of trailwork, riding and meeting new folks. Saturday I headed up to do some trailwork with the collaboration of REI, ROMP and MROSD. The goal was to work on some new singletrack as part of a reroute to "Disneyland". Our group was Amanda, Jeanine, Chris, John(?) of REI, Josh and Sheila from ROMP, and Chris and Steve from MROSD, oh an me flying the TWW colors.

As I knew I wouldn't have much time for riding after trailwork I decided that riding up to skeggs would be the ticket. I hopped on my bike at 800am and was on my way. I'd never ridden my mtb up to Skeggs so wasn't really sure how long it would take, but I figure with all the extra gears of an mtb an 1:30 would be plenty of time.

I gotta say I really miss doing long solo pavement\dirt rides from the convenience of my doorstep....no 45 minutes commute, just ride ;-) These types of rides leave me with a sense of accomplishment when the adventure is over. While I wasn't on my bike the entire time, the combination of riding, shoveling dirt and tree stump removal left me with the feeling of having done an epic. LONG LIVE LONG RIDES.

The new singletrack we worked on was off of Methusala trail. Eventually it will be some sort of reroute, away from "Disneyland", between South Leaf and Methusala. We accessed the worksite by driving up Starhill road to CM08 trailhead. We hiked down the trail a bit and then took a sharp right hand turn down a really steep hillside. It was cool to suddenly stumble on to the beginnings of a new singletrack. Our job for the day was to extend the singletrack in the direction of Southleaf I believe.
Check this image for a better idea of the re-route.

The major accomplishment for me that day was helping Josh and Steve remove a gigantic tree stump that was in the path of the envisioned singletrack. Envisioning how the singletrack will roll through mountain side is always hard for me. So I just focus on doing the grunt work. However, when you finally step back and see an actual trail emerging from the mountain you can help but smile and be proud of the fact that helped build a new trail.

We finished up around 130ish. I managed to get in an hour ride in. I had a totally different perspective riding the trails on my own. Since i'm usually following somebody during our group rides I've never really gotten a good feel for how the trails interconnect ;-)

I popped out on Skyline, hit skeggs point on last time to stretch and then head back down to Kings Mountain thru Woodside to Canada and then Up and over Jefferson to Alameda de la Pulgas. Then just a short jaunt down Brewster and I was nearly home.

As I rolled into the driveway, Meredith and some other 'cross mates, John and Lander, were just arriving from the CCCX race. Purfect timing. A quick shower and change of clothes and off to my 10yr reunion.

This weekend I realized that there is so much more to cycling than racing. I loved meeting new people who share a similar passion for the outdoors. I really enjoyed giving something back to Skeggs for all the fun time had there and look forward to more trailwork.

I'll post some picture as I get ahold of them! Got one shot from the REI folks (Thanks Jenine)!

(me, Jenine, Steve - the trail architect, Josh and John- way back there)

Berkeley Hills RR this weekend...

2007-05-11T17:26:00.000-07:00

Since BHills RR is this weekend and I've never ridden the entire loop. I thought I'd use the cool new Google-esque mapping software (used to be G-ped) from Sanoodi to see what the course profile looks like. Here's what it spit out:

Profile-

The software is pretty neat cause it lets you save the mapped routes and allows for you to share them. You can also search other people's route. This seems very similar to Routeslip.com.

Rockin' the 4's tomorrow at 8am!

Road and mountain racing at the 'Otter

2007-04-19T15:33:00.000-07:00

SOC Weekend
April 13-15th
Friday - Elite 4 Road Race
Sunday - Expert 30-34 Mtb Race

So it's Thursday eve and i'm leaving work later than expected. It's like 600pm and I was hoping to be on the road to Laguna Seca by 7....uh, not gonna happen. I finally came to grips with reality and realized that it didn't make sense to trudge into the 'Otter campground at 12 midnight to setup a tent. So I called my ma in Wastsonvlle to ask if we could crash at her place. Like a mom, she's like of course, you've always got a place to stay. Fine, got that taken care, good plan. Fast forward to 1pm. Uhhhh....we're just leaving redwood city. Arrive watsonville near 2am-ish, in bed shortly after. Alarm set, 530am...oi! Why, oh why did I sign up to do the frick'n road race. Well, at least I was smart enough to back out of doing the road circuit race on saturday...whew!

We get out the SOC and it's actually pretty smooth sailing into the parking lot. It was actually really cool that they let the roadie pull right into the parking area near the track. Pull out the trainer to warm up. Meredith was super cool. She layed out all my clothes, filled bottle, go Gu ready and all that other pre-race stuff ready for me as I ran to the bathroom. I had about 40 minutes before the start of the race. So I wouldn't be getting a stellar warm-up, but better than nothing.

After warming up I head over to the race track to find my group. 1/3 of the group is already there. I stand and wait for the start. It's a cool morning, fortunately I got my arm warmers and a bit of leg salsa slathered on my legs so I'm mostly unaffected by the temps at 8am. The pace is steady as we start on the track. I jockey for a position closer to the front and settle in around 15th. As we make our way out to Barloy road, off the track, the group regroups a bit and we hit the first climb purty hard. I maintain postion and then we hit the first major descent to where the race becomes a lapped course. Cat 4 men did 5 laps and then climbed back out the way we came in.

So the lap starts with a climb of about 400ft, the front of the pack accelerates and I follow suit. Making sure I'm still in the top 10. We hit some short descents and roller and the pack just kept accelerating. My legs were hurting, but not too bad, and we start to thin the herd. We hit the feedzone climb and still good, then we hit another extended climb and I spin to stay with the group and the whaam, I'm off the back crap. My legs hurt, I breath hard, I stand, I hammer and chase back on to the group and finally catch them on the descent. I reposition myself into the pack and then the lap start all over.

I spent my time chasing back on to what was left of the pack each an every lap on the last climb before the descent. I new I was buring a lot of fuel to do this, but every time we hint that final climb my legs just hurt something awful. The only thing that hurt worse was my ego, cause I know I'm stronger than that, but the legs just didn't have it ;-(

In the 3rd and fourth lap I got a bit smarter about positioning. I would get to the front of the pack as we hit the climb and stand and hammer for as long as I could, then sit and spin as the pack caught and passed me. However, it really did help to hit the climb first and then slowly roll back off the pack.

On the final lap I managed to stay with the pack and we hit the final descent which then took us back out to Barloy road, which was also the finishing grind out. It's a 700 ft, easy grade of a climb, but by the time we hit the bottom of it, my legs were cooked. The pack accelerated one last time and I felt off so quick it's just embarassing. I saw the pack ride away as I suffered to turn over the pedals. In the distance I could see a few more riders cracking and I mentally made them my rabbits. At this point I needed anything to motivate me to keep turning the pedals.

So I finished the race completely alone! I couldn't see anybody infront of me, my damn rabbits even got away, and I kept looking over my should expecting another rider, another field, something to overtake me, but it never happened. After looking at the results it became obvious that I was in no-man's land. The lead pack finished in 2hrs 37 minutes, while I finished 2:40. The nearest rider ahead of me was 20 seconds and the nearest rider behind me was 3 minutes back! This earned me 24/61 with only 41 finishers. Apparently they were pulling riders that were too far back. Not so bad for a SOC finish, but gosh the race hurt way more than it should have. Obviously me legs are recovered yet. Another week of recovery riding before Wente.

Mtb Race Report...forth coming.....

CCCX#5 - First MTB race of the year

2007-04-09T19:10:00.000-07:00

(ham'n it up for the camera)

CCCX#5 - Toro Park
March 31st, 2007
Expert 19-34
Results 3/7

Ok, so I've been a roadie all year. I've got 6 road races\crits under my belt. I've been trying to ride my mtb at least once a week to keep my mtb skills honed. Well the proof is in the pudding as they say and wow I proved that although I have some roadie fitness, it doesn't necessarily transfer to mountain biking fitness.

First off I gotta say that the CCCX boys (Keith, Rod, Dave and Crew) put on quite a nice race. The new course absolutely rocks. Climbs, killer singletrack descending and that cool little techie section at the end with the rocks and the big root. This is mountain biking as it should be.

3900 feet of climbing was enough to induce some nice hamstring cramps in the 5th and final lap.

This was also the first race in the Team Wrong Way Fox Cup Series. After seeing all the familiar faces it really made me miss the mountain biking scene and all the usual suspects. Road racing itself is a lot of fun, but the scene it self is seriously lacking the comraderie of the mountain biking scene.

Any who, I showed up with just enough time to do one recon. lap and warm up on the trainer for about 15 minutes. As I'm standing around waiting for the start I realized I'd ridden a bit too hard on my recon. lap when the lactic acid started pooling in my quads and my legs felt like dead tree trunks. Crap, not the way you want your legs to feel when the race starts with a climb and when you're starting with the Pros and Semi-pros...dooh!

And they're off....like bats out hell. I click in and stand to pedal, oh that kinda hurts, so I sit and spin, dang it that's not fast enough. So I stand again and try to stay with the group. Since we started on the road it seriously felt like a road race. I jockeyed for a couple spots and then when it got steep I start rolling backwards. I ended up close to the back of the pack, if not at the back and started spinning like a muthafucka, meanwhile coaxing my legs gently to warm the hell up!

Up the steep part of the climb and into the false flat, rollling section. I'm trying to pick up places where I can, but mostly I'm just getting passed by the 35+ guys that started in back of us. For crying out loud, even the SSers are passing me. Finally, we get to the descent and I'm spinning thru the singletrack, trying to recover my legs. I pass a few people on the flat upper section before you hit the final descent.

I come thru and my legs are starting to feel a bit better. I focus on spinning a high cadence. I feel better. We hit the climb the second time and I spin up it a bit easier than the first time. I hit the rolling stuff and start getting excited as I'm battling it out with people for a few spots. Then a singlespeeder comes buy and i'm like screw this spinning crap, so I through it in the big ring and figure I'll put my damn roadie fitness to work. As soon as I did this, I dust the SS guy and start making headway towards catching other folks. I reasoned that if I kept spinning the big gear at a high cadence, at least 80, that I wouldn't shift down. And so it went and so I started catching more and more people and putting a gap on them.

Finally in the last lap, I hit the climb and my right hamstring tense, I massage it. And drop into the little ring. Then as I'm massaging the right hammy, the left start tweaking out. At this point I'm yelling in pain and reminding myself to breath and spin, breath and spin. Whew....the cramps subside. I'm at the top of the climb and somebody is breathing down my neck. I slam into the big ring and get the hell out of there.

Again I'm on the rolling climb and I'm picking up more spots. Up in the distance I can the Anastasio's green Bicycle Trip jeresy. I settle into an easier gear and set my sights on him. I am closing in as we get to the little exposed, sandy climb, I shoot around him. He's not done yet, he latches on to my wheel and I can't shake him. We come up on a couple runners as we near the sandy section of the climb and I accelerate to block him from passing me. We are 50 ft from the top and he jumps me. I stand to accelerate nothing. I gotta recover. I sit, I spin and catch his wheel.

Ana's now in front of me on the descent, so I'm content just to keep up with him. We hit the final strech, once more thru the rock garden-tree root section and I stand and sprint with everything I have left. I see he cross the finish line ahead of me. I feel good. I rallyed back form a bad start. First mtb race of the year, with lots of climbing to boot. I need to start climbing more. Man oh man I need to start climbing more.

I spin down, thank Ana for the motivation and then we head back to meet up with the group for a recovery drink and a "recovery" drink. It was great to see my TWW crew, some of my 'cross mates from Altezza40, some other old faces and of course the Velo Bella-icious ladies.

Group shot - Altezza40, Velo Bella, TWW!
Thank you all for the cheering. When your HR is maxed out and you're slobbering all over yourself it very motivating to hear your friends and team mates cheering you on. It makes a huge difference. Thanks!

Next up, SOC Road Race, SOC MTB race. Then the following weekend, Wente RR, NVDC wham-bam-combo.

Thanks for reading!

Copperopolis OR utter annihilation!

2007-04-09T17:29:00.000-07:00

Copperopolis Road Race
April 7th, 2006
Cat Elite 4 (or not so elite as the case maybe )
Field ~90
Place ?

Copperopolis. I've heard numerous stories about this race for a few years now. Some descriptions tossed around when referring to Copperopolis are: tough, bad pavement, lots of climbing, mountain biker's course, etc. As I've heard these descriptions over the years, I've always thought to myself big deal. I'm a mountain biker, cyclocross racer and have always been considered a bit of a climber. So, no broken pavement or threat of climbing is going to scare me. Bring it on!

(damn I got layoff the beer, look at that gut..sheez)

We’ll the time finally came to test myself against the infamous Copperopolis. Saturday the 8^th of April was the day of reckoning. Unfortunately, the hellfire and damnation that was doled out was not against the race course nor competition in the Elite 4 field. Instead the tables were turned and I suffered utter annihilation!

Ben, Ammon and I headed up to our hotel inValley Springs Friday nite. We arrived and got settled by about 12am. Cutting our sleep a bit short considering we had to be up at 545 to make the 20 minute drive to Milton, get reg’d and warmed up.

Race day, we didn’t have a whole lot of between us and the frick’n hotel lobby didn’t upon ‘till 7am. I had a few packets of oatmeal and few bananas pilfered from the hotel lobby. Combined with the cranberries Ammon had and some crappy hotel coffee we had ourselves a little make-shift meal. We slugged down the coffee and powered down the oatmeal and we were off to reg.

Arriving at reg, the parking lot…errr…I mean the cleared out tractor parking was already starting to fill up. We found ourselves as level spot as possible and set out to get reg’d, potty’d and warm up. Grabbed our number no problemo and then decided to avoid the already long potty lines. Even though they had a few porto potty’s set up around the parking area, there just never seems to be enough of these things. Thankfully the hotel had facilities that were easy to share amongst only 3 people.

The next order of business is to hop on the trainer. Meredith told me over and over, and she made me repeat it too, that I had to get a really good warm up, because as soon as the field hit the climb they would take off. I managed to get in 30 minutes of spinning, but could still feel a bit of muscle soreness from the previous weeks racing and workouts. It seriously took me until Thursday for the soreness of my first mtb race to settle down. Of course I’m a glutton for punishment and that didn’t stop me from doing the morning ride in Palo Alto on Tuesday followed by some hilly mountain biking on Waterdog weds nite. But I digress….

The whistle blows and I’m somewhere in the middle of the 90 person field. It’s a neutral roll out till we hit the turn which leads to the first broken pavement section. From the moment we made the first left hander the pace picked up. I started trying to move my way up in the field before the climb. However I could already feel the Paris-Robouix section going to work on my legs. The more I pushed the more my legs ached. At that moment I knew this was going to be a very, very hard, very, very bad race for me.

Race profile - 4600 ft of climbing

We hit the first climb. I accelerate to pick up a few spots and then sit and spin. The road is narrow, the pavement is bad and the racers are antsy. One guy rolls off the pavement into the dirt, luckily he makes it back onto the pavement without dabbing, he must race cross is my first thought. Soon after another rider goes into a gutter. The pace quickens, my legs complain. We crest the first climb and I am steadily moving backwards. My legs burn and my ego aches.

At this point about 30 or so riders have been dropped and I am struggling to hang on to the group that remains. I put my head down and time trial my way back to the group. Ben looks back and seems me struggling a bit. He sits up and soon I’m on his wheel as he accelerates to take me back. I push and my legs refuse, I push harder, my legs budge a bit and move me forward. It’s not fair, it sucks to have to push so hard for so little distance gained. I’m f*cked.

We hit the flats and I tucked myself into the pack to recover. I feel great. Maybe my race isn’t doomed. I move around in the pack. I’m chat’n with Ben, recognizing a few familiar faces. Then the pace quickens. I move near the front of the pack. Nobody wants to pull into the head wind. So the pack slows. A few riders start coming up the side, I glance to me left and I see Ben. I jump on his wheel and we move to the front. We take a few pulls each and then pull off the front.

By now we are nearing the second climb in the race, not as long, but steeper. The pack accelerates and I accelerate, but some how I’m going in the opposite direction. The last thing I hear from Ben is don’t die on my know bitch. Damn it….I’m dying a slow and painful death as I watch the pack ride away from me. I curse my legs over and over and force myself to keep spinning.

Thus the Copperopolis TT begins. I spent the rest of the race chasing trying to get back on. Every climb my legs complained, but on the flats I was a time trailing machine. At one point I could see the pack in the distance. As I motored past numerous cracked riders, I thought to myself, if can keep the pack insight I can catch them. As I made my way towards the second climb I caught a rider would seemed to still have a bit of life left in him. I said to him, the pack is just up ahead, if we work together we can catch them. He said I don’t have much left. I said hop on my wheel and I’ll pull us to the pack, just give me a rest here and there.

Off we went. The guy did great. He stuck on my wheel far beyond his mental limits and then he even pulled my for a few minutes. Unfortunately, when we hit the second climb I knew he was done as he faded away. I waved thanks and continued to motor. The pack was out of sights thru the winding climbs as I made my way up to another few riders.
As I came up on a 3^rdpillar guy I said let’s go, we can catch them. He shrugs and says they have 1 minute and half on us. I said so what let’s go. I pulled him, he pulled me. He was way stronger than I was but more mentally broken....whereas I was mental strong, but phsyically broken. shyte...racing really, sucks sometimes, but I tell you what, it's races like this that make you tuff.

And so the story goes for the next couple laps I kept chasing and powering and fighting the good fight to catch on. I saw the frick'n pack in the distance each lap and each lap I had less juice in my legs. I tell you what though, the descent on each lap was almost worth the pain and suffering. I'd power up the last bit of a climb and then hammer on the pedals as hard as I could to kick start the descent. Wow, I hit 40+ on those descents and was even able to throw in a few pedal strokes here and there to keep up my speed. While the bike took a beating, I felt fine.

As I went up the climb one last time, 3rd time not being a charm here at all, I see Meester Hernandez, come flying by me with a Discovery guy in hot pursuit. I yelled out get'em Mike. Remember the old michael jordan commericals....man, I want be like this Mike! As I continue my trudge up the hill about 20 guys in the master category come swarming buy. Me and the 3rd pillar guy just moved over to the right to let them pass.

Soon my friend Glen comes buy, I can tell he's hurting, but he's still moving faster than I am. I accelerate and try to grab on to his wheel. I was unsuccesful, but at least it gave me a short burst of motivation. I hit the flat section by the lake and bury myself in the TT position again. At this point it's clear to me that I will never catch the pack, now I'm just getting in good training and teaching myself unless for bad training. How many times do I have to learn the lesson about how important recovery is....damnit!

Well and that's that. My first experience at Copperopolis...oi, next year I'll be doing 4 laps as a 3. However, it's nothing a double cheesburger and a few beers couldn't make me forget at some crazy little hick Bar and Grill.

Up next, SOC Road race friday and SOC MTB sunday. In between, lounging, loafing, snuggling, easy spins and lot's of stretching!

Thanks for reading!

roadie-phoria

2007-03-20T16:35:00.000-07:00

Man oh man, working, training and racing the road doesn't leave time for a whole lot else. So here's the 5 minute update.

I'm racing with Roaring Mouse Cycles on the road. They are a great bunch of guys and gals. We've got a strong CAT 4 squad and should be pretty dominant as we get used to working with one another.

Did one Early Bird crit and mentoring session to round out my 10 mass start requirement to move from a CAT 5 to a 4.

I've got a few road races under my belt:

Snelling RR,
Merced Crit,
Merco (formerly McClane) RR,
Merco Crit,
Velo Girls Crit in Menlo Park

What I've learned over the last couple months is that I suck at crits. Mostly 'cause I get super nervous and tense riding in the pack. However, I've been doing the PA morning ride and nooner to get those pack skills honed...plus those rides are a helluva good workout.

CAT 4 crits are fast. In the 5s I spent my time pulling the field around, attaching out of now where, string out the pack 'casuse I could. In the 4s I can't do that and have legs to stay with the pack. At the Merced Crit, we let a few guys from 3rd pillar get away and they strung out the crit so fast then we never got back onto the main pack. Won't make that mistake again.

That same weekend, in the road race, a couple 3rd pillar guys and some other straglers, made a break that didn't get chased down because we weren't close enough to the front or paying enough attention. Won't make that mistake again either.

In my first Cat 4 race, after realizing something was awry since nobody was attacking, I leaned over and asked my team mate, Dave, how far we had to go. Turns out he said 10miles, I heard 2 and decided that I wasn't a sprinter so I was going to see if I could breakaway from the pack and stay away. Turns out I could and did.

Crit and Road racing....gotta pay more attention at critical points in the race. I've gotten boxed in near the end of races and got screwed out of top 10 finishes! I've also learned from speaking with other more experienced racers that if you want to be near the front of the pack you will have to fight for position and this does include some work at the very front.

This weekend I'm doing the Santa Rosa Corp. Crit. I'm stoked to try out some new crit. tactics and I'm doing two races: cat 4 and a cat3/4. Will be interesting to race in a mixed field. I'll be resting my legs from here to saturday.

Did my first mtb ride in over a month and had a total blast riding the killer trails of Santa Cruz with my hommies from TWW, VB and A40.

That's all for now!

Oh yea, here's some pics. See if you can find me in yellow.

Larry Rosa

Spin, hip balance and mental trips

2007-02-09T17:06:00.000-08:00

Huh....so I was out on a ride today. I've been tinkering with my road bike setup....you know, moving the saddle up and down, fore-aft, just trying to fit better. Well, today as I was returning from my ride I unclipped on the left side, I hardly ever unclip that way. Any how, when I had to clip back in I kinda fumbled and it really made me think about clipping in on the left side. With my attention focus on my left foot I realized that it made the rest of my body balance on the bike? I'm always having issues with feeling imbalanced on the bike, mostly because my right side is stronger which leads to muscular imbalances. However, today I realized that part of the imbalance is indeed mental. Huh? I'll have to practice this some more to see if it helps in the future.

Here's a few stories related to bike fit that I found interesting:

This one is about cleat positioning-
http://www2.trainingbible.com/joesblog/2007/01/cleat-position.html

From cycling news- bikle position and other interesting stuff
http://www.cyclingnews.com/fitness/?id=2006/letters11-22#2

Cycling news - pelvic asymmetry
http://www.cyclingnews.com/fitness/?id=2007/letters01-09#4

Enjoy geeking out!

Paso Robles - wine, ice and bikes!

2007-01-16T16:30:00.000-08:00

Holy Cripes it was frick'n freezing in Paso Robles. Seriously, in all my 32 years here in CA i've never been that f'ing cold! The daytime temps were in the mid 30's and the nitetime times were in the mid-teens! That's why when we came outside there were frozen puddles! Then cause it was so cold during the day the icy patches in the shaded never thawed out. I've got some pictures that I'll upload later....I forgot my damn camera cable.

We did an awesome ride out the the coast! 46 West to Old Creek Rd all the way to H1. We hit Cayucas grabbed some espresso and a pastry and were back on merry way. The plan was to ride back up to the 46 East, but when we got there my legs felt pretty good so I decided to go with the orginal route while Meredith headed back to Paso via the 46East.The original route had us go north on H1 utill we hit Camria, right on Main street and then a right on Santa Rosa Creek rd. We'll the description of the brutually steep, bike humping climbs was enough to scare MO away as she trying to keep to her low HR training....me however, being a typicall guy, said I don't care how steep it is I'm going, as a matter of fact bring it on.

Well after I was out there for 45 minutes with no real sign of life, other than the cows of course, and no signs of the H46 I began to wonder if I went the right way. Oh yea and I hadn't really started climbing yet. So I started thinking, we'll either I missed a turn or all the climbing will be right at the end....yup, the second thing I said.

It all started as I came around a bend and I saw a couple steep hills, no problem, there was a plateau in between where I rested. Then I continued on and it's just kept climbing. I'm not good with grading roads, but there were some climbs that were pretty much steeper than anything I've ever been up....these roads were San Francisco, Taylor street, steep albiet not that long.

After all the climbing I felt quite accomplished and excited to begin the descent to H46. We'd agreed that she would leave a Gu wrapper and a little cairn to let me know if she'd already passed that intersection or not. Well, when I got there Meredith was just getting ready to take off so we were able to ride back to Paso together.

Good times. I'll post some pictures l8r 2 nite.

Thanks for the good times hotstuff!

I feel Royally!

2007-01-12T11:50:00.000-08:00

Yippee...I know where we are going, I know where we are going and I'm totally stoked.

I've never been to .....

but have always wanted to go!

Wooohoooo....

So when we leaving?

...cause my honey knows me well...

2007-01-11T17:33:00.000-08:00

she would of course take me to\or near a winery i've never been to. My thought was where oh where would she take me...I've never been to .....

on top of that I found this......scenery looks reminescent of hint#3.....

so it's definitely paso and maybe somwhere near Tobin James, but then again Tobin James may just have been a hint to the general area. Yea, Paso Robles is my final answer. How exciting....wine, beds, errr I mean bikes and my lovergurl! DOPE!

aha!!!

2007-01-11T17:28:00.000-08:00

so i kinda had a feeling that we might be going to paso robles...call it a hunch. maybe that logo in hint 4 triggered a subconsious memory.....anywho, thanks to google I'm closer but not quite there.

I googled "wineries paso robles" and I found this....(unfortunately the winery name is unreadable in the photo so I'm still unsure of the exact town in paso)

Remember Concentration....

2007-01-10T15:39:00.000-08:00

the game show?

"Riddle me this my brutha"......

+

sorry cutie....I have a better memory than you think. You see I actually DO listen to what your saying....sometimes ;-)

Oh yea and I'm smarter than the average bear!

Pilarcitos #4 - Golden Gate park OR I suck ass!

2006-11-30T17:36:00.000-08:00

Pilarcitos #4
Golden Gate Park
19 November 2006
Elite Men
9 laps
winning time 56:25
my time 56:39 - i.e. I got lapped with 1 to go ;-(
Place 36\45
Results

Ok, so maybe dancing and "partying like it's your birthday" the nite(S) before a race is not the best way to tune-up your legs for a race. Meredith always tells me, "if you want to do well in your race you have to stay off your feet." Well I guess that includes dancing, huh? But come on, how can you not dance when you hear the music? I'm not good at by any stretch of the imagination, but it's still fun.

It's plain and simple, I had no power and every pedal stroke induced a grimace. I thought it would go away as my legs warmed up, but it never happened. Yuk, I hate days like that.

After I realized I was sucking ass I decided to have some fun near the beer-cash n'grab section. I rolled up the little hill into the gauntlet of people cheering and bottles and cans stuffed with cash. I stooped down and grabbed for some cash. As I pulled the money up the can came up with it. So to further entertain the crowd I pulled the money and took a bite out of the side of the can....and the crowd went wild. I never thought I'd bust out that little high school trick again....but hey, anything for the diehard 'cross fans!

Thanks for reading!

HR comparision between Pilarcitos 3&4.

HR profile for Race.

'cross hottie in da 'hood

2006-11-16T13:42:00.000-08:00

OK, so just because there was no pain and suffering (i.e. 'cross racing) this weekend, doesn't mean I don't have a story loosely related to 'cross ;-)

Sooooo about 2 weeks ago, I roll out of my pad and throw my singlespeed up on my car rack. I walk back in the house to grab the rest of my cycling stuff and as I'm walking back out I see a girl approaching car. She's like hey another cyclist in the neighborhood, that's good to know. She says was that a 'cross bike I saw on your car the other day. I'm like hell yea. She asks me if I race 'cross and I'm like yup as I begin to explain that we've got a great 'cross racing scene and that we have 3 main series in the area: Pilarcitos, CCCX and Surf City series and what a great local scene we have and on and on. Blah, blah, blah!

Next she tells me that she has a 'cross bike that she carries around in her truck just in case she gets a chance to ride after class. She asks me where I ride in the area. I mention of few of the typically roads I ride on and then I also mention, in a whisper, some of the place that I ride at nite. And she's like oh yea, there's a bunch of places like that near Berkeley.

So I'm totally stoked to have a fellow cyclist in the 'hood. As I go to leave I say it was nice meeting you, your name was Lisa right? She says no it's Gina. I'm like oh yea that's right. And I say I know how I can keep from forgetting your name, I'll just think of Gina Hall. The she says, um, I am Gina Hall. Hah!! I turned red and explained to her that I knew of her, but never actual met her or even seen her up close for that matter ;-) We both laughed and parted ways.

Pretty funny and pretty cool. I'm always willing to make a fool out of myself for a pretty girl that cycles ;-) It's also cool to meet people that are total bad asses on the bike, but totally down to earth off the bike. Rock on Gina, rock on Girl!

Next time I see her I'll ask to get a picture so ya'll don't yhink I'm fib'n.

Pilarcitos #3 - McClaren Park OR "Yes, I finally found my legs!"

2006-11-06T15:51:00.000-08:00

Pilarcitos #3
McClaren Park (Crocker Amazon)
11/05/06
Elite Men (It's like a tell people, just because I race in the elite cat. it doesn't mean I'm elite)
Place 17\30 (not including DNF)
Results

Finally, finally I actually felt like I was racing and not just surviving. In otherwords, I felt like I had game. I had a stratgey, I was collected, I was efficient on the bike and the technical style of the course suited my mountain biker abilties.

The last few race I've been slowly, but steadly building my fitness. As part of trying to improve my form on the bike, I recently went to Revolution in Fitness for a bike fit\cycling evaluation. For a couple years I've felt like I've not fit properly on any of my stable full of bikes. So to make matters worse, the improper bike fit had induced biomechnical issues in my body. Essentially, Curtis Cramblett confirmed what I felt, my left leg was functionally shorter. This was due to muscle knots both in my back and in my hip flexor. I couldn't help but laugh as the literal pain in my side was finally explained to me in technical detail and suggestion were made on how to fix it! Finally peace of mind!

In the end Curtis basically game me some stretching and strengthening exercise, along with adjust my bike and giving my some pointers on my pedal technique. One of the coolest tools was the pedal efficiency analysis. With the aid of a CompuTrainer and some software he was able to determine that my left leg, although outputting more power, was less efficient than my right let. While the left leg was very efficient and smooth thru the pedal stroke. But I digress...back to the race report.

So, I got in about a 30 minute warm up and then did one lap on the course. By that point it was time to line up. I didn't really get to do enough intensity in the warm-up, but figured I'd start a bit slower than usual and then ease into a harder pace.

I lined up pretty much at the back of the pack. The whistle is off and I slowly click in and accelerate. I quickly find myself moving up a few place on the pavement and then continue to pass a few people as we hit the grass area. As we approach the first set of barriers, I cut to the left to pass a guy and just as I pounce over the first barrier I see my team mate Phil hit the deck. Apparently he misjudged the height of the barrier. Head back up, bike on moving from hands to shoulder, I hit the run-up with some speed and manage to finagle a few more place as I push my bike in front of some more people.

At this point, I don't feel too bad, so I settle in and allow my legs to warm up. We hit the first descent and man is it frick'n bumpy. I stay off the brakes and hold on to my hoods for dear life. Any attempts at pedaling are greeted with the bumpy ground fighting back, so I decide to float over the bike until I hit the pavement. There I stand to accelerate and ride the short steep dirt section before the big log, I hop on my bike and steal a few more places. As the hill gets steeper and looser, it's just a frick'n cluster f*ck, so I get off my bike and run along side a couple people, while my team mate Jesse rides by me. I remount and hop onto his wheel determined not to let him drop me. Since it's mostly a descent back to the finsh I'm able to keep him in my sights. Then we hit the right hander on to a bumpy little singletrack that end up leading you back to the parking lot. Crap that was the hardest frick'n section. It's kinda like a false flat, where you think no big deal, but your pedaling and not really making forward progress to quickly. I grunt thru this section, enjoy the short descent to the parking lot and then hammer on the paved section.

I can already tell that yesterday's(saturday) ride has affected my top end as I'm not really able to sprint on the paved section as I'd like to. I hit the sweeping left turn and burst through the barriers. As I hop back on my bike I hear a horrible crack, crunch sound come from my seatpost area. Crap I bet I broke my saddle or seatpost or something. Turns out I just landed on the back of the saddle causing it to shift nose up...ouch, but not too uncomfortable. Next I try to manuever my way the the wicked tight s-turns leading into the start-finish area. I nearly layed down my bike a couple times.

Finally, I hit the pavement and again try to put in a hard sprint, as I've been doing in weeks past, but it's not there so I sit and apply power to the pedals. My spin feels great and I actually feel efficient on the bike for the first time in a really, really long time. I come past the Ritchey tent and I'm feeling pretty good. Since I'm feeling pretty good, I decide to pick up the pace and try to move up.

Well today is obviously a good day, because I'm not blowing up and I'm catching people not being caught. I even caught a couple of friends\rivals (Aaron and Jay)who've been beating me regulary by a few minutes. As I passed them I made sure to accelerate as I wanted to keep them behind me. I'm riding along and I can see my teamate Jesse, Ben Dodge and Nick ahead of me. Another set of friends\rivals that have been consistenly beating me. I feel good, so push harder. Soon I can see that Nick is getting closer and soon I actually catch him. I'm thinking holy crap now I know I'm having a good day. I move past Nick and accelerate once again, hoping to put enough distance between us so that the motivation to chase me is squashed ;-) (sorry buddy).

So now I'm thinking, you gotta be smart, don't blow up, be efficient, oh yea and breath, breath in, then out! As I make my way up the run up, I focus on breathing in and out and keeping my feet moving. The part of run-ups that usually kills me is the pause and whammm, you've lost all your momentum. As I head back up the bumpy hill to the even bumpier descent, I focus on pedal stoke and breathing and think to myself, god I haven't felt this good on the bike since I was doing well in the expert mtb ranks. I was pegged at a certain level of pain, but the fact that I kept my wits about me, helped me to maintain focus on breathing, pedaling and relaxing my shoulder. Wow, I'm actually frick'n racing, not just surviving. Subsequently, this is about as hard as I've pushed myself all season, but it is also the first time that I've had the fitness to push myself this hard. Suuuhhhweeet. Training is finally paying off ;-)

I continue to chase Jesse and Ben around the course all the while keeping them within line of sight, but never able to bridge up to them. The rest of the race was basically about holding my position and listening to people's cheers as slobber exits both my nose and mouth. Really the only other thing I remember is Meredith yelling at me as I hit the run-up. She shouts, "run god damnit run" and the crowd bursts into laugher. Even thru the pain I crack a little smile ;-) (thanks cutie!)

I approached the final paved section and put in one final sprint. I crossed the finished line completely spent...on the verge of vomitting and passing out. Even though I was like 5-6 minutes away from the podium it didn't matter. I finished the racing knowing that I gave it everything that I had and I couldn't help but pump my fists (ala any road racer winning a stage) in the air.

Thanks to Pilarcitos and Roaring Mouse for a brutally hard but fun course!

Pictures and heart rate analysis to follow!

Cheers!
--------------
As promised..HR plots galore ;-)

HR for the course...including a bit of time afterwards as I bumbled around trying to get my bike on the trainer to cool down ;-)

HR comparison between McClaren(ave/max-172/190)and Candlestick(ave/max-178/187):

I'm beginning to realize that an HR monitor alone is not enough to really gauge my progress. My HR was not all that different at the two races, but I felt a hell of a lot better at McClaren. I think it maybe be time to really geek out and invest in a PowerTap. Anybody got one for sale?

Wet weather = "real" cross

2006-11-02T13:33:00.000-08:00

First wet ride of the season last nite (Weds). We may just have "real" 'cross condition this weekend. Hopefully we get a bit more rain between now and sunday!

Pilarcitos Numero Duo - Candlestick

2006-11-02T12:42:00.000-08:00

Pilarctios #2
10/22/06
Candlestick Point, SF
Elite Men
Place 34/45
Results

Coming into this race I was feeling a bit better about my fitness so my goal was to start a bit more aggressively. All went well until about lap 2 and then I just started losing place. So although I've got a bit more power these days, I don't have ability to maintain it for extend periods of time, nor am I recovering quickly enough from a hard effort.

Sounds to me like I've got to turn the training plan to doing under-over-under intervals...jeez, I get nauseas just thinking about it. Alas it is necessary. Anywho, back to the race....I manged to fend off some of my long running rivals, however, i still got lapped and I still didn't catch the faster rabbits i've been targeting through the 'cross season. My guess is that once I catch my rabbits, then I won't be getting lapped.

After losing places from my initial aggressive start and subsquent blow-up, I decide to treat the race like training. Every time I hit the pavement I sprinted as hard as I could. I manged to catch or drop people around me every time. Only problem is that i spent about half of the lap recovering. On the last lap, after Justin R caught me, I kept my pace up and held his wheel for like 2 seconds. Then decided to let him go as he'd already ridd'n fast enough to lap me ;-)

I road on and eventually hit the paved section with the left hander, in front of the parking lot, and just sprinted my ass off. On the staight away I caught some guy that was going pretty fast, but I still had it in my legs so I stomped on the pedals even harder and moved passed the guy. Well, turns out this was Mark Noble and realizing he had lapped me I eased up so he could pass me at the start\finish area. What the heck, next time I'm going for a sprint finish even if I am a lap down on the other guy. I mean sprint finishes are always spectacular. Plus how cool would a photo of me sprinting against a top podium contender look...yup, pretty sweet!

An for analysis, a plot comparing HRs from Pilarcitos#1 -Ave/Max 181/192 and
#2 - Ave/Max 178/187:

So although my heart rate ave\max were a bit lower for Candlestick, I felt that my fitness is improved. I'm a little surprised that my HR didn't spike on the straight away near the parking lot. Maybe the spike was so large my Polar watch couldn't measure it. It maybe time to buy a PowerTap!

C-ya at the next race!

Pilarcitos#1 - The legs may have it!

2006-10-09T13:30:00.000-07:00

Pilarctios #1
10/08/06
Hellyer Park, San Jose
Elite Men
Place 26/36

Up until this race I was busy thrashing my body as much as possible...hitt'n all the local cx races, started riding my singlespeed again and doing some high intensity training during the week. Boy did I feel the cummulative effects of all that racing in my legs. That is until this sunday.

Pictures courtesy of Smugmug by Chris Patterson
Isaias
Isaias2

I kinda suprised myself. I was finally able to put out some pretty hard efforts. This was reflected by the change in my Ave\Max HR from this race to last week's race. Since the Polar plot is a bit hazy, here's the numbers: 174/183 -CCCX#2 VS 181/192 -Pilarcitos #1.

Everytime I hit the velodrome I sprinted as hard as I could. I'd hit the right hand turn off the velodrome and immediatly floor it again until I got to the first set of barriers. Then I'd pretty much spend the rest of the lap recovering so that I could repeat the velodrome sprint the next lap.

In the last few races I've usually been battling it out with Brian from Sycip and Jay from 3rd Rail Racing. Jay's consistently beating me, but Brian and I have gone back and forth. Well today Jay was way up there with Aaron Bonar (Sycip) and left Brian and I to duel alone. So maybe another testament that my fitness is beginning to come around is that I finished ahead of Brian this race. The real proof will be the next time we race. Either I had a decent day and am getting more fit or I'm just lying to myself and Brian had a off day ;-) I guess well just have to see!

Follow this link for the Offiicial Results

Here's some more pics from the ever popular flickr site.

'Cross Season 2006

2006-10-06T13:45:00.000-07:00

Well, after returning from Italia I new I would be in for a world of hurt as I jumped into the 'cross season. While I did some good base rides thru the hills of Tuscany (Cortona, Montepucliano, and Moltecino), I had done zero intensity. However, I took comfort in the fact that I had not missed all of the early season underground races.

My plan was totally and complete annihilation thru racing (i.e. racing myself into fitness). So, my race plan: CCCX#1 Sun (9/24), then DFL Weds (9/27), DFL FinalsSat (9/30) and CCCX#2 (10/01). Needless to say by DFL finals on saturday my legs were cooked. I actually dropped out with a lap to go because my heart rate was high and I had no power left. I figured I'd leave what little I had in the tank for Sunday's CCCX race.

DFL race (weds)

Anyhow, the one thing I noticed so far, other than the fact that I am way slower than last year, is that the pre-season running has helped quite a bit. The CCCX#1 in Prunedale had a longish run up and I was able to attack it without much pain...well until the last two laps. The second to the last DFL race had a pretty burly run up where you could either run up a bunch of steps or hit a dirt trail. I opted for the dirt trail everytime as I thought that was more realistic of a cross course.
CCCX #2 Fort Ord

At the CCCX#2 race I felt like I was on my way towards recoverying from the previous week of racing, but I still lacked top end power. That it is when the road opened up, I had no real power in my legs to launch a full sprint. I'll have to taylor my training to include more short intensity.

Anyhow, I'm super stoked to be back in the 'cross season. I welcome the many familiar faces and look forward to improving my fitness as the season progresses.

See you out on the dirt!

Pescadero Road Race

2006-06-28T17:08:00.000-07:00

OK, it's killing me that I haven't updated my blog in like twenty gazzillion years. So here we go...

The weekend, June 24 and 25th, was another double header. I had the Pescadero road race on Saturday and the 8Hr Team Relay race at Lake Sonoma on Sunday. Since, the 8Hr team race was just for fun (i.e. and excuse to do a couple laps on a cool course and drink beers with friends all day) I didn't think two much of it.

Well, as it turns out...Pescadero was just as hard as I thought it would be, if not harder. Especially since I've not super religious about training. That is unless you call 2-3 rides in a 3 week period training. I'm sure some people would fight me on this and say one ride/week actually counts as training...well folks, not for this boy ;-)

Any who... I'd signed up for Pescadero months ago and I'd be damned if my lack of fitness would prevent me from embarassing myself in the 5's, yet again I might add ;-) So it's 530 am saturday morning and my alarm clock (actually my cell phone) is beeping at me. My first thought is to blow off the race and stay in bed with my honey, but then reason trumps passion and I'm like OK, feet on the floor. I stumble into the kitchen and get the coffee maker going. Just the smell of fresh coffee alone is enough to remind me that it's RACE day!

I pop into the garge for some last minute bike maintenance....um yea, that would be installing new rear brake pads as I was very close to rubbing metal on metal. I figured Pesky would be the first race I did with real climbing and subsequently real descending. Having pre-ridden the course two weeks earlier, when it was foggier, I knew I needed new brakes pads if I were to survive the race.

I arrive at the race site, after getting stuck in back of some slow ass drivers. I saw bike in or on top of the cars and my thought was, come on people you are cyclist, you should know how to take a fricken turn at speed...jeez! I head over to reg. and notice that it is pretty nipply outside. I'm glad I brought my base layer and arm warmers...dang that tricky coastal weather.

I hop on the trainer and proceed to warm-up for about 30 minutes, not quite an hour, but this will have to do. I unleash my Bianchi from the trainer and head over to the start area. Turns out they are about 20 minutes behind schedule, so I put my bike down and proceed to do some funky yoga type streches. I'm secretly hoping this will intimidate the competition ;-)

And they're off...everyone behaved themselve on the promenade thru the town of Pescadero and then as soon as we left town the pace picked up a notch. We proceed this way until stage road turned up hill and then people started going hard, but not balls out. I did what I need to stay within the top 20, but I was already hurting and already wondering if I would be able to finish the race. All the road races I done previously I'd cramped at and now with a lapse of traing I thought to myself, surely I'm doomed and will be lucky to finish. What I did realize coming into this race was that I wouldn't have the fitness to pull the field around like a damn-mountain-bike-new-to-road and instead would have to be more tactical.

Which brings me to my game plan. I had the pleasure of meeting a cat 1 roadie type who goes by the name of Justin and races for Organic Athlete. His advice was to attack on the second bump of stage road in the second lap. Not having done the race before and being a road newbie I had not better plan, so I made Justin's plan mine.

As we crest the first bump of stage road my adrenaline is flowing and I'm a little pissed that so many people got in front of me. So I click into my biggest gears and start cranking on the pedals. I bobbed and weaved my way thru riders as we decended and accelerated in the short straight sections. I ended up leading the pack into the second bump of stage road. However, since my plan was to launch my attack in the second lap, I slowed down up stage and settled into a pace. Once again I moved back into about 20th position and then repeated the fight for position on the descent. Once on 84 we settled into something sorta resembling a double paceline. I positioned myself somewhere in the top 10 and allowed my legs to continue warming up.

Nothing too exciting until we made a right Pescadero Rd. We roll by the feed station, I grab a bottle and ditch a bottle and continue up to Haskin's Hill. This is when the full on assault begins. My plan was to settle into a pace and tempo up the hill and that's what I did. Probably about a 1/4 of the way up people started pooping out and I started passing people left and right. At that moment I thanked my lucky stars that I'm some sort of a climber. I could hear people gasping for air to my right and see people weaving to my left. Meanwhile I picked up the pace and focused on my breathing.

We hit the top of Haskin's, I'm proably in about 15th place. I click into my big ring and stand up to get the wheels spinning for the descent. For as much fitness as some of these CAT 5 guys have, they sure don't know how to descend. I passed about 10 people on the descent and believe you me it was not an easy thing to do down a twisty descent. I ended up in a group of Dolce Vita guys and a guy wearing an Eden kit. We trade pulls as we wound our way back to stage road. At one point my legs were feeling a bit twingy so I eased up a bit and fell into about 10th position.

Now i'm getting excited cause my plan if attack will soon be set in motion. I'm resting up as much as I can. We hit the town of Pesky and roll thru. I eat a couple dates I stashed in my pocket jersey and wash it down with a few swigs of energy drink. We hit stage road and the pace picks up. Once again I fall into about 20th position, but I'm content to sit in and let my legs rest a bit. We crest the climb and I pop into the big ring and hammer down hill. I pass as many people as I can. We reach the big left hand sweeper into the second bump of stage road. I'm in about 10th position and pick up the pace. By the time we hit the left hander into the Eucalyptus tree I'm cranking on the pedals and passing people. I maintain a good pace and then settle in a bit. Now I'm really frick'n hurting, so I recover a little bit, but people start catching up. Fortunately the descent is coming up. I click into the big ring again and stomp on the pedals.

I flying down the hill and picking the rest of the riders off. I can see one guy in the distance and make him my target. I eventually catch the guy and we descend together the rest of the way. We make a right on 84 and there are not riders in sight. I turn back and see nobody and then I turn the guy and I'm like what's the plan now. He shakes his head and says we have to let the front of the pack catch us and work with them up to Pescadero road. Damn it! I could already feel the burn in my legs and knew I couldn't do it alone, so I reluctantly agreed.

Soon enough the front of the pack caught us. Unfortunately, the front of the pack was still about 20 people. Fortunately, the attack I launched up stage helped to shed about half the field ;-) I quickly realized just how fatigued my legs were and I fell to the back of the pack where I spun as much as I could in hopes of recovering for the finish up Haskin's hill.

Well, no such luck. We hit the right hander to Pescadero road and the aid station and me legs are pissed at me. Even in my weekend state, I'm such a water bottle whore, that I make sure to dump the cheap little water bottle I got on the first lap and grab one of the big tall ones! I continue on up to Haskin's with my tail between my legs. I know the rest of the climb is just going to be a grunt. The only saving grace of that final climb was to have my girlfriend cheer me on about half way up. I managed to pick off one person and finished in a crappy 24/40 people. I'm pretty sure we started with 50 people, not sure what happen, but I'll choose to believe that I set such blazing attack the second time up stage road that I shed those last ten riders...hey, a boy can dream right ;-)

Results

Next roadie event is the Watsonville Crit...which just so happens to be my hometown!

Happy trails...err I mean Happy roads,
Isaias

AHRENS FHT reborn

2006-04-20T16:36:00.000-07:00

So I had Friday (14th) off work...kinda weird considering that "Good Friday" is a specifically Christian holiday, not that there's anything wrong with that...heh, heh, I actually grew up Catholic. That's right! I went to Cathlic school for 9 years and I was even an alterboy. In that light, I'm sure my deviant behavior all makes sense now ;-) But I digress....Christian, Jewish, Satanic, Buddhist, I'll take any excuse for a paid day off work!

Anywho...on said day off work, I went to work on the most important things in life....what's that you say, finding a new place to live or how about, I dunno maybe sorting threw 5-6 trash bags full of personal items that I haven't used for the last 10 months (which BTW means I don't really need them)...NOOOO, I had to get my single speed back up and running ;-)

After my mediocre performance at the C-Otter it was apparent that I needed to suffer quite a bit more on the few days that I actually ride on the dirt (damn it....I am becoming a roadie)! My SS project was to update my Ahrens hardtail with:
1) a spiffy new "Kick-ass-cog" from Endless Bikes Co!
2) a Soul Craft Convert chain tensioner (I ditched the old derailleur method of adding chain tension)
3) a FOX 125RLC...read, 5 inches of buttery travel

By 3pm, I was ready to rock the rebuilt SS! Woohooo. My housemate and I hit up Lake Chabot for a killer ride. A bit sloggy in spots, but pretty frick'n good considering how much rain we've had. God damn! I forgot how killer this bike handles. I can't wait for the weather to drie up so I can hit up Demo on this baby!

SOC pre-ride, April 1st

2006-04-06T19:05:00.000-07:00

comments later....

am I roadie?

2006-03-31T14:17:00.000-08:00

So I'm super stoked...I hit my first Palo Alto "nooner" ride. I set out to do a normal lunch time ride. I figured I'd just head down Foothill and do one of the many variations possible when heading up into the hills west of highway 280. So I'm spinning down Foothill and it occurs to me that instead of just doing a boring old ride by myself, I might be able to catch the nooner at Page Mill Rd and Old Page Mill. So I pick up my pace as a slide my hands into the drops. I've really got to put my speed sensor back on my bike, because I was moving and it would be nice to know what my average speed is relative to my HR. Anyhow, I arrive at the ride meeting spot about 2 minutes after noon. I turn down Old Page mill rd determined to catch the group. As I pop out onto Page Mill rd, I think I can see the pack in the distance...my eyesight isn't what it used to be. I press on wards and throw in a few little sprints. I eventually catch the pack soon after they turned onto Arastradero.

I chat with a few of the folks as I near the pack and make sure that this is indeed "The noon" ride. The pack was about 40 people maybe more. Being new to riding in a pack that large I was indeed nervous, but that is the exact reason that I'm forcing myself to ride in the pack. I'd like to get to a point where riding in the pack is just second nature. I hung around the back of the pack until I got my bearings, then I start moving my way around to the middle...which is even scarier. I'm sure it was probably scary for the others in the pack when they looked down and saw my hairy winter legs, but hey at least my Ritchey-Lapierre kit made me look like a knew what i was doing, not to mention the $3000 Bianchi under my arse;-)

I can hardly even remember what roads we hit, as I was focused on not crashing and not making anyone else crash, but I know we hit some of the classic roads like, Sandhill, Portola Valley, Alpine, etc. Any how, as I became more comfortable in the middle of the pack, I would pop out the side of the pack and move myself towards the front of the pack. I wasn't familiar with the route, so I didn't actually move to pull the front of the pack. However, once I get familiar with the route, I wouldn't mind getting some experience and good workout pulling at the front of the pack.

So near the end of the ride, we made a right onto some road past the OLH turn off and suddenly on a small hill the front of the pack takes off. I can see it happening and am stuck in the middle of the pack. I give a quick look to my left and make my move. I stomp on my pedals to move up the hill as the rest of the pack disintegrates. I pass a few people on the climb, but the lead pack is no where in sight. The hill flattens and I'm full on hammering out of the saddle. A few of the guys I passed end up hoping on my wheel. Nobody ever said hey let's paceline and work together to catch the lead group, but that's kinda what happened. Although we were kinduv attacking each other in the process. This is a very interesting dynamic with strangers, the only other time I've ever done pacelining and other roadie tactics was on a group ride with friends. Needless to say making tactical moves made me feel like I was in a race....a quick glance at my HR verifys that I am indeed riding at a race pace. So, near the end of the ride on arastradero we finally saw the lead group, so I wouldn't actually say that we caught them, but we did catch up to them. My goal for the next noon ride is to stay near the front towards the end of the ride to see if I can stick with the break.

Dang...this road shit is fun! I think my next road race will be either Copperopolis or the Velo Girls Menlo Park Crit on April 15th.

Ahaaa...nice long morning rides....

2006-03-22T14:16:00.000-08:00

With a break in the weather I was super stoked to get out and do a long road ride before heading into the office. I'd never done the route I'd mapped out in my head, but it seemed very do-able, I just wasn't sure how long it was going to take. I was hoping for about a 3 hr ride. What I ended up with was a 2.5hr ride, not to bad considering I did about 3400ft of climbing and I got to bomb down Page Mill...that is until I came upon a stupid flat bed truck. As I was flying down the hill behind the truck, the driver of the truck sure knew how to maneuver that beast of a vehicle, I could actually feel myself in it's draft. Then I got to thinking, if comes upon another car and brakes, I'm going to have to lay down the bike and slide under the rear axel...yikes! That's the only thing I hate about road riding ;-)

So, my route went like this:
Start in Redwood City@ Whipple and the El Camino,
Hop on Edgewood Rd for a warm up, with only about 400ft of climbing it sure hurt in the early morning, rode Edgewood until it t's into Canada. Hang a left on Canada until I hit Robert's Market, Straight thru stop sign to Mnt Home rd to Sandhill.
Right on Sandhill and then up OLH, I'm at the top in 23 minutes, at a tempo pace. I'd be interested to see how fast I can time trial up it. I'll be back to try it!
Left up H35 to Page Mill rd, which is where the super fun descending begins. The weather, snow and rain, have taken it's toll on Page Mill rd, there are more potholes than I remember, watch out!

After rolling off Page Mill, I hung a left on Arastradero and came across Julie Adams (PABW and my Lapierre-Ritchey cross team mate). I continued on Arastradero and picked up the pace a bit, I passed to other roadies and was determined not to let them catch me. I think I saw a cup of coffee in their hand, but no matter, I'd be damned if I'd let them catch me only to find out that I haven't shaved my legs since cross season ;-) Anyhow, at this point my legs are worked from all the climbing, but I continue to push. Before you know it, I hit Alpine. I make a right and continue motoring down the road, it helps that there is a slight downhill grade here. Now I'm feeling invincible and then I go under H280 and the road turns up slightly, suprisingly my legs feel pretty good and I stand to maintain my cadence.

As I stop for a light at Sandhill (i'm not really a fan of stoping for traffic lights, usually look both ways and roll right thru) I rest and a huge grin spreads across my face, as I think about the beautiful and peaceful climbing I completed just moments ago. As the light turns green I practice a race start and try to clip into my one sided Look KEO pedals...dang it, I hate this one sided BS...the roadie have something to learn from the mtn bikers afterall ;-) Any who, I truck down Santa Cruz avenue, then veer left on Alameda de las pulgas. It's clear sailing down Alameda de las Pulgas and back to Edgewood Rd. As I mentioned before, I've never done this actual loop, but it was actually quite nice and I really enjoyed the Alameda de Las Pulgas section...nice house, rolling hills...kinda reminded me of lake Oswego, OR.

OK, back to work...here's the ride profile:

1st MTB race of 2006

2006-03-20T12:26:00.000-08:00

CCCX#3 - TWW FOX XC CUP SERIES - RACE#1
East Garrison, Fort Ord
3/19/06
Expert 30-34
field size ?
place ?/?

Aha, the beginning of a whole new season of bike racing! The first race of the season is always an interesting one. You've been riding\training in crappy weather, you've spent countless hours indoors on a trainer or in the gym. You begin to wonder...why am I spending all of this time training indoors? Will it be worth it when the time comes to actually plant your two wheeled steed back on the dirt. Will you look leaner and meaner than the competition? Or will your winter beer gut just look slightly less gross than the comp. in the tight spandex costumes that we choose to race in?

Of course the winter is not all about riding indoors alone, there are the great group rides, when the weather cooperates. This is also a time when we are all secretly sizing each other up...hmmm, I wonder if I'll be able to beat so and so up the hill this year, I wonder if I'll be able out sprint so and so this year, etc. So even in the winter, we are already sizing up our fitness by our own personal bests and by our cycling buddies around us.

Any who, at this point in the season I've done about 3-4 hard interval bike workouts. I've come out feeling pretty good, thinking hmmmm, I should have a pretty good season this year. Maybe I can even podium at the Sea Otter this year....and then there's the cold, hard, brutal reality of racing.....

The expert 30-34 men, line up in back of the Semi-pros. As we are waiting to be unleashed upon the CCCX course, I'm surprisingly not nervous for this being my first dirt race of the season and mabe even a bit excited to see how my winter fitness will size up next to the other experts. After all, I've check the previous race results and already know who I've beat and how I compare to those faster and slower than me. According to my past results, I should be able to hit the podium in my class.....

The whistle blows, we take off up the paved road and immeditaly fall into a paceline. The winds always blowing something fierce up the road start. I fall in about 8 or 9th in the pace line and end entering the singletrack about 9th. My lungs feel good, but my legs already hurt. I stay with the top 10 for about half a lap and then they just start to pull away. At about 1/3 of the way around the first lap, a group of about 5 guys from the expert 35-44, comes by me like a freight train. Holy crap, they caught me and I had at least a minute headstart....not looking good. I quickly size up the people passsing me and I'm like damn it, I've been a few of these people before, I shouldn't be getting passed!

Ok, head back down, focus on the race, we'll pick these people off later in the race. We'll the next few laps, I spent chasing the lead pack, withouth success. I always knew they were a few minutes ahead of me, because of the way that the course doubles back on itself in spots. I thought, if I just keep going, I'll eventually catch up with at least a couple of the guys that past me.....not gonna happen. Instead, in the 3-4laps I got passed by a few more straglers for the category in back of me. I even got passed by a couple of the singlespeeders! Dooh! Now I know I'm just not race-fit at this point in the season.

By the fourth lap, I was like, OK do I actually have another lap in me? I put my head down, concentrated on my breathing and grinded out the last lap. At this point, I don't know what the frick happend to my drive train, but I couldn't use the middle ring at all and my bottom bracket or rear suspension was making the most gawd awful grinding noise! I guess two years of endurance racing with no maintenance other than lubing the chain is not really fair to any driver train! Time for new chainrings, chain and rear cluster!

Any way, I start feeling a bit more recovered in my final lap and start picking up the tempo. The cramp monster is threatening, but never arrives. I manage to pass one guy back and I'm on a solo mission to the finish line. I come across the finish line and I suspect I probably came in close to last in my field. I estimate there was about 20 of us out there and I came in about 18th!

Summary, I've got about two solid months before I'm really ready to be competitive in the expert ranks again. Last year I came into peak from around Skyline (early May). From now until then I've got to do more hard intervals. So get ready boys and girls, with the daylight hours almost aligned in our favor, you can look forward to doing some more intense rides!

The TWW scene was great! Let's see, we had: Loren, Matt, Rich, Jason, Michel, Allan, MO, Bob, Hane, Gittleson and myself. I also had a few of my Team Ritchey 'cross mate out there, Jesse and John. A big thank you to Matt Cerkel for hooking up the beer sponsorship and thank also to Matt Leonard for the operations involved in getting the beer into our hands! Alan, thanks for the H20 feeds! And thanks to all for cheering, I needed the encouragment, especially in the later laps.

more race pics

Cheers,
Isaias

1st road race ever!

2006-03-16T16:09:00.000-08:00

Central Valley Classic
Fresno, CA
March 12, 2006
Field Size 50
CAT 5
Place 10\50
(http://www.centralvalleyclassic.com/results/2006_Kearney_Elite45.pdf)

Well, I've been procrasting about writing my first ever road race report for almost a month now. I figured I'd at least post some basic details. Briefly, the weather was crap, rain, wind and hail! However, no crashes, I played my cards right (meaning I listened to friends advice about resisting the urge ride at the front of the pack the entire time and pull the entire field around), I road in the pack and waited to attack in the final lap. I started the attack and nobody went, so I freaked out and totally backed off. At the last minute the pack starts hammering and I just managed to stay in front of them. Unfortunately, those riders who knew how to make a hard right hand turn, at speed, got around me. Then it was a sprint to the finish, on wet roads, thru chicanes lined with metal fencing. I think if I would've stuck the attack, I could've won the race (coulda, woulda, shudda), but honestly I was just glad not to have crashed and to jump in my car to get warm.

Totally hooked on road racing!

Here what my racing calendar looks like for April:
1. SOC MTB 4/9
2. Copperopolis or Velo Girls Crit 4/15
3. Wente RR 4/22 and NVDC 4/23
4. Madera Stage race 4/29-4/30

I was also hoping to do the Berkeley Hills road race in May, but it turns out that they don't have a Cat 5. Bummer! I contacted the promoter and he said that the size of the fields was very limited and that they've had trouble with beginners not being able to finish the course...blah, blah! Actually he was very nice. Beginner? I guess racing CAT 5 really does encompass true beginners to the sport of cycling. However, being an Expert mountain biker and Cat A 'cross racer means that I don't really think of myself as a beginner anymore. So I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around the fact that I can't race Berkeley Hills!

However, I do understand that the road category upgrades are much more strict...which is a good thing. Unlike NORBA where sandbagging is rampant. Plus just because I know how to race a mountain bike and a 'cross bike doesn't mean I know how to ride in a pack on the road. OK, I'll eat my piece of humble pie and make my way up thru the ranks....10 mass starts here I come. One down and 9 to go! Maybe I'll have to do more crits to help get me to the Cat 4s faster ;-)

East Bay, Redwood Rd loop

2006-01-13T17:24:00.000-08:00

52 miles
3hrs15 mins
4500 ft climbing

In a group ride at base pace, I would estimate the ride to take agbout 5hrs. Plus, we could always add more miles to the ride pretty easily.

Ahrens FHT SS conversion

2006-01-13T13:36:00.000-08:00

Some of you may remember my SS epiphany... basically this was brought about by converting one of my old custom frames, Ahrens Freeride Hardtail (FHT), in a single speed via an old derailleur for a chain tensioner, an old chainring and old cog with a few spacers.

The upgrades to the Ahrens FHT SS will include:

1) Soulcraft Convert Chaintensioner
2) Endless Bike Co - Kick-ass-cog 17Tooth
3) plush 125mm travel Fox Vanilla fork

Niscene-Demo Group Winter Ride - Jan 8, 2006

2006-01-12T18:19:00.000-08:00

Oh what fun it is to ride....for 7hrs and 16minutes to be exact. What an awesome frick'n turn out! Let's see, reprezent' the Velo Bellas - Meredith, Kathleen, Erin; TWW - Hillstrom, Leonard, Heim, Schlachter, Frankie, Rich Davis, Ken Jeffery, Nick R., Ginster, Chris and a few friends Patrick, Antonio and Rudy. 18 people, that's about the largest group I've ridden with in quite sometime. Probably since the infamous 8.5 hr Tahoe Epic, where we were also battling time to get back before the sun went down ;-) What is it about TWW and planning epic rides that take just way too long ;-) Any who, it's times like these that I remember why I love being part of the TWW\VB community! You all rock!

When Meredith first proposed the ride, she asked me how long I thought the ride would take? I said well, when I rode it over thanksgiving, I was in pretty good shape from racing 'cross and I was solo, so it took me just under 4hrs. Then I said, add about 1hr because it's at base pace and add another 1hr for re-groups, which would put us at 6hrs. Well, since we all know that MO's not the best at time management, the ride description turned into a 4+hr ride ;-) Awww MO, we all love you even if you can't make it to your C-otter start time ;-) Ouch!

I feel compelled to give MO a hard time because she never let Franck and I hear the end of it for the Tahoe Epic (8.5hrs instead of 5+hrs)and I think she hasn't forgiven Frank W. for the Downieville Hike-a-bike. Well, in MO's defense, at least we were ridin' not walking with our bikes for 7hrs ;-) Here's the ride details, 39miles, 5,530ft of climbing in 7:16:32 and the profile in all it's glory....

This reminds of the time I did a solo double loop at Niscene-Demo! Holy cripes, I actually hallucinated the 2nd time I climbed up out Sulfur springs. Just for fun, here's the ride profile from back in feb 2004....

Looking forward to the next epic already!

Crash Carnage

2005-12-16T15:06:00.000-08:00

So I was just going thru my photo archives and found this one of the carnage from my bike crash, the day of Nick's Birthday ... ouch! Surprisingly enough, this picture came off of Ed's camera phone....pretty decent quality.

I'm not saying that the crash itself wasn't spectacular,
but I like the part after, where I got to stand with my
shirt off as two hot chicks helped clean up my wound ;-)

While I'm on the topic of bike crash carnage, here's some more gore:

my first expert mtb race at Santa Teresa Park, 2003.

Racing cyclocross at Coyote Point, Dec 3, 2005.

www.pilarcitos.com

Bicycle Lights

2005-11-04T15:50:00.000-08:00

So, we've been having a discussion about the pros\cons of HID lights VS Halogen lights. The consensus is that HID's blueish hue light output doesn't feel warm and doesn't seem to match the spectral response of the human eye. To understand this a bit better I hopped on the internet to do a little bit of investigation into the human visual system.

Here's a plot of the visual spectrum:

I found a few tidbits of information which explain why the blue light of an HID does not match the eye's spectral response. Excerpts below are from http://www.photo.net/photo/edscott/vis00010.htm

"The human visual system has much greater sensitivity in low ambient illumination. The cones contribute little or no sensitivity in this condition. Imaging is primarily accomplished by the rods when illumination levels are very low. The plot that follows shows the spectral sensitivity of the rods. "

The plot above totally explains why the human eye is less sensitive to the blue light of an HID light system. To extrapolate on the plot above, it seems like a lighting system with a green output would be optimally matched the the peak sensitivity of the human eye.

In addition, from the symmetry of the sensitivity plot above, it appears that the eye is just as sensitive to blue-green light (HID) as it is orange-yellow-green light (Halogen). However, in practice we all know that Halogen light system looks "better" or warmer. The only other thing that I can think of to explain this phenomena is related to the frequency content of light. Blue light has a lower wavelength, thus higher frequency, whereas orange-red light has a higher wavelength or lower frequency.

I would reason that low frequency characteristic of a Halogen light would some how produce better contrast and thus look "better" to the human eye. I think this makes sense since, higher frequency information (whether speaking of sound or light) is usually associated with higher resolution. Whereas, lower frequency information is usually associated with contrast.

Dang it, I'm trying to think of a good analogy form the music\sound world, but it's just not coming to me. Maybe I need a few beers or a joint ;-) I know it has something to do with bass being low frequency and needing subwoofers VS high pitch metalic sound being high frequency and needing tweeters. The bottom line is that you can hear music with just a mid-range speaker, just as you can see at night with either and HID or Halogen. However, if you have the proper speaker for the proper frequencies the music will sound better, just as the appropriate spectral output to match the spectral sensitivity of the human eye will give you a better picture at night.

Some food for thought!

Cheers,
Isaias

ADDENDUM: Check out Cannon's website for a good explanation about light, cameras and it's applications: http://www.canon.com/technology/s_labo/light/index.html

race profile from Polar 720i

2005-11-01T17:51:00.000-08:00

Pilarcitos Race 2

Surf City Race #2 Halloween race

CCCX #2 Race report

2005-10-12T13:35:00.000-07:00

CCCX #2
East Garrison, Fort Ord
Oct 9, 2005, 12pm
Cat A
field size 20
place 16/20
winning time 1:10:53
time back 0:07:07

Ok, so on to the story....came into the race feeling pretty good. I had a good nite's rest, but was feeling a bit uneasy at not having done my tune-up the day before. Instead I spent the day having fun and drinking 2 beers at the team picninc. Oh well, sometime a bit of fun with your friends is worth more than prep'ing for a race....you just have to be ready to accept the consequences ;-)

I did a pre-ride on the course and new it would be a fast one. There were two long, straight sections, where the wind was a factor and I could learn a bit about wheelsucking from the roadies. The rest of the course had some cool singletracks, especially the one on the back side of the course. There was actually a small dirt jump and a small tabletop, if you decided to pick the wrong line!

Rod calls out the A's and I'm not paying attention and end up in the back of the pack. Dang it, I told myself that I would line up at the front for the start and now I'm all the way at the back! We start and I'm immediately caught up in the pack. I'm a bit nervous as I don't really not how to react in the pack, all I know is that I could go harder, but I'm blocked from every fricken directions. We hit the first run-up and I run past a bunch of people trying to remount on the dirt. I hop on the bike and start peddaling. I can already tell I'm going a bit to hard, but decide to see where the high intensity will take me. Despite my effort to catch up with the rest of the pack by running past people, I'm already making my way backwards in the field. I watch as the guys I raced with last week move away from me. I can't help but blame myself for not having done my tune-up the day before and for not bringing my trainer! Oh well, the show must go on.

In the last few races, my legs didn't really warm up until about the 3o minute mark. So I grit my teeth and bear the pain. A few laps into the race, I'm not feeling any better and my heart rate has been maxed out for a while and my hamstrings start to feel as the might crap. Somehow I hope or wish that we are close to the end of the race, but a quick glance at my watch reveals that we are only 25 minutes into the race. I honestly contemplated just dropping out...that's how crappy I felt. Then I thought now way....I'm not quiting, I just gotta suck it up and not get lapped.

We approach one of the flat, straight sections and I can see a few riders in the distance. I put my head down and pedal with all my might. Unfortunately, I was a little bit to consumed with applying power to the pedals and not paying attention to the fact that a hard right, into a double barrier, was approaching. At about the last minute I look up and start slamming on the brakes, so I can make the hard right, no luck, I run right into the tape barrier and proceed to get all tangled up...it was kinda funny, so all I could do was laugh and hope nobody saw it. Doooh....Meredith and Johannes were both standing right near there to observe my mini-catastrophe and all they could do is shout words of encouragment. Afterewards the both confessed that they thought I was done at that point.

Now that little mess up really made pissed my off. I untangle my bike, run over the double barrier and bomb down the fast road section. I'm intent on getting lapped. We are probably about 38 minutes into the race now and I'm starting to wonder when my legs are gonna start working properly. It's usually around the 30 minute marker, but today they are not cooperating. I continue to push hard when I can and recover when appropriate.

Whaamm....I hit the 48 minute mark and my legs came alive. I thought, nows the time to go. I hammered every straight, flat section as hard as tried to finess my way thru all the turns and technical sections. I knew every second would count towards not geting laps and hopefully catching a few folks. Slowly, but surely I start to come up on people. I pass one guy that I don't recognize and put the pedal to the metal to open up the gap. Success. One down and a few to go.

Now I've got a little motivation to push hard. It's interesting how simple your thoughts become when you are racing...total fight or flight response. All I can think of is, pedal faster, breath, pedal, breath and you will catch some more riders. Low and behold, I find Rick Hunter and he looks as bad as I feel and indicates that he's done. Next I come up on a couple of the DFL guys that I rode with and eventually passed at the Pilarcitos race the week before. Holy crap I think, the fast race course has taken it's toll on everybody else as well. Fortunately for me, I'm an endurance mountain biker and I can sense the turn of events in my favor.

I look down at my watch and it says 1hr13 minutes.... I think no way, it must be wrong, aren't A races supposed to be only 60 minutes? No matter, I have to race until the timer runs out. I continue my quest to catch more riders. We hit the straight, flat section, the same section where I went into the tape barrier, and this time I'm determined to catch the riders about 100yards away....and not to run into the tape again ;-) I hammer and am able to close the gap. As I hit the double barrier and run to the pavement, I can see a few more racers ahead of me and I can hear Meredith, Yo and Alyse cheering. I think they are as surprised as I am that I'm moving up in the field this late in the game.

I'm a man on a mission. I actually see one of my RitcheLappierre team mates up ahead and lock-in on his wheel. As I come up on Jessie, I can tell he just about done. I say let's go dude, but he tells me to go ahead. There's only one or two laps to go and I know that I can finish strong. While I can see another rider off in the distance, I don't have it in me to chase him down, so I just decide to ride smart and maintain my position.

Whew....I approach the finish line and make an effort to sprint to the end...it was a short, but sweet little sprint.

For results:

http://www.cccx.org/2005/race2/catAprelim.htm

For more pics:

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/isaiasjob/slideshow?.dir=/9120&.src=ph

Heart rate profile:

Pilarcitos Race#1- Candlestick

2005-10-03T13:07:00.000-07:00

Bay Area Super Prestige Series (aka Pilarcitos Series)
Oct 2, 2005, 12pm
Cat A race
field 29
place 23/29

So after last week's suffer-fest, I took it easy on the beers and got a good nites rest this weekend. I was a good boy and actually did a proper "tune-up" on saturday to get my legs and lungs primed for racing on sunday. For those of you not in "the know," a "tune-up" consist of riding for 30-45 at an easy pace and then doing one hard effort (mine is for 7 minutes at my LT HR), then recovering at an easy pace as you roll home. Total time is about 50mins-1hr. I did this religiously during MTB season and let me tell you, this really, really helps prime your system for the intensity of a cross race as well!

I arrived at Candlestick and got registered, dressed out and checked out the course. Typical, Candlestick coure, bumpy sections, sandy section, a few hard turns to force you scrub speed and then have to accelerate, and short run-ups. All in all, the Candlestick races are always screaming fast!

My main goal for this race was not to get lapped by the top A racers. Which I thought was a realistic goal, since I was able to fend of Simon Vickers at one of the early DFL races...ready carefully, by fend off I mean, finishing in the same lap as Simon, not actually battling it out with him ;-)

So we line-up under the inflatable RedBull arch and I'm noticeably more calm about racing in the A's than I was last week. I lined up about 3 rows back and to the right. Dang it, once again I got a bad start. Some guy almost crashed in front of us, which drove me further back into the pack. Unfortunately, the race starts on pavement and quickly funnels onto a narrow dirt road...so although I had the ability in my legs and lungs to accelerate and pass more people, I couldn't because I was stuck in a congo line, thus the field got strung out pretty quickly. N

No sooner had I hit the dirt singletrack and went down the first descent and bamm, my front wheel hit a grassy section and down I went, loosing my chain in the process. It took me about 30 seconds to get my chain back on and I was flaming pissed. I was cussing up a storm as I hopped back on my bike, providing cheap entertainment for the bystanders. I was so angry that I just jumped on my bike and grunted and stomped on my pedals as hard as I could. This was a good use of my rage, as I was able to catch back up to all the guys that past me while I was down.

I quickly settled into a good pace. I have to say, other than my crashes (yes I had another minor one), my skills on the dirt were pretty on this race. I hit all the barriers with a good amount of speed, road up most of the run-ups (they were short) and was able to remount and start pedaling pretty quickly after hoping over barriers!

A few laps into the race I started feeling pretty good and started to accelerate in the appropriate sections. For a while I was kinda riding by myself and then suddenly I started gaining on people. I first caught Rick Hunter and thought, ooh I'm not doing so bad. I battled it out with him for a lap, before putting a bit of a gap on him and chasing down one of the DFL guys(turned out to b Dylan on a fricken singlespeed, damn that boy is fast). I came buy him and he never caught me.

I focus on keeping my upper body relaxed and really taking all corners, dirt or pavement, at speed. I felt this was the first time that I was actually able to convserve speed through the turns! On each flat section I forced my fatigued legs to accelerate, I didn't jump with power, but I did spin faster. Using this tactic in the later laps, eventually allowed my to catch one more of the DFL guys (on a single speed, I think this is the guy the call Duckie).

On top of the excitement of racing, I was extremely grateful to everybody cheering me on. Everytime I came by I could hear people telling me, OK you can get the guy in front of you and almost every lap I came by, I was passing another person! It was a cool racer\spectator interaction! I can vividly remember Meredith exclaiming, yes, you caught another one! Thanks specifically to Meredith for water bottle handoffs, cheering and support and thanks also to Beverly, Paule, Julie, Alise, Lauren and Sabine for cheering me on! Also thanks to everybody else who I couldn't identify for cheering me on as well. It means a lot to hear encouragment, when you are racing your arse off, only to not get lapped by the rest of the elite field!

I finished the last lap, riding with all I had left in me. I still wish I had better power output, but at least my heart rate was consistent. I came in 23/29 and didn't get lapped! That means Justin Robinson, Simon Vickers and Aaron Odell and Larry Hibbard didn't pass me...woohoooo!

Here's the official results:
http://www.pilarcitos.com/results05_1.htm#Elite%20Men

Sorry no pics...I forgot to bust out the camera! Next race I swear I'll get some pics! However, you can check out the race profile from my Polar 720 HRM.

Thanks for reading!

Cheers,
Isaias

CCCX Race #1 - My first Cat. A 'cross race or how to suffer like a mofo

2005-09-30T17:42:00.000-07:00

So this year, for some stupid reason, maybe because I'm a glutton for punishment, I decided to bump up and race with the Cat As for this year's 'cross season. For those not familar with categories for cyclocross, it breaks down like this:
Cat C - like beginner for mountain biking
Cat B - like sport, but mostly a mix of sport\expert and cat 3,4 roadies
Cat A - combine expert, semi-pro and pros.

Yea, that's right. I have to race against the local pros like Andy Jaques-Maynes, Justin Robinson and some of the local fast guys like Simon Vickers & Joshua Snead(Rock Lobster) and last but not least, old time pros like the legendary Larry Hibbard!

Any who, not really being fully recovered from mountain biking season, mostly mental at this point, (read as I'm still drinking lots of beer and not really training all that much), I decided that partying til 4am on Friday, followed by some more beer and wine drinking into the late hours of saturday, would be completely OK before my first A race on Sunday, CCCX Race 1 - Monterey Penninsula College (www.cccx.org)...repeat after me ouch!!

I showed up at the race site with a couple hours to spare. I got registered, then got changed and went to check out the course. Lot's and lot's of familiar faces: Paule, Julie, Tim, Beverly, and Luke of Roaring Mouse; Lauren Constanti, Brian Rodgers, and Aaron Bonar of Sycip, Sarah Kerlin and a bunch of other Bellas, and one other TWWer besides me, Jeff Haneous.

The course was pretty sweet. A super dusty single track section, a gnarly steep descent with a hard right hander at the bottom on to a running track, one steep loose run-up and one short run-up with a really bad, bumpy, hard left entrance into it. The rest of the couse was classic twisty paved sections, mixed with a few flat, straight paved and grass sections. All in all I would say the course was pretty fricken fast.

After getting a good warm-up, it's time to line up with the rest of the A's. I choose a spot in the second row from the front, second in from the outer right side. And their off, the start is super fast, duh, and I quickly realize that a weekend of drinking and staying up late is no way to prepare for this kind of intensity. I fall off of the front and settle in somewhere near the back of the group of 28 racers.

We'd only been ridden for a few minutes and my heart rate was already pegged in the mid 180bpm. I figured I'd eventually settle in and be able to recover....33 minutes later my heart rate is still pegged and I can't believe I have a hole nother 30 minutes of racing at that intensity. I mean I've raced at this type of intensity before in mountain biking, but there is just something much more painful about doing it in a 'cross race. I think it has something to do with the constant accelerations and decelerations, coupled with getting on and off the bike and the bit about running up hills with your bike on your shoulder sure doesn't help to make things any easier.

I did manage to pick off a few people during the race, so I didn't finish DFL, but pretty close at 22/28 racers. The good news is that I was able to race at that intensity for 60 minutes, that is 15 minutes more racing time that racing in the B's last year. Plus, with a little more sleep and a lot less booze in my system, I think I could do quite a bit better. My only goal for the next race is not to get lapped by the top A racers.

Thanks for reading!

Cheers,
Isaias

Trip to Mineral King - Sept 16-20th, 2005

2005-09-23T16:18:00.000-07:00

collage	Path to Sawtooth Pass

Columbine	Vista from Blackrock Pass

Sequoia National Park - Mineral King

DFL Race 2

2005-09-15T01:08:00.000-07:00

DFL Race 2 050914

Holy Crap! This 'cross course was about the most fun and toughest I can recall. Lot's of really fast bumpy singletrack and lots of climbing! After doing intevals at cross practice on Tuesday and then sleeping about 5hrs that nite, I wasn't quite sure how my legs were gonna feel for the Weds nite race. Well, sure enough, I got about a 5 minute warm up and then it was time to start. Of course we're in the City, so it's windy as hell and the warm up quickly dissipates as I stand at the starting line amongst at least 40 people.

Anywho, we start off on a paved climb, thru some bramble, onto a paved flat, then a hard left onto a bumpy, climbing singletrack, to short steep climb, to a run up, which was like a rocky little krag you had to be careful running up. NORBA and UCI would so not approve and that makes me love the course even more.

Anywho, the next little descent is rocky, followed by some bumpy grass lined singletrac, then a hard left on to a short paved section and then down another super fast, super bumpy singletrack into another hard left hander.

Just as your hands, arms and blurred vision have recovered, you hit the bumpiest fastest singletrack descent that lead you into a paved climb. You pop off the paved climb by making a right onto a singletrack\doubletrack under Eucalyptus looking trees. You then wind up this trail and then into a quick little descent and over a big log, plop into a loose dirt section, which I choose to run, because in about 20 ft there was another big log to pop over. Over the second log, run down a steep little descent onto the pavement and hop back on the bike.

Pedal, pedal, hard left onto a fireroad, pick up too much speed, almost wipe out trying to slow down to hop over the double barrier composed of metal rods about knee high, sprint down the fireroad and then you pop out onto the paved start, which BTW is into a right hand lane of a two lane road. Fortunatly there wasn't much traffic, although on one of the laps I did have to call up to the guy in back of me, that there was a car coming...so sketchy...I love it.

Anywho, after suffering thru the first lap and thinkin', god what the f*ck am I doing out here, my legs warmed up and the second lap hurt a bit less and then I settled into a groove for the remainder of the laps...all 45minutes worth. Attack, attack, recover, attack, attack, recover, this worked well as I managed to work my way up to some of the leaders. Once I got into a decent position, I just focus on my pedaling, dismount\remount techniuqe and tried to hold my placement in the pack. This worked well, as one of the fast guys I was following never managed to pull away from me.

I think I finished somewhere in the top 10...damn the leaders are fast. The fact that I can sortuv hang with them, gives me some hope that I won't be getting lapped racin' in the A's this year....that is of course until the pros show up at the UCI races!

Another great race put on by the DFL team...oh and I love the new Mango juice that they added to the assortment of post-race beverages....lot's of good carbs to help recovery!

God I love the pure anaerobic bliss of 'cross! Rock on !

Cheers,
Isaias
Our pretty pals over at Roaring Mouse (Tim, Paule and Julie)

A little bit of 'cross stuff

2005-09-09T09:07:00.000-07:00

Since my mind is on 'cross now, I thought I'd post a few links that I like to use to check on what's going down on the 'cross scene.

Norcal & Nevada 'cross schedule
http://www.ncnca.org/cyclocross/2005/

Updated CCCX schedule
http://www.cccx.org/2005/index.shtml

05-06 cyclocross UCI schedule
http://www.usacycling.org/news/user/story.php?id=1889

Everthing cyclocross - articles, components, frames, etc
http://www.cyclocrossworld.com/Tech.cfm

Overview of 'cross
http://www.cyclingnews.com/cross/?id=faq

Church of Bike...indeed

2005-09-08T09:24:00.000-07:00

The first sign that 'cross season is upon us is the DFL race series. Yesterday was the 1st race of the season and boy did it hurt...but then again, that's why we all race 'cross right? I like to refer to cross as anaeorobic bliss, because the euphoria induced high from racing at your breaking limit for 45-60 minutes has a tendency to make all the mundane problems in your life melt away.

Any how, the race was fun as hell and my quads ached like mad after the race was over. There was something like 80 people racing yesterday. I heard somebody say that it was close to their all time record of like 100 racers or something like that . Keep in mind, the race begins with a mass start...talk about chaos. It took me almost a lap to weave my way thru the mob and get closer to the front of the pack. Surpisinlgy, my passing skills in the tight stuff were pretty darn good...borderline ballsy. My anaerobic training definitely needs some more training...intervals, intervals, intervals.

On another related topic, I am proud to announce that I will be racing with the Ritchey\Lapierre team for this year's 'cross season...wooohooo! I already knew a handful of the people on the team from racing cross with them last year. Actually, they were sortuv a surrogate team for me last year, since TWW doesn't have much of a presence on the cross scene. So, racing with them this year is just a natural fit.

DFL race - Hula girl...look closely, I'm not topless, I have a cute little coconut bra on.

2005-07-22T13:08:00.000-07:00

me and mom on mother's day

Testing my new blog

2005-07-14T16:48:00.000-07:00

So after talking to a few people about blogs and checking out a few friends blogs I thought, what the hell, I should have my own blog. See this is where it all begins!