Starting Over

This time of year in general is difficult for the cyclist. Days are short. Days are cold. Hormones are at ebb tide. Then there's the vast uncounted armies of the viral world lying in wait to ambush your every ambition. So what's a boy to do? Start fresh, start over. Yesterday was one such restart. I was home. It was sunny. I was feeling better. I had gotten the rear hoop on the Steve Rex replaces so that bike was back in the arsenal, so at about 1:30 I togged up heavily and hopped on the Rex for a short leg opener. It was hard.  It's been weeks since I've had any consistent time on the bike, and at my age consistency is king. This has been the lowest mileage, slowest start winter training in many years. but one of the essential features of the athletic life is the stubborn commitment to the future and the ideal of perfect fitness or perhaps perfected fitness is more accurate as you can only be as fit as your biological circumstances allow even if every other aspect of your life cooperates.
Today will be sunny as well, and one good thing about the winter is that my work life is quiet so I'm taking the afternoon off and piloting the 'traut touring rig up Old Stage Rd. to East Cuesta Ridge Rd. This is a very hilly ride, but I'll do it slowly and take in the views - no choice at this point. My goal in the next month is to accumulate enough fitness to do the first Grasshopper ride, Old Cazadero on Jan. 19th - one short month from today. We'll see.

Back in Action

After a full week off due to a head cold I started myself back up with a ride to the gym and four circuits of anatomical adaptation type work. It felt so good to be moving my body in a workout no matter how paltry. I did do a longer workout than normal mostly because Heidi accompanied me for the first time. We rode over together on our bikes through the chilly mid morning town. I was going as slowly as possible yet still distanced her when I stopped focusing on staying with her. I am so used to pedalling along at a furious clip that I assume my slow riding will be easy to match. That's not necessarily so it seems. Also picked up today the pedals for the Freschi tandem so that will finally be roadworthy. I have to admit I'm a little bit trepidatious about taking Heidi out on it. She's such a coward when it comes to mixing it up with cars and with velocity of any sort. I'm also a little nervous as I've never piloted a tandem before. Well it's good to try new things they say. I think I'll take it our solo first for a shakedown cruise and then take H for a slow Sunday morning spin to start when the traffic is at it's lightest.

Viral submission

There's nothing like a wicked cold virus to derail the best planned cycling program. I had a long off road adventure ride planned for last Saturday that I was really looking forward to. Friday I was feeling worse and worse all day, Saturday I woke up sick. I'm now mostly better here on Wednesday, but am still hacking up green goo from lungs and sinuses. It's curious that in the early stages I kept thinking, "Dont' be such a baby. You're not that sick." Now that I actually am feeling a bit better I realize just how sick I was. I learned my lesson years ago that you don't try to "ride through it". That only leads to longer and more severe illness. It is frustrating having the time and the weather to ride, but not having the basic good health. It's a real lesson in how valuable general health is to cycling. I tend to take it for granted, but really should be thankful every single day that I'm well.

Completing the microcycle

It's been pretty well established since at least the mid 80s that training is optimized by 2-4 day cycles of training followed by a day of rest. This is callled a microcyle. These are combined into a macrocycle of increasing length and intensity of training over 3-5 weeks followed by an easy rest week. I don't have much trouble putting two days of training together, but I'm more often than not ready for the rest day after that. In an effort to get back up to peak fitness quickly I'm commited to the 3 day microcycle through the next three week. Three days ago I did the gym and a fixie commute, two day ago I did an hour and a half on the road, and yesterday three and a half hours on the road in very foggy conditions. It was difficult as I didn't feel at all fresh which really takes the fun out of it. Luckily I planned the ride with Karl my normal training partner. I find I'm much less likely to punk out if I'm with someone and we've agreed on a certain length of ride. I feel pretty good today - no muscle soreness or fatigue so maybe it was more mental than physical lethargy yesterday. Sleeping ten hours last night didn't hurt either I'm sure.

Riding in the Rain

I managed one day of riding out of the two weekend days. Saturday was grey in the morning and I made a plan with my buddy Karl to ride at 11:00. Sure enough as soon as I got on the bike it started drizzling and it rained off and on the entire three hours we were out. Luckily it wasn't that cold so it was mainly just nasty instead of horrible. We rode out to Morro Bay and went out to the rock to watch the truly huge swells break over the jetty. It was impressive. I didn't have great legs, but felt tough to be out riding in the rain. As usual it necessitated a lot of cleaning and lubing afterwards to put bike and kit to rights. Of course it also cleared off as soon as we were off the bikes. The only rain in the course of the day was the three hours we were out - typical poor planning and reading of the radar.
Sunday was another matter. It pretty much rained all day. So I stayed warm and dry inside and worked the honey do list down a bit.

winter grit

I like the dual meaning of the word grit, both to have tenacity and the small abrasive dirt that seems to get in everything this time of year. One leads to the other with winter riding. I lacked one and didn't get any of the second meaning yesterday, but intend to remedy that this weekend where rain is in the forecast for the next three days. I came off a six day road trip to Texas yesterday. The purpose was to deliver Heidi and her car to the Keystone pipeline protest just outside Dallas. I arrived home sleep deprived and spent from a week in a car seat instead of on a bicycle saddle. I had the best intentions of spending the afternoon on the bike, but it started raining so I punked out and rode the chaise instead. Today I am determined to at least ride the fixie to the gym and get some sort of workout. Saturday I'll try to get more of a real ride in. Lots of bike and motorcycle chores to do of course. So some major share of the weekend will be devoted to grit.

Fixie as cafe racer

As I've been wasting countless hours recently looking at images of motorcycle cafe racers and as many more daydreaming about exactly what I will modify next on my aging '79 BMW I have also been thinking about the connection between fixed gear bicycles and cafe racers. In both cases they are usually modified street bikes, though less often in the case of both they are race bikes modified for street use. Both prize style and performance over practicality. Comfort is not high on the list for either. Also, mostly they are failures aesthetically allowing you to admire the few that are successes all the more. More often than not, both are used for short haul around town type riding. They are designed to get you to the cafe, and look good tethered there. Both tend to be stripped down and elemental. Both speak to the DIY ethos. Both embody coolness of a certain urban type and likely always will.

the long ride

Yesterday I went out and rode three hours plus in hot dry windy conditions. The last hour was pretty much misery. It wasn't that hard a course, but it has been two months since I've done any kind of endurance riding so it was very difficult. I knew that there was just one can of Heineken in the refrigerator and it was all I could think about for the last mile or two. I was pretty much wiped out the rest of the day. For the six to eight months of the year when I'm in decent shape this would not have been a very difficult day. We rode slowly and chatted, but the weeks immediately after harvest are tough as I try to convince my body one more time that it's worth the effort to reclaim fitness. There are so many less painful things to do with the day such as playing music or reading a book.

transition time

It will be Halloween tomorrow, and both brain and body are ready to leave harvest mode and get back to what passes for normal life. Last week because of a poorly timed sales trip to Arizona was the only week of the year with zero athletic activity - a complete goose egg. I have sworn to myself to do better this week. Yesterday, Monday, I did a short lunch time ride and today I'll go to the gym and work of some core strength. Even more telling was that this morning instead of rushing into work I did some brick laying on the back patio and then played music for a half hour or so until I went to work. The music was unplanned. When I finished the masonry work I hopped on the Beemer to ride to work and a block later the clutch cable snapped. None the less it shows that the pressure of harvest is diminished. I managed to get all my work done by 3:00 even if I didn't get in till 10:00. I have been at the winery every day for 58 straight days and my brain more than anything needs a break. I bring in the last fruit tomorrow so in about 2 weeks it will be time for some serious relaxing.

Back in the saddle

I had coffee and breakfast this morning and instead of going to work I pulled on the Lycra and headed out for a couple hours on the bike. It was my first time in Lycra in more than 7 weeks. Harvest seems particularly drawn out this year, but maybe it's my advancing years that make it seems so. I think it is the day after dailiness of it. It is so relentless. You can't just walk away and take a real break. Every day the vines and the wines are moving along and you have to direct them and make sure they don't jump track.
We've got a mild Santa Ana condition going so it was short sleeve cycling. Unusual any time of year here in this cool coast, but particularly nice for a mid-October morning. I rode out to the coast itself which I haven't seen since harvest began. Even though I've been doing a good bit of bike commuting this year it was still all I could do to make the two hour loop. This Morro Bay Turri Road loop I consider a warm up or recovery loop during the heart of the season when I'm in shape, but it was all I could take today.
I've started my gym workouts as well so I'm a bit tweaky around the leg joints from them. This is always a challenging time of year as I attempt to force my body back to strength and fitness after the long exercise free zone of the harvest. Each year it seems to get harder and harder, but I still somehow force myself to do it knowing the rewards are more than worth the effort.

transition time?

This is the time of year as the grapes are in the final stages of ripening that I've got to put cycling on the back burner. My new status as homeowner and landlord has been sucking up a lot of time and physical energy as well. Two and three day breaks without getting on the bike become more common, and the motivation to ride had is certainly in decline. Last night I summoned the energy to hop on the bike after work and I'm glad I did. I rode for about two hours and had a good time once my legs woke up. I'm trying to decide if it's worth dragging my ass up to San Juan Batista next Saturday for the Freemont Peak Hillclimb. It could be the race that takes me from my current ranking of 12th in California for my catagory into 10th or better. This has been my goal this year so I'm guessing I will. It means at least a couple more hard hill workouts - tonight included. That's the hard part.

San Ardo

San Ardo is the road race closest to my home town San Luis Obispo. It is an easy hour's drive north. The course is a twenty plus mile loop with some rollers. It's flat enough that it is considered a sprinter's course and normally the weaker categories stay together. The one other time I did this race two or three years ago there was little or no attacking and the one serious attack that went off in the last five mile of the forty five was brought back pretty quickly. This year was a different story for my category. There were five or so guys out of the twenty that were interested in establishing a breakaway to launch one attack after the other. There were at least a dozen major attacks in the first lap. Many of them in the first five miles. I got shed just past the start finish line after one of these attacks. I believe there were eleven guys or about half the field left at this point. I saw at least two more guys shed on the next roller. I briefly considered turning around and cruising back to the car, but then said to myself, "Don't be a pussy! Ride it out and finish". Which is what I did. I rode with another guy for about half the lap and then dropped him on a roller and soloed in the final ten. I was dead tired afterwards, but due to familial pressure ended up laying bricks the rest of the day and the entire day following. So much for day of rest. I ended up getting 11th which wasn't bad, and this result moved me up from 16th to 12th in the state rankings for my catagory.

bike vacation III

This was a single ride done from the Steamboat conference so technically I was no longer on vacation, but why quibble. I retraced our route of a couple days before up 38 to Windy Hill Rd and climbed most of the long gravel roads we'd descended. I spend an hour and a half climbing steadily - the last half hour climbing hard, but still didn't manage to get to the top. That is one really long climb. About 20 minutes of high speed descending and ten minutes rolling after back to the car. Andrew helped me true my rear wheel after I replaced the broken spoke, but it looks like I should replace the entire rim.
All in all a great bike based vacation with almost 20 hours of saddle time in a seven day period.

Bike Vacation II

The second part of my bike vacation involved driving up to Oregon to join two buddies for Mountain Bike Oregon in Oakridge Oregon. This economically defunct logging town has been reinventing itself as a MTB destination for at least the last ten years and the work that they've put into it shows in the 300 or so miles of single track trails that they've developed. I dropped my car at Steamboat Inn and my pals picked me up there late on Thursday. We ate at the Inn and drove around to Oakridge, sharing two bottles of tasty sake on the drive. They had set up tents earlier in the day so it wasn't much of a hassle getting settled, though it was a short night as the heavy rain showers awoke me at 5:00 after only four or so hours sleep. MBO is a full service event with food and drinks included along with guides, shuttles and demo bikes if you want. the first day we opted for the fairly easy Middle Fork trail. This was rated a 2 out of 5 technically, but it was difficult enough for me as I hadn't been on a mountain bike in 12 months. To say it was a shaky start would be an understatement, but I mostly kept the wheels under me and only collected one small scrape. I took it easy in the afternoon while my cohorts hit other trails. The next day we signed up for Alpine - known as the gem of this area. We resolved to take it mellow - bringing 3 liters of rose along with us didn't hurt. This was one of the nicest afternoons I've spent on a MTB. Truly this is one of the great rides. the sections through old growth Douglas Fir were truly amazing. We cruised this trail and then rode back to town and the campsite in 5 hours. That evening was the bike toss and pixie bike crits - much hilarity! The next morning we set out for the point to point back to Steamboat Inn and the Pinot Conference. This was basically a one hour warm up followed by a 2.5 hour climb, then a 45 minute downhill, and finally an hour slog into Steamboat. We were whipped by the end of it, but there's something satisfying about long point to point riding that no other type of riding provides.

bike vacation I

the first part of my bike vacation this year involved two rides with my brother in Napa. The first day we did the Mt. Veeder loop counterclockwise. My least favorite of the two options, but still a loop that I've done literally hundreds of times in the past, though I haven't done it much in the last 4-5 years. It was late afternoon and we went mellow the first easy 10 miles. We then hit the main climb and I did it tempo. It felt really good. It's funny how these very familiar roads can tell you exactly what kind of shape you're in. I even big ringed the last 50 meters - very unusual for me.
The next morning we did Atlas peak. This was an even better ride. Even though we got stopped for some road repair in the first section, my overall time was in the very low 50 minutes range. This is an excellent time for me on this climb. I believe my overall best time up this long climb even when I was racing in my 30s was in the high 40 minutes range.
Both of these days confirmed what I've felt - I'm on a good season. Now if I could only get my knees to quit complaining I'd be golden.

riding stale, watching fresh

July is the month I'm usually feeling a bit tired and stale on the bike. Moving into the new house with its seemingly endless to do list hasn't helped matters. The heavy load of chores has my knees and my back in a perpetual tenderness that makes going hard harder. I did have one of my best climbing days of the year last Sunday when I went up Santa Rosa Cr. Rd. at a solid pace, and was able to do much of it seated. It also took me three full days to recover from this 5+ hour ride.
July is also Tour de France. Watching the top pros struggle day after day for three weeks offers inspiration to counteract the mid summer blues. Today's stage 11 with Rolland winning after a long break, and all the GC contenders attacking Wiggins was a spectacular day of spectating. It has me feeling keen to get on the bike later this afternoon. Nibali's multiple attacks were particularly inspiring as was Froome's strength. While I'll never even for a moment have the strength of these guys, the riding I do at least allows me to appreciate their greatness at a deep level.

Father's Day

My buddy Mike R and I spent the lion's share of Father's Day doing The Cazadero King's Ridge loop in western Sonoma county. Neither of us spent time with our children, not by choice on my part, but that's another story. We woke up and cooked a big breakfast - always a vital chore when an all day jaunt is in store. We did the hour and a half drive to Jenner to the start of the loop. Just before starting I was looking at my practically new front tire and discovered it was missing a huge area of tread - some sort of manufacturing flaw. I opted to ride it anyway, but the knowledge of a defective front tire haunted me on the many high speed downhills through the day. This loop starts with about 8 miles of big ring riding along the Russian River and then Austin Creek. Just after the tiny town of Cazadero things get seriously vertical. We loaded up our jersey pockets with cookies and soda in town wisely as it turned out. The first climb is close to 15 miles long. The climbing while not continuous is consistently steep. Not having any real alpine gears I spent a lot of time out of the saddle. Once this climb finally ends at the intersection of Hauser Bridge and Tin Barn roads you take a vertiginous descent down to the creek. This is a very technical drop down the elevator shaft known as Hauser Bridge. You have to climb steeply back out of this canyon to the ridge. The climbing continues on the ridge. Luckily much of it can be done seated. The next part is the reward. You descend down Meyer's Grade with its at times 18% grades to Route One where the descent hairpins down to the ocean. Then a couple rollers and back along the river to the car. One of the hardest 50 milers that I know. It took me a solid 4 hours to complete and Mike took an hour longer than I. We both agreed that it was the best Father's Day present, both the time and the capacity to do the ride.

Knees

My knees have plagued me off and on since age 16. It's been a while, but there have been extended periods when they've limited my riding. Recently they have been mostly solid as I've learned over the years how to take care of them. The past couple weeks have demonstrated once again how fragile they can be. Two weeks ago I enflamed them with some ill advised tromping all over Manhattan. The left one, always the weakest is still complaining. Yesterday while opening a can of spray paint my hand slipped and I slammed it into the inside of my right knee. Now that one is complaining as well. I need to really get on calming them both down as it's the height of the cycling season and I have really good fitness at this point.

Insult to Injury

I have been fighting a bum left knee on and off since highschool. There have been periods where it has kept me off the bike. Last week while working the market in NYC I somehow managed to inflame it once again. Three days of taking it easy and ice and Advil therapy helped, but now nearly a week later it is still not quite right. I've done two very easy hour long rides. The first wasn't good at all with burning pain above the kneecap. Yesterday wasn't so bad, but the ride was at the end of the workday and it cooled enough that I should have had knee warmers on. So I took it very easy again. Today I'll test it a bit further with some harder and longer efforts. There's a tt coming up this Sunday I'm signed up for, but I won't know till Friday whether I'll do it or not.

Cote de Tolosa 3

One of the high points of early summer is the Cote de Tolosa. This outlaw race that I began in 2010 is growing in popularity with the local fast guys. We had 55 people race it yesterday with a lunch following and most folks hanging out and drinking wine on the winery patio after for several hours. This mixing of social and athletic is unusual, even rare in the cycling world, and it is the aspect of this event I'm most proud of. One of the younger semi pro racers said afterwards, "This is the best bike race of the year." Quite a statement for an event with virtually no prizes and zero points. A small trophy and bragging rights for the winner. I have to conclude that it is the unusually challanging course and the camraderie of the lunch after that makes it so well liked.
Once again I finished in mid pack, 26th out of 55. My time was 4:16. I really wanted to break 4 hours, but high winds during the first couple hours slowed me down. I didn't have any mechanicals or mishaps. Unusual in this event which is rife with both crashes and flat tires. I ran lower pressures in my tires than in the past which made the very rough dirt mid portion of the race easier, but made the last pavement portion a little bit slower. My friend Thomas Houseman came in from Oregon and raced it even though lack of long riding this spring caused some cramping in the last 1/4 of the event.
I think I'll try and add a few more of these outlaw events before the summer ends, but this one is hard to top.

Reality Check

I raced the southern California and Nevada district TT Championships on Saturday. I didn't have a great month leading up to it, but the year so far has been good. The air was still more or less. The road was decent. I flatted my rear disc on a goat head about 15 minutes before my start which rattled me a bit, but mostly I just didn't have the legs. I did the 23.5 mile course in just a few seconds under an hour, but only managed to finish 13th out of 15. I would have had to ride at 24.3 mph to be in the top ten, and 26mph to win. I don't think the 26 mph will ever happen. I've never ridden a tt much above 24 mph in my life so it looks like I'm condemned to back marker status. It also looks like SoCal is harder than NorCal as I've had more than one top ten in NorCal but was not even close to top ten in this event. The one consolation was that I was not DFL. For my efforts I was rewarded with cramps and tenderness that lasted most of the day. I sometimes wonder why I put so much time and effort into this for such paltry results

Torture

We all have our personal bete noirs when it comes to rides. Mine is Black Mountain or Mont Noir if you will. It's an hour or so's riding from Santa Margarita so you're plenty warmed up by the time you get there. It's 7 long miles from turn off to top. Every time I've been up it has been memorable. I've failed to summit as often as I've made it. It's epic. It starts with a few miles of gentle rise. You have to cross a couple sandy dry washes which sets the poor surface tone. You then have a couple more miles of steady climbing which can mostly be done seated. The road is narrow and always has sand and gravel. At the first ridge it gets nasty. There's a section with 20-25% grades that has really bad surface as well so you're grunting and juking your way trying to keep the rear wheel from slipping out from under you as you suffer. There's several more short steep ascents on the ridge before the final ramps. This last section around the summit mountain is pure hell. It's very steep and the wind can be quarrelsome. If it's a hot day you're in trouble by this point as the exertion overwhelms your capacity to cool. One summer morning I had to get off the bike and sit in the shade of a bush until I stopped seeing spots. This one is only climbed for the satisfaction of the top as the ride back down has to be done slowly and cautiously unless you've got a death wish.
I did this yesterday, and it was one of the days I reached the top. Both my left knee and my shoulders were complaining loudly, but I ignored them. Even though I was very sore afterwards and still am weary today it is immensely satisfying to slay this beast of a climb.

Paris Roubaix vs. SLO Roubaix

A comparison of sorts though truly Tom Boonen's performance in the 2012 PR was incomparable as has been his racing all spring. One race is in France and is the "Queen of the Classics" the other is in San Luis Obispo an is a fun club ride/race. One takes 6 hours of suffering to complete the other about 4 hours. The French version has roughly 20 sections of atrocious pave, the central coast version has a gravel climb and descent of about 3.5 miles each time and a gravel road section a few miles long. Total length of the Paris Roubaix well over 200K, while the length of SLO Roubaix is barely 100K. Still we had as much fun as possible. Here's how my SLO Roubaix went. I dropped my chain at the start of the climb early in the ride, and hence had to chase the group up the hill. I managed to catch and pass 3 or 4 of the sixteen riders with much effort. Then some pretty hard pace-lining on the flats to the Las Pilitas climb. This section sucked for me. I was on my touring bike with cyclo-cross tires. Everyone else was on road tires. I felt like I'd brought a knife to a gunfight as they say. I was dead last and dead by the top of this climb. Then a downhill to the gravel road. I entered the gravel first and really put the hammer down. Here my bike choice seemed genius and I ended up in the front group of four. I finished this section 2nd but could have easily won it if I'd know where the gravel ended. Lost my front wheel twice in the same corner, but somehow managed to keep it upright. From Pozo we climbed back up - I wasn't last here -somewhere in the middle. Then ferocious pace on the rolling flats back to Santa Margarita. That was hard and I eventually snapped despite repeated pushes from Tyler. Then back down the grade where I finally finished the section first. Once again I entered the dirt road first and really bombed it. I was solo till the bottom flatter section where Tyler caught me. I kept pace with him and came around at the last moment to hit the pavement first. A good day totally spent by the end.

Club riding

I now have enough basic fitness to show up for the faster club training rides, which are races by any other name. The fact that that they are "open category" means that I'm riding against a motley bunch mostly younger, stronger and faster. Yesterday, I went to my first Tuesday night ride. About 20 folks showed up. In some ways it is harder to do these rides than races. In a race once you're dropped from the front group you gradually dial back your effort and settle into your own pace. So you are only going at full tilt for as long as you can hold the pace. With a club ride the group stops at designated points and you are then forced pack up to the group pace. Last night was a perfect example. I was the first one shed once the group started attacking on the rollers on Orcutt. I did, however keep my head down and the pressure on the pedals so that I managed to catch and pass three riders before the regroup. The second section I felt better and actually pegged back a couple groups who went off the front. The climb felt OK until the top when the pace went up. I finished about 10-20 seconds back. The pace line back into town against the headwind was very ragged and the constant surging finally snapped my string. I rode in easy for the last 20 minutes or so. If I do very many of these I will be getting stronger for sure.

bicycling in LA

It has been several years since I've cycled in LA, and even then I launched from upper Topanga into the Santa Monica Mountains, which is hardly typical metro LA. Last week I did a "real" LA ride starting in Marina Del Ray near the Venice border and making my way north on PCH to the upper reaches of Malibu. I am a very experienced road rider, and consider myself reasonably courageous when it comes to my cycling, but LA is one tough mama. The surface roads are not well equipped for bicycles unless they're actual designated bike routes, and the drivers are aggressive in the extreme. You only have to ride a bike in LA to truly understand the meaning of car culture. The density and speed of the traffic is another mitigating factor as well. By the time I'd finished my three hour ride the muscles in my upper back and shoulders were sore from the tension not the exertion. It's not something I'd want to deal with day in and day out. It's a mark of how dedicated I'm feeling this year that I even did this ride.

Paying attention

I was shed off the back when things split up about 12 miles from the finish of Sunday's Bariani Road Race. I had been lingering near the back for a number of reasons. Mainly because it has been quite a while since I've raced in a pack that size (50 or more), but also because the course didn't look selective enough to break up the pelaton. I figured it would stay together till the end and then be decided with a mass sprint. I figured wrong. The penultimate time up the one significant hill on the course all hell broke loose. If I'd been anywhere near the front of the race I would have at least been in the second group instead of tailed off with the back half. As I looked up the road I could see a group of 12 all lined out single file. I probably wouldn't have made that selection. But not too far behind them was a group of 15 or so that I would likely have been able to hang with. This would have moved me up about 10-15 places overall with likely less energy expenditure than I used dragging myself and a handful of others the final few miles of the race. The next race that is running my age group is two weeks from now, and my plan is to get in the front at the start and to stay there.

More Testing

Conditions were correct for my second test TT of the year on Saturday - cool and calm. While my legs did not feel all that great as I launched after a 20 minute warm up, the results were encouraging. I took almost a full minute off the end of January time, completing the 7 mile course in 18:06 against the prior 19:01. This new time was slightly over 23 mph. Not too shabby considering it was done with standard wheels and kit. The time out was at 26mph, but obviously I was not able to sustain this sort of effort for long. This is approx a 5% increase in speed in one month, which is substantial. This effort however took a lot out of me as when I went out on the club ride on Sunday I did not have good legs and suffered the entire time.

Pinning on the number

There's something very final about pinning the race number on your jersey. At that point there's no turning back - you know you're going to line up at the start and go. Yesterday I raced Pine Flat RR. It was cold and cloudy at the start and stayed that way the entire 3 hours. I felt good the first 25 or so miles of rolling lakeside racing, but the final rise before the long descent to the valley floor saw me spit out the back. I've had early season races where I've been shed at mile 5 so this was actually a pretty good day. The 55+ Masters group I was in was only 14 or 15 strong, but all of them were strong. My peers included multi time national champions and the pace was pretty ferocious. I was riding 3-4 cogs higher on the hills than I would in training. I've got a long ways to go, but then there's a lot left of the season as well. When I was a 35+ Master there would often be 50-80 racers lining up and I would finish 25-30th usually. In the 45+ the fields were smaller and my finishes would normally be mid pack. I even managed 10th in one district road race championship. But now that I'm a 55+ it seems that only the 20-30 guys that were always faster than me are still racing so I end up as often as not DFL or close to it, as I did yesterday finishing 13th out of 14 racers. Well, all the old school coaches say, "the best training for racing is racing itself", and that is what I'm going to do this year.

Race Prep

Besides the many many hours of training there are other aspects of getting ready for a race. First and foremost is prepping the bike. The first race of the season like the upcoming Pine Flat means thinking about any and all maintenance and set up issues that have been on hold through the winter. In the case of my race bike this entailed changing the chain which was getting a bit old and changing out the rear cog set which had at least 15K miles on it. While I'm gentle on equipment in general it's better to go into the competition knowing that everything will work correctly. Also, professional mechanics catch thinks like the cracked, rusted and generally jacked shifting cables that I would never notice till they failed in the middle of a race. The winter tires are taken off for lighter livelier race tires and latex tubes switched out for the butyl. Last, but most importantly I think it imperative to put fresh bar tape on the bike. I prefer white as it is the team leader color and since I'm the only guy on my team in my age category I exercise my imperative. The white tape is a holdover from the cotton tape days where white tape would only look good for a day or two and then start looking grimy. It was about looking good at the start. Some Italian pros go so far as to shine their shoes and spray a bit of cologne on their uniforms for that extra attention to detail, and respect for your peers. I found out today that the new team kit will arrive the morning before the race. This is frosting on the cake to be able to put the new uniform on for the very first race. I'm stoked!

A Valentine's Day Digression

It's not good to talk about cycling all the time. So I thought I'd write about the food and wine I had last night with my sweetie on Valentine's Day. We started by going to see a movie she'd seen already but I hadn't. It was "The Artist" and was fantastic in every way. We had popcorn with the movie and it was the perfect combination. On arriving home I started the soup, a mushroom clam veloute that I've made for years - more on that later. I then put tiny Yukon Gold potatoes in the oven to bake and popped the Champagne, a bottle of Duetz brut. We had some sweet cured olives and almonds to nibble with the bubbly, and it was good. I've always loved Duetz's house style. Some of my fondest memories of early extravagence are of bottles of Cuvee William Duetz. A few minutes later I threw some asparagas in the oven, sauted some scallops, deglazed them with a splash of the Champagne and then served everything up. We opened a bottle of 2007 Campion Edna Valley Pinot Noir and decanted it into the world globe decanter that Heidi had given me just hours before. The flavor revelation of the evening was the combination of the Pinot with the mushroom soup. I guess I don't normally drink wine with soup as I've made this soup so many times in the past and never noticed its effect on Pinot. It absolutely perfected the wine. In aroma the wine was move complex and elevated than I have ever percieved it. And this is a wine I have drunk many bottlles of. The textures on the palate were pure velvet. It was a textbook example of food improving wine. The Campagne and the scallops were of course superb together, but that was no surprise or revelation.

The Long Midweek Ride

If there is one miracle technique for whipping yourself into peak condition it is the long midweek ride. Nothing substitutes for volume and nothing builds volume like taking either Wednesday or Thursday afternoon off and spending it in the saddle instead of at work. The charm of this is that you can fully recover by the weekend and have fresh legs for the long efforts there. This week was a perfect example. Karl, Matt, and I got on the road by 1:30 on Wednesday. We chose a lumpy but not mountainous course and hit it as hard as each of use were capable of. The emphasis was on quantity not quality. We ended up with close to 4 hours of saddle time and rolled back into town just as the sun was setting.

Suffering through

This weekend was one where I spent most of it making deposits into the pain and suffering bank. Friday I did a gym workout combined with a bunch of fixed gear riding that seemed to set up the rest of the weekend in a negative way. Saturday was two hours of tempo riding, but my legs never really opened up. Sunday was spent in cycling hell. A four hour ride with two guys with lots of hill climbing. My legs were tight and sore the entire time and I was the slowest besides. I had active aches in my legs following - very unusual. I'll see how the recovery goes over the next day or two, but my guess is that I need more active recovery in the way of hot soaks and stretching. I think the combination of gym work and the increased mileage is taking a toll. I'm looking forward to a month or two from now when I cut the gym work back to one day a week, and level out the hours to 10-12 a week.

Doubling Down

I surprised even myself last night when after the usual Martini and dinner I togged up, threw leg over the Gitane and headed to the Y for a weight workout. I forget sometimes how cool it is to ride after dark, literally and figuratively. The weight workout went well - my first power endurance session, but what was more remarkable was that I'd done the extremely taxing test TT in the morning. It has been quite a while since I doubled up on a workout. All the coaches agree that you should make your hard days really hard and your easy days easy so at least I got the first part of that right yesterday. No real soreness to speak of today, but I am still coughing up phlegm as a result of the TT. I didn't quite taste blood from that effort, but it was close.

Testing testing

I did my first test TT today. Cool conditions, gently rolling course, little wind, on the TT bike with std. wheels and normal kit and helmet. It was very painful and humbling as usual. I averaged 22.1 mph for the 7 mile course or 35.7 kph. This is the equivalent of a 1.07 hr time on a 40 km course. I've done times that were as high as 37.5 kph in the past or 5% faster. I was completely blown afterwards so I definitely gave it my all. I was coughing and wheezing and my lungs hurt in that way that indicates you went deeper than you have in some time. Well it's only the first month of the year and the first test so lets see what the next one brings a month from now. I think I'm going to do some test 2,000m and some test 500m in the following two weeks.

Progress and Planning

There's a visceral thrill associated with feeling your form coming on. While last week was a rest and relaxation week I still managed a three hour ride on Sunday. A mark of the progress I've made is that it didn't seem that hard or even that long. The 4-5+ hour Sundays that had preceded it made it seem literally like a stroll in the park. Yesterday and today I spent some time working on my training calendar and also plotting our a TT course I could measure my form on. Just the thought of going out and really hammering a test TT made me have the gut lurching sensation that indicates a sharp spike in adrenaline. It's curious how the mind can trigger those hormonal surges simply by thinking about something exciting. The course is 7.0 miles exactly and only has one stop sign that may screw things up at 5.3 miles. I'm also going to set up 500m and 2000m courses to do some testing at the track TT distances. I think I'm going to actually set mph goals and see if this works as an impetus.
Perhaps the time in the weight room has had a real and beneficial effect this year. The last month or so has been focused on relatively heavy weights for me. Both knees have been tweaking a bit, but seem to calm down fairly quickly even when they twinge. Maybe because I took my time with the anatomical adaptation phase. The next series in the gym are lighter weights at higher velocities so that should be a bit easier to handle.