The Death Stare

I know I'm not the first to write about this, but what the Hell is it about getting into a car that makes you act like other humans are merely disposable annoyances? Why is it ok to risk my life so you can get to church 15 seconds earlier? Why are you willing to spend $60k on a car, but don't support a municipal bond (just a few dollars a year) that would pay for a safer route to the local elementary school?

And why do drivers, when they screw up, cut you off, pull out in front of you, or almost kill you in any of the thousand ways they can, give you that look that says you don't even exist? Why do they look right through you? There it is, that blank stare that says, "your existence isn't worth delaying my trip to yoga/church/coffee/transcendental meditation for 10 seconds, because for all I know, you don't really exist."

Today it was my neighbor. On my cul de sac. Two doors down. She has four kids. We bought girl scout cookies from them. I helped jump start their car. Just yesterday I helped her daughter find her softball (and I had to get off my bike, in my road shoes, to do it). Her kids have bike races in front of my driveway. She came flying out of her driveway without looking, forcing me all the way over to the left side of the road and into the curb. Then she gave me the death stare. No smile. No 'oh my god, I'm sorry.' Nothing. Just looking right through me.

But there is good news. My trips to the chiropractor have been of some use.

A bike car?

In addition to free beer and brutal racing, this weekend had another benefit: I finally met another mountain biker in Moscow's massive cycling community. Joey is a really nice guy, stupid strong (on a rigid single speed), and the brains and creative genius behind an awesome movie called "bikecar." It's definitely worth checking out (see link below and at right).

Joey built the bikecar, and his brother and a couple of other guys piloted it around the Inland NW on a snowboarding road trip. They started in Moscow, and 866 miles later, ended up at Mt. Bachelor outside of Bend, Oregon.

www.bikecarmovie.com

Knowing the competition

The hardest part about entering a new race scene is figuring out where I fit in. In Wisconsin, I knew who I would race with, who would be up the road, and when I should be surprised. But now I have no idea if that guy riding away from me is the single speed world champ or the champion of the Baraboo Tuesday ride.

But god bless the internet. The guy who beat me on Sunday by 11 minutes is a former pro roadie who raced with Prime Alliance. Another guy in the race was the semi-pro national champion in both the XC and short track in 2006. And the guy who flatted early, then blew by me late, raced 'cross worlds as a junior (finishing 22nd, 2:45 back -- the year Walker Ferguson won the silver).

Edit: I shouldn't be so elitist. The guy who finished just ahead of me -- who is 45 years old -- just won his category at Sea Otter with the second fastest Expert time overall. He would have been 9th in the Semi-Pro and 44th in the Pro (out of 71 finishers) and just ahead of Ryan Trebon.

So at least it's a bit faster than the Tuesday ride in Baraboo, if not by much.

Rage in the Sage

This weekend we made the trip up to Ephrata, WA for the Rage in the Sage mountain bike 'festival'. First things first: it was a great little event. It's out in the middle of nowhere, and while the fields weren't huge, there were enough people there to be respectable. But more importantly, it was a blast. They had a fun short track Saturday evening, followed by a BBQ with free beer, and then a stupid hard XC race on Sunday morning (the Beezley Burn), followed by more free beer and tons of prizes (about $5k worth) for a raffle. It's absolutely worth doing if you're ever in the PNW in April.

The short track was as advertised -- a short track. It wound around a small park, including one stretch past a bunch of people fishing in the pond (at least two guys had encounters with back casts). It was about a 2.5 minute lap, and we raced for 30 minutes + 2 laps. About 25 guys line up for the Pro/Open/Expert category. I squeeze into a 2nd row start, but I appear to be the only one who realized that the course immediately turns left. I line up that way, and make it to 3rd wheel with relative ease. We enter a short section of singletrack and then head for the first 'obstacle' of the course -- a 180 degree turn around a tree.

I suppose I should mention at this point that I'm on my new GT, and this will be my first turn 'in anger' since I got it.

I hit a root and go down (in my defense, it was one of those nasty, slick, off camber roots that always seem to be at the apex of 180s around trees). I'm down so fast that I can't unclip first, so my foot is caught under the bike and I'm sitting there as most of the field goes by. By the time I'm rolling again, the lead seven guys are about 20 meters ahead, and that's the last time I'm in contact. Right behind me is the one other guy I know in the race (he's from Moscow), so we ride together until he fades a bit at the end. After 30 minutes, I'm about 30 seconds down on the second group, and the two leaders are now 20 seconds behind me and entering their final lap. There's no way I'll let them catch me, but the guy decides to pull me anyway. I don't take that too well, but we smooth things out later. Out of 25 guys, 18 are pulled and I end up 8th. Without my temporary idiocy, I might hang onto that second group, or I might not, so 8th is probably about right.

(photo from the short track)

We chill at the BBQ, drink some beer, chase frogs and a turtle at the pond for a bit (the monkey experiences his first 'wild' frog), and then head to our hotel for the night.

9am starts suck. I'm up at 6am trying to shove food in my mouth. I'm not a morning person. But I get enough food in, find some coffee, and get to the park where the race is at 7:45. There's not much to say about this race, except that it really hurt. There are 12 guys in the "pro" field. I hit the singletrack in 5th. One guy passes me, then two guys flat, then another guy passes me, then I suffer a lot, then one of the guys who flatted passes me, and 2.5 hours later, I finish in 6th.

I'm not sure I can describe how brutal this course was. There are some photos linked from the race website, but they don't show much of the rough stuff (for the XC race, I'm in photos 59, 88, 106, 124 and 180). There's a lot of new trail, and a lot of rocks, and a lot of braking bumps, and a lot more rocks (including sections that were all rock -- just thousands of softball sized pieces of basalt). I didn't think my back, arms, hands, or arse would survive. I didn't have my headband on tight enough, so it bounced down over my eyes (which you can see here). It was the roughest and longest XC race I've ever done.

But that said, I had a lot of fun and I raced much better than I expected. I was 11 minutes off the winner, about 5 minutes off third, and maybe 2 minutes back of 4th and 5th. Given the length of the race, I'm happy with those gaps. With some more consistent training, I think 3rd would have been reachable.

Oh yeah, the race paid out $2,000, divided among the top 5 for the combined short track and XC. I finished 6th overall, 2 minutes out of $100 (the winner took home $800).

I suppose I should say, although it was my first time on a hard tail in 16 years, and perhaps the worst course ever for that re-initiation, the bike performed wonderfully. It took a lap to get used to it, but then I started having a lot of fun. It handles wonderfully, and climbs and accelerates like no other mountain bike I've ridden. And although I got beat up pretty good, I didn't have to lay down for 30 minutes after the race, which has happened before on much smoother and shorter courses.

Awesome race. Good beer. And I got beat by a guy who is 45 years old, so I can't make excuses for another decade at least.

Straightening things out

My defective hip and dead leg finally convinced me to visit a chiropractor. I'm not quite sure what I think yet, although yesterday while casually big-ringing a 12% grade into a headwind, I looked down to see that I was spinning out 400+ watts without breaking a sweat.

Ok, maybe that's a mild exaggeration, but the leg did feel better yesterday.

I have determined that most people simply don't understand cyclists. While he was doing the x-rays, I asked three times if I should take my shoes off. He said no each time, then later told me that my x-rays showed a 2mm leg length discrepancy. Not a big deal he said.

First, I'm a guy that's been walking around for a year with a crooked pelvis, and for my whole life with a deformed vertebra in my lower back, and you're comfortable assuming my shoes are even? How hard is it to take shoes off? How do you know that I'm even standing straight?

Ok, whatever, it's just 2mm. It's a good thing cyclists never get into 'discussions' about the merits of 175mm versus 172.5mm crankarms. Or never spend 20 minutes trying to get the saddle height exactly right by adjusting it 1mm at a time.

We're not that anal.

I finally commented, somewhat casually, that when you pedal 90 times a minute for 5 hours at a time, small things can be fairly significant. I don't think he understood.

I feel different

I got home from work tonight to find a large box at my front door with "GT" marked on the side. I open it up to find a beautiful piece of black and silver carbon fiber. I'm not sure what to say. I'll start with a big "Thanks!" to the awesome people back in Madison (and wherever the secret society reaches).

So with my sincere apologies to the Burrito Eater (who would have been first had I gotten around to figuring this stuff out), the first link on my blog goes to GT.

The total tonnage of what you don't know...

Today's crit was about what I expected. Really hard. With no legs. The only crash bounced off my leg about half way through; apparently three guys tried to squeeze into a one person gap. The last lap ripped my legs off. I hit the final turn in 8th and finished 8th. No one came by me, I didn't get by anyone.

Then after the race, I wander over to see the results from yesterday. I figured I was around 40th, so I start at 50 and move up. I don't see my name until 21st. I was 2:12 off the winner, and 24 seconds off 3rd place. Not as bad as I thought, given the implosion that occurred with 1K to go. But it also lends some further fuel to the 'I wonder what would have happened' rehashing I've been doing since the race ended yesterday.

Then I look for the GC. Turns out I'm 14th, 8 seconds out of the top 10. Top 5 was my goal, but now I get to be annoyed for letting 8 seconds get away from me in the time trial and last minute of a 3.5 hour race.

But for a learning/training race, and my first stage race, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I rode myself into the ground, and I learned a few things. At Mt. Hood, there's not a chance in Hell I'm going up the road solo.

Stupid beats Strong

When you're stupid, it doesn't matter how strong you are. After the TT, I was sitting in 9th (out of 100 starters), about 51 seconds off the lead, but only 10 seconds out of third. Were I smart, I would have realized that there probably weren't 10 guys that could beat me up the finish hill, so I could probably defend the top 10 and likely move up if I just stayed in the pack and played it cool.

Of course, I didn't do that.

20 minutes into the 75 mile race, I decide to roll off alone. There are two guys up the road, and I figure I might be able to bridge. That doesn't happen, so I spend the next 40 minutes out in the 20mph winds by myself. I'm 2 minutes back of the leaders, and 1 minute ahead of the field. Finally, after 40 minutes, the field gets close, and two guys bridge, then two more. We're now in a tailwind section, so the draft sucks. I hang with them for 20 minutes or so, then realize I'm done. My plan is to ride steady and try to make it to the top of the big climb before the field catches me.

That doesn't happen either.

Two more guys bridge, and I stick with them. We spend another 40 minutes about 1 minute up on the field, before one guy has to take a leak. Although he rolls it, that's the end of our gap and the field catches us. The next 20 miles are stupid boring. No one works, and the guys up the road stay away. I try to eat and rest up for the final climb, but I don't have it. I hang with the group until about 1k to go, then every thing goes to hell and I'm going backward.

Three guys stayed out, and I've raced with and never lost to the guy that ended up 4th. Had I stayed with the field the entire race, 4th was totally reachable, but it would have annoyed me to no end to ride around in a big bunch at 150 watts for 3 hours and not do anything, so I'm happy with the day.

Now my legs hurt. I was off the front for more than half the race (about 38 miles), with nothing to show for it, except some self-righteous elitism. But I already had that.

UPDATE: One guy stayed away. We caught everyone else, so second place was up for grabs for the field.

Underbored...

I'm not good at any of my lives.

After working on a project most of the day, I realize I have to completely revise it.

I get home later than I want and rush to squeeze a ride in.

I look outside to see my wife and son playing in the back yard. Despite the pang of guilt I feel (and the realization that he's learning to throw like a girl), I head out for my ride.

30 minutes into my interval session, my bad-deskchair-posture induced/exacerbated leg injury tells me I should probably pack it in and head home.

I guess the benefit of failing at my last life is that I get home in time to play with my son before bath and bedtime. Luckily, my wife knows how to throw properly, so he hasn't been permanently scarred. Besides, his dad is a leg-shaving girlie man, so no one will expect anything of him anyway.

Wherever I can find it

It turns out that maybe you can buy speed. Took out my brother's TT bike last night. 30mph cross and headwinds, sleet, and a low rear tire; I was still over 1 minute faster than on the regular bike 20 minutes later -- at the same power output and with the same pissy attitude.

Now I get to justify working late by buying new stuff.