Blather on Bicycling

Most of my associates had a good day of racing yesterday at the Birds of Prey race in Boise. Tim did a clutch last-second tire change just in time for Sandy to roll up to the start line and go on to a 2nd place finish. The other local UC racers had good results too. Brian and Whit were well positioned in what I characterize as a very dangerous sprint finish. Perhaps more important than their placing was the fact that they survived it without a crash. There were many factors that spelled carnage: cars parked alongside the road at the line, railroad tracks shortly after the finish, it was a Cat 4-5 sprint, half a road to sprint on with a full pack, catching a rider right at the finish, and a poorly placed turnaround sign straddling the yellow line about 50 meters from the finish. One rider somehow stayed up after plowing straight through this sign, but more importantly, he still maintained the wherewithal to drop a very loud F-Bomb while crossing the line. During all this, I was busy taking a picture of the finish in a perfect position between two cars ready to dive for cover. The big crash ended up happening in the Masters B group before the finish. It took down at least one of my teammates for Lactic Acid. We had a pretty large group of team riders in that field, so I was glad see most of them finish upright. 

I’m really happy for my teammate Darin in the Cat 3 race. He survived a 2-man 70+ mile breakaway to take the win and the GC lead. I knew he was going to get a top 2 finish when it was apparent the break would survive, but I was stoked to hear he took the win. If I knew earlier in the race, I would have put a fist in the air when I crossed the line so the 2 spectators (my wife and another racer’s wife) would be clear we had a team victory. After finishing, I was quickly over to the official to get the paperwork (i.e. a torn-out piece of notebook paper) to file a protest. I’m still miffed about what happened to me during the race. Maybe I’ll provide details in another entry.

Overall, I really have nothing to complain about compared to Eli, who had the misfortune of puncturing and then racing the remaining course as an individual time trial. Bad luck with not enough teammates to send some back to help. It seemed to be a good TT effort though, because he was reeling in everyone else on the road. When I saw him he was going very fast. Unfortunately, it was in a place he should have been going very slow. I almost dove behind a car when he came into the hairpin U-turn way too hot, one foot unclipped with wheels locked up. It was the perfect example of how not to do a TT turnaround, which augmented the discussion Tim and I were having about how to negotiate turnarounds correctly.  

This winter I had a relatively large base training build, with some massive volume in the last few months. Just recently I’ve begun unleashing the lion. My form has come in surprisingly quick with some ridiculously good feelings in my legs for the last week. In fact, I’m feeling so good that I’m worried my form is coming in too early. Hopefully this is simply a sign that I will be really good as I continue with speed training and a temporary reduction in training length.

Today I headed toward Minam summit on my bike. The highway leading out of Elgin includes one of the first sustained climbs to melt open in the spring. I noticed the broom had been down the highway to push the gravel off the shoulder, a sure sign that spring is here. I headed up the first gradient, which offers 6-8 percent for the 7 minute repeats I was doing. The climb continues on, but after the repeats I turned onto Good Road, which is one of my favorite no-traffic out and back sorties, along with Valley View and Booth roads. Once again, my legs felt awesome the entire ride, even though I taxed them pretty good yesterday. Hincapie has coined a great term that describes the feeling best: “no chain.”

Yesterday, I was definitely feeling chain during our official unofficial Oregon Trail TT. This is our local wind tunnel testing minus all the testing instruments. On this day, the wind was gusting to a measly 16 mph. This was my first experience riding a disc wheel and my first time riding a tubular tire. I averaged 26 mph, which was my strongest effort ever considering the wind going out.  Unfortunately, I was producing an inordinate amount of flem. While my upper respiratory was having major issues, my legs were thumping nicely. I deposited a large sum into the wind bank by going out in 13:51, and then came back in 11:30. The day before I had the diskie out for a test ride at normal speeds, and didn’t really notice anything special. It really excelled at high speed though, with my bike feeling much more stable and smooth. I didn’t notice any handling issues in the brief crosswind section. However, this was just an initial impression after one effort. I’ll be interested to find out how it handles with no wind. If conditions are right in 2 weeks, I’m definitely going under 25 minutes. The lion has to eat.