Back to racin'

After recovering from some sort of "bug" or just being tired, I decided that I should just jump head first into some racing. Figured 3 races in one day ought to amount to that.

5:15AM- wake up in San Diego and eat copious amounts of oatmeal
6:00AM- sign in at the Fiesta Island TT- start warming up
7:13AM- start my first 40K TT

I forgot my shoecovers, and could only borrow one from Lisa- so I took the suggestion of the guy who was overhearing this perdicament, and put it on the outside foot... it travels furhter... and isn't sheltered by the island like the inside foot is... riiiight, but I had to choose one foot...

The time trial went fairly well, for my first 40K. I did this course a few weeks ago, as a 20K, and basically went out hard, held 190 for a while, slipped to 180s, before rallying back to mid 190s on the final few K's. I figured for a 40K I should ease off that a bit, and was happy to sit between 180-185 for the first few laps. As far as time trials go, this seemed very easy, but I didn't want to blow up. It went much faster than I thought, and the last lap (8K to go) came and I had too much in the tank. I opened it up full throttle, but would have been better served by laying it out a little more evenly. Still a great ride for my first effort- got in under the hour for 59:30. I think I'll try to hold 185-190 at districts, then just ramp it up in the second half. I want to be DEAD after that puppy.

8:15AM cool down
8:40AM driving up to Irvine
10:30AM sign in for Collegiate A race
10:45AM Racin' again

Start of the Men's A crit

My legs felt much better than I thought they would after the 40K, and the first few laps went by very easily. I just sat in the group, followed a few moves just to cover, and also because I don't know any of these guys that well- not sure who can power it off the front. I think I got some prime points... but whatever! Teammate John was a beast attacking a few times, and hanging himself off the front- but no one came across to work. I just hung in for as long as I could- about 45 mins into the hour race it all of a sudden turned into survival racing. Once you cross that line from thinking race tactics, to thinking "shit hold this last wheel", it doesn't take long. I pushed myself for a few laps, then just eased off and cooled down while the race finished.

12:00-3:00PM Hung around the race, ate any food in the vicinity, drank a few sodas.
3:00PM Cat 3 race

By this time I was feeling tired, just being out there all day, and having two races in my legs. Again though the first few laps felt fine, and with such a big group it was that much easier to sit in as opposed to the Collegiate race. I once again followed a few moves at the beginning just to make sure we were in anything serious, but avoided burning any matches for socks or water bottles, or whatever the primes were. The most fun was certainly getting three of us across the front and really slowing it down once we had people off the front. The moves that I was blocking for eventually came back, but just afterwards, the main split occurred. A few laps afterwards, Ted hero-ed himself across the gap in about a lap. Meanwhile I was sitting at the back of the field playing survivor again. The break was big enough that no blocking was needed, but even the relatively slow pace of the field was too much for me- I popped, and hung out for the last few minutes of the race, and watched Ted pull a top 10- not a bad result, though better luck in the last lap would have had him shooting for the podium.

4:00-6:00PM Clean up trash and pack stuff up.

All in all- good day on the bike. Monday I felt destroyed, but that was ok, because I just ate food and stayed off my feet. Went for an easy spin on Tuesday.... and I'm charging the batteries back for another 3 race weekend... but this time it will be spread out: Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Cyclovets Omnium. I'll keep ya posted.

Dispatch...

I became a fan of Dispatch at PennState sometime- easy to do... good band with some jamband type vibe, short catchy songs too- good mix. I recently got into three other bands, which I thought I had found all on my own, with the help of iTunes recommends thing.

1.State Radio
2.Braddigan
3.Pete Francis

Now, I bought the first State Radio album last summer, Braddigan not too long after that, and just started listening to some of Pete Francis' stuff online tonight. All of it sounded really familar, however, and it wasn't until tonight when I actually hauled up wikipedia, that I realized why...they're all from Dispatch. So... there you have it. If you like a band, and they break up, don't be too upset, just buy up all of their solo stuff.... works most Dispatch, works relatively well for Phish...

Earthquake

I am now officially a resident of Southern California... I've driven the freeways, seen chicks in puffy magenta sweatsuits with oversized glasses, spotted upwards of twenty mazarattis and now... finally, experienced an earthquake.

It was only a 3.1, but it was enough to jostle my bookcase for a second.

The earthquake is the blue square near the center.... it was about 2.75 miles away from me..

John Muir Trail

The John Muir Trail "starts" in Yosemite National Park, and winds through the high Sierras, ending up at Mt. Whitney, the highest peak in the lower 48. I've recently decided that a thru-hike of this 211 mile trail, which in reality would be more like 240 when all is said and done, is necessary at some point before my life gets too complicated to leave for three weeks.

What I didn't realize, however, was that if you look at google map's "Terrain" feature, and zoom in real tight, it follows the JMT. Check out the beginning here. It's not difficult at all to follow it all the way South, to Mt. Whitney. Another cool thing I found out online is that a town nearby Whitney Portal offers bus service up to a small town near Yosemite National Park, where a different bus can then take you into the park, where you can park for extended amounts of time for free.

So... here's to another reason why I can't wait to get my masters, so I can get some real world experience.

Stroke It...

StrokeIt is the coolest software I've downloaded for my PC in a long time. You can do all sorts of things by just right clicking, and tracing a certain pattern. I close windows by just tracing out a "C" on top of the window. I added my own shortcut to close just a tab in FireFox when I do a "C reversed" which I learned after about 20 minutes of fooling around is actually just tracing it backwards.... not like a C you see in a mirror... if you know what I mean.

Anyway, if you have a PC, download this thing- it's sweet... and plus, its called strokeit.

L.A. Circuit Race

This was a hot-dog style flat circuit race. The big decider was not any inclines towards the end of the race as with many other circuit races, but was the wind. The course was just two 180 degree turns on one medium sized California road (so like, 18 lanes).

One direction was a headwind. The other was a tailwind... it was blowing about 20mph the whole time. In the tailwind direction we'd hit 30 without trying too hard, and then be sitting in at like 12-15 dodging all over the place to grab wheels without loosing too many spots.

Ted, Ernie and I were there, and Ted and I both tested out the waters off the front early on, but quickly realized that nothing stood a chance. Even if you had a gap, the tailwind section just blew everything back together. There was one guy off solo for a few laps, and he must have thought he was flying... probably the only time a cat3 field brought back a solo dude who was doing 30+mph.

We were all careful to stay near the front, and took the last 180-degree turn into the tailwind finishing straight in the top 20. Ernie, Ted, then me. We stayed put, and when the time was right, Ernie blasted it.... Lots of people were watching his wheel, and for good reason- he's a beast in the sprint, but he was a train that day instead- Ted and I rode it up to the front, and managed to snag 4th and 6th. A jump a bit sooner on maybe would have gotten us further up.... it's hard to go too early in a 20mph tailwind we learned.

6th place is good enough for one more upgrade point though, so I'm now sitting pretty at 5. 15 more to go... I'd love to grab a big chunk of that at a stage race, but that is unlikely to happen with the SanDimas including an uphill prologue, and CycloVets being much more attainable, but still difficult by including the Boulevard RR course. Stay tuned.

Racing

One weekend.
4, maybe 5 legitimate break-attempts
zero results.

goal for this weekend: don't get in the wind until I can hear the bell for 1 to go.

Speedplay Overhaulin'

One of the speedplay pedals on my old TT bike has really been feeling junky recently. Spins very freely (which is actually not good-sign that it needs lubing) and very loose. Well, I found out why tonight, when I finally sat down with all the necessary tools, including a head lamp.

It actually didn't take too long to take the pedal completely apart, trickiest part was getting the snap pliers to work well- I bought a pretty flimsy pair. Speedplay's instructions are actually pretty.... pretty..... pretty... pretty clear. I was confused once I got everything apart, though- I was missing a whole cartridge bearing somewhere.There are two cartridge bearings inside the pedal body of speedplay Zero pedals- and I only removed one. The other was completely destroyed. The outer race was so fangled and broken apart that I didn't even realize it was a race.

yup, that's what a bearing bracket looks like after you beat it to shit. The other matching piece that would have held the balls secure was ripped to shreds. Check out how small the ball bearings are.

The bearings themselves are TINY! most of them fell out without me even realizing it- it is likely most were already gone anyway. The inner race was the real bitch though, it was stuck to the spindle of the pedal itself. I took the other pedal, which is pretty healthy, apart to prove to myself that the thing stuck on the spindle was indeed the inner race. Once I knew it was junked anyway, I set out to tear it off with some pliers. Still took some work, but it came off. Now I just need to find someplace to buy some new Speedplay bearings...

The spindle once I had gotten the inner race removed

New TT rig

Well it was about time. I had my federal tax return in my account for almost 48 hours, and then I found this prize online. $340 for a proper TT frame from a relatively reputable manufacturer? Hell yes I will!

The new TT rig, pictured with the seat post about where it needs to be- plenty of drop.

Also obtaining some new carbon TT bars from Aerus. That'll compensate weightwise for the aluminum steerer tube

My old TT bike was a Titanium Airborne, which was a great road bike (albeit a tad heavy) and was an allright TT bike, but I really needed something with more upright geometry- a real TT frame. The Jamis has rear facing dropouts, so I can slide the rear wheel right up into the slots for it in the seattube. Also has some aero tubing. The seatpost above is roughly placed where it's going to have to be, which looks like a lot, because it is... but that is good- plenty of room for drop to the handlebars. I'm also scheming on making some sort of fairing to make the seatpost aero... because you know I'm an engineering dork.

I'm also flirting with the idea of, ocasionally, rigging this bad boy up for the track. Would require a bit of work- taking the ders and brakes off, taking all the cables out of the frame, but all the housing could stay attached to the handlebars. Then just throwing a different crankset on, another seatpost/saddle combo, and a track bar (and likely a different stem). Complicated enough that I don't want to do it all the time, but for a few weekends a year, I say its definitely worth it until I get a track frame (next year when I get my tax return back).

So if you have any of the following laying around, let me know:
1. Track crankset (144BCD) Octalink. Not sure about crankarm length- 170??
2. Track chainrings / cogs
3. Track rear hub, or rear wheel
4. Handlebar for the track- what do people use compared to their road bars?? smaller?

Going Solar

I haven't plugged in cell phone into the wall for over three days. I haven't used the car charger either. No, thankfully I am not cut off from society (yet). I've been using this small solar/battery system:



I bought it off eBay for about $50, and considering its replacing the electricity that I don't pay for... it has a pretty long pay back period. However, the bad ass period has already elapsed, it is very bad ass. I think it's really cool that the energy running my phone was not created somewhere in a big dirty central plant, then pushed through a grid where something crazy like 40% of the energy is lost in transmission. The energy is right there in the sunlight. Goes through the little cord, and right into my phone.

It took a day or two to find the optimum place for it. For all the ladies out there who have slept over at my place, you know the sun shines into my window in the morning, so I can get about 3-4 hours of charging then, and depending on where I'm parked, I catch the afternoon rays in the parking lot. It takes about 6 hours to fully charge the battery, which is 1800mAh, or roughly twice the size of my cell phone battery. Assuming that both batteries operate between relatively similar states of charge, that correlates to being able to charge my phone twice on a days worth of sun. Easily enough for all the use I have for it.

I bought it with the intention of using it while camping and bike touring- it could recharge my phone, an iPod, and a Garmin. Keeping me in touch, entertained and on track.

You know your iTunes library is getting big when....

you don't even know what song is playing.

But you know your iTunes library is spiraling out of control when a jesus song comes on. Especially if you've had the pleasure of hearing me spout off about my feelings towards "religions" (the quotes should give you a hint towards my feelings towards the subject). What the fuck Jars of Clay, I didn't know you sang his praises and held up his name upon high until you "fall in love with him all over again."

Delete.

delicious....

17 lbs

Realized one thing today....

if you are wearing suspenders

and you are in a movie

you are a douchebag.

S'more crit racin

Did some racing out in Ontario this past weekend- it was looking like another flood-race, with 50% chance of rain for the 3 race, and 80% chance later in the afternoon for the 1,2,3. Not being a California pansy yet, I regged up for both (nevermind that I registered weeks before I knew the weather...)

The 3 race was real frustrating. I felt fine in the first few laps, and after my last race spent mostly off the front, I decided to try and sit in and just wait for the end. About mid-way through the field slowed down considerably for a whole lap, with two guys just dangling a few seconds in front. They sloooooowly pulled away as the field basically just raced around real lazily. I should have bridged (while it was still a small gap) or taken some pulls, but being afraid of doing too much work again, I just sat tight. The break at some point became 3 people, and they started working.... and I figured it'd just come back, but despite the monstrous efforts of my teammate Ted, who pulled hard enough to line out the field for at least three or four straightaways at a clip, the break stayed out. Even as the sprint came up for 4th, I found myself a bit too far back on the bell lap, and didn't have the legs, finished somewhere in the field. Bummer.

The 1,2,3 went much better, considering my goal was to finish, and to get 90 minutes of hard crit racing in. Well I got 90 minutes of good crit riding in. Very quickly into the race a break was established, and the field eased off and let them get a considerable lead. Nothing much happened as I just stood tucked in as much as possible, hanging out in the front 1/2 of the field whenever possible. With about 20 minutes left, Rock Racing thought it was a good idea to have it all back together, so in about 4-5 laps, they did just that-taking about 10 seconds back each lap. Took about 6 of their guys, and they had the entire 100 man field strung out... but the break came back. Despite all that work, they set up Rashaan Bahati for a win. I was pleased with my effort, and even managed to work my way up to the front of the field in the last 3 laps, with gleams of hope at a top 20, but once we turned the last corner, there were plenty (read most) of people around me with more in their legs for that last kick than I had.... still a good race.

It was cool to see that the 1,2,3's aren't world over my head, so I'm confident that if I had a good day, and if the race was right, I could pull a top 20.

Frame building....

Lately I've had a hankering to try my hand in a whole new part of the bike world: framebuilding. Now, for those that don't know, this would entail welding together my own bike- maybe sounds simple, but to keep everything in line and to have good strong joints is much harder than it seems. Using lugs to join the tubes helps both of these problems, but the construction still isn't simple at all.

I just got the Paterek Manual, a pretty through resource written for beginning frame builders. In order to keep the idea of building a bike even within the realm of possibility, I need to limit myself to steel, and use lugs. TIG welding required for aluminum and titanium (Ti is much much further complicated even than Al) is much harder than the type of welding required for brazing the lugs and tubes together.

Here's my dilemma, though. I have a desire to race the track at some point.... and the one thing I'm afraid of there is finding a bike that fits me just right. Now I'm sure I could make a stock one work, but maybe I could really ensure I'd get one that fits me right if I just built it?

I've also been thinking about touring at some point, but with my road or cross bike, I can't get panniers on there. This issue might be mute if I just use a BOB trailer, but it'd be cool to have a custom built touring bike too though...

So, even though this project is likely at least a year away... what should I build??

Joshua Tree National Park

Crossed another National Park off the list- visited Joshua Tree with Nicole this past weekend. While this wasn't all that spectacular of a trip (thinking back to Rocky Mtn, and thinking ahead to Yellowstone) but it was still more than worth the two hour drive from the Los Angeles area.

Sunset the first night

Cholla "jumping" cactus. Don't wear crocs near them, you will regret it.

We camped two nights out in a pretty nice campground- the second night we were basically alone in the campground, except for the coyotes...a little unnerving, but fun. (and we say we want to do back country!? we need to grow a pair). There was a huge rock formation behind us that we climbed up on the last morning for the sunrise, pretty sweet.

Longest hike we did (7 miles in the desert sun) was to a fan palm oasis. Ate some lunch under these bad boys.

The legit shot from the top of the one summit hike we did, Ryan Mountain

We did almost all the hiking we could have done, and saw almost the whole park. I'd definitely recommend going and visiting for a day if you're within a few hours drive, but nothing to travel across country for (unlike Rocky Mountain- everyone should go there, three times.) Make sure to go during the spring (March - April is blooming season, pictures we saw looked amazing) or in the winter. The houses nearby had GINORMOUS A/C units, so I can only imagine how flipping hot it must get out there. I mean.... Death Valley National Park isn't that far away...

Yo.

Well no posts for a while mean I have been doing nothing, or too much. Thankfully its the latter.

Took a trip to Joshua Tree National Park this last weekend with Nicole, that was fun. (I'll throw some pictures up later)

Ate at the Veggie Grill three times. Legit.

Took and likely failed a midterm (though I hope everyone did)

Finished off a project for a class I learned will not be graded

Just gave a presentation at our lab meeting.

So suffice it to say, I'm going to go ride my bike now.

Cannondale....

For the past year I've been racing a CAAD9 on the road, and LOVE it. Great bike- light and stiff, and cheap! However, I've always wanted to get a 613 or SystemSix or something along those lines one day.... looks like I'll have to hurry up and do that before Cannondale takes a turn for the worse. Cannondale owned by the same company that owns Schwinn? Scary.

Hope Cannondale (aluminum frame) production stays in Bedford...

Second weekend of racing

Did a roadrace and a crit this past weekend. The roadrace was the annual start of the racing season: The Boulevard Road Race. The course was pretty rolling, with a few kilometers of uphill that stretched up to the finish. So not exactly my kind of race really. I decided to do the collegiate to see what that was like out West. Not feeling like racing at 6AM in the desert (FREEZING) I signed up for the A's race at noon. Didn't go so well- Stanford guys tore the small field to shreds on the first lap's climb, and I was basically just riding for training after that.

Next day was rainy and windy- great time for a bike race. It was a crit though, so I was feeling much more motivated to go get wet. I raced the 3's, and like last weekend's wet crit, the field was small likely due to the weather. Maybe 30-40 guys. I made sure to stay right near the front, knowing that the group would probably split up after not too long. Turns out I didn't even realize when the split happened (good thing I guess!). A few laps after it had happened, I let myself drift 6 or 7 guys back, took a peek what was behind us, and.... nothing. No one else in sight! So... that was the race. From that point on I just sat on- we were clearly not getting caught (we actually lapped everyone else) so there was no point to get stuck in the wind. Things got a little more animated when we lapped the field- people used teammates to try and spring off... but it was all together coming into the final lap. One dude went off the front at the bell, and was working up a decent lead. I was getting worried, but didn't want to do any work just to drag other people up. We were slowly bringing him back in on the last corner, which I carried more speed through by going wide.... jumped from 3rd or 4th wheel to the the first guy chasing down the leader... stayed way outside and started my sprint... WAY too early. I got almost all the way up to the guy off the front, but then three guys came barreling through with 50m to go. If I had been smarter I could have easily have been top 3, but I ended up 5th- so more upgrade points! Not bad... but I'm hoping for better next weekend.

It's not working....

My research group is putting on a conference this week, called ICEPAG (International Colleqium on Environmentally Preferred Advanced Generation). Needless to say I did not make up that acronym- mainly because I can't spell the second word. The whole conference is basically about large scale Solid-Oxide Fuel Cell / Gas Turbine hybrid systems. Basically pairing two new and upcoming technologies together in what could be the best possibly way to get power out of fossil fuels. (Still fossil fuels though)

Anyway, I was in a "short course" today about Hybrid Systems, and the one presenter was giving this presentation with powerpoint, heavily using the laser pointer. He had plenty of graphs and diagrams and everything, so it was very appropriate to use the laser pointer, though. What I found real comical was that the laser pointer stopped working about halfway through his second presentation. No problem for him, however, as he simply kept talking, and pointing the laser pointer at the screen, as if it were working. Now I was able to pick my way through what he was talking about, but it was just really funny that for the last twenty minutes this guy pretended like his laser pointer worked.... when clearly it did not!! Why even try to make it look like it works??

CBR#1 Ride it like you stole it

This race should have been called row it like you stole it. Sunday's forecast wasn't good. 100% chance of rain and thunderstorms.... and when rain happens here in Southern California, it doesn't sprinkle... it's torrential.

So I was surprised to wake up Sunday morning to sunshine in Irvine. It was beautiful! Though on the drive up to Dominguez Hills, Nicole and I were driving clear into the eye of the storm. The rain started when we were warming up... Liquid Fitness had about 5 or 6 people out of the 30 or so strong field that decided to race in the horrible conditions. So if we didn't place well... it'd be a little embarrassing.

The first few laps were just nuts. It wasn't like a real crit at all... I was never next to anyone. Always single file. Not because it was really all that fast really, just no one wanted to get too close to anyone I think. Most of the course was literally covered in water, and the corners were sometimes up to a foot or so on the insides. Surprisingly the good line was still right through the apex of the corner, so pushing through the deepest part of the water was fastest. After everyone got used to the conditions a few half-hearted moves went off the front. I made sure to either be in it, or be riding peoples wheels up to it if we already had someone in the move. Ernie kept pushing me to dive through turn #2 to create gaps, which if you took the turn fast, would always happen.

Turns out that when we were supposed to get 4 to go, they just gave us the bell. Also turns out that somehow myself and two other guys were off the front with a bit of a gap. I think the beginning of that lap we were aided by a little blocking by Ted in the field, and we easily stretched it out to maybe 5 or 6 seconds. I went to the front right before turn #2 and took the fast line through the deep water, and the other two guys went like little girls around the outside. So I had a few seconds gap back to those two already, then a few more seconds back to the field. Nothing else to do but hit it... so I did. I went as hard as I could for the rest of the lap. Looked back as I turned onto the home stretch and saw people coming, but still wasn't sure what was going to happen. I sprinted from the turn and gave it all I could, but an SC Velo dude came by to win, and Ernie had followed his wheel up and took second, leaving me with third. Still a good race, netted some cash (barely over the registration fee because of the small turnout) but also some upgrade points!! So.. sahweet. Not that I plan to upgrade necessarily, but I'll take what I get, and come the end of the season, we'll see what it adds up to.

Now its back to the real world for this week as I have a ton of work, a conference to help host, a short-course to attend..... BUT I also found what might be the coolest place to work for, in my eyes at least. And its about half hour from my hometown, in Albany. Weird eh? Now I need to find the California equivalent to work out here after school for a few years.

How badass would this be

So I've used a mixture of google maps (especially since they added the customizable route thing, without adding a destination) and pedometer, a google maps hack, to plan rides, and to track out where group rides go... that sort of thing. Well over the last few days, I've put together what I consider to be the most bad ass ride google maps has ever seen.

Duration: a month or two?
Southern California to Seattle

I only have 18 destinations planned, all no more than 120 miles apart. They range from state parks to national parks, and major cities. 120 miles is NOT very far if that's what you're doing that day. Get up, eat some breakfast, break down camp and pack up, ride for 4-5 hours. Stop and make some lunch, and then ride for another 4 hours. So on the very longest days, you'd have to average ~15mph... reasonable. Most days are shorter, so ~12mph would do. But the bigger parks, and cities I'd want to spend a few days in I'm sure... so time frame is at least 40-45 days I'd say.

I figure I get some racks for the cross bike and carry camping gear- live the minimalistic lifestyle for a little while. If by minimalistic you mean carrying only a cell phone and digital camera, and eating as many clif bars and peanut butter jelly sandwiches as I can afford, and probably the occasional McDonalds milkshake.

Not sure when a good time to do it would be.... maybe one year right when I've had enough road racing- maybe July through mid August?

who's going with me?

What a difference a week makes

Riding went much better this weekend than it has the past week, which was spent trying to recover while continually piling on too much riding.

On Saturday I went down to San Diego to crash with the bro, and hit up Swami's, where Chris Horner and Dominique Rollin both showed up and contested the sprints, well I heard that they contested the sprints after they had blown the doors off most people's ride (read mine). Still felt a lot better than the previous week, felt like I was able to dig a bit deeper before my legs really objected. Sunday I hit up Como Street and hung well the pretty relaxed pace ride, and climbed well on the long gradual climb that churns the ride into many groups.

Going to be taking it real easy this week... just spinning the legs out and making sure I'm fully recovered. Will probably open it up a little bit later in the week to make sure the legs are open. Sunday will be the first race- the first CBR event of the year. Looking forward to laying it all out there.

Expect this blog to go from about 95% cycling content, to about 100%.

Also, Slipstream took another big step recently, landing themselves a Giro invite! Hopefully the big show will be next, but the Giro invite is nothing to sneeze at, as it also comes along with other big races like Milan SanRemo. Can't wait to see the arglye boys hitting up the Italian races...

Grinding Away

The last two Coffee Crew rides (Tuesday / Thursday morning) I've done I've gotten dropped like a rock. The first time, I figured maybe I wasn't recovered from my first week back on the bike, along with a good bonk and some climbing workouts, it was a pretty hard week. The second time was windy as crap, but I did eventually make it back to the group, but obviously because they had slowed down considerably. Up the last climb I got dropped again, real early.

I'm hoping that I'm just dragging a bit from not quite recovering from last week.... hopefully some more sleep and I'll come back around.

For a more uplifting reading experience, check this new Slipstream article out. I really hope they do something special this year. A podium in a Classic, a stage win for Julian Dean in the Tour, some medals out of Beijing. Anything is possible.

Mountain Climbing

This Saturday, I have some climbing on tap... About 2500 feet of it over 20 miles. Overall that gradient is not bad at all, but the first 15 miles are pretty steady, with some climbs mixed in with a lot of flat roads, but over the last 5 miles, which I plan to ride up a few times, the road scales up considerably more...

Check out the gmaps-pedometer here.

The bigger climb in the area reaches up to 6,000ft- Palomar Mountain, which I'll eventually do, but I'm not quite in the mood to get up at 5:00AM and shove a thousand calories in my face while driving down the 5 to get there in time to ride. Hopefully I'll get there once before Boulevard though.

Lunatic Drivers....

So I've been out East for the break, and had a great relaxing time, and despite the sub 20 degree weather and wind tunnel like canyons of Manhattan, I miss it already.

But the real entertainment value here is from some crazy drivers in California... two to be exact, and crazy for very different reasons. I got a shuttle ride to/from the Long Beach Airport, because it would have cost about $130 dollars to park over the break, and only slightly less for a ride in this public transportationless hell. On the ride home, we were in the middle of a rainstorm, which in Cali can be pretty bad because the water brings all the oil and junk out of the roadway and makes everything slick as ice. On these conditions a car on the 605 swerved a few times, and then finally ended up veering from the right hand lane all the way across the four lanes, and smashed into the middle divider. The car ended up on its side, and it was close enough that we were already past him in a second or two.... crazy. Good thing there weren't alot of cars out.... I hope noone hit his car before they got flares out. I'm pretty sure he (or she) was drunk, judging by the amount of swerving before the accident... but who knows.

The second crazy driver was the dude driving our shuttle. Luckily his driving was pretty good, though a bit fast, but at 1 in the morning, it was all good. He seemed pretty normal while we were dropping off the first guy, but as soon as it was just me and him, we got to talking some more. After he learned I was studying fuel cells, he began spouting off on Nicola Tesla, who did a lot of early research into electricity. He claimed that Tesla's invention of wireless electricity was being held back from implementation for cars by the oil companies, and that a group of terrorists used scalar energy technology to create hurricane Katrina and the tsunami of a few years back. It kept getting weirder and weirder.... aliens, secret weapon technology, and an odd explanation for the trees that had fallen down in Siberia. Anyway, I won't go into all his crazy stories, but he did give me this printout with all sorts of crazy shit on it... here's a sampling:

These are topics that are suggested to look up on youTube for more info. Good source.

Al Bielek (Time traveler from Philadelphia Experiment)

Stewart Swerdlow (Time traveler / Mind control)

Phil Schneider (Built underground bases for Illuminati. Involved in Dulce, N.M. firefight with Reptilians, assisinated in January 1996) [this one is my favorite, just congers up a poor Sci-Fi show with iguanas flying UFOs]

D.A.A.R.P.A (U.S. Military Secret Division creating New Weapon Systems) [I think they might have one too many A's in there. Munas, watch out... your research is being used to build high powered construction bridges on Mars)

Freemasonary (several other secret societies were mentioned, illuminati... bla bla)


I think the best part of the conversation was when I asked him how he got into all this stuff, and he said it was after he dropped out of his Astronomy program at Long Beach State U, and got into witchcraft. Even funnier was later when he was talking about the terms the government deleted from Maxwell's equations, I made some comment on them, and he clearly did not know what they were.... astronomy without wave equations.... hmmmmm

Awkward ending... he wouldn't take my tip, he just told me to seek out this technology and open it up for the rest of us. FREEEEEEEEKY!!!!!!

CX Nationals: Collegiate Race

Sunday morning was the collegiate race, and the course was much different than the first two days. Mud had frozen into thick unmovable ruts, and a dusting of snow covered parts of the course.

I got a good warmup in, and was ready on the start line in about 5th row back.... so not great, but I was more than half-way up the huge field. The start, and the first lap, didn't go too badly at all. I worked my way up into the top ~30ish in the first loop around a small lake, somehow handling the completely foreign frozen tundra quite well. I tried to pick a line, and ride it out, and only jump out of the rut if I really need to. Brushing shoulders time and again became normal, and I only had to run a few times around people who had fallen down in front of me.

The second lap was quite different. I came out onto the pavement, and just felt like a piece of shit. I think its unfair for the pavement section to be uphill... I was waiting for that for a while, and it hits, and I'm just like.... whhhhaat-no legs. So I lost a few spots, that interestingly I would make up once we hit the nasty ruts again. My first crash came trying to avoid people sprawled out in a particularly nasty section... I unclipped and was looking to tripod it around the guys getting up, when my front wheel caught more than I thought it would, and over I went, toppling into the snow. A bunch of drunk guys enjoyed it, and I scored a high five for good measure before continuing on. It was either that crash, or some other tumble to the hard mud that screwed up either my caliper or lever for my rear brake. I was pulling the lever all the way to the bar, and no stopping power. Combine using only the front brake with my already less than ideal handling skills in such conditions, and more spills were going to happen. And they did. I think three or four times. Bummer!! Not to say I would have had the sort of top 30 finish I was aiming for, but I would have finished at least.

Anyway, after one more spectacular endo after I was already out of the top 50, I decided I'd rather not kill myself, and called it quits.







All and all, it was a fun trip out to Kansas, but I'm not sure if I'll go out next year. Maybe if I'm riding top 10s in the elites in SoCal I'll give it another tussle. It's definitely gotten me hooked for cross though, and I'm already looking forward to winding down the road season early to put some hard training in for cross next year...maybe learn how to mount correctly would help too.

If you want to see what the course was like (on Saturday, but basically same as Sunday) check out this guys videos of the first lap of the 50+ race:
1st half
2nd half

CX Nationals: Day2

Wasn't racing today, but JP was. We made the discovery before heading off to Kansas that we were roughly the same size, and ran the same pedals. Sahweet, instant pit bike. So today I worked the pit for the first time. I was not prepared at all. Didn't have any brushes or buckets or any of that. Friendly dude in a Pedros jumpsuit next to me in the pits helped me find the water sprayer, and let me borrow one of his brushes to get all the mud and grass out of the chainrings and der pulleys.

I think JP switched up the ride at least 3 times, maybe 4- had to be an even number now that I think about it because he finished on his bike, so probably 4 times. Certainly saved him a lot of time. If nothing else I cleaned off about 5 or 6 pounds of mud off the bikes each time. Also cleared off the drivetrain and made it that much easier to get around. It was pretty sweet to work the pit and experience the craziness that goes on in there.

Jim did awesome in his race- he got the start of his life. Starting off in the 2nd row, he was top 10 coming off the pavement, and muscled and handled his way up to 3rd the first time through the pits. At that point I was thinking, fuck!!! I hope I don't screw anything up for him. The power riders had bided their time, however, and JP lost time on alot of the uphill sloppy muddy sections, spinning through mud whereas other riders were able to sneak by. Still ended up in the 20's I think, which is an awesome result in such a strong field of over 120.

Making the big time...

Tonight the snow is descending upon Kansas, and hopefully won't screw with the schedule of the races too much. I'm slated to start my last race on Sunday, at 10AM, when the temperature is supposed to be 24 deg F, with a windchill of about 13. Schwell.

CX Nationals: Day1 in pictures

My roomate Jim snapped some pictures of the first day of racing...


Warmup in the tent... there was a big space heater blowing in behind me that they got turned on just before my start. It was a pretty nice place to hang out later in the day though... all this snow/ice would melt real quick. After Jim's race, we were hanging out in the tent and realized we were all from SoCal... just drawn by the heat I guess. We tossed around the idea of having our own race with a course completely inside the warmed tent....

Getting called up. The kid over my right shoulder is 14, and led for laps 2 and 3. Ummmm check that name, and buy his baseball- er- cyclo-cross rookie card now.

Good shot of what most of the course was like. Stay in the brown and you were allright. Many places had deeper/wetter mud.... but the above captures what most of the course was like.

The first flight of stairs. These got harder and harder as my bike got heavier and heavier throughout the race. DAMN mud! I passed this dude on the stairs, one of the 4 or so that I beat. Boo-yeah.

The mess of a bike directly after my race. Click on it to enlarge, and check out the crank / rear der area. Can't see it really well in the overall shot, but they are absolutely covered in junk. Only my three or four largest gears worked, as the other ones were junked up with mud and ice.

CX Nationals: Day1

Day one was pretty epic, but should be nothing compared to Sunday, which should feature 3-6" of snow. Anyway, course was still pretty iced over for my race. There was a mud "singletrack" around the whole course, which everyone took, but you could pass by riding over the crusted ice.... though you had to be more careful.

Got a good warmup in at the warmup tent, which featured trainers in BOXES that we needed to assemble before using. So... that sucked, but I was able to stay warm, and felt like I was relatively ready to go. No where near the numbers were there at the start than I thought. I thought there were 140 registered riders, but I think there were only about 40 starters.

I started off allright, didn't quite hold my position through the opening road section, probably got passed more than I passed people... but I could see the front, and felt like I could make efforts to at least get towards it. This plan started to unravel once I fell once going up a little bit of an off-camber uphill. I took the line off the mud, and went into the ice to try and pass people, but ended up sliding out. That cost me a few spots, and a shout-out from the announcer. I made a few efforts then to get back up to some groups in front of me, but after those efforts, I didn't have the gas to get around them or work to the next one. After a while I just wanted to learn the course and ride the hard sections smoothly, thinking ahead to Sunday's Collegiate race. I guess I finished 26th, which might sound respectable being at nationals, but there weren't that many people... and most of them were in front of me.

I had a lot of fun though, and I'll throw up a picture later of my bike, which was TOTALLY full of grassy mud after the race. Seriously, never seen my bike look anything like that. Thankfully they had a spray booth set up, which will lead into a funny story I'll put up once I get the photographic evidence later on.

The So-Cal roomate, Jim, had a great race to finish a very respectable 16th of 79 in the 40+ B race. He'll be racing tomorrow in the age-graded national championships, then transferring solely to super-fan and taxi-cab duties.

Do YOU know your birthday?

A while back I needed to bring my birth certificate to the DMV. I misplaced it after the trip, and eventually had to order a new one, which cost me 10 bucks. However, THE DAY I get the replacement birth certificate, I'm sitting at my desk, move something I guess I hadn't moved for a while, and out pops the original birth certificate. Swell. Well I opened the new one to see what it looked like... and noticed something surprising.

First of all my birthdate is really hard to read on the new certificate, so... that is kind of silly. It's handwritten, whereas it was type written on the original. Come on... we've progressed since '84 haven't we? Besides being almost illegible, I'm also pretty sure it has the WRONG DAY. Now, ordinarily this wouldn't be a huge deal... but this is my BIRTH CERTIFICATE, and it has my wrong birthday!??! So... what day should I choose?

I think I'll just stick with the original date... just has a ring to it by now.

Oh Kansas...

At least cross nats aren't going on right now. The weather looks horrid in Kansas today and tomorrow, hopefully those 40 degree days they are predicting for the weekend will still hold true....

Maybe I should re-glue those 34's instead of studying for my finals.....

What not to do before a cross race...

ride 80 miles. Also probably not the best idea before going to Cross Nats either, but I have another week to recover for my main race on Sunday. Certainly lots of feet up in the air time this week, though.

On Saturday I rode steady for about 5 hours with some of the new team mates for the road season, and that was probably a bit too much before this particular cross race especially. I had done 80 mile days before placing in the top 5 the next day before, but this course was made for sapping power out, and only had a few, though tough, technical sections to it. So my preparation for it was pretty poor, but I still had fun. I'll definitely get some pictures up when they're online... it's not called "Storm the Beach" for nothing. End result, finished up 8th, which given my tired legs and lacking motivation, was just fine with me. I hope that will be enough to lock up 3rd overall for the series.

Got home and cleaned the cross bike completely. Took most everything apart, regreased, relubed.... she's all set to go, minus pedals.... getting ready to put her in a box for the trek to Kansas. I gots two finals coming up... Tuesday and Wednesday, then I'm speeding down to San Diego, and flying out to Kansas City for a few days of pain.

Planet Earth

I've been watching a lot of Netflix recently. Have lots of movies I want to watch, but I've been doing tv shows on there, as I can usually watch an episode or two (or a whole disc or two) each night.

First up was Entourage, which was an excellent show but made me depressed about how I have to actually do something with myself in order to make a buck. If you've seen it... Ari, the agent, is probably my favorite character. The shit that comes out of his mouth is hilarious. His assistant Lloyd is pretty funny too. Drama wears on me after a while, his role is pretty predictably pathetic, but it's all good. I'm waiting anxiously for season 4 to come up on Netflix. I don't think its even been on HBO yet though.

However, the show at the moment is BBC's miniseries "Planet Earth". Spectacular. Each episode features at least one tidbit, where I think to myself... that is bullshit, you are making this crap up. A monkey that swims? Global climate change? (some things are more stretches than others). If you happen to see this on TV, WATCH IT, or if you have Netflix, add it. I think it's on TV on the Discovery channel? or National Geographic maybe? You have google on your computer too, find out for yourself. Good show though, with excellent visuals. I really like how for most episodes you never see a human, it's as if you're there by yourself, with a pretty well educated and deep-toned subconscious providing narration. Five stars.

Districts

This past weekend saw some racing action up in Bakersfield, Ca... about a 3 hour haul up North, so my teammate Ted and I snagged a hotel room up there to avoid copious amounts of driving.

Saturday was the sand-bag race for the Bear jersey. I was hoping to snag the win, but ended up 3rd, after a good hard fought battle that came right down to the wire with another guy. We went head to head on the last big runup, knowing whoever was in front would win... I almost pushed him over a cliff, but hey, I was barrrrely in front of him, so I had the slot.

Sunday was a Prestige series race, and I started off allright, then a yellow blur went by me about 1 minute in, whilst I was sitting in 2nd place. The leader had just buzzed by, and shot by Ted on the downhill. Ted only lost contact with him later on in the race when he skidded out around a corner, but finished strong in 2nd. I meanwhile, continued to go gradually slower, sitting in 4th, and racing negatively- looking back at the same guy who sloooowly brought me back at Turkey Trot. Well the guy catches me on the last 1/3 of the last lap, and finally is right with me right when we get onto the long downhill finishing straight. Now I should have realized that if he JUST got up to me, he's got to be a bit gassed, and should have punched it ASAP. But thinking like a roadie, I lead out the sprint slowly, not wanting to let lead him out... so I jumped when I thought I could get a gap and hold until the line, but he came through right at the end and nipped me... DAMN. So I ended up 5th.

Fall quarter is coming to an end already, though, and I'm finishing my last homework, and looking over things for my shortened 2-day finals week before I head out to Kansas City for cross nats. Before that, though, is the last prestige race I'll be doing... Storm the Beach. Literally on the beach at Camp Pendleton. I will definitely have some pictures from this sweet venue...

Photos from Turkey Trot

Throwing the bike on up just before the runup. Wish you could have ridden it, because it would have been pretty sweet to have ridden this little creek, then up a climb, but you didn't carry much momentum, it was sandy, and had a big lip on the top....

The entrance to the "single track-ish" section. Wish I had a picture of barreling through here on the last lap, made up a good 5-10 seconds through the turn alone... though I was pretty damn close to eating it into the large rock.

One set of barriers, located on an uphill meant no bunny hopping. More specifically for me: lack of skills required to bunny hop barriers in the first place led to no bunny hopping.

The sand pit. I rode this pretty well each lap- only got caught up once where I slowed down, but still rode through it easily.

Turkey Trot

After dropping Nicole off at LAX for another 4-week session of talking on the phone, I was able to make it over to Glendale in time to do the 3/4 race at my third to last prestige series race, the Turkey Trot.

This was by far the coolest course there is in SoCal. Added to the course was just enough leaves and loose dirt and sand to make the course challenging but fun. Swooping turns you could rail through, a short sandy runup, a sand-trap and a hard little bit of single track that came after an almost 180-degree sandy turn.... pretty flipping sweet.

I started in the front row, and didn't quite get the usual fast sprint of a start that I'm capable of... probably didn't warm up enough. Though I still managed to slot into 5th or 6th. The whole first half of the first lap I had about a 5 second gap to the front group, and behind me was an even larger gap.... so I knew I had to gas it real hard to stay with the leaders. On one tricky part right when I had caught back on, a guy fell right in front of me, but by locking up the rear brake and sort of sliding around, I was able to get by him quickly, and right back up to the front of the group. After things settled down, it was the yellow jersey and another guy up the road, then me, and then two guys chasing me at about 10 seconds. Stayed that way for most of the race, until the 4th placed rider caught up to me, and then passed me when I slid out on a sandy turn. I didn't hammer it hard enough to get right back on his wheel, and he ended up getting a bit of a gap with about 2 laps to go.

With one lap to go, I had 4th in the bag, as I couldn't even see the 5th placed guy anymore, so I figured I'd take all the risks I could to try and catch the dude ahead of me. It was fun, with a few people yelling at me to catch up. I had been gaining on him in the corners, so I railed through some, going through sections without brakes that I didn't think I'd be able to manage. I finally caught him by skidding through the 180-degree sandy turn and getting the sand pit perfect. Though I botched the opportunity to pass him, and instead was right on his wheel (This as it turns out, is a subtle difference between cross and road. In a cross race, pass people. Always. This isn't always true on the road...) Having made the effort to get there, I didn't have the gas on the last quarter of the lap to stay on his wheel to try and win the sprint, and he got a bit of a gap again that I couldn't close. So I ended up 4th, but it was a heck of a fun race.

Looking forward to Bakersfield next weekend, where I'll be looking to snag another free jersey...this time it might have a bear on it...

Also, this is awesome. My former roomate Mike Friedman was on Slipstream for the last two years, and is still on it this year, as it progresses to a top-tier almost pro-tour level team. What a ride. I used to take craps in a toilet that he clogged on a consistent basis- I can't imagine what it's like to say hey, I have to get some good training in so I can help Magnus out in the Spring Classics. Unreal.

Urban (in the ghetto) cross

My new team, liquidfitness, was the host of the #3 race in the Urban cross series, the other series in SoCal. My teammate Ted and I drove up to Torrance to race in a sand bowl, which I had heard stories about.... but wasn't half as bad as what people were saying. This course was different than the Prestige series courses, not necessarily worse.

The course started on one of the "road" sections, a lot of gravel. Very quickly in there was a sharp turn, then a LONG loose sandy runup that HURT like hell. Following this was a longer less steep sandy descent to the barriers that really didn't require any pedaling, just holding on. After the barriers was some more sand, then a little single track, then down through the finish where there was a 2nd set of barriers right after a loose gravel turn. Little ways down were three tree trunks that you had to get off the bike for, then a long loose sandy ride-up, which fed into a bit of a hairy sandy descent, then basically back start.

I did the 4, and the 3/4 race. The 4s I did basically just to get points to try and get at my upgrade. There were about 12 dudes there.... from the gun I took off, and by the top of the runup I had a big gap. The race was already over. I just rode relatively easily, watching the 2nd place guy when the course snaked back on itself, but he was a ways back. Sweet... 10 upgrade points, only 3 to go.

The 3/4 went pretty well too, and was fun. Wish there were more guys there, I think there were only about 15. Ted and another guy went at the runup hard on the first lap, and were gone. I was in third, and came relatively close to catching them.... but after people started settling into their paces, the front two took off quickly. A guy caught up to and passed me, and I couldn't quite hold onto his pace. Then another guy came up and we were fighting for 4th for the next 3-4 laps. He rode for another team that is run by a guy who does coaching, so all the guys associated with our two teams sort of made a rivalry out of it, and everyone was LOUD when we came through... made it a lot of run. He kept getting away from me on the runup, and I'd fight back up on the sandy climb. With ~2.5 laps to go, he attacked, and I thought had it sealed, but he ended up fading reaaaal hard, and I caught him right before the runup on the last lap, and cruised to 4th. Go liquidfitness. Ted managed to get us onto the podium with a strong 2nd place.

With those results, I should have my upgrade, but I think I'll be holding off upgrading until after Bakerfield, where I can vie for a cat.4 SoCal championship jersey.... I think the ones around here with a big bear, like the state flag.... sweeeeet.

Eco-Cross

This past weekend's SoCal Cross race was up in Sylmar again, in the same park where the second race, Redline Cup, was held. Other than the start/finish paved stretch and the barriers, though, everything was different. The loose dirt and carpet of pine needles didn't serve me very well this time around either.

The course was pretty technical, which isn't quite an advantage for me, as I'm not all that comfortable taking turns through loose dirt and stuff yet... but it was still a really fun course to ride. My favorite stretch featured a steep loose dirt (I should almost say sandpit) hill, which was ridable only because you could carry momentum into it. I consistently lost time in the more technical sections, and wasn't able to gain it all back in the power sections. Suspicions of my being limited by handling skills were apparent when people I had been riding with for a lap or two (10-15mins) would easily gap me once they got the chance to pass me. I didn't feel all that gassed, so it wasn't me being tired, they just weren't such wossies in the turns! Still had a fun time though, and I did get more comfortable as the race went on, and caught up to two people on the last lap that had passed me earlier.

I got a decent start, and was sitting around 4-5th going into the barriers for the first lap. There was a dirt patch, and a paved hill after the barriers, and the leaders rode a bit away from me, and I never saw the front 3 or so again. I yo-yoed between 6-10th for much of the race, and ended up finishing 10th. I should slide a place or two in the overall standings from 5th, but I'll still get the all important callup.

I'll post some pictures of me in the green racer jersey later on when they're up online.

Cyclocross Nationals

The UC Irvine cycling team is picking up my tab to send me on out to cyclocross nationals this year. Sahweeeet. The race is in Kansas City, KS, a mere few days after I finish up the finals for the fall quarter. I'm currently trying to get my math final moved so that I can get out there to race the B race on Thursday, before the collegiate race on Sunday. I've been looking at the weather for that time of year (probably snow!), and just ordered a pair of 34 Tufos to use instead of the 30s I've been running out here- I'm planning on throwing those on my Ksyriums... would be a sweet cross bike when paired up with those wheels, I'm pretty siked for it.

Next though, I need to clean all the gunky horrible Vittoria glue off the Ksyriums before I can put the new fatties on there properly... gonnna get high on some lacquer fumes

Weird video on YouTube

I have a math test tomorrow, so naturally that means I'm online looking at cyclo cross videos on YouTube. Check this gem out... really weird, yo.



I think the weirdest part is at about 2:40 in... is that the woman's house the race is going by?? it looks like it... really weird, and the music right at the end makes you think that cyclo-cross has some tie-in with Halloween or something. freaky.

Just a few years ago...

I was racing collegiate C's back East at PennState. Found some old pictures while cleaning off the harddrive on my desktop. I know I'm probably wearing a few more layers in the first picture, but damn-I think I must have been pushing 185 back then.

First race weekend in Rutgers: 2003. Our best result would come from Mike Lahm, I think 4th (yeah, I take that gimkabo for memory, can't remember the name right off). Munas ended up making love to a curb... I wish I could remember what BS Lou was telling me at this moment.

Just a few weeks ago, digging the pre-fire clean air....

Coffee Crew Ride turned Octagon Death Match

So this morning I went for my first group ride since the fires, and it turned out to be pretty dramatic. We took a different route that kept us away from where the fire had been just last week. Visibility was poor, thankfully due mainly to fog... I hope. At any rate, at one point in the ride, a dude sort of went real fast on a downhill to catch up to some homies up the road, and kept drilling it. Another dude on the ride wasn't too happy about this, and after coming back together in a mile or two, they started exchanging words. It was pretty unsafe how the first guy rolled off... sort of rode right through a group on a narrow road with poor visibility.... but what transpired was still flipping crazy.

They started exchanging more words, and even smacking each other on the helmet. Numerous times people said "come on ladies" or something to that effect to try and prevent the fight, in the presence of some women on the ride who probably thought... well fuck you! Then at a stop light, all hell broke loose. Full on swings, head locks.. you name it. Both of them laid their bikes on the pavement and went at it. It was so very middle school.

So if you're ever on a group ride in SoCal, don't fuck with a dude in a Disco kit. He really does ride for Disco... maybe he's just mad that his team is gone...

Training this week?

Probably not. I'm already taking off Friday - Sunday to go visit the Big Apple, which I'm psyched for. I'll be doing a good bit of work this week, catching up so I won't have to do a lot this weekend... but I still planned to do some riding this week until this happened....


D'oh! I usually climb up and over that ridge and ride through the canyon on the other side. But I can't even ride anywhere else around here because the air quality is atrocious. So hopefully these will clear up a bit by the time I have to take off from Long Beach on Thursday afternoon...

If you're bored check this site out. Shows all the fires, though its not updated all that often.

Damn Cross (UCI #2)

So today was the same race as yesterday. Some changes were supposed to be made to the course, but they weren't, but that was ok because there wasn't much that could be done to make the course any better, given the location with all the gopher holes anyway...

It was my cleanest cross race so far, and not surprisingly I got my best result, both due to that fact, and some poor luck of folks in front of me (that's cross!). So right from the gun I was in 2nd position, but couldn't hold the fast pace up the first grade, and got gapped a bit. 4 leaders with a 5-10 second lead, then me with another two guys. That was basically the scenario until the series leader, and my teammate Ted, who were both in that front group of 4, both had mechanicals. The leader got a flat, but had to ride a little bit to get to the pit before changing and getting back in- he would up just inside the top 10. Ted was a bit more unfortunate. He rolled his tubular front tire after hitting an odd corner, but was able to ride the wheel into the pit and get his spare, which he then flatted somewhere in the next lap or so. Bummer because he was looking REAL good up with the leaders.

Those two mishaps and I'm sure some surges a the front, broke everything apart. I was well behind the two riders up the road, with two different guys coming up towards me. One guy faded, and one guy made his way up to me. I punched it real hard going into the last lap, and he spent the whole rest of the lap clawing his way back to me. He then flatted trying to hop the curb to ride the last runup, so I had an easy ride in for 3rd.

Really looking forward to the next few races... next one is in two weeks, so I'll be on the road again for a bit...

UCI (not UC Irvine) cross, #1

Cross racin.... pegged to 185 from the beginning, kept up there for nearly 45 mins, with a max at 195. Sahweet.

This weekend was the first ever UCI weekend for Southern California. UCI in terms of cycling has nothing to do with UC Irvine, for those of you wondering.... Union Cycliste Internationale is the global governing body for cycling- a UCI race usually means big names will show up, and the promoter will loose lots of money because they have to pay the commissaries a billion swiss francs per hour.

Anyway, none of that really matters for my Cat 3/4 races, so it was just a normal race. Attendance was actually a little low unfortunately, only about half of the top 10 on the series were present, so that was a bummer, but a good chance to move up I guess. I was 11th in the series going into the race, so no call-up, but that didn't matter much. I punched it hard on the opening paved section and cruised up the first big hill, and got into 3rd. My buddy Ted had the misfortune of unclipping on that hill, and lost a few spots, but he was quickly back up near the front. In the early parts of the first lap I did my usual first lap crash, just sliding out (despite the new tubies!). This not as bad as last week though, and I was able to quickly get back up, only losing 3-4 spots. After a few laps most of the race had shaken out, and the two leaders were well up the road, Ted was in 3rd, I was in 4th, and there were a few riders looking to come up, who never quite made it. I don't think I would have placed any differently had I not crashed. Maybe I would have been there when the guys took off and made their gap (my crash may have been what caused their initial gap....) but I don't think I would have hung with, and may have even blown up, so maybe it's a good thing.

So I should be looking at a callup for tomorrow's race, which I hope will feature more people, especially more from the top 10 who had been handing to us pretty well the first few weeks.

Greenhouse Dollars

... no greenhouse dollars are not things that Republicans spend on the free market in order to fund the military by buying Haliburton contracts while also pissing off Al Gore.

They are a form of free money disseminated by the University (UC Irvine). One of my buddies Dave told me today that if you work for the University (which graduate students do) and you do not have a parking permit for parking on campus, then you are eligible to receive 10 greenhouse bucks for each month, meaning $90 for us right now. These can be used at the bookstore, or any place on campus to get food. So obviously we marched right over to get burritos with Dave's money, then walked over to get myself some "wad of cash".

Today just got a lot better... I have "85 dollars" burning a hole in my pocket. I'm trying to figure out the most efficient way for this money to make its way onto my bike. I think the best way may be to shop around on half.com for a book that is selling for a decent amount of its retail value, and then try and buy it at the store, and sell it quickly online. Though I fear my timing for this might not be that great... with quarters starting later than other schools, and the fact that we are a third of the way through this quarter...

I don't really want to use the money for food on campus.... I mean my last post was an excel spreadsheet screen shot depicting how I'm counting calories. Seriously.

Suggestions are welcome. If you wish to suggest I wait and use it for my textbooks for next quarter, then don't even bother responding, that is deplorable. This is FREE MONEY.

I'm a dork....

So I dig excel graphs for some reason, don't ask. Spent a little too much time on this guy....Net calories calculated from basal metabolic rate (calculated to be 2700 KCal per day), my Polar output in KCal, and my food intake, estimated to within a few hundred probably. Not that I'm really manging my eating/training habits off this, but I think it might be kind of cool to watch how it goes.... Interesting at least. I've already noticed that I'll spike at least 1.5 to 2 lbs for a day or two after a hard ride (and presumably eating more, I just started "counting" calories now)... then it'll settle down in a few days. Sort of cool... body has a large time constant.

So spoiled...

So I was taking a look at the flyers for this weekend's double header of cross action, and I was thinking to myself... MAN I don't want to have to make this drive twice! An hour and fifteen minutes each way!? That sucks....

Then I remembered back in the day in good ole Pennsylvania where I would have driven about 4 hours to race.... damn I'm getting spoiled out here already. I'm already sulking the fact that I need armwarmers and kneewarmers to ride in the morning... wazup with that?

Major Jake, ready for deployment...

So the Kona is finally done up right. As I said before, the cross rig now features sram rival 10spd drivetrain, paul's touring cantis, and tubular race wheels (though I only have one 10 spd cassette that is crossworthy, so these will basically be training and race wheels). As shown, comes in at 18lbs. Legit!!

The front end... featuring the extra brake levers that I have not used much since I've gotten used to being on the hoods / in the drops

Paul's brake calipers. Sexy.

They feel just as nice as they look. I promise this bike won't be clean in one weeks time... have two races next weekend...

The picture below shows an extra washer I had to put in so that the calipers would work properly. The problem was that with certain calipers, there was an inordinate amount of torsional friction, which would not even be compensated for with high spring tension (which would have felt weird anyway). So it took a few days, a phone call and a few emails with Paul himself to get to the bottom of it. Actually Paul didn't know what was wrong (hard without see it)... it took me taking the calipers apart numerous times to realize what was happening. What happened was that if you accidentally overtighten the bolt without holding the nut the caliper down on the post on the frame / fork, then the sleeve, which is slid on top of the post, is pushed onto the flats (further than it was designed to go) and therefore allows the spring mechanism to be squished. Now this could have been avoided if AlphaQ and Kona had made the flats on these parts larger than the shank of the post, but that would be hard to fix now.... so what I did was add an additional washer to make sure the caliper didn't push the sleeve up onto the flats. Might be easier to see what I mean...

For those of you who don't know what the heck is going on, then you might not realize how Paul's brakes work, which I didn't either before buying them. It is actually really cool - they do not use the typical tabs which lock the torsional spring into place (in fact I took them out on the fork). The springs are held between the caliper itself and the nut that the mount bolt goes through. A really cool design, that you really need to see to get your head around I think, and even then it took me a while to realize what was going wrong with my particular installation.

Yes, I'm a dork for making up that picture. Excuse me while I go spend my Saturday evening recovering from a 90mile road ride by coding matlab and watching the documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car".