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