Presta Fiesta!

Out-ranted

2006-06-16T14:33:00.000-07:00

Saw this via craigslist, that's some darn fine ranting. I hope I see "TYSONS1" on the road sometime soon.

almost smushed yesterday

2006-06-13T15:37:00.000-07:00

Chap in a Chevy Blazer with a smashed mirror u-turned right in the middle of 18th St., and very nearly sent me flying the friendly skies. There's a nascent movement (web placeholder here) to tag all such offenders with minimum 10 yrs in the casa de cornhole and $7500. Count me in favour.

Marathon!

2006-05-22T07:31:00.000-07:00

Snagged myself an entry to the Marine Corps Marathon. And having not jogged/run in several weeks, my first few 'training' miles left my hips and butt feeling (groan) semper fried.

I'm probably going against any sort of rational marathon training plan, but I haven't done any running races in years, won't stop bike commuting, and really don't plan to run any more than 3 times a week.

Visit to Moots

2006-04-20T08:51:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of posting, it's been a bit chaotic of late. Anyway, ran away to Colorado for a while, and imposed on the kind folks at Moots Cycles for a bit. Bike dorky pictures to be found here [fixed link, hopefully].

All I Want for Christmas

2006-03-04T22:29:00.000-08:00

A flask with Sheldon Brown's face etched on it.

Biking is for losers, go to DeVry instead.

2006-02-26T21:37:00.000-08:00

The online education folks at DeVry University ("Virtually A University") have a new TV spot running during Spike TV's nightly 1AM rerun of "The Shawshank Redemption." Our protagonist, Joe Pitstain, is pedalling his bike through traffic, as textual taunts of his friends' glamourous careers go whizzing by ("Julie -- accountant"). My fingers are already poised over the telephone in a quivering, number-poking state of readiness.

Joe, now acutely self-conscious of the stench of failure produced by bicycle commuting, enrolls at DeVry, and acquires himself a new "Sports Sedan." Way to go, Joe. Enroll in our grad school, and you'll get that Hummer! I'm already shopping for some new stretchy-waist Sansabelt slacks.

Perhaps I should retreat a little bit, as I actually think technical schools in general, and online technical training in particular, are among the most undeservedly disrespected education channels out there. But too many of us bless off on the notion that success is best measured in 0-60mph times. Does it seem right that an institution that appeals to folks investing in themselves, trying to hop up a class in our very divided society, courts their scarce dollars with a promise of success centered around ditching your bike for a "Sports Sedan"?

Newest Olympic sport...

2006-02-19T20:16:00.000-08:00

... Bicycle traffic jousting. Though I don't see any cheesy berets or doping scandals in my future, as I would never ever ever (hi mom!) ride like these future Olympians.

Seriously though, how about cyclocross as a new Winter Games sport? The IOC hierarchy is apparently Eurocentricizing, and cyclocross would reverse the recent trend of adding Yankee Doodle Friendly events like the countless snowboard contests littering the NBC's terriblo Torino coverage. In the tradition of biathlon (cross country skiing and target shooting), nordic combined (XC skiing and ski jumping), and doubles luge (that's where in the world Matt Lauer is!), cyclo-x is the perfect Olympic sport for the new Euro regime. Road bikes with knobby tires, snow, sand pits, cow bells, drunk Belgians -- it pulls off that same double of making absolutely no logical sense, yet holding a quirky appeal because of its provincial roots (not many other sports prominently feature beer gardens).

Vancouver 2010, i'd sure love to turn on the 'Today Show,' and see Al Roker attempting a running remount after shouldering a Ridley or Merckx up a steep muddy slope.

2nd Annual Poor Judgment Run

2006-02-17T20:09:00.000-08:00

Around this time last year, I had just stumbled punch-drunk out of a job that I was rather poorly suited to fill. After a week or so of reacquainting myself with sleep, it snowed. I was so charged up by the snow, and my newfound scheduling freedom, that I decided on a whim to go on a long run. Note, there was approximately 9 inches of snow on the ground, I had not jogged in several months, and I tromped through 14 miles. Thus was born the Poor Judgment Run. I hobbled around for six weeks on strained Achilles' and IT bands.

Fast forward one year, to last weekend's 8-inch 'Storm of the Century.' I am now actually jogging on a regular basis, with one eye on giving a marathon a try later this year (and if I can really get my running legs back, I'm banking on big leaps forward in cyclocross results by simply running the length of the courses). I brought along my camera to capture the senseless violence my Pavlovian response to snow can wreak on my body.

Bags for the feet. A slightly hillbilly way to stay warm, but my wheels stayed pretty dry, and style is pretty irrelevant when you're staggering through the snow.

Tunes are needed to stoke the adrenaline fire, and the frenetic "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" (the 'chase music' from the Simpsons) does the trick. Check out this version from Letterman with Earl Scruggs, Vince Gill, and the guy whose movie i still won't see, Steve Martin.

The trail used to be there somewhere....

At least one biker had the right stuff. Never saw him/her, hope they had a fun ride.

There was a proposal to put a Metro line here (the "Inner Purple" line). While mass transit is great, there are only so many opportunities to enjoy scenery such as this.

I caused the snow, by the way. Until the day before this snowfall, my beard had puffed to about four times as dense as is pictured. Tired of waiting on beard-rockin weather, i did some facescaping. Good thing i didn't razor-shave, we'd still be digging out.

Back to some purtier scenery. That's the creek that put the Creek in Rock Creek Park, the Rock Creek.

Same creek, as viewed through the trestle bridge.

Halfway point, and adrenalized running gives way to mellow gliding. Earl Scruggs yields the mic to Woody Guthrie.

Yeah, it's a snow angel. It is, after all, the Poor Judgment Run, and the setting sun and wet snow on my back made for a chilly final 3 miles.

Two ladies cross-country skiing just outside the Chevy Chase shop. Every year, I tell myself i should buy XC skis, and every year, talk myself out of it with the logic that I'd only get to use them one day a year. But what a day...

The sun is setting, and i'm ready to set with it. The variable terrain of snow requires one to be ready to jump, skip, hike, fling limbs around like a drunk Jim Carrey, or tiptoe the sideline like Reggie Bush in the Orange Bowl. It's a hoot, until you're cold, wearing down after six miles of emulating the Heisman winner, and feeling all 30 years in your legs.

Some kiddos on the country club golf course building a snowman, making much better use of some rich guy's now useless tee time.

My recovery meal. No, don't adjust the color on your screen, it does look like concrete, tastes like gooey heaven, though. Yoghurt, chocolate-flavoured whey powder, peanut butter, and a bit of granola.

In all, I cut back to a more reasonable 7-8 miles this year, with no lingering after-effects. The original plan was to do a ride I've had to reschedule three times, the WO&D to White's Ferry and back down the C&O. No complaints though, weather permitting I'll rack up the bike miles tomorrow.

i still miss johnny cash

2006-02-14T15:25:00.000-08:00

Here's a kid-friendly rethink of "Don't Take Your Guns to Town" on Sesame Street, great stuff. The same man who once sang about drug-induced wife murdering to rowdy federal prisoners conveys the challenge of counting to two with a seven-foot-tall Muppet for accompaniment.

Marketing guerillas, gorillas, and panthers

2006-02-13T06:19:00.000-08:00

Rolled into work the other day, and emblazoned on the sidewalk, directly in front of the shop's front door, was a spray-chalk pink animal track. Huh. The 5th Annual Cure Canine Breast Cancer Walk, perhaps? Maybe Borf is out, working in a more feminine and less subversive medium? Nope.

Guerilla marketing, a concept barely handled as a bold print vocab word in my grad school marketing texts, has creeped into Adams Morgan. This cynical marketing tactic places symbols, logos, etc., in heavily trafficked public areas without prior permission. While difficult to communicate a message, it's a dirt-cheap way to create buzz, or lodge associations in our lobotomized nuggets. Corporate commissioned graffiti, basically.

Anyway, the 800-lb gorillas of the movie studios have grown bored of tossing money at big stars, focus groups, and ad buys, and have apparently latched onto this annoying tactic. Blasting us with traditional promotion is no longer sufficiently paralyzing our sense of free will, so they tagged our one-horse bike shop with the aforementioned pink pawprint in spray-chalk. Yep, Sony Pictures wants you to think that my bike shop somehow endorses the tepidly-reviewed "Pink Panther" remake. Or at least, they want you to associate whatever product-congruent brand association tinglings one might get upon entering our shop with their movie. This is the sort of thing that make me ashamed to have attended business school.

No big deal? Of course it isn't, it's innocuous and washed away in a heavy rain. But what if we didn't see the same 'synergies' in our shop promoting their fine film? Our 'opt-out' of Sony's brand-building initiative is our manager, on his hands and knees in 35 degree weather, scrubbing the sidewalk. Enough to turn me off of the prospect of paying $9 to watch Steve Martin's career tailspin.

We're hardly innocent lambs, however. For years, a popular seller in the shop has been a messenger bag with the shop's logo on the back flap. I own one. Our own image is probably more vividly burned into brains by riders diving in and out of traffic with our logo featured prominently than by any amount of print advertising or PR. How many 13 year old boys riding shotgun in a Mercedes E320 associate my spitting on their dad's windshields with the logo on my pack?

Which is more disturbing?

2006-01-31T08:49:00.000-08:00

These photos, which are now everywhere on the internet, showing a biker and a wife-beater throwing down in the streets of Toronto, or the crass comments on the chatboard where the pics were originally posted? Look for the link in the article, I won't put it here, as it's utterly disgusting. One needs to look hard to find any hope for humanity after reading some of the reactions.

The whole deal makes me glad that i'm headed out of town for a few days, and won't be on the streets for the rest of the week. I'm primed (more so than usual) to get U-Locky on the next Lexus RX300 (my SUV nemesis of the month) to pull any bikes-off-the-road BS. I need a drink.

Final thought -- I wonder if the discarded burger that kicked off the slap-fest was from Harvey's? Probably not, Mr. Congeniality looks like a Mickey D's man.

Wasted Space

2006-01-26T17:34:00.000-08:00

So. All three of you periodic visitors might have noticed a paucity of posts to this blog littering the bandwidth. I was beginning to tire of my negative whiny prattle, and started looking for some plump and shiny topics to blend up in the cerebral cuisinart. The time elapsed between posts lately might point to my success in that endeavour. Every 'writer' has to find his/her Voice, and mine is apparently shrill and bitchy, so hang in there while I make the case that we are afflicted with too much wasted space.

People's Exhibit A is probably this blog. But for now, let's move on to People's B, the half-cubic-foot box that Amazon.com used to ship me a new SD card for my camera, which is about the size of a quarter, and the OEM packaging maybe the size of a deck of cards. This box could hold all Stephen Harper's crackpot schemes to ruin my home and native land, with room for a Calgary-sized helping of ketchup chips (expiration date on both: September 2007). Big.

Turning my ramblings back bikeward, People's C was today, at the crowded gridlocked intersection of Connecticut and Something NW. It was colder than Stephen Harper's soul today, making it somewhat surprising to find myself stopped at this light alongside three other cyclists. We were all clustered at the front of the right lane, and after grunting greetings, i looked over to the lane next to us. A young lady was at the tiller of a Chevy 'Burban, alone but for the dinosaurs dying a second death in her Vortec V-8, and occupying as much space as our four shivering selves and our collective 100 pounds of machinery. Draw your own conclusions.

Finally, People's D would replace the "ace" in "wasted space" with an "erm", if I weren't trying to be all thematic. Two enterprising young go-getters forged themselves some faux driver's licenses, took $11K worth of road bikes from the shop for a test ride, and never returned. A few weeks passed, and they tried the same scheme at a few other area shops a couple of times. No success for them, but us neither.

Anyway (brace for some shameless boasting), I set up a auto-search on ebay, and after a few weeks with nothing, these two bikes popped up. Since the alleged knuckleheads posted both of these rather unique and simulaneously-pinched bikes at the same time, it made it that much easier to believe that we had our filthy perps. Further, some fake ID hologram stickers were purchased with the same ebay account, which makes for a coincidence on the order of Tyler Hamilton's vanishing twin. So the fantastic Sgt. Hartnett of the Montgomery County MD police was notified, and yada yada yada, we got our bikes back yesterday. I think this is the first time i've had a role in busting a perp. And they apparently had some other allegedly-stolen stuff, including another bike from Performance, so my resume will soon brag about my leadership in disassembling a criminal conspiracy.

Insert clever summation here, folks, cuz i got wrongs to be righted, rights to be defended, defenses to be exploited. Next post will be as happy as a beagle puppy in a kindergarten class, i promise.

quote of the day

2006-01-18T17:29:00.000-08:00

Today's commute to work was pretty sour -- got into a head-turning screaming match with a lady in a Lexus SUV (she almost smushed me, I offered some observations on her pedigree, she opined on my choices in transport).

So, my evening commute was uplifting, when i pulled up to a light on Connecticut Ave, and a slightly disheveled, possibly homeless, gentleman encouraged me to, "Keep on saving the biosphere, man!" Being wary of, well, most everything, i feigned exhaustion and offered a tentative thumbs-up in response. "We're runnin' out of them fossil fuels!" I smiled and head-nodded, and moved onward.

Pretty cool all round, and not likely to be experienced behind the wheel of a Lexus RX300.

New Year, Old Bike

2006-01-17T19:40:00.000-08:00

So, yeah, the blog muse went on an extended vacation, it's been awhile since i posted. I got sick (sinus infection), pudgy (10 lbs. of second helpins in '06), and lazy (well, lazier). Anyway, while most bike activities took a sabbatical, i did manage to get a new bike built up. However, the build required that i cannibalize some bits from an old friend, my Landshark road bike that i hillbillied into an often-functional fixed gear.

Here's the 'Ergopower' bell i rigged up. I had two brake levers for hand position's sake, but only one brake. That other lever, flopping around in the wind without purpose, was a bit too autobiographical. So, i drilled a hole in the bell's h-bar clamp and bolted it onto the DT shifter braze-on, drilled another hole through the ringer, and routed the cable as shown, with the headtube cable guide serving as a cable stop. Bell rings without having to move hands from the hoods, perfect for the MUTs, and complete overkill as a bonus. Brake levers are Campy, hence the sticker applied by David at the Chevy Chase bike mill.

Yep, vert dropout, fixed gear, no ENO hub nuttiness necessary, just some filing and messing around with gearing. Cheapo tensioner not only tensions (duh), but also works as a spacer for the 120mm hub to fit in the 130mm rear end. Regrettably, i never found a clever repurpose for the derailleur hanger, suggestions not involving opening bottles of beer are welcome. And yes, the bike desperately needs a wash.

The front end. The H-bar mounted bottle cage was intended to hold Starbucks booty, but unseen in the photo are the coffee stains all over the previously shiny and purty Ibis ti stem, Phil Wood hub, and Campy Monoplaner brake. Anyway, the wheels have been snatched by another bike, and the headset needs major surgery, so this baby took its last ride for awhile. Pics of the new commuter to follow sometime soon.

Phil Wood rear hub, with tensioners pointed in random directions, hair band hub shiner, mostly straight chainline, and EAI rear cog (gearing was 43x15, about 78 gear inches i think).

Happy Holidays!

2005-12-22T12:49:00.000-08:00

Jolly Saint Nick tagged along for the commute, and had a front row seat for this morning's puncture. He reports that it was a bit cold in the shade this morning, sitting outside UDC waiting to be retrieved, but that with a few swings of his reindeer crop, he fought off the bike-stealing hordes.

I figured that this was about as pretty as this Phil Wood cog was going to look, so before it went on the Frankenbecane, it went on the tree.

I'm PlanBDextrous!

2005-12-22T06:08:00.000-08:00

So, Metro has these clever signs up, urging their ridership to be "PlanBDextrous". In other words, if a rat junta takes possession of the rail beds by force, or frogs with George Bush's face on them start raining from the sky, Metro wants you to have alternative commuting options lined up.

Not sure what prompted the signs, probably the transit strike in NY (great time to be a NYC bike commuter), maybe Osama's Bin Plottin (quick update -- they still haven't caught him), or they just couldn't resist the opportunity lay down a tasty pun (so immature). Likely, it's just Metro's status quo to lower expectations ("Sure, the rebel rats have established a stronghold in Gallery Place, but it wouldn't be such a big deal if our ridership was a bit more PlanBDextrous.").

Anyhoo, today I had to whip out the PlanBDextrous skills. Everyday's Plan A, biking, was stalled around UDC, where somebody kindly dumped a bunch of stones on Connecticut Ave. They've been there for a few days now, and we're not talking a few little rocks here and there. Big piles of gravel everywhere. I've dodged them the past few days pretty successfully, even ducked one that got zinged up by a car tire. However, today, on the fixed gear with the worn tires, on the last day that i planned to ride it to work (Frankenbecane buildup begins when i get back from X-mas travel), ppphhhhsssssshhhhhhh. First dadgum puncture in a year.

Out comes the spare tube, the pump, and the tire levers.... Oops, no tire levers. Because I'm a hardcore moron, I don't use tire levers, I press the tire beads into the spoke bed channel, and use a bit of thumb english to coax the tires off. Neat parlor trick, but I sprained my left thumb last week, and a couple of attempts at a one-handed tire change proved futile. So, the bike is now sitting locked outside Van Ness metro (no bikes on Metro, even broken ones, at rush hour, dagnabbit).

Today will test my PlanBDexterity, as I've got a full day of pretending to work, picking up last-minute gifts, fetching a rental car, etc etc. The bike was supposed to aid in these efforts, but it's getting stripped down outside UDC right now, so hopefully Metro can keep the rats at bay long enough for me to get a train ride to Silver Spring...

Just when I thought I was out...

2005-12-21T11:16:00.000-08:00

... a big mound of trash tries to pull me back in. With the final score at Cyclocross 4, Me 0, I was pretty content to shut down the racing legs for the year.

Then today, I caught wind of a race at the super-literally-named Mt. Trashmore in Virginia Beach. It's a park along a highway composed of two kelly-green hills that are just a bit too precisely shaped. Yes, they are landscaped piles of garbage. And yet, fishing is allowed in the surrounding waters...

Anyway, I've been in, around, and through Virginia Beach a number of times, and have always been drawn to Mt. Trashmore for some odd reason. Perhaps its the mix of grandeur ("Mt") and honesty ("Trashmore") in the title. Maybe it's that it gave us Southern Maryland residents somewhere more bizarre than our own surroundings (Ross the Rt. 5 scarecrow agrees).

Whatever the case, I'm wondering if it's worth it to haul down for another 10AM race (dang slow-guy class!). I'm in awful shape at the moment, but i feel somehow compelled. It's Mt. Trashmore, and the fates decree my participation. I wonder if the fates will renew my USCF license for me?

commuter buildup

2005-12-20T14:13:00.000-08:00

My fixie is too twitchy and fragile for commuter duty, my cross bike has too many gears, both are a bit too nice to be subjected to the elements, and neither takes big curb-crusher tires or fenders I need.

So, my old '70's Motobecane Grand Record frame is gonna come out of retirement, rejiggered as a fixed gear commuting beast, with this porntastic Phil Wood cog providing the driving force. My Landshark fixed gear (which i'll post pics of someday) will begin a long winter hibernation (after being stripped of its wheels and receiving a long-overdue bottom bracket overhaul). Let the Frankenbike building begin...

strange days

2005-12-15T07:51:00.000-08:00

The third snowfall of December (still not winter!) has just begun here in DC, an event that by itself is odd enough. But while normally I would be giddy bordering on spastic, everything is topsy turvy this year. Snow used to mean a day off from work. Now it means a day not getting paid. Snow used to inspire me to get the ski boots out of the closet and broken in for another season's use. The only skiing in the budget for this year is cross country skiing the biking trails with my downhill skis (not as hard as it sounds, btw). It feels odd not to be excited about snow.

But most painfully, snow means that my clumsy self shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a bicycle. I'm nursing a bruise/road rash about the size of a Starbuck's lid on my right hip bone, the result of a fall on some black ice monday morn. I then took another spill tuesday evening, different patch of ice, same bruised hip cushioning the blow.

Oddest thing of it all -- every recent fall, whether my Bikes Capades commuting or cyclocross acrobatics, has been on my right side (except for that tree i hit head-on). Because i'm right-handed? Nope, my right-handed boss apparently has a similar affinity for falling on his left side. I'm stumped.

Seven miles of fishtailing

2005-12-09T07:39:00.000-08:00

It snowed again, and while it was far less severe than the dramatic weathermen predicted, there was about two inches of heavy, wet snow accumulated on the Cap Crescent Trail. So, telling myself that it would be great practice if i attempt cyclocross again next year (I have some bike handling issues), I hop on the Colnago with the worn out 27c Vittoria dry weather cross tires, and set off. To raise the stakes somewhat, i needed my laptop at work today, so in the event of a fall, using the bag as cushioning wasn't an option.

Anyway, i made it to work without falling, lots of fishtailing though. I cruised by one guy granny-gearing at near-walking pace on a plastic-fantastic dual-boinger mountain bike, one guy on a hybrid walking his bike in defeat, and a Squadra Coppi guy on a cross bike going the opposite (uphill) way who looked like he was fending off the cold fingers of death.

All in all, i had a fun time slipping and sliding my way to work. It was a hideously slow and exhausting ride, and once i made it into the city, it was agony trying to haul myself around the streets on a snow-clogged bike with knobbies at 35psi. But once i found that ideal speed on the snow where momentum is high enough to plow through the slop without overcoming the minimal traction offered by my tires, i was crusing. Unfortunately, the weather's warming up, so all that will be left for the ride home is a soupy slushy slurry of snow and salt, which is far less challenging than it is sloppy.

Slow news day

2005-12-08T17:22:00.000-08:00

There's really not much to write about, as a general off-season malaise is permeating the shop and my own normally sunny demeanor. Hours, daylight, cashflow, and warmth have all been severely cut back, while snow, cold, dark, and rats proliferate. Worst of all, the battery on my bike's headlamp is dying, and while I have a freaky cobbled-together replacement super-battery on the way, it's provided me with a convenient excuse to take the subway to work for the past few days.

Sometime soon, I need to shake the solstice blues and get out for a nice, long daytime ride. Charging through traffic or on the empty Cap Crescent is OK, but I miss the interaction of a daytime ride. The casual head-nod greeting to fellow bikers, the occasional greeting and conversation, and even the 'on your left' ritual of passing a fellow cyclist.

I say ritual because it's so frequently repeated, and nearly always in the same, symmetrical manner. The initiation -- "On your left." The acknowledgment -- "Thank you." The closure -- a brief wave. 3 syllables of proposition, 2 syllables of acceptance, 1 gesture of appreciation. We naturally cling to familiar things, and it always leaves me with a good feeling in my gut when this innane ritual plays out as described. Perhaps I'm a bit OCD.

Boy, these long winter (or late fall, to be precise) nights really mess with the head. Anyone else feeling overly philosophical or stuck in a continuous mental loop of nostalgia?

Snow Riding

2005-12-06T08:20:00.000-08:00

It actually snowed yesterday, and while I'd quibble with the local news calling it a 'storm', it was enough to make the ride home a rather frigid affair. I was armed with all the fancy thermal this and insulated that and moisture-wicking other thing, but I forgot the most necessary winter accessory worn by every Ottawa boy of thrifty upbringing -- plastic grocery bags for the extremities.

The upside to bad weather is that only the best prepared or most illogical folks (i illogically thought i was prepared) were out on the MUTs, and I was able to bypass what was probably vehicular anarchy on Connecticut Ave., and enjoy a soaking wet, frigid cold sprint up the Cap Crescent Trail. I saw two other bikers, two walkers, and one miserable looking cat.

Nice Schadenfreude moment

2005-12-04T15:36:00.000-08:00

Towards the end of the last lap of Saturday's race, a guy i was tailing hit some bumpy stuff in a corner, and he suffered a dropped chain. I felt bad for him... well, no i didn't. I told him I did after the race, but I was pretty happy that for once, it wasn't me.

MAC Champs at Fairhill...

2005-12-04T15:03:00.000-08:00

Didn't start. I woke at 6AM and decided that I needed sleep more than I needed to drive four hours, shell out for tolls, gas, and entry fees, just to end up falling, breaking bike bits, and at best, end up outsprinting a dude on his Trek 830 wearing sweatpants and a skateboarding helmet to drag myself out of DFL.

Plus, I'm obviously not brimming with confidence at the moment, other than a belief (or perhaps a delusion), that if I could just keep off the ground, and the bike would quit breaking, i have the legs to contend. But cyclocross season is mercifully over, and I can file this away as a lesson learned.

Once my bruised legs heal up a bit, i'm plotting some longer weekend rides -- just me, a bike with one gear, long miles, my own pace, and paved roads. I can't wait.

MABRA champs at Fairhill, MD

2005-12-03T14:13:00.000-08:00

sooo.... cold......

22nd of 26, not so good. Three falls, all stupid ones, two on the first lap (!), not so good. New rear QR skewer i installed (thinking the ole Campy classic wasn't secure, what was i thinking, Tullio invented the stupid thing) slipped, making me stop twice to adjust the rear wheel, really not so good (let's pretend it's because of the overly powerful rider).

However, I exerted next to no effort, and after falling and fiddling my way into DFL for the first two laps, I started picking off my fellow packfill on the last lap. Had the race gone another lap, i had plenty of energy and had some larger groups in my sights.

Likely culprit for my falls? The course was rather flat, so i decided to put some air into my rear tire after warmup. I wasn't paying attention, and mixed up my pressure gauge hash marks. The 42 pounds i intended to put in the rear tire evidently gained some weight, post-race i had 52 psi in there. Not my finest hour.

MAC championships are tomorrow, at the same venue with some course changes. Since i'm feeling pretty fresh, i know the course, i've reswapped the QR, and will pay some attention to pumping up the tires this time, I might give it a whirl.

Low point -- the USCF marshall at the start indicated the high unlikelihood of anyone getting lapped, and his words were angering me as I hauled my arse back onto the bike after two falls and a rear-wheel-maintenance interlude on Lap 1.

High point -- beginning of Lap 3, when I was finally catching somebody in my class. I took inventory of my energy, popped it into a lower cog, and sprinted past on a straight.

What do George Clinton and George Clooney have in common?

2005-12-02T07:39:00.000-08:00

Both men will now fade into obscurity, as the only thing keeping their identities foremost in the hearts and minds of the public was the power of suggestion, as delivered by the Metrorail intercom warnings of "doors opening" and "doors closing." These innocuous words, especially as delivered through the Nixon-era speakers of the older trains, have always registered in my ears as "George Clooney" and "George Clinton" (take a ride on the Metro, you'll hear it too). Friends would disintegrate in peels of laughter, perhaps at my expense, whenever the train would stop, softly intoning in that sing-songy, on-hold-with-verizon voice, "George CLOONey".

Alas, the sotto voce of the Georges is being put out to pasture. They're going in the dreaded 'different direction,' something more assertive and directive. I'm kinda hoping it's the same bizarre warning heard in many airport shuttle trains. Toronto's awful Pearson airport is the one that sticks out in my head -- a bizarre little 6-note electronic ditty recorded off an Atlantic City slot machine is followed by a guy earnestly warning that, "The train is PREPARING to stop," said in such a dire-consequences way that you know he continued with, "so get off your duffs NOW," but they cut that bit off the tape.

What do Chris Horner and I have in common?

2005-12-01T20:31:00.000-08:00

We're both giving 'cross another whirl. About 10 minutes after I signed up for the MABRA champs on Saturday to do battle in the men's C class, velonews.com posted the news that Chris is doing Nationals.

Of course, Mr. Horner probably doesn't obsessively check eBay every 15 minutes trying to source a wider-range six-speed freewheel for his race bike, while I don't have to worry about my employers tearing up my six-figure contract if I wrap myself around a tree (again).

another perspective on bike commuting

2005-12-01T11:12:00.000-08:00

Here's an interesting read from Slate, about one guy's attempt to go car-free. It sounds like he was doing well, but got sidetracked (as many of us do) by bad equipment and clothing choices. A B.O.B. trailer and some better clothing might have solved his dog food hauling and nagging cold problems nicely. Commuting setup is always a work in progress. We're also fortunate in DC Metro to have numerous fallback options besides a nasty old Volvo, such as the Metro mass transit system, Flexcar, and Zipcar.

I'm glad to see that he made mention of Breezer, something I ruminated on recently (sweet sweet validation). In a wierd coincidence, he also mentions a more stylish commuter, the Bianchi Milano (also stocked/sold at a certain urban DC bicycle retailer), which i had intended on including in my Breezer rambling, but had grown weary of my own words by that point.

The future of Rock Creek Park...

2005-11-30T13:14:00.000-08:00

...appears to bear an uncanny resemblance to its past. Various interest groups have been cajoling the National Parks Service to shut down Beach Dr. to vehicular traffic all week. Teddy Roosevelt probably didn't envision the national parks system serving as a Federally-protected right-of-way for local commuter arteries. Plus, the mixed-use trails (MUTs) that occasionally parallel Beach Dr. are a [rim shot] mongrel of crumbly asphalt, dirt, narrow blind bends, and they just sort of randomly end in places. And where bikes and bladers rule on weekends, the cars rule at rush hour. I rode into work via Beach Dr. one day, and was surprised to find that I prefer Connecticut Ave.

Anyway, sounds like no dice, at least for now. They're promising to fix up some of the trail, but let's face it, any trail they put down is not going to approach the utility of having a full traffic lane just for the bikes. Rock Creek Park Critical Mass, perhaps your time has arrived.

more musical fare from NPR...

2005-11-29T19:37:00.000-08:00

When i was bureaucratting for the Feds, an all-too-common conversation ender was somebody playing the ole classic, "my taxes pay your salary, so [insert unreasonable or illegal demand here]".

However, now that my inner capitalist is free to trod on the daisies, I feel comfortable in ranting to NPR, "Hey, a diminishing proportion of my taxes finance your threadbare operations, so please make more of your best shows available online in an unrestricted format." Exhibit A was the Hackensaws on Weekend Edition, and a Thanksgiving-apropo Exhibit B is Arlo Guthrie rambling about the 40th anniversary of 'Alice's Restaurant', which belongs on my iPod, but can only live on my connected laptop.

Just bought the song off iTunes for nostalgia's sake. For my $.99, there's never been a more perfect paradox then when Arlo laments, "We was both immediately arrested. Handcuffed. And I said, 'Obie, I don't think I can pick up the garbage with these handcuffs on.'"

to race or not to race?

2005-11-29T18:32:00.000-08:00

New derailleur, new front brake, new cables, and a new freewheel on the way (32 low cog to counteract the evil 43 chainring). Chain drops are cured, or at least in remission (knocking furiously on wood). The bike has straightened up and is flying right.

Physically, I'm feeling stronger by the day. Using a 14 mile daily roundtrip commute through DC as a training base is far from ideal, but i feel stronger by the day climbing and powering on the flats. My back pains are fading, no nagging illness. All cylinders firing in the engine room.

Motivation is the hitch. The last local cyclocross races of the season are this upcoming weekend, and while i'm anxious to put up a decent result, I'm leaning toward wasting my in-form legs and perfectly functioning bike on a nice long tour of the backroads. Last weekend's fumblin bumblin day of tumblin and mumblin got me in the mood for more relaxing, less tree-intensive leisure pursuits.

Also, great music tends to put me in a real Type B frame of mind, and the Hackensaw Boys just did a segment on NPR, there's a couple of top-notch performances on there, go ahead and check out their website to the right, if you're wondering what the hey i'm talking about. They were pluggin their new album, which is now available through the iTunes online music store, which is just a bit bittersweet. I selfishly hope that they don't become too popular....

....Which is probably what the 'cross freakjobs have been saying for a couple of years, as more and more weekend punters like me turn up with our squishy physiques and sketchy skills. Probably in line with their design, it's up or out with this 'cross thing for me, because they always run the lowly C race first thing in the morn, and leisure doesn't mix well with waking so bloody early. Still don't know whether or not to race. Now where'd my iPod get to?

more iceland...

2005-11-28T17:37:00.000-08:00

33% of the Tacchino Cyclocross

2005-11-27T09:27:00.000-08:00

What a f&#@&n disaster of a race. Wake up 5:30AM, drive down to the race, super hard (for me anyway) course, lots of tough single-track and a tightly-taped course, had to do three recon laps to figure it out. Fell twice in warmups, had a rear brake dive under the rim, not a good omen. But no chain drops (yet).

Feeling confident at the start, good week of prep along with considerable bike work to solve braking and chaindrop issues have me thinking that a good result is in the cards. Start the race, 17 starters in C, i sprint and hold 5th (actually 6th, as some demon-possessed 13-year-old girl sprinted past the field and was crushing us guys). Feelin strong, go through all the tough parts of the course with no issues holding 5th/6th. Then, hard fall toward the end of the first lap, a small bump in the course just snuck up on me. 4 or 5 guys go by, i cruise through start/finish cursing at myself, already 1 minute down to the leader. About a third of the way into lap two, i overcook a high speed left curve, understeering wide, directly into a tree. Had that slow-motion sensation as what appeared to be an oak tree loomed dead-center.

The front wheel (built by me) absorbed the brunt of the impact, and held true, the first evidence of something on my ride performing above expectations. At this point, i am mentally done with this race, as i really didn't get into this to deprive myself of food, sleep, and spare time in order to plow into trees. Continue cruising the course with a mountain bike guy i chatted with at the start, if we're not jousting for DFL, we're close. Tried to remount after a runup, and somehow managed to not only drop the chain, but break a spring inside the rear derailleur, race mercifully over.

Morale is in the toilet, as after 3 races, i have two DNFs and a 28th out of 39. i feel like i have the legs to be up near the front, but i handle the bike like Tyler Hamilton, and ride a bike that sheds parts like a '75 MG. Worked for four or five hours redoing the drivetrain and brakes on the bike to get it 'ready' for today's big Reston race, but ended up blowing it off because i'm tired and pissed and just don't feel like putting in all the prep and expense just to get any hope of a decent result blown away by a stupid fall or yet another mechanical. A guy at the shop told me that the only thing worse than DFL is DNF, I'll dissent and say that worst of all is DNS, and that's me, sittin on my couch eating Cheez-its while the biggest cross race in the area is happening 30 minutes away.

Sorry for the maudlin post, i'll post some more pics from Phil in Iceland later to brighten the scenery in blogville.

Talkin up the product

2005-11-23T08:22:00.000-08:00

Yes, i'm a shameless corporate shill. I'm now going to sing the praises of a product that my shop sells and stocks. I'm obviously not gunning for a Pulitzer with this stupid blog, so go ahead and dismiss this post as hopelessly biased, and conjecture as to who exactly is pulling my strings. Also feel free to ask for your money back, I'll be happy to oblige.

Anyway, Breezer Bikes is cranking out purpose-built commuter bikes, designed and specced to be ready off-the-peg for urban commuting and errand duty. Founder Joe Breeze is acknowledged as one of the founding fathers of, oddly enough, mountain biking. A few years ago, when Breezer announced a shift away from boutique road/mtn bikes to these commuter focused bikes, folks were a bit surprised, and I honestly thought that despite the good intentions, they would tank.

Who would buy a bike expressly designed for commuting? The only folks who bike commute, in my narrow thinking, were folks who already biked, and would think nothing of bolting a couple of blinky lights onto their old road bike, buying a messenger bag and a couple of extra pairs of shorts, and presta fiesta, one less car. I view my commute as just another bike ride, so slapping on the Sidis and shammy is also no big deal. Nobody would spend more for an upright bike kitted out with fenders, dynohub, and racks.

Fortunately, I was wrong. Breezer sales are strong, for them in general, and us in particular. So who's buying these things? Well, start composing a clever protest chant and queue up the crunchiest jam band on your iPod.... World Bank employees are probably, per capita, among the bike commutinist bunch of folks in the area, and they're buying the Breezers. Say what you will about the World Bank (i'll say nothing, as my Canadian sense of righteous indignation has reached a mental stalemate with my education in macroeconomics, so I just can't pick a side on debt relief), but according to one employee I cornered on the Metro, they offer their employees minimal fee use of indoor locked bike storage, spacious and clean full-service shower facilities, and lockers of sufficient size to store a week's worth of business attire. My former US Gov't job offered me a rickety outdoor bike rack and a threat to withhold transit subsidy dollars for the days I rode my bike.

So I took a Breezer for a quick spin the other day, and it works perfectly for what it's designed to do. One can hop on wearing normal clothes (chainguard means no right-leg-rollup necessary), cruise in stately comfort over crap city roads, and basically take any short trip without having to plot/plan/prepare. For me, it was a refreshing (and tempting) change from my finicky, twitchy, rough-riding, speedy stable of road bike commuters. Add on their good-gravy-that's-cool grocery bags, and swinging by the market for a gallon of milk after work is no prob. I think they've succeeded in doing what hybrid bikes tried and failed to do, which was to make all varieties of short bike trips as simple and stress-free as possible for well-adjusted folks who (unlike me) aren't hung up on having the niftiest, swiftest, most radically over-engineered dialed-in wonderbike for traversing the 1 mile to the Metro station.

photos from Iceland

2005-11-22T11:12:00.000-08:00

My friend/ex-coworker/ex-riding partner Phil sent in these five reasons to drop whatever you're doing and hop a flight to Iceland, where the Government subsidizes his biking travels, in return for the occasional useful contribution to our national security. Your tax dollars at play...

injured messenger

2005-11-21T13:41:00.000-08:00

The 2 or 3 of you who actually read this blog, please read/forward the below press release from one of our customers; it's pretty sad in many ways, and I sure hope this works out somehow...

As many of you already know, Ricardo "Rico" Palacios, a bike messenger at Apple Courier, was critically injured on Thursday,November 3. He has been in intensive care at Washington Hospital Center in a coma since then. He was put on a respirator this past Monday. His situation, frankly, does not look promising.

To add yet another layer of tragedy on top of this, the insurance company that should be paying his medical expenses and disability payments may well deny this claim. The company's position is that there is no way to prove this claim, as Rico is completely incapacitated and unable to communicate the circumstances of the accident. As yet, no eyewitnesses have come forward. We must locate an eyewitness to this accident and do so very soon.

Rico's accident occurred sometime just before 5:00 PM on Thursday,November 3, 2005. He was most likely near the intersection ofConnecticut Avenue and K Street, NW or somewhere en route to that location from 19th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW in DC. There would have been literally hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people in that area at that time. Surely at least one must have seen something and would be able to recount the circumstances of this accident forthe insurance company.

So to you - my network of contacts - I am turning for help. Please ask your friends, co-workers, neighbors, anyone at all that could have been in the area of Rico's accident if they witnessed anything. If I am sounding desperate, it's because I am. I cannot bear the thought of Rico's mother, an immigrant working as a housekeeper at the Capital Hilton, having to not only suffer the tragedy of possibly losing her only son, but also then be laden with outrageous medical bills. My contact information is below; I can be reached on the Apple phone numbers 24 hours day. Thank you so very much.

Elizabeth "Libby" Francis
Customer Relations Manager
Apple Courier, Inc.
Washington, DC
phone: 202-338-0930 toll free: 888-620-3300
fax: 202-338-7600
email: info@applecourierinc.com
libby@applecourierinc.com

nice article on my home town

2005-11-21T09:43:00.000-08:00

"Winterlude" in Ottawa, where they have skating, ice carving, etc. along a 5 mile stretch of the Rideau Canal. Every winter, the schools would drag the kids on a 'field trip' to the Canal, almost every kid had their own skates. And my parents usually took me out there once or twice a season, as we lived within spitting distance of Dow's Lake.

You've never known pain until around mile 4 of the canal, where the roads and bridges along and over the canal rise up and bathe everything in frigid shade, the ice becomes rutted and crumbly, and your feet are aching from the lack of circulation because you've cinched up your skates like corsets to compensate for your wobbly ankles. And you've never known sheer joy until you've taken off those same skates and are wolfing down a beavertail at the end of the day.

long ride weekend continued

2005-11-21T08:01:00.000-08:00

I did... whew... 82 miles... wheeze.... yesterday. Creaks and groans are multiplying, on the bike and in my legs. My Achilles tendons have acquired an ominous inflammation pop, which doesn't bode well for a planned weekend of cross racing. Pardon me while i root around for some ibuprofen...

I rode the pancake-flat WO&D trail, finishing an oft-attempted, yet never completed, ride to Leesburg. I've set out on this ride about five times, and each time been waylaid by a late start, a flat tire, a bonk, or nasty weather. Finally, armed with pockets bursting with spare tubes, energy bars (well, their $0.25 cousins, the Little Debbie Nutty Buddy), and a rain cape, i did the ride in 5.5 hours, getting home just after sunset.

The skinny-tire crowd owes thanks to whatever Virginia nonprofit and/or government agency is resurfacing the trails. A small but previously washboardy section of the Custis trail is now baby-butt smooth, and after Saturday's revelatory ride to Mt. Vernon, i'm starting to warm up to Virginia, at least for riding. There's still plenty to dislike (Glebe Rd., the NRA, "Reagan National", the Mixing Bowl, Jerry Kilgore), but their bike trails really are more useful than MD or DC. Whereas MD, DC, and National Park trails are very picturesque, VA trails are very utilitarian -- high voltage power lines, lots of signs, pretty flat terrain, bounded by suburban sprawl and I-66. It's like riding on a home trainer, without the TV. However, the surfaces are better, the signage clearer, and i'll give up nice views for direct routes and accessibility any day. Try commuting on Rock Creek or Georgetown Branch for comparison. To put it in SAT question terms, "Maryland roads are to Virginia roads as Virginia trails are to ____."

long ride weekend

2005-11-20T07:59:00.000-08:00

I'm trying to rack up some longer slower rides, and did about 45 miles yesterday. It was successful in a couple of respects -- the more relaxed pace worked the kinks out some recently troubled muscles and joints, like my lower back which had really been rebelling against my loaded commuting sprints. Also, I never got the memo that the Mt. Vernon trail south of the Wilson Bridge had been resurfaced -- I used to hate that path, it was like driving Rockville Pike in a car with bad shocks, now it's a blast with the buttery smooth asphalt.

On the minus side, i bonked fighting a nasty headwind, since i'm terrible about on-the-bike nutrition. Plus, my bike acquired a couple of new nasty noises, which i need to diagnose and remedy before next weekend's racing. I'd sooner spend that time training/recovering/plotting/scheming.. I'm getting a bit frustrated with bike maintenance, and the amount of time i'm having to devote to simply keeping the bikes on the road. The chainring bolts on the fixed gear all simultaneously loosened on friday, lost one of them on Ct. Ave., one of the mechanics at the shop threatened to impound my bike.

unloaded riding

2005-11-18T13:48:00.000-08:00

I had an errand to run for work today, and this was the first non-race ride in weeks where I didn't need to lug my overloaded, large-beyond-reason Chrome Kremlin bag. The instant weight loss, combined with a few strokes of the pump to get the tires to a nice firm 115psi, charged me up right. Where i normally chug up hills in a seated death-march hunch, i was flying out of the saddle like Pantani (well, in relative terms anyway). I felt superhuman for 15 miles of rolling terrain riding, and spent the majority of that ride sprinting full-bore out of the saddle in my 43x15 fixed gear. Prudent race prep for next weekend's racing might dictate a bit more restraint, but dang, what a fun ride! And best of all, i was on the clock!

Tales from the road

2005-11-17T10:03:00.000-08:00

Lately, the only riding i have been able to do is my 7-mile each way commute through DC. Most of that distance, I am cruising with rush hour traffic on Connecticut Ave, jostling with sociopath cabbies, diesel-spewing busses, and worst of all, disgruntled commuters, either tired from having to wake up or from the stress of their day's toil.

The cabs and busses are no big problem -- every cabbie drives like a nutcase, so you always know what to expect. Empty cab = random stops, starts, lane changing. Loaded cab = land speed record attempt. Every bus slogs along in the right lane and stops on every block, so once you're past it, problem solved.

John and Jane Motorist are like snowflakes. Unpredictable, emotionally charged 3,000 pound snowflakes. Ranging from oblivious (most), through uncertain (a select few), right up to linebacker-on-steroids rage ('Welcome to Chevy Chase'), each is unique in it's reaction to a bicycle occupying its desired roadspace. I am routinely yelled at, or occasionally get a honk, or cut off. The finger has become a standard part of my mornings. One young future leader with American University stickers plastering his SUV lobbed what looked like a McDonald's bag in my general direction. And i'm moving at about 20mph on a fixed gear, i shudder to think about the 13mph hybrid riders...

Most memorable of all occurred on Ct. Ave, just north of Route 410 in MD. This stretch of road, which i rarely ride, is where the road exits the dense city and shoots toward the Beltway, and motorists get to mash the gas like God and Dick Cheney intended. A big S-series Mercedes slowly passes me, with the passenger window wound down. The male driver has a stoic Lincoln-on-the-penny look on his face, while his passenger, a lady of at least 50 years of age, yells the common suggestion that I get off of the road. She then, in the style befitting a lady proper, hocks a loogie at me. She missed, but top notch effort, ma'am.

Can we fight back? How? The old standby is the frame-pump-as-club threat, but lets face it, this isn't going to faze somebody driving this. An ex-messenger here in the shop claims numerous victories wielding the admittedly super-butch fahgeddaboudit, but once you start swinging that sucker around, things have gotten slightly out of hand. Cussing, insults, threats? No real impact, and rarely heard above all that V-8 power. Passive resistence? Probably the most prudent course of action, not very cathartic though.

I've found a happy compromise with the spit-and-split. Taking a page from my lady friend in the Benz, i found loads of satisfaction from spitting on cars, and cars hate to be spit upon. It evokes a similar visceral rage as the fahgeddaboudit fender strike (particularly as the winter months provide a greater volume of source material), but won't result in a charge of assault or damaging property. And since most of my conflagrations seem to occur with the wealthier motorists, the impact of a lung tater on a turtle-waxed Range Rover door is that much greater. The power of the 'spit' goes up exponentially with the 'split' -- a quick hop onto the sidewalk to a sidestreet removes the possibility of any returned favors.

Mature? No. But i'm 30 and working in a bike shop....

Cycling... With FOX Attitude!

2005-11-16T06:54:00.000-08:00

How do you know when your sport goes 'mainstream'? Pro cycling got the "ripped from the headlines" treatment from the FOX drama "House" last night. Some Trekkie-esque observations:

1.) Our world class millionaire cyclist is shown in the opening scene mixing it up in a pseudo-cross race on a bike even lamer than mine (i think i might have seen a Novarra decal), wearing a helmet that appears to have been picked by the "House" production staff from the 50% bin at Performance.
2.) FOX attorneys weaseled out any overt references that the writers were obviously choking on their tongues trying to put in, but they really didn't strive for subtlety in getting quite a bit of 'inspiration' from the Lance and Tyler situations.
3.) That actor didn't exactly have that lean, emaciated look of a pro bike racer (or for that matter, of a pro bike racer also taking drugs by the pound and afflicted with a dramatic and wierd blood disorder).

The show itself is normally worth watching for the biting sarcasm of Hugh Laurie's Dr. House alone. If you close your eyes and imagine he's talking in his native English, his character is eerily similar to the wonderfully evil Blackadder of Rowan Atkinson. On the very same program, Hugh Laurie played the buffoon to perfection as the clueless George, and now seems to draw on the work of his Blackadder counterpart, while Atkinson now seems intent on playing the buffoon, in tripe such as Mr. Bean and Johnny English.

Anyway, I suppose it's a bit much to expect shades of grey in a black & white formula drama, and they did make a few tentative stabs at dealing with doping as 'good' or 'bad', but i sure wish they'd delved with a bit more sophistication into the ethics and motivations of doping. The stories of riders such as Chris Sheppard, Marco Pantani, and David Millar might not excuse doping, but i think that they offer more compelling plot fodder than the unapologetic glory-seeking transfusaholic depicted.

Vail opens Friday

2005-11-15T21:05:00.000-08:00

i'd sure love to be the first one to hit the bowls

Evo Cross C Mens

2005-11-15T11:33:00.000-08:00

And they're off, 40 or so starters in Mens C. The first lap started with 50 meters of pavement, slightly uphill, leading to a short grassy slope onto the course. Instead of lolligagging in back, as my instincts said i should, I put in a moderate effort to hit the grass in the first 20, mission accomplished. A sharp dip was followed by two barriers (around lap 3, I heard a little kid marvel at how high i jumped over -- kid, that's how you do it when you're scared of falling ass over elbows because you're so dang tired that your eyes won't focus, and you're flinging around twenty-some pounds of Columbus SL rebar).

Anyway, after the barriers, a long relatively open rolling section of grass allowed me to pick up a few spots. I was somewhere in the 15-20 range, and held this through a more technical section of singletrack, with two sharp run-ups, some twisty bits, and a final root-rutted climb leading onto a long open grassy up/down run to the finish. At the end of the start/finish straight, i earned some appreciated kudos from onlookers who approved of my approach to the sharp dip/ long wet grass climb at the end of the straight -- Petacchi-sprint down the straight and into the dip, and hold the momentum, damn the torpedos style, with a couple of high gear pedal strokes up the climb. If nothing else, it felt good to rocket by guys every lap who took a more cautious, low gear twiddler approach to this hill (especially the guys on mountain bikes -- that granny gear is a foul temptress). Chalk one up for commuting in DC on a fixed gear.

Lap two brought me back to earth, a couple of times. Still holding in the top 15 or 20, still feeling OK, I had a chain drop on the first of the two run-ups. Blast. Got everything squared away, went charging off, and then lost it in a tight downhill right-hander leading to the next run-up. My friend Joe captured the immediate aftermath -- note the left brake lever pointing northwest, the mud on the knees, the slightly askew look to the rider. I didn't think that i wacked my head at the time, but my helmet did end up sideways on my head, and i had a headache for about 48 hours after the race.

From then on, it's pretty much a blur of utter exhaustion, two more dropped chains (i think i freaked out some onlookers with my profane reaction to drop #3), and one more fall (same corner, i'm a slow learner). The last two laps, i'd pass folks in the open sections and climbs, they'd pass me back as i rolled in mud or fiddled with chain. At one point on lap three, i was breathing so hard i thought i was having an asthma attack (to my knowledge, i'm not asthmatic, i think it's just the shocking amount of anaerobic effort necessary in cross). Big thanks to the women's B class rider who i tailed for most of lap 3 -- when you're dog tired and trying to recover, it helps to have some wheels to just follow and pace from. Last climb to the finish, i had enough left to pass a small group, with a couple of friends and GF cheering me on. I don't even know if the others tried to contest it, but it still felt good to snag back a few of the many places i lost mucking around with the chain.

Results still aren't up, but i think i was 28th out of 40 or so starters, not bad considering everything, i spose. Without the chain drops, i think 20th or so would have been easy. Came in wanting to simply finish (hanging by a thread), stay out of DFL (woohoo!), and see if i could stay up with the lead bunch on lap 1 (pretty much).

What's next? Well, job one is obviously getting the chain drop problem squared away. i currently run this doohickey on the inside, i'll monkey with the setup before i start trying other kludgy fixes, like this pseudo derailleur from Rohloff.

Next race, probably on the 26th, i'd sure like to finish in the top half of the field. Beyond fixing the bike, getting a longer ride or two in, doing a few extra sit-ups, and going easy on the grog at Thanksgiving dinner, i have no specific plans on how to accomplish this. With other guys getting all coached up, with HRM training regimes, nutrition plans, and rockin cross bikes as light as my fixed gear, i'm going in with a bit of a self-imposed half-ass handicap, but there's plenty of time left to take this seriously, i'm just mucking around for now. Besides, there's some anti-snob pride in racing a 30-year-old 6-spd Colnago, for which i'll post some pics someday soon.

Evolution Cross Prep

2005-11-15T07:29:00.000-08:00

Much better.... The disaster that was the Ed Sanders cross race yielded some important lessons. First, unless you're a square-jawed Belgian with a missing tooth or two, don't drink the night before the race. Second, for real, don't drink the night before the race. Third, allow sufficient time to register and still get in a decent warm up. With club volunteers manning the registration tents, the level of organization is a bit more Oscar than Felix (no criticism intended there). Fourth, check the bike over at least twice, more if you are forgetful/fastidious/hung-over.

Anyway, all this is pretty basic stuff, but in my case, could only be learned the hard way (see previous post). With Logical Bike Racing 101 squared away, it was time to apply a little strategery. I set three goals for myself -- finish, don't be DFL, and try to match the leader's pace for the opening lap. At my first race, i put myself at an immediate disadvantage by not contesting the opening sprint, and thus getting bottled up at the first obstacle. This time, i would sprint to hold my start position in the top 15-20 riders, and see if i could hang in that group for at least a lap of what i thought would be a 3-lap race, but turned out to be 4 (33% more riding for my dollar, that's leg-searing value).

Race report to follow...

first race started...

2005-11-14T12:13:00.000-08:00

... not quite finished. What follows is from an email that i sent to a friend, and thought might be humourous (or perhaps cautionary) tale to memorialize, the gory details of the first tentative dip of my non-athletic toe in the water of amateur bike racing. The race, the Ed Sanders Memorial cyclocross, was held on Oct 2nd, 2005, and my name is absent from the results, as i was a lowly dog DNF.

So anyway, race day dawns, i sleep through my alarm (stupid beer). Not good, because i need a really long warmup to reach any kind of speed in any sport. Haul ass up to Frederick, arrive 15 minutes before the race, stand in a huge registration line with all the other lazy people. Line up to race, i've had zero warmup. Race starts, three laps of about 12 minutes each. The pack sprints out quite fast, i intentionally drift back since i've never raced, my diesel engine is still sputtering, and haven't even ridden off road in years.

Come to a little (like ten feet long) rise in the course, and some clod in the front third dismounts and carries his bike. The 40 folks behind him, myself included, all stack up behind him, while the lead 15 riders sprint away, never to be seen again. I settle in third from last in the strung-out field of 55-60, spinning away at a comfortable pace, waiting for my stiff sausage legs to wake up. I start picking up the few guys in the pack who out-girth me, and who tried to match the pace of the lead riders and burned up.

All's well until i reach a section with a really steep downhill, at the bottom of which is a u-turn, followed by an equally steep climb. I go bombing down the downhill, thinking it's time to start 'making my move'. Legs still made of wood. Approaching the bottom, brakes are doing little to slow my progress. Look down, i have forgotten to return the little lever that allows the front wheel to be removed from the bike to its correct safe operating state. Time slows to a crawl, the bike does not. I go plunging into some bushes, and emerge with scratched bruised arms, legs, ego to the laughter of some spectators at the top of the hill. I remount, decide to climb this hill on the bike, rather than shoulder the bike and run, as the majority of other racers have wisely done.

All is well until 3/4 the way up, my immaculately maintained bike pops into a harder gear without my consent, i pull several still-cold leg muscles trying to push over the top. I make it over, coast for a couple of minutes to the start/finish still gasping for air and in several kinds of pain, and decide that today will not be this dog's day. Soft-pedal back to the car in shame, go home, and treat myself to a four hour nap.

but why?

2005-11-14T11:58:00.000-08:00

After holding out for so long, i've finally decided that the excrutiating minutaie of my bikey adventures might be of interest to friends and family who i am too lazy to email on a consistent basis. So what might follow are semi-frequent race reports, rants about drivers on Connecticut Ave. here in DC, or the goings-on at the unnamed bike shop where i toil. More likely, i'll post a couple of blogtacular anecdotes and my attention will wander elsewhere. Stay tuned!