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.