DJStroky Racing

Quiet Before the Storm

2012-02-26T22:14:00.000-08:00

I've been kinda quiet on this blog lately. However, I've been focusing on my training. I've had a big January and February of training and will still be hitting it hard this March.

Weightlifting:

I've been in the weightroom every week at least twice a week. I made quite a bit of progress over last year's peak lifts. This year I peaked in the squat at 325 pounds and leg pressed 777.5. I even maxed out the leg curl machine!

325 pounds in the squat.

777.5 pounds leg pressed.

Maxed out the leg curl machine at 265 pounds.

So was I the strongest guy in the weightroom? Heck No! Maybe 2nd strongest...

I believe this is over 1,000 pounds.

Riding:

I've been riding a lot as well. Actually it depends on who you compare me to when I say I ride a lot. Compared to the normal person, yes I ride a ton. However, I regularly see my racing buddies post these 90, 100 mile rides on Strava. I've only done two 80+ mile rides this year. I have been doing intervals though. We'll see what happens in the race.

Another factor with biking a lot is keeping good care of the bike. I haven't done a direct financial comparison to last year's riding. I have had two rear derailuer hanger failures where one caused the rear derailuer to snap in half. And I recently broke a spoke which led Veloshop to conclude that the wheel's rim was shot anyways, but at least that's not my carbon fiber wheel breaking.

I have definitely been better about cleaning my bike this year. Getting the shaft from Portland Plaza and being forced to use the bike locker across the street may have been a good thing after all. The locker is in a covered parking garage, so it is dry and it is always lit up and snobby rich people probably wouldn't be yelling at me as much when I lube my chain without a cardboard mat or something. I've got a solid routine for taking all my biking clothes and some post-ride food which I then consume while cleaning my bike afterwards.

Eating:

And it's that time of year again where I'm focused on what I'm eating. You won't find me consuming beer, but you will find me eating tons of Dave's Killer Bread. I discovered that I can buy 4 (imperfect) loaves for about $10 over at the Dave's Killer Breadquarters out in Milwaukie which makes for a nice bike ride about once every two weeks.

However, I think last year I was doing a little better about eating enough greens and veggies. I feel like I ate more mega-salads back then. But on the plus side, this year I'm doing better about eating enough during and after my rides. I'm taking Emergen-C and Zinc a few times a week and so far it seems to be holding off any illnesses. People have also always been asking me "are you vegan, are you vegan? huh? huh?" Well, not quite. I have eliminated dairy from my diet and am trying hard to also kick my lunchmeat habit, but the salmon most definitely is going to stay in my sandwiches and elsewhere.

This is actually just one serving of spinach.

Sleeping:

I have really realized that this is actually a super-important aspect of training. Not getting enough sleep seriously affects me. However, it seems to affect me mentally the most. I can really notice it at work because I'll be agitated and working slower than normal and then with people I'll become antisocial or just not have anything useful to say. It's a little more subtle when racing because your blood is already gushing through your system keeping you awake, but not enough sleep can mess with my head so that I don't have a good game plan going in and then it may do other weird things such as complicating my assessment of available energy to expel for a certain duration. Anyways, 8 hours is the absolute minimum on weekdays and 9 is the minimum on weekends, but I frequently miss both. Room for improvement and reason to rush writing this blog post so I can get to bed.

Life:

Another thing I ought to write about is Life. And this is Life as defined by Daniel Harm in his equation about training progress as follows:

(Training + Recovery + Nutrition) / Life = Progress.

As a bike racer, I don't have a "life" as most normal people may think of. I don't go out to bars, I don't watch tv or many movies and if I'm hanging out with friends its to serve a purpose in addition to just hanging out. As opposed to last year where I was pretty much a complete loner since moving to Portland and then throughout the racing season, this year I've added some Life to the equation but in ways that'll not only benefit me, but my new friends as well.

Ugly Christmas Sweater Party

The most important of these Life items I've done is joining a home community through my church. Every Thursday we get together to discuss the Sunday sermon and eat dinner. It's so awesome to be sharing the journey of walking with Christ with other people and the fact that there is food there makes it logistically easier as well. There are some times when I want to hangout too late though, like at this Ugly Christmas Sweater party I stayed until after 11pm cutting into my sleep. Sometimes even just 20 minutes of hanging out with good friends in person is all that is needed to have more than 0 Life but not conflict with recovery.

First Race (for me) Next Sunday

And so racing is about to begin. I decided not to go do the FHR or Eatonville but instead do the first Banana Belt as my first race. And the way I'm feeling is a bit tired, slightly nervous and well I was feeling excited, but I need to get over a little sleep debt I have to get back to that point of being excited. Come this Sunday it's the first time I get to see how well I perform against others and doing good at that is worthy of a whole 'nother blog post in itself. Now off to bed to sleep.

How to Read Rain Forecasts

2012-01-25T23:11:00.000-08:00

Image from the Recycled Cycles blog

As promised, here is a weather post about the rain. To any potential meteorologists who read this, please take note that I am a n00b and don't understand all the terminology or know the names of every single type of cloud. However, I am fascinated by how the weather works, love free data and need to know on a daily basis how wet my bike ride will be.

This post is broken into 4 sections:

1. Basic Forecast Reading
2. Satellite Imagery
3. Timing your ride with the radar
4. Model Output - It will change your life!

Basic Rain Forecasts

Here is a typical picture where I am disappointed in overall design. This happens all the time, an entire week of rain forecasted with the exact same picture icon of rain. The reason I'm disappointed is partly because it will rain a lot. However, the rain will be significantly different between each of these days and even within each day. Yet if you were to just look at the picture in the forecast you would think it'll be the exact same each day. Hardly! However, there are very subtle elements that actually show what kind of rain is forecasted.

%Chance of rain

This is actually quite useful and usually tells a lot of the story. 100% chance means you are going to get drenched - a massive storm is coming where it will probably rain rain most of the day. 70-90% means it will almost certainly rain but at times it may not rain that intensely. 40-60% usually means a sprinkle. 20-30% could mean a mist. 0-10% means mostly sunny!

Rainfall amounts

Here is the game-changer. As noted before we Pacific Northwesterners could probably have as many names for rain as Eskimos have for snow. There is pouring rain, windy rain, hailing rain, freezing rain, steady rain, bipolar rain, drizzle, sprinkle, mist and I'm probably missing some. Anyways, the distinguishing factor between most of these guys is the volume of rain that gets dumped out of the heavens. And the forecast actually reports these things.

Check out the Wednesday and Wednesday Night forecast. Exact same picture - exact same rain? Absolutely not! Wednesday says "Rainfall amounts around a half of an inch." Wednesday Night: "Rainfall amounts less than a tenth of an inch." Huh? How much is that? Admittedly it's a bit hard to convert a picture of falling rain into inches or fractions of inches of rain standing on the ground. So here is my nifty rainfall amount conversion scale:

< 0.1 inch: some rain, but not much. Safe for bicycling without fenders or rain gear.
0.5 inch: Pouring rain at times. Rain gear is a must even for short rides.
1 inch: TORRENTIAL RAIN
1-2 inches: FLOODING RAIN. Places without good drainage will flood. Landslides will happen on unstable slopes.
2 inches+: MONSOON RAIN. Ok, this entry is mainly to poke fun at Randy who claims that any rain storm he biked in had "MONSOON RAIN" quantities of rain. I did a little research and well again it's a little variable on what a monsoon is. It can range from the weakest Arizona Monsoon of 0.35 inches to the worst Bangladesh Monsoon in recorded history which had 13.4 inches of rain in 24 hours!

Timing Your Ride With the Radar

So, the next most advanced tool at your disposal is the weather radar. It shows a real-time picture of rain. Generally speaking, yellow stuff is pouring rain and anything more intense than that is rain you can go tell a story about. If you prefer not to ride in the rain, watch the weather radar and wait until the rain cloud moves away from your location. For example say you were at the red marker on the following maps:

Wait for it...

Almost...

Game on!

Unfortunately, it isn't always that easy and sometimes the raincloud will just stretch forever that you'll get rained on unless you wait for hours. However, the radar can even be helpful because sometimes there will be very short burst of rainclouds lasting only maybe 10 minutes with a gap of 30 minutes to the next raincloud which is often enough for a commute.

Satellite Images

I used to look at Satellite images, but have really started losing faith in them as an overall predictor of how much it will rain. There are kind of 3 types of rain cloud systems that come in and I've made screenshots of two of them.

Here is the "bipolar" type system:

All those little clouds probably mean something really fancy to meteorologists, but in general it usually means weather can be bipolar, ie raining hard for 20 minutes and then sunny for 20 minutes and then raining hard again. The radar is key for these kinds of clouds if you have a short ride.

Next is the "steady" system

This type of cloud usually will have a well defined start and end to the rain system. If you're lucky it will be a north-south type of cloud which passes quickly, if you're unlucky it will be an east-west type of cloud and if you're really unlucky it will be an east-west type of cloud that stretches all the way to Japan! Usually the rain is "steady" meaning it will rain consistently for the duration of the system. However, sometimes weird stuff can happen with these clouds where there is no rain at all. Here is a picture of the radar for the above satellite image:

Massive rain shadow over Portland! Why? I have no idea, but it was a dry bike ride.

The final system is the Cyclone the one that sorta looks like a hurricane. These are actually quite similar to the steady systems in how they dump rain.

Model Output - it will change your life!

Now the real game-changer I recently discovered is model output. I have found it to be very accurate. However, to me, to be very accurate is to predict whether it will be dry or have rain >0.1 inches, so ballparks work well for me. Once the rain is above 0.2 inches I could care less how much more because it will be a rainy ride regardless and the rainy clothing I have works in all levels of rain.

So, to take a look at this, go into the Wundermap and then check only the model output box, unless you like to clutter things. The default option is the precipitation view, "MSL". In the settings, it shows the start time of the latest model data in GMT or England time. So you have to do a little math, ugh. Then you have the option to increment the forecast in 3 hour increments. Or hit the play button, that is pretty cool too.

Example: Tomorrow I need to do a 2 hour ride. Should I commute to work in 2 hours or ride 2 hours after work? Let's check what the model says.

Here is the precipitation at 9am:

And here it is for 6pm:

Looks like 6pm will be the less rainy one!

The model data does go out to a maximum of 384 hours (16 days), but I start losing faith in it quickly until I don't even bother at the 6 day mark. The model data also has some cool stuff like temperature (map type "2mAG"), wind and precipitation type for each time period as well.

In Conclusion

So there you have my internalization of weather forecasts regurgitated to this blog as it relates to how I use data to determine whether I may or may not get rained on in my bike ride.

Let me set the stage for perhaps another post that I may come up with that is non-weather related. With that obvious radar image shot above I was waiting for the cloud to pass and then I would bike to Dave's Killer Breadquarters. However, I waited too long after the raincloud passed (partly in order to get the final screenshot) so although I bike to the Breadquarters in 27 minutes (even though Google said it would take 54 minutes), I was 7 minutes late after it closed.

Ah crap, it's after 11! Must sleep now.

Racing 2012 Schedule: Keep it fun

2012-01-01T13:07:00.000-08:00

So, the schedules are up on WSBA and OBRA for next year, so it's time to plan. Going with the hindsight in my post-season reflection I will try to race less and/or not get as mentally drained. So as I make this schedule I'm going to try hard to also abide to the following rules:

1. No more than 5 weekends of racing in a row.
2. I must do the bolded races, unless injured or sick.
3. I am only allowed to get upset about poor performance in bold races.
4. Maximum of 2 stage races allowed during June.

February:

26: FHR or Eatonville

March:

4: Banana Belt
10: Sequim
11: Mason Lake
18: Banana Belt
24: IVRR
31-01: Rest Weekend

April:

3: First Tuesday PIR
7: Piece of Cake
8: PIR TT?
14: KVRR
20-22: Walla Walla
28: Eugene Roubaix or 28: OVRR & 29: Volunteer Park Crit

May:

5: VCRR or Rest Weekend
12: OBRA RR Champs or Ravensdale or Rest Weekend
13: Forest Grove Omnium RR
19-20: Tabor Circuit & Forest Grove Omnium or Mutual of Enumclaw
21-27: Week Long Rest

June:

2: Hammer Velo Crit or Ballard Crit
8-10: Mt Hood or Wenatchee
15-17: Capitol Stage Race or OBRA RR Champs?
23: Ironclad Crit
24: Albany Crit
29-01: Elkhorn or Tacoma Twilight or Rest Weekend

July:

7-8: HDO or 8: Lake Oswego Crit or Rest Weekend
14: Gresham or Redmond Crit
20-22: Cascade Cycling Classic
28: Swan Island Crit
29: Vancouver Crit

August:

4: Franz
11: OBRA Crit Champs
18: Giro di Portland
25: Rest Weekend
31-02: Eugene

Winter of Code

2011-12-18T22:43:00.000-08:00

Well, look what happens. I write a blog post about how I'm going to tell you all how to read the rain forecast, and then it goes along and doesn't rain for weeks!

However, being a true Northwesterner this doesn't stop me from staying inside looking at computer screens working on some ~~nerdy~~ awesome new web developing stuff.

Weightlifting

I have been disgruntled with all weightlifting data management schemes I have used before. Paper got old and crumply, this online site that tracks my biking has a poor interface for weightlifting and this app doesn't have a way to output the data. So, I made my own weightlifting website. It is honestly just a simple site, but the cool thing I like about it is that I made some reports sections that analyze metrics about how much you increase (or decrease) your lifts over time. Check it out here:

http://www.evansiroky.com/weightlifting/pumpiron.php

Scooter Lyrics via XSS

Who is Scooter you ask??

ONLY THE MOST SUCCESSFUL GERMAN BAND EVER^[citation]!!

Yes, the band comprising of HP Baxxter, Rick Jordan and even formerly Ferris Beuller has been producing hits in Germany since 1994 with incredibly energetic tunes that have inspired new dances and hate from elitist producers. And the icing on the cake is of course the ~~completely confusing~~ transcendent lyrics in most songs.

This was the source of inspiration for implementation of a very brief, but far reaching idea in web programming. For everyone who doesn't have any interest in web developing, you can skip the following lines of reading. A while back, I came across this brilliant article written by a wiseman from ancient times. My mind was blown! Just think of the possibilities for this! Entire javascript libraries returning any kind of content can be built for use on any site without cross-domain drama. Wow! So, the first idea that came up was making a widget for accessing some random Scooter lyrics. Thus I present it to you below:

click the button...

I am making it a point to include listening to some Scooter as a part of my pre-race routine this coming year.

TrafficBug

And of course, there is work coding. I'm pretty much working as a software engineer now at my job and we are getting super close to releasing an app to the iStore. This app will allow people to save trips (any trip in the lower 48!) and receive alerts on whether there is an accident or if a faster route is available. We've got our own routing engine and ultimately we're going to hook up these real-time traffic models we're developing to the app, so it will be super killer. For more info check out my company's website at http://mygistics.com/. Angel investments encouraged!

Weather Forecasts: An Intro

2011-11-28T14:33:00.000-08:00

OK, just a warning, I'm going to be starting a non-bicycle-racing series on the weather. I'm doing this for a few reasons:

1. There isn't really anything else exciting to blog about right now.
2. It's the time of year when weather matters
3. A lot of people are ~~utter n00bs~~ uneducated on how to read weather forecasts.

Weather does matter a lot in terms of bicycling because sometimes it can absolutely miserable and other times it is amazing. But if you're a bike racer or determined bike commuter, you have to be able to train and ride in any type of weather.

Now there seems to be plenty of articles out there on how to ride in any kind of weather, but I haven't seen much in terms of understanding the root cause of all your weather-related bicycling problems - the actual weather. Well, there is my favorite weather blog: Cliff Mass Weather Blog, but that's really only for the true weather nerds.

In daily life I frequently hear people saying stuff that clearly indicates they haven't taken a detailed enough look at the weather forecast. Here are some examples:

"what the heck, it was like sunny this morning and now at 1pm it's all rainy! arrgghh!"
"there aren't even seasons anymore!"
"It was a frickin' MONSOON STORM out there today!"
"where the heck is summer??!?!!?" <- when said before July 5th any year.

I'm going to share some of my slightly-more-educated-than-the-normal person knowledge I have about weather which has mainly come from anecdotal observations, my internal reasoning and plenty of hours surfing weather forecast websites. I aim to divulge some information that is almost always true, but of course when predicting the future there is no guarantee of truth. I am drawn to forecasting in general because my day job is associated with the transportation forecasting business so I really appreciate how well they have got down their forecasts. The short term results from their forecasts are actually quite accurate nowadays and it really inspires me to try to do as well in the transportation forecasting area.

I'm obviously going to focus on Pacific Northwest weather since that's all I know. I hope to cover all seasons of the year ultimately in this series. The next post will focus on the most exciting, favorite, happy and joyous weather type of the Pacific Northwest that has earned it a national reputation that draws people from around the world:

The RAIN!!

But as a precursor to all this, I present you with the weather forecasting website I use. Please go visit it and become familiar with it, because I'll be referencing it a lot in this series of posts.

http://www.wunderground.com/

Life After Racing

2011-10-30T15:59:00.000-07:00

Long time, no post. Well, that's cause I haven't been obsessively racing to the point of mental exhaustion for some time now. I was about to write up a little bit on how people who continue their racing season with cyclocross are wackos, but I'll just leave it at saying I'm once again glad I'm not getting my bike all dirty, riding through mud and instead sitting in my somewhat warm condo typing on my computer.

Anyways, it's like November now and um, well, I guess I'll just highlight some stuff that happened between the end of bike racing season and now.

The first thing I realized when I stopped racing bikes was that I had no life besides racing bikes. All the people I hung out with happened to be in the bike race I was racing in. And then I had all this free time once I stopped riding bikes all the time. However, the work picked up at my company so I was sorta good there. I also joined this small group from my church, so hopefully I'll have some actual friends in a bit.

I also rediscovered that I had a fixie! Oh man I was riding that around like the hipster I've always wanted to be once I found that out.

Then I took a vacation to Portlandia wherein I tried to do a bunch of things that people who live in Portland do. I only bought groceries from Co-ops, I only ate out at food carts and microbreweries, I was vegan for a whole week, I played blacklit minigolf, I visited new parks and explored. However, a lot of this got boring by myself. So then, I met up for a round of urban golf. Twas a lot of fun!

Photo from MAJOR DUFF's blog

BUT THEN, all of a sudden, there was an alleycat happening up in Tacoma put on by 2nd Cycle. So I cashed in some Amtrak Guest Rewards points and headed up. The evening before the race, I made sure I had an excellent pre-alleycat-race diet which involved getting bought a bunch of beers at the Parkway from my sister's new boyfriend and playing pool unitl 1am. I also left the bartender a hefty $1 million bill tip.

Well, the strategy payed off immensely! I was battling it out on the streets after getting off to a bad start wherein I was last place. We went from People's park to the Red Hot, then to this house I'd been to before at a 4th of July party with 40 people on the roof (I left because I was afraid it would collapse, but it didn't). Then to Vassault park, then to the SR 16 bridge park wherein I was now 2nd place. Then down to Bob's Java Jive and then I miraculously passed the first place guy on the way to the 48th street bar & grill even though we both said we took the same route yet didn't see each other. Then to someone's random house and bombing down to The New Frontier via Pacific (on my non-brakeless fixie). I made a number of mistakes on my route choice, but in the end it was better than all 2 other racers so I got first place! Woohoo! Finishing off yet another season with a win!

Well, after all this, it was a bit of a blur as I was working somewhat furiously to help get a demo ready for my company at the biggest Transportation Technology Conference of the year. We did end up getting a decent demo ready, but gosh it would be a lot cooler if we had a true product - which we hopefully will before TRB in January. As a part of this, I was sent out to the actual conference in Orlando! This was pretty sweet. The conference went well, here is a picture of my boss demoing a navigation console that picked up an alert from our traffic systems and a recommended reroute.

Photo from ITS World Congress Facebook page

After the conference I went down to Fort Lauderdale and fell absolutely in love with the area. Before I had always thought it would be a sprawling and depressing place, but after visiting the area I changed my mind. Firstly, the Everglades are now a nationally protected area, so sprawl won't go further out into it. Thus, growth seems to be limited to the already dense area along the roughly 20 miles width of the east coast. Secondly, the weather is amazing. 70 degrees at night and 80ish in the day. Shorts and shirts or no shirt at all! Thirdly, the beach is an awesome place to play. I saw lots of babes in bikinis, surfers, kite-boarders and I even saw a guy with a harpoon gun go out for a swim. Fourth, it is flat which combined with the warm weather makes for easygoing bicycling.

I was so sad to come back from the south that my body gave me a cold upon returning to Portland.

Reflections on last season

OK, so I suppose I have to reflect on what happened last season bicycling. Lots of people said I did great and all. On the one hand, yeah I did ok picking up a win and a bunch of 2nd places and do have enough points to be a Cat 2 racer (but not enough for a forced upgrade OBRA and WSBA!!). Yet on the other hand, as my coach said I went through a bit of a funk in the later part of the season starting after the Franz Bakery Crit. To finish bike racing season off, I proved to myself that I'm a decent bike racer by getting top ten at the Eugene Celebration.

The biggest takeaway I think I can take is that bike racing is a big mental game - even more so in a long term sense. Bicycle racing and really anything in life is a sport where those who do not die do decent. A while ago, I went to one of my sister's piano recitals when I was still in high school. I always thought it was so annoying hearing her play that stupid piano and the same songs over and over and over and was even bored again when she played the same songs at the recital. Like I hadn't heard that before!! Uuugggghhhh. Then after she was done she got an award from her piano teacher saying she was in the top 5 of all her students in playing the piano and there were like 50 piano players there and even more shocking that she had close to the best record for practicing playing the piano.

What?!?! How could that be? All she did was what she was assigned to do. 45 minutes a day 6 days a week it seemed. So what? Couldn't anybody do that? Apparently yes, but not everybody did! In fact most students didn't! The only people better than her were the piano players truly obsessed and in love with playing the piano.

The exact same thing it seems applies to bicycle racing and I suspect every other area of life where work is involved. I had a really good base training season wherein I rode every assigned workout except when I was sick. My season leading up to Franz Bakery was great. Cat 3 was a bit more challenging, but I found my way to the podium three times. After the Franz Bakery Crit and the Swan Island Crit I let my mental game get out of whack. I was no longer excited about bike racing as much as I was addicted to it and felt like I had to do it and succeed in it to fulfill myself as opposed to be happily motivated to have a fun time no matter the result. I'm guessing that the latter is the more sustainable attitude to have.

Now, another tangent is the financial toll that bike racing has taken on me. Good lord! The stage races cost a lot of money and carbon wheels aren't cheap - even on a team deal. The time I could be spending doing other things is quite a bit too. I have a number of web design projects that I just don't get around to because of all this bike racing.

So really, the conclusion I'm reaching is that I need to race less next year. And more importantly don't race small-time races if I don't want to. It's hard for me to say I'm giving up on some pie-in-the-sky goals I have, but maybe all I need to do is give up on the disappointment if I don't reach goals immediately. There will always be Jeff Hoovers who can execute these things nearly perfectly with natural ability, but bicycling is something I can't do that in. Come to think of it, there is nothing I'm naturally talented in doing except continual learning. As long as I push myself to try new ways to do things and not get in funks when I don't succeed I think I'll be allright.

And one final thing since some people ask me. The Dating Season is going iffy. I just haven't found a 5'11" vegan babe who has won at least 2 Cat 1/2/3 ladies races and is completely horny for me. Actually a few things are going on I suppose. I'm not so skilled in meeting women nor do I fully elicit the values that women find attractive and then I'm scared of approaching women and then question whether I'd be happier developing websites and playing open transport tycoon or talking to women about how cute their ugly and smelly pet dog is.

Conference Conversation Translation

2011-10-17T21:03:00.000-07:00

This has nothing to do with bicycling, but I really want to quickly share this story to make fun of myself.

Background: I sort of snuck into a hospitality suite that I wasn't invited to because nobody knows me. However, a lot of my supervisors were invited there, so they just told me to come.

Conversation:

Me: (I see a guy hand someone a business card with a company name I recognize).
Me: Hey cool! You work for Company X! I wrote a java SOAP client that fetches data about region y from one of your servers!
Man from Company X: Oh, that's great I didn't know we had servers that did that in that part of the country.
Me: Well you do! (I say this while smiling).
Man from Company X: Well, here's my card.
Me: Thanks for the conversation.

Translation out of business code speak:

Software Engineer who snuck into hospitality suite (SEWSHU): Wow someone I might know! I did something ultra-specific related to your company!
Vice President, Director of Company X (VP): WTF are you talking about?!? There are hundreds of people working for me, I haven't the foggiest of what you're talking about nor should I.
SEWSHU: I'm just glad to be getting some free food and talking with someone!
VP: Here's my card, now get lost so I can talk to people who actually have control of budgets over $2 million.
SEWSHU: I'm thirsty. Oh, free water!

Bike Racing Season Over

2011-08-30T22:46:00.000-07:00

Dating Season Begins! Yes ladies that's right, this man is on the market if you are looking. I like long bike rides on the beach, hanging out with friends on bikes, and living life to the fullest (while on a bike). I'm looking to date a bike (or two or more!). Nah, in all seriousness I am looking. I even made an online dating profile here.

So yeah, bike racing season is over. Yeah, I don't really count cyclocross or races in California. Eugene Celebration Stage Race is really the last big race of the year it seems. Last year I did quite well getting 2nd in the prologue hillclimb and eventually 4th overall in the 4/5s. This year I was expecting a bigger challenge.

I scored a rideshare down with the Cat 3 OBRA Hillclimbing champ and was stoked that he ended up being my 30 second guy in the prologue. I was keeping up until the hill started and then didn't see him until the finish. It also didn't help that my real derailleur was skipping between 4th and 6th cogs. However, I still finished with a decent time of about 12 minutes and good enough for 6th place. The road race I attacked way too much, didn't realize that 2nd and 3rd in GC broke away and then didn't have the magical intuition to know who's wheel to suck in the field sprint. Oh well.

I also like Eugene because it is a really hippie kinda town. Although it's smaller than Portland I'd argue that per capita it is more hippie. It's really easy to find vegan food and lots of people bike! Case in picture:

At the time trial I was a bit worried about losing a lot of time. However, I pulled out a surprising 6th place finish getting a time two minutes and eight seconds faster than last year. This year I had carbon wheels, aero bars, a TT helmet and a skinsuit. But what matterred by far the most was that I went in with a plan to average a specific speed in mph. I didn't even look at my heart rate, I just looked at speed. I found it way easier to force myself to suffer to reach a certain speed than heart rate. It also helped that I was warring with the guy behind me. He had a full TT setup, disc wheel and all and passed me shortly after the final turn. However, I kept passing back this guy probably 3 or 4 times. At the final 500k I pushed it into 29mph and passed him for the ~~WIN~~, no ~~enjoyment of being an ass~~, NO - the avoidance of being humiliated by being passed in a TT.

The crit was like the PIR (Portland PIR) of Eugene. So dang flat and straight and no crappy pavement. Yet there still managed to be a crash which kinda got onto my nerves and took away my aggression to find a good wheel for the final sprint. Gotta work on these kinda sprints for next year. After this I had some lunch with the Brownies and then headed back home.

Well, that's about it for this post. I might get around to doing a racing season reflection post or something, but I'm too busy trying to meet a hot babe and planning a vacation to Portlandia at the moment.

Am I done yet?

2011-08-15T12:46:00.000-07:00

Ugh, racing. Not again. Do I really have to subject myself to yet another grueling series of efforts just to watch the asses of all the other racers actually compete for first place in the end? I didn't think I wanted to at all the weekend before the last so I didn't race at all. However, I did ride a considerable amount.

On Saturday I rode out to somewhere I've always wanted to ride: Vista House:

And then Sunday I rode with the Klipper family along Skyline. The photo below is from later that evening.

But I still felt exhausted after this "rest" weekend. I chose to not do PIR and only did Gig Harbor because my coach thought I should. Oh, did I just miss out on the Portland Twilight Crit? Yep. Who cares. Out at Gig Harbor nothing mattered until the final 200m where I got popped off the back. But I finally scored a victory or three of them in a row while playing beer pong at my sister's party.

I'm ready for the season to be over with.

Alternate Realities

2011-08-04T19:39:00.000-07:00

The only world that exists and matters is mine. And more to the point my world that I live in involves me exercising my incredible talent at bicycle racing such that my glory is overbearing on my fellow inferior bicycle racing competitors.

In fact, this season was going to be the one in which I truly became a formidable racer upgrading to Cat 1 in a matter of 4 races and subsequently starting to be noticed by pro teams scouting for good riders for next year. My sprinting would make people wonder why they even race and my climbing would be such a spectacle to watch that people from the countryside would come out to watch my seemingly supernatural ability as pictured below:

The ladies would hardly be able to contain themselves due to my irresistible physique and bicycle race winning ability. They would come out in droves and go to lengths once thought only the realm of obsessive stalkers just to catch a glimpse of my race number or even the scent of my fragrant pheromone. Shown below is an example of what would happen at a typical race happening at a velodrome I was racing in:

The world as it were would be completely serving of my bicycle racing lifestyle and would not cease to do my will at a whim. However, this season so far has taken an incredible nose dive into a displeasing reality that has me questioning if I may actually be wrong in my judgement about future and current events.

Portland Plaza Bicycle Policy - The Final Word

One of the most absurd questioning I have had to do is whether I am being reasonable with the Portland Plaza Homeowners Association in asking them to allow bicycle owners and thus me to be able to bring my bicycle up to my unit. Could it be that I am unreasonable in the amount of bicycles that I own and am opening a pandora's box to hordes of second-class-residents (aka renters and bike owners) to completely scratch up the elevators worse than the likes of a men's bathroom wall in a dive bar? Apparently yes, I am an unreasonable activist - the HOA did not change the rules that prohibiting residents from bringing a bicycle up to their unit.

The Portland Plaza is like a hot chic at first impression. Looks great, is from a desirable part of town and is rich. However, once you get to know her and her family a little bit more, things start going south. First you find out that parents are obsessed with rules and etiquette, grilling you for every minute detail you have done wrong. Her brother says he thinks it is reasonable for her sister to date, but thinks you have no business with the family's way of doing things since you aren't part of the country club (since you're a renter). The worst of all things is that you ultimately find out that this hot chic won't let you put your bicycle in her elevator. And with that you know that the relationship just won't work out for the long-term.

Back to my Dominant Racing Season

Every once in a while I do take a little time off crushing and ripping other bicycle racer's legs off and beating them with them to hang out. And to ensure that my hanging out is equal opportunity, I chose to attend ethnic fest with Karly's friend. And then we chatted a little bit about how Jordan had unknowingly solved the world's traffic problems.

You see it is a really simple equation. Time = Distance/Speed. In Jordan's equation he drastically reduced the distance factor of his commute by moving to within 2 miles of work instead of 25. Although I am working on the world's most intuitive traffic information model I know right from the start that reducing the distance one has to drive (aka moving somewhere close to your daily activities) they will save much more time than what a traffic app will save them.

wait a second, racing!!!!

Tonight was the Tacoma Twilight Criterium, the race that I would conclusively win to the delight and admiration of all of my Tacoma friends. They would all be awestruck at how effortlessly I would lap the field that they would begin to dig into the prize money of the Cat 1/2 field and even consider giving me the pacecar as well (of course I would turn around and sell it, cars suck).

And I was ready. This photo below perfectly encapsulates my sheer focus even before the race started on how steadfast I would be in winning the race for Tacoma Bike. Nevermind Tony who is doing his own thing with his aviators. Little does he know the amount of ass-whooping I am about to unleash on the streets. You see I was on a mission for a position at the top of the podium.

As the race began I immediately felt challenged to battle through the harsh wind on the backside. Nonetheless I got myself into a break which had trouble organizing itself. And then it got too big - 12 riders or so. I tried attacking to actually get a small one going again, but ultimately it all got swallowed and Sofa King won it again after I barely had enough to stay with the pack in the sprint. What an utter disappointment for me. I drowned my sorrows with a my prime winnings of a plate of pasta and a beer which then kept me awake after trying to get to bed early. At the restaurant some friendly locals impressed with racing in general asked me if I'd rather win a race or win a girl and I said win a race. Nothing matters more to me as I have lost sight of the rest of what normal people seek for fulfillment in life.

Vancouver

And on again to another race. I peacefully rode over to the other state thinking about race strategy and was relaxed when I got there. However, as the race went along I got a slow leak and bailed instead of going too fast through the 7-corner course on 40psi in the rear. As a result, Culpepper now has 3 wins in a row in Cat 3 men OBRA land.

And it continues at PIR

I was super focused on my strategy of winning a hot spot and then the final sprint and thus the race. However, I heard an imaginary bell and crushed the field from 300 meters for no reason at all. After that the winning break got away and I was off the back in the field sprint and super hungry.

Wednesday I ate a cucumber that was actually a zucchini.

And now Thursday I'm going to do hill sprints up Tabor, but Tabor racing is already over and it's Thursday. Whatever, I live in my own world anyways!

screw this

2011-07-24T21:31:00.000-07:00

Why haven't I made a blog post lately? Because racing sucks.

And the recap:

Portland Plaza Rules Committee: Voted in favor of keeping the rules the same and not allowing bicycles in the elevator and thus residents' units. And I didn't raise a big enough stink about it.

Ironclad Crit: Won two primes, but then the final lap someone else pulled my same move for the win and then I got lectured for being dangerous (which was deserved).

Brad Lewis Crit: Won two primes again, but then "Sofa King" won the race and a pair of ZIPPs.

Tabor: Psyche! Tabor is all done for the season. Hustled over there and then it wasn't happening. Then I went to pump my tire and the valve came off.

New Carbon Wheels: Stayed past my bedtime numerous nights to see my new carbon wheels come to being.

Cascade Lakes: Attacked got swallowed, attacked got swallowed. Putzed around with the filed until the final climb and then didn't hang on. Not a bad finish, but probably coulda done better.

TT: A minute 15 late for my start. And then got passed by 2 more people. Didn't realize tubulars lose air like crazy so was probably riding at 40psi.

Crit: Nipped for a prime, stuck behind a clusterfrack on the final lap.

Awbrey Butte: Had a great technique of hillclimbing against a pathetic field where a break never materialized. Final lap we alleycatted our way past stopped cars on the course while going downhill, then raced thru a final roundabout that had kids on cruiser bikes going thru it and then I was smack dab on the front with 400 to go and knew I was screwed. I completely gave up and floated back so hard that some guy rammed into me, snapped my deraileur hanger in half, gashed my rear tire and gashed up my new carbon wheel that had been ridden for the third time ever. I drug his bike for about 50 meters while staying upright.

And then Randy won the Tacoma fantasy Tour de France mini-league. Someone kill me and put me out of my misery now. Thanks.

Being Average Sucks

2011-07-12T22:26:00.000-07:00

So it was another Tuesday, another PIR. Feeling all right I did the usual: go with a bunch of attacks and attack a bunch myself. And again as usual, I always seemed to attack at the wrong time and got zero points and an average field finish.

Another Wednesday another Mt. Tabor. At this race my secret weapon of swapping out my compact chainring for a normal chainring coupled with my 11/21 cassette sucked the climb out of me. I was barely hanging on in the climbs and got dropped so so hard in the final sprint. Ugh.

Another weekend another set of races. This time in Bend. This time an omnium. Saturday was the crit and I was feeling meh at best. My strategy was to make sure that DeMoe wouldn't win for the third time in a row. I set myself up for a prime with 2 to go and nearly got it with 2 to go. Then DeMoe launched, but then pulled an Evan and pedal-striked and crashed out himself and 5 other chasers. But after the prime sprint I had nothing for the final sprint.

Then there was the time trial where I whipped out another secret weapon, a skinsuit. I ended up getting 11th and midpack which is decent, but again nipped by 7 seconds out of omnium points. At the time I was happy that nobody passed me, but damn I need a full TT setup.

And for the final mundane race of the week, the road race. It's been a while since I've done 60 miles. And again, attack, get caught follow attack, get swallowed, are we at the sprint yet? Get myself to the front of the train for the sprint and get passed to get 12th. 0 omnium points for the weekend. Then, chose between either a frustrated Mindy for not having won in a while either or a pissed off "did-I-seriously-just-crash-because-of-someone-doing-a-power-bike-throw-stretch-in-front-of-me?" Brian to ride with back to Portland. Mindy assigned me to Brian's van.

Tactical Battles

2011-07-04T17:20:00.000-07:00

For a while now, I have felt like my fitness is something of a question mark in terms of whether I have enough of it to win. However, after this week I'm thinking that I do have the fitness but am lacking in the tactical game of mine and perhaps haven't just lucked out really well in a while.

PIR

On Monday I was doing an easy ride and broke a spoke on a wheel that Cliff loaned to me. This is just crazy how frequently I break stuff. I really need to do something about it. I was able to get another loaner wheel (this time a team wheel and not Cliff's) from Cliff again. We headed down to PIR. I was kind of taking my time to get ready and ended up missing the start of the 123 field. I was chasing in TT mode for a full two laps but eventually made it which impressed myself. As has happened before at recent PIRs, a break started forming which I happened to be in again. However this time I just got so bored of being in breaks and really wanted to focus on my group sprinting skills so I soft pedaled my way back to the field and even considered chasing back the break, but the field was able to. However, I still wasn't able to get the sweet spot for the group sprint so it was a bit frustrating.

Portland Plaza bicycle policy update

On Wednesday the Portland Plaza HOA met for their monthly meeting. A lot was on the agenda and the items were pretty cool - the paneling on the outside of the building was being replaced for the first time since it was built I believe and with the new material it was going to make the building 98,000 pounds lighter! However, the reason I was there was to protest the bicycle policy of course. I brought up the issue and it was bantered about for a bit. The main resistance against the building changing the rules was simply that they didn't want to change the rules. This made me feel a lot of empathy for a rather extreme bit similar comparison to people who opposed things like civil rights and in modern times gay marriage. While being a bicyclist isn't as life-defining as those issues I'm sure that those other parties really had to go through (and still do) the same kind of bullshit of people in power (or not) who resist changing human-made rules that severely impede on the pursuit of happiness of those that it affects while in the end imposing the rule has very little benefit and/or avoids small or mitigable negative consequences to those who try to keep the rules rules. I'm sure I have some items that I'm to blame for being that bad person I'm describing, but I am hopeful that the world and myself will change for the better.

Anyways, the issue of the bike policy did make it to the rules committee without riots, protests or Malcom X style advocacy.

Swan Island

And now back to racing at Swan Island (or not really Swam Island, but close enough!) which is the crit that Guinness Cycling Team puts on each year. I had practice-rode the course before, but the finish line turned out to be in a different place than I had expected. For I believe the first time this year on a weekend race, I was racing with 3 other teammates in the field. Two of them were from OSU I believe and another I've seen at PIR. It's kind of strange seeing racers showing up at these racers wearing your kit and yet you've never met them. All I knew is that at least one of the OSU guys was strong.

Unfortunately, I'm going to have to edit this post and take out a big gripe and ensuing gossip-magazine material that I wrote about a move a teammate made that I was not happy with. However, I'm happy to say that our team is working it out and will have better communication next time.

What I do when there aren't races on a 3-day weekend

Two part answer:

1. Ride my bicycle
2. Slack off

So on Sunday I spent a decent part of the day hanging out with my team leader Dave Klipper and friends. I love people who are characters and Dave is one for sure in a way that brings joy to my heart. He helps me out a lot discussing tactical things, scores deals for our team, helps me work on my bike and will say some very absurdly inappropriate yet hillarious remarks at least once a day. And with the help of Dave and his crew, I've found a secret weapon (or two) that I'm about to unleash on everyone this coming week. Stay posted.

A race I want to forget

2011-06-27T14:35:00.000-07:00

This post is going to be super short because it was such a painful race on Saturday. I could let the negativity drag on and on and name some people some dirty names, but in the end it was entirely my doing and simply bike racing.

Yadda Yadda Mount Tabor, won a massage prime didn't have the brains for the final sprint.

Franz Bakery Crit - Broke Away about 5 laps in and rode with my last year's Franz Bakery arch nemesis from Bikesale. Crashed on the final corner after a pedalstrike. Field passed me as I ran my bike across the finish line. Bike is ok, got some wounds, still won $45, but it hurts mentally more than anything.

Pringle Creek - almost crashed after a pedalstrike on the other side and had very poor sprint tactics.

Bought the following book (if you have an ad-blocker you may not see the following):

On the Verge

2011-06-21T19:28:00.000-07:00

This past week, I have felt like I'm nearly at the point where I feel like I know enough about what I'm doing in a bike race that if I play it all right, I can win. And this week's update has enough material for being on par with the year's longest stage race for me (plus two weekly races as well!).

Tuesday at PIR

I made it out to PIR, and all was kinda normal until after the 2nd hot spot. I was still struggling to position with the main field, but followed some wheels to stay up front and before we knew it, there was about a 9-man breakaway. I didn't think it would last long since it was PIR, but held on nonetheless. The pace was brutal and we eventually shed it down to 6 riders. I was saving it all up for the final sprint so didn't contest for any hot spots. When the final lap came around there was a bit of cat and mouse. The winner made an epic jump at the overhead walkway (maybe 500 meters out). The rest started going hard on the left, so I latched on after being on the right side and made a good enough sprint at the end for 2nd place in that sprint, but 4th overall due to the hot spots. I was very satisfied since I had excellent timing on my jump for 2nd.

Here's two sprint photos: at about 50m and just after.

Wednesday at Tabor

Tabor was a different story. It was my first time doing the course and I was really trying to figure out where to hit the gas pedal. Should I try to break away? Should I hit it at the bottom of the hill or maybe the 2nd-to-last wind? I couldn't quite figure it out and got close, but never got a prime and was altogether dropped on the last climb. Inside I was kind of laughing at myself thinking that my tactics are so off that it's kind of funny.

Thursday

Today was kind of a prep day for Elkhorn. I did my ride a bit later in the evening and then decided that not only would I pack everything the night before, but I would also clean my room since I couldn't find everything anyways. So I ended up getting to bed at 2am, but with a clean room I am really on a roll towards being more organized.

Elkhorn Stage 1

Now before one even does the Elkhorn Stage Race, one has to actually make arrangements to get there. Sure I could just zipcar it and then book my own hotel room, but if I did that every race I'd be broke. Furthermore, I get to meet some interesting characters to pass the time on the 300+ mile journey to Baker City.

I scored a ride with a masters racer and woke up at 5am to get ready to catch my ride at 6am. I somewhat slept in the car all the way until about where I-84 leaves the Columbia. Then I drove the rest of the way. The scenery was gorgeous.

The first stage was a 75 miler with a good climb in the middle followed by what appeared to be some easier hills. A break made a jump at 7 miles in. I did some fake attacks and just dangled myself off the front a few times but then got ~~scolded~~ advised by Ted from Audi that I should just chill out and wait until the climb like the climber I was. I considered this for a moment. Was I really a climber, could I hang with the climbers? I had also considered what Erik from Recycled was able to pull off on day 3 of Mt Hood. This was the guy who broke away with me on day 1 and then exploded on the climb. However, he hung right up there with the climbers on the final day and he wasn't all that lighter than me. Furthermore, after last week's performance of dropping riders after hills, I did wonder if I could in fact hang with the climbers.

So I just sat in and made it over the top with the climbing field. The hill wasn't drastically steep and my heart rate was only just above my threshold, which come to think of it - I don't really know what my threshold hr is. Anyways, we had dropped most of the field and then we didn't really work much after this. I'm used to breaking away and trying maintain breaks so I was getting a bit flustered with how slow these climbers were going after the climb and descent was over. Nonetheless, I still sat in knowing that there were some kind of hills remaining before the finish. The last set of hills were sort of a mirage - it always appeared that whatever hill we were going up was going to be the last, but this continued for like 10-15 miles. Again, I stuck with the lead group.

The finish was perfect for me and I should have won it. It was slightly downhill and after all the previous climbs, I was one of the more powerful guys left. The finish line was visible for a while, but still far away. I picked the wheel that got 2nd place, but if I had been where that guy was I would've won the sprint. Instead I got 3rd. My mistake was not having enough perception of where the finish line was.

After this, we all rode back to town. I had arranged to share a hotel room with none other than OBRA-celebrity Jake Hansen. At the time of writing this blog post, he is on the front page of the OBRA website and the Oregon Cup leader:

Jake is quite possibly the sweetest racer I've yet to meet despite his intimidating race record. He says he's a part-time caretaker, part-time youth worker and of course part-time bike racer. He's featured often over at this blog about his team Word-RCB.

Saturday

As usual I wasn't looking forward to getting my ass whooped in the time trial, but gave it a go anyways. I did better than normal finishing 17th. In this race in particular I was noticing that my heart rate was nowhere close to the heart rate I observed climbing up the hills yesterday for the duration of the TT. I think I've got to work on truly trying to kill myself to get a better time.

The crit was really successful for me. The previous three races were cancelled due to rain on the abnormally slippery course, but it was dry enough for the 3s to race. Since I hadn't a clue yesterday where the finish line was, I warmed up on the course and practiced sprinting for the line from a few different places to gauge how I felt. This helped me a lot. I knew exactly where in the field I wanted to be coming up on these primes. For two primes I was in that sweet spot and then busted out two awesome sprints that earned me $50 and a $10 gift certificate to an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet. I was more stoked about the breakfast buffet prize. The second prime was with 3 laps to go and a dangerous move by 3rd in GC went off the prime sprint. I was really gassed and could not chase that. The field did and barely caught it. In the final sprint we were going really fast to begin with and I couldn't pull out a better result than 6th.

After the race, Jake cooked up some mean spaghetti and pasta. It was well needed and both of us jammed it down because tomorrow we'd need it.

Dooley Mountain

Today's race was something to be intimidated about. 102 miles with a 8 mile hilltop finish. And with the way Baker City was surrounded by snowy mountains, it seemed as though it would make for a good challenge. Jake and I biked over to Sumpter Junction to redeem our prime gift certificates for an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet. We ate with a bunch of people from the Ironclad team which were the only other bike racers there, surprisingly.

At the race, the entire team of Bob's bikes broke away at about 6 miles into the race. The rest of the field concluded that that move was ridiculous and proceeded to ride at paces that got my heart rate down into zone 1. We would push it up the hills, but by the time we hit mile 45, our support car said the break had 10 minutes on us! At this point, only a few people were trying to chase and basically Vergari set the pace nearly all the way to the final climb. On the way there, I tried a number of futile breakaway attempts and it was just laughable each time I went. I don't know if I ever became a rabbit for the peleton to chase, but it seemed kind of ridiculous in hindsight.

As we neared the climb, my rear wheel really started acting up. I knew it was slightly untrue so was sort of ignoring other people advising me that my wheel was messed up - something always seems to be a bit wrong with my bike, so it's cool I thought. Just before the climb I was fumbling around trying to feed myself and got dropped and then my rear wheel really became a problem. I couldn't tell what was wrong. It seemed like I had broken a spoke, but there wasn't any broken-spoke clanging around on the wheel. Eventually I got off the bike, adjusted the rear brake to the maximum gap and the wheel was still rubbing both sides! Finally, I was able to bring myself to request another wheel from the masters field that was passing me and that helped, but at a point that was too late in time. Once I got back to Baker City I identified the problem:

Well, that damned wheel cost me the race and my GC position of 8th went down into the 20s. I really wanted to see what I could've done on that final climb. And after that drama, I'm kind of in a limbo on the verge of upgrading to Cat 2. I'm wondering if I've got what it takes to compete directly with pros. However, I'm also wondering that if I don't keep challenging myself that I may not learn as quickly as I want.

Getting Home

After this, the final process of getting home begun. I had biked back to Baker City with Jake and another guy (this was another 18 miles of riding after the 102). I went straight to Safeway and loaded up on some rich chocolate milk, perrier, two bowls of deli pasta, but then realized my wallet was back in my jeans in my suitcase.

I biked back to the high school where everyone was packing up. My ride wasn't headed back for a while, so I decided to take a shower while I could. I was hungry and wanting to go back to Safeway as soon as possible. Once we got all our stuff jammed into the car, we drove over to Safeway, but this time the Baker City Safeway was SLAMMED with customers. There were at least 12 people including 5 of us bike racers. They could barely handle the crowd and I was growing impatient nearly yanking my chocolate milk back out of the checkout line as each clerk had to not only check out the items of each people, but also catch up on the daily lives of the locals in line. When my credit card finally processed I grabbed the chocolate milk and started chugging it right beside the checkout stand. aaaaahhh. But I didn't chug the whole thing at once - gotta pace myself.

After having satisfied my immediate hunger we got back on the road and begun to discuss our race stories. I felt a little bad about having such a focused desire on my chocolate milk that I was kind of ignoring the circumstances of my driving buddy. Turns out he had won his race and category! That was really cool, and I learned more about this guy - turns out he used to ride with David Millar over in Hong Kong before David went pro. We made excellent time and got back to Portland before 10pm!

Monday

On Monday, I worked as usual and then when I got home at about 7pm I was tired and took a little nap. However, I woke up at 1am and decided that I still needed more sleep and finally got up again at 7am.

And beyond...

Well, now that I've finished my ~~grand~~ moderate tour of three stage races over three weekends plus weekly races I've got a rest week where I may race as many as 3 days. I'm looking forward to the Franz Bakery crit on Saturday. It's got an awesome corkscrew set of corners and gives $5 for the winner of each lap. Should be fun! And this time, there is no traveling required, the Franz crit is in Portland and then there's another race on Sunday that I may or may not do in Salem which is close enough.

Well, that went well

2011-06-13T18:37:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was the Capitol Stage Race. Clearly, the race organizers had designed it especially for guys like me. There were long road races, no epic climbs, a very short time trial and the event was low-profile enough to keep the Canadians and other hot-shot racers away. Also, it was close to Tacoma which made lodging at Hotel Karly an option.

Thursday

I trained it up on Thursday afternoon just in time to join a ladies night Fight Club where the dudes of us hammered it off to Steilacoom and back. I may have exerted myself a bit too much, but it was fun to go on a fight club ride again.

Friday

I headed out to the boonies of Olympia for stage 1: a 70 mile road race. It was an interesting course: one decent puncher and then a whole lot of flat or false flats. Some breaks were breaking away, but none sticking. That is not until the final lap (each lap is 10 miles) when a bunch of us finally got it together and ended up putting a minute on the field. In the sprint, it was really only a 3 person sprint since two guys were just in it for GC. So I ended up picking the best and winning wheel, but just didn't have the last bit to get around it. Still though, a 2nd place finish was great.

Also, I got to meet another fellow racer that also blogs about his adventures over at the Billy Goat Chronicles. Sean was a real nice dude, I've raced with him a few times and now he's riding with the 2s, which is nice because that's one less threat in the 3s field for me! He also produced some water (that I begged for due to being unprepared) from his RACESHIP!! I don't know what all else is inside there (trauma center? rocket boosters?), but holy smokes this is the proper way to roll to a bike race.

Saturday

The morning had a time trial which had the start times change twice. Once from the original tech guide, then again from the times posted online last night. I ended up warming up a half-hour early. Still though, I went out there and rode hard on my bike equipped with a front Zipp wheel that Scott let me borrow. Thanks! I ended up getting 20th, but only losing 40 seconds in GC holding it solidly in 5th place.

I hung out with an Olympia friend and killed some time before the crit. I was warming up on the crit course and was a bit scared for a little bit because they had stopped the warmups earlier than I had expected and thus I wasn't right on the line at the start. Lucky for me though, there were call-ups for the top 5 in GC. The race seemed to be going really well for me - I got a time prime and was generally staying at the front. But then I just started losing wheels and didn't make a good enough effort to get back so I ended up off the back in the field sprint.

However, I did fare better than two other GC leaders. The race leader got dropped! Within the first few laps! And then 4th place in GC crashed hard on the final sprint. He'll be all right, but that still sucks.

Sunday

Now before we get into the racing, I made it over to Dean Burke's neighborhood breakfast. I had some delicious eggs and hashbrowns, saw some friends and chilled out. Thanks! That was nice.

OK, on to racing!

Today was the day to make it or break it in the stage. It was a 90 mile race of mostly flat, but then some hills in two other popular courses in the area. Olympia Ortho now had the GC leader so a whole lot of protecting that leader was to be expected. The second guy in GC was 2 seconds behind and then there was me 20 seconds back followed by 4th place at 34 seconds back.

We had a smaller field than before and also the pro/1/2 women were riding with us. I have to say, these women were stealing my nice wheels like pros! Did they know who I was? Anywho, basically nothing happened and the pace was super easy, like zone 2 easy. With all the protection and inability of enough serious to stick, I knew that I had to try to make the field crack on the hills. At a little past the halfway point, there was a decent hill. A climber dude broke off hard from the field. I almost went with him, but had to feed at that point. Once we got to the top I noticed that Olympia had lost it's support and since the medium break wasn't doing anything they caught right back on.

Olympia was having a blast of a race. Right after the feed one of their guys was taunting others. He had two cages and tri cages for a total of 4 water bottles. He asked some guys "hey anybody want some water?" and then he proceeded to dump it out on the road as we were racing. I thought it was hilarious. However, they got their share of pain since hillclimber dude had put two minutes on the field, so the water-dumping taunter then had to bust his nuts to chase down hillclimber dude which he eventually did.

I was waiting for the next series of hills at about the 75 and 85 mile mark and they weren't long enough! The second to last hill, about 8 of us broke off, but then the field got it back together. The last chance of the race was the final hill where 5 of us got away with a good margin from the field. Unfortunately it was the GC leader, 2nd place, me, 4th place in GC and 7th place in GC that were in this break. So of course every one of us except for the GC leader wanted to gap the rest of us in the 4 miles to the finish. It was attack and cat and mouse and attack and cat and mouse and then the chase group swallowed us up since we weren't cooperating with each other at all. Someone from the chase won the sprint so GC didn't change.

Kudos to Olympia for playing all your cards right and winning on your home turf. Well done. So I ended up 3rd overall. I concluded that I could have played it better by having a $5,000 time trial bike since I was only 20 seconds back in GC. And with my performance this weekend I may or may not be close to having points to upgrade to the 2s. But I don't want to know if I do yet. I don't want to do Elkhorn as a 2 just yet.

On the way home, I had a crappy recovery as in not eating a crap-ton of food. I only had some bars and a measly plate of pasta. As I'm writing this, I'm eating another batch of pasta at 1am and I think it's not going to be enough either.

I don't quit

2011-06-08T15:28:00.000-07:00

But then again, sometimes I get myself into trouble by just trying.

Moving

I have finally moved and hope to take care of the last mess I made while moving into my new place. The move was the worst and most unprepared I have ever done. The highlight of it for sure was the first move of the day. I drove into the loading dock with a pickup Zipcar loaded with 4 of my bikes. I then go check in with the front desk to say that I'm beginning to move and am informed that the building policy forbids bicycles anywhere except in the bicycle storage area which is completely full.

Now some people argue that I should've known this beforehand, but I present you this counterpoint: ARE YOU SERIOUS? What kind of building prohibits bringing bicycles up to your unit? Common sense should prevail. And in this case, this outlandishly strict bicycle policy (remember, this building is in downtown Portland) has met an abnormally fervent bicycler. I am raising a big stink about this to the HOA and hope the policy gets changed.

Over the Memorial Day moving weekend I pretty much had a meltdown in my old apartment. I was supposed to go on a 3 hour ride, but felt so overwhelmed and stressed so I layed down for a bit, and then lay on the garbage strewn floor and cried out "I donwannaridemabiikee noooo!" It was very pathetic. I was like a dog eating its vomit or an abused girlfriend staying with her abusive partner or in my case my disgusting life-sucking apartment. But on Monday I forced myself to get my move done and I did. Everything was out except for my race bike which didn't have a home.

Last week

Tuesday PIR came up and I had moved every last item out of the old apartment. And this time I left my new place at 5pm, got to PIR with plenty time to spare. It was an interesting race with a fair number of riders visiting the area specifically for Mt Hood. An early break formed which normally never gets away, but once we all saw that it would, I was able to work myself into a chase break and although I didn't have the sprinter skills it was good enough for 15th - the first time I've cracked the top 20 at PIR.

On Wednesday, my race bike still didn't have a home and I was ready. I was ready to drop $5,000 for a van to store my bikes in. All the things I hate about having a car I was willing to put aside for the sake of bicycle racing. My Dad spurned me on to give it one last shot to find somewhere else to put my bikes and also my roommate with his BMW and his friend with her Mercedes make much better fits for the garage than a beater van would. On Thursday this lady with PBOT that rents out bicycle lockers finally got back to me and hooked me up with a bike locker right across the street that costs $50 for 3 months. I could've gotten 2 lockers, but by having to take off the wheels of my race bike it will force me to clean my bike after every ride which is something I need to be doing.

And one more random thing about why the new condo is great is that there is a 24 hour fitness right across the street which will be great for weight training in the off-season.

Mt Hood Cycling Classic

At the advice of my coach I decided not to be a quitting wussy and race in the Mt Hood Cycling Classic. It was a great decision to do so, it was the funnest race weekend I think I've had all year and I didn't even get a podium.

Friday:

Friday was a 56 miler with a big climb in the later half of the race. Before the big climb there was more than just a few miles, so I tried my Wenatchee strategy again. I attacked just before the Rowena descent and eventually a Recycled rider bridged up to me. On the flats going back towards The Dalles, the Recycled guy was absolutely hammering taking 20 seconds pulls and resting only about 2 seconds on my wheel. At some point I realized he thought we were nearing the finish of the race (the course passes the finish line one time) and indeed he sprinted for the line. All I could do is say "you're not done!" and try to maintain a break. The hillclimb came and it was long. The climbers caught me about halfway up. I stayed with them as best as I could, but got dropped on the last mile of the climb and could literally see the pack begin their descent with no chase group in sight. Eventually a chase group caught up to me, but we were only able to get within 1:30 of the climber kids. I ended up 20th and had a fun race with the gorgeous scenery.

Saturday:

Time Trials can suck it. I did absolutely horrible in the TT. A number of things make me bad:

1. I don't have a TT Bike
2. I don't have a Disc
3. I don't have a skinsuit
4. I am borrowing a really small TT helmet that I believe cuts off blood circulation to my head.

This got me to thinking that if I was willing to drop $5,000 on a van, I have got to be willing to drop $5,000 on a TT setup. I therefore made a promise to myself: I will have a full TT setup before Eugene which I will then win by 3 minutes. Back at Mt Hood/Adams though, I got 51st and dropped 9 places in GC. Uggh. But, again the TT race had something great to make up for it: Good things to look at: Mt. Adams and Pro Women Cyclists!

The crit was coming up later in the evening and in the meantime I got to chill over at a house that one of my teammate's friends owns. It had a great view of the river and was 3 blocks from the crit. Most people I had talked to about the crit had warned me that it was super sketchy and/or a crash-fest. After having done the Wenatchee Crit in super sketchy and rainy conditions I need something really crazy to get me nervous. Something like a bridge with a metal grate or maybe a 30 foot cliff on the outside edge of a corner. The hood river crit had none of these, was dry and sunny. I thought Walla Walla was a sketchier crit course. Anywho, the crit has happened like a lot of other crits I have done which seems to be a maximal effort for 40 minutes. I can't even tell when the primes are usually because I'm so gassed. But with 3 to go, I latched onto a great wheel that ultimately set me up for 9th place. Still not good enough for prize money, but a top 10 is always satisfactory.

Sunday:

I honestly can say that I don't care if I'm a crappy climber, I love climbing and the ensuing descending. We had a 70 mile course with three major climbs. The Recycled guy jokingly told me I should go from the gun. Little did he know, that was exactly what I was going to do. The pack kept me within sight for a while, but once we got into orchard country I joined a 3 man break. At the very bottom of the hill the race officials had a lapse of course awareness and turned us around once only to realize that the direction we were going the first time was actually correct. The officials still gave us our break before starting the field and our 3 man break turned 4 man break made it to the top of the first climb before the rest of the climbers caught us. The next climb I got dropped and began the inevitable joyride back to the finish.

I don't think I have ever had more food and water in a race than in this one. I drank 2 water bottles with heed, ate 4 gels (including one I begged for from another rider), 2 packages of power energy blocks, 3.5 neutral water bottles, 1 plastic water bottle from the com car, 0.5 bottles of gatorade from the illegal feed zone (I regret throwing the rest away) and still felt like I could or should have eaten more. The final descent was amazing - I was all by myself and just cruised down at about a 35mph average down this paved logging road. I managed to catch and pass a few other 3s on the final climb and ended up 21st.

This next weekend is the Capitol Stage Race and it is perfect for me. Two longish road races with no epic climbs, a technical crit and a really short 3 mile time trial that includes a turnaround. Oh and then Elkhorn is the weekend after that. I'm stage crazy this month.

meltdown

2011-05-24T21:04:00.000-07:00

Slowly but surely I've been heading towards an absolute meltdown. The strain of training, working and the rest of life has gradually been building and I'm pretty much running on fumes right now. I'm not one that would ever completely meltdown, I'll always keep trying, but sometimes I get to a point where I'm just not on my game in nearly every part of my life and that is where I'm at right now.

The highlight of this breakdown came today where I missed getting to PIR by 10 minutes. While not substantial this is THE SECOND TIME in a row I have managed to do this. I left work on time, but then procrastinated by sending out a message on an online dating site, lubing my chain by putting my bike in the bathtub and as usual forgetting where I put my phone right when I wanted to go. What started as getting home at 5:20 ended up being a hustling out of the apartment complex at 6:16 to try to get to the race at 6:35. That did not happen by a long-shot.

I think the majority of this disorganization comes down to not having a solid routine that gets stuff done. One of the bigger problems that result from this is my disgusting apartment. I literally haven't cleaned my room since I moved in in December.

That is what my room looks like. It is so gross, there are some flies flying around, I count 3 pizza boxes sitting around, and there are dishes that haven't been cleaned in weeks - maybe even months. It is so embarrassing, I will lose crap in my miniature 340 square foot studio. The latest is a $150 bib pant I think I have lost. I really don't know how I manage this, except I do - stuff doesn't have a set place in my apartment or daily routine in a larger sense.

This whole disorganization is bleeding everywhere in my life and I hate it. At work, it's not unusual but I've been assigned yet another task I am severely under-qualified for and I just haven't been able to crack out a decent solution in over 3 weeks. It's really getting on my nerves. In my training program I went through two weeks without stretching or doing core and I was beginning to feel it during Wenatchee. And to top it all off, I haven't been handling my unavoidable biological attraction to women well by spending way more time than I should to the point of it becoming an unhealthy addiction.

It's time to turn this around.

And to begin, I am moving. Oh man I am REALLY REALLY happy to be moving. I am so excited to have more than 340 square feet to work with. I'm also going to be moving in with another dude at the Portland Plaza.

This will be my first true downtown living experience and I'm so stoked. The first time I walked in I felt like I was back home at my Tacoma Condo. The place is on the MAX yellow line, across the street from a 24 hour fitness (so that will be nice for the winter) and has got the luxury bling all for a price less than what I'm paying right now in rent.

So this is my perfect chance to start anew and be clean and organized from the beginning. I'm set on having a solid routine where I get stuff done. This weekend can't come soon enough, maybe I'll start moving stuff tomorrow.

We Brought the Rain With Us (lots of pictures and videos edition)

2011-05-16T13:42:00.000-07:00

So, this week was the Wenatchee Omnium. Last year I did this race it was typical Wenatchee weather (absolutely gorgeous and warm). But this year it was only normal weather on Friday and then a Western-Washington-style storm blew in from the southeast of all places and inundated the valley with rain close to monsoon levels.

I'm thinking that the Wenatchee Omnium is going to be a yearly event for me in large part because my parents live over here and love to spoil me when I come over for a while. My dad also loves to take lots and lots of pictures and videos, so this blog post will have a bunch of photos that he took. This year, I got Randy from Tacoma Bike and Andrew from Old Town to come stay over at our family's house. Karly even made it over too!

Getting There

But first a bit about my Friday travels. I was packing up in the morning only to realize I had left my racing license at my office. I realized this at 7am when I had to catch an 8:30am train. I had actually forgot my license at last year's Wenatchee and had to buy day licenses for cat 5. But now I'm a Cat 3 so I needed it. I headed out of my apartment at 7:27 to try to catch a 7:30 Max to my office. I made it on that Max with 3 seconds to spare. I biked to the office got my license and caught the 7:46 train back downtown. At this point I decided the only way I'd make the 8:30 Amtrak would be if I put my big duffel bag on my aero bars and biked to the train station. I did so hitting the green wave down Everett with one hand on the handlebars, the other hand holding the bag and clamping it all together with my chin. Got to the station at 8:10 and found a nice train friend to chat with.

Next up Randy and I drove over to Wenatchee from Tacoma. We got there and went for a ride around the loop trail to the crit course. On the way I managed to get 2 flats and remembered that that was why I hadn't gotten more into cycling when I was younger - along with competitive cycling not being that popular in general. Randy and I rode the crit course and Randy was in disbelief about how technical it was. Due to impending rain expected tomorrow Randy was confident in his decision to bail on riding in the crit.

Time Trial

There was a bit of confusion on when my actual start time was going to be, so I ended up arriving at the sign-in 3 minutes after my start time. After enough arguing with the organizer and officials, they gave me a new start time that happened to be 30 seconds after Ian Mensher (an utter beast of a rider). Ian didn't have a 30 second guy, he didn't have a minute man and he still passed at least 5 riders. At mile 1 he was 15 seconds ahead of me, mile 1.5 he was 40 seconds ahead and then I only saw him again after the turnaround.

I was really eying this TT with great importance since it was the first TT I would do that I had also done last year and thus compare my times. Well, I ended up 48 seconds slower than last year and was VERY disappointed until I saw that even Ian Mensher was about a minute slower than his time last year. The Cat 3 winner was 90 seconds slower than last year. So maybe I did do better given the circumstances.

Crit

Randy and I were hanging out for a while watching the other fields race. I also got to meet smack-talker-extraordinaire Michael Pruitt (aka PruDog). It was pretty chill watching the other racers and also watching Randy do his thing trying to hand a beer off to the KR Masters:

By the time my crit started it was raining and slippery. I made it a point to be near the front in order to avoid the inevitable crashes the first few laps. After a while 2 guys broke away and I was holding on to the chase group of about 8 people.

The rest of the crit consisted mostly of trying to hang onto the pack. I could hear Randy at corner 3 yelling "Sit in Evan" everytime, and with the way my chest felt I was content with doing so. When the final sprint came and I didn't have one and took 8th.

Road Race

Next up was the road race and I was getting hopeful that the rain would let up since it appeared like it would do so according to the weather radar. WRONG! It got worse while the radar showed no rain at all.

My pre-race strategy was to try to commit suicide and gap the field so much before the hills that I'd make it up by the time they did. This worked well until 1/5th of the way up the climb at which point I was caught and by the time I summited I was close to last. At this point I could see other people riding back down the hill just giving up. So I decided that maybe if I stuck it out I could sneak into the omnium points.

So I stuck it out. On the climb of lap 2 I got passed by the masters field, on lap 3 I got passed by the ladies field and barely held off Trish until the 4th lap when the 1/2s passed me. Talk about demoralizing! Adding to the excitement was that the corner at the bottom of the hill got so flooded that we all had to ride thru 2 inches of water.

On the final straightaway I called out another 3 for drafting off a 1/2 and then decisevely put him in his place in our dueling sprint for 20th or something. Unfortunately, 15 other masochists in the 3s stuck it out, so no omnium points for me in the road race.

Here is an open smack-talking message to all you climber twigs:

Haha, very nice job in the hillclimb you little rats! Good thing that is the only true hillclimber's race in the northwest for the whole season. I will crush all of you so hard in the crits that you will go crying home to your wife or mommy, request a downgrade and wonder why you even started racing in the first place!

And to show that I mean business I am taking this whole next week off the bike to recover my strength just in time to go kick some butt down at the Umpqua crit at the end of May.

Accidental Mullet

2011-05-08T21:03:00.000-07:00

After I wrote last week's post, I realized that I left out a funny story from the Eugene Roubaix. There was a side competition for the best euro-mullet. At least a month back I had gotten a haircut and it was admittedly quite bad and seemed really long in the back. But whatever, I just rolled with it. Fast forward to Eugene Roubaix and I'm chatting with the volunteer coordinator who asks me, "so have you entered the mullet competiton?" And I say "wow, this really looks like a mullet?" And then another lady racer chimes in "that's like asking a fat lady if she is pregnant!" Whatever tho, if there is a competition that I feel like I have a shot in, I'll enter it and thus I present my euro-mullet pose (I did not win the competition):

This week I had been feeling pretty good except for a nagging sore throat. I speculate it has something to do with my uncleanliness. I don't clean my water bottles enough or my apartment enough. In fact this week I told my landlord that I was moving out partly due to the fact that I wanted a fresh start at trying to be somewhat clean.

Friday I took the train up to Tacomaland, had a nice bike ride down Yakima to PLU and then slept in Karly's bed. No Karly was not in her bed, she was down in Ashland with Tacoma Bike's spring training camp.

Saturday I headed out to Ravensdale. I might as well had been racing for bullseye cycling team after last week's performance. Any and every break I tried was chased to good effect. So it came down to a field sprint. I was strategizing on when to sprint and decided to go just after the final crest. Unfortunately for me, I wasn't on anybody's wheel when I started going at the crest and the crest was about 400 meters from the finish line. I ended up 11th after giving a killer leadout for 1st and 2nd place. I was mad at myself for making these two mistakes, but knew I had to try to put a positive spin on it and just take the experience with me to the next race. So on the post-race call with my coach, I told him "I am the best leadout man ever!"

After this I showered and went down to Tacoma Bike where Tony fitted me with my aero bars. I got to see a lot of characters down there including Micah who I got to say "DRILL BABY! DRILL! Everyday all the time everywhere!" He was quite happy to be back up in the northwest.

Originally I had thought that I may just go back home, but then Scott wanted to hangout and Tony wanted to ride next morning. I decided to stay. I went over to Scott's and heard his Ravensdale story that went something like this (sorry Scott for stealing your thunder): "me and a new Tacoma Bike rider were in the 5s race and I was totally dicking around at the back of the pack. The new guy asked: what should we try to do? I told him: see that guy right there? He's going to win the race, just sit back here for a while. Then on the final lap, I saw a hole on the left and told him to go now! And he went and ended up getting 2nd while I got 5th". And then Scott had a good laugh after telling his story. We then hungout with Jenn's sister and talked about a bunch of Tacoma locals' lives were going.

I headed back to Karlys, slept and then woke up to ride with Tony. We did a great loop of Gig Harbor including the LWV course where I got 4th last year. It was fun to relive that race. I hopped on the train heading back to pdx and made it back in time to catch my first church service since March. The service was Mother's day themed of course and then a plea for more volunteers because apparently their membership has a problem of making too many babies. Volunteering to take care of a bunch of kids with a set time limit sounds fun to me, but I can't reliably do that. But I was able to catch up on my tithing, so at least I can help out in some way!

Next week is Wenatchee. Who wants to give me a ride there and back? I can offer lodging at my parents in exchange!

Fun Weekend!

2011-05-01T22:42:00.000-07:00

Oh man, this weekend was fun. But first, a recap on what has happened since I didn't have a weekly post last week.

Last Week:
It was supposed to be a rest week for me, but I'm not the best at resting and relaxing. I worked late on some nights and then over the weekend I went bike camping with a friend. While I took it quite easy on the bike camping trip I still put in a decent amount of miles for being a rest week. And on top of all that I didn't sleep enough. I kinda like the idea that I need to work on relaxing a bit. I think I could really get into that, maybe not go as far as putting cucumbers in my eyes and taking mud baths or something, but at least getting a consistent 9 hours of sleep.

This week:

PIR
I was supposed to get back into it this week firing it up. I did my first PIR (Portland International Raceways) of the year in the 1/2/3s. It is challenging for sure and will be really good for me. There were a lot of attacks and I figured out quite quickly that unlike the 4s and even 3s sometimes there is no way I can chase every one of these attacks. At the finish I found myself quite far back not able to do anything. Moreover I learned that at this level people have fitness, but the good ones also have brains.

Eugene Roubaix
Saturday was Eugene Roubaix - a road race with a 1.5 mile stretch of gravel. I got a ride down there with with Cliff and Bob. There were a lot of attacks in our race - more than usual for my field and I suspected it had something to do with the collegiate kids in the mix now. I was holding up quite well, but then got a flat tire on the 3rd lap. The wheel change was ok, but I couldn't catch up after that. I was at this point sort of trying to use this as a time trialing opportunity trying to get up to 180 bpm without racing which is hard for me to do.

By the time I got to the final straightaway, the field was just gone. I came up along a Cat 2 rider who also had flatted out. Just before we hit the gravel I offered "want to sprint for the finish?" He said, "sure, let's take parellel lines" [so we don't get in trouble for riding with another field or for whatever reason]. He hadn't been pushing himself as hard so he obviously had more in him, but I was getting up to 180bpm. After the gravel ended it was 200m to the finish and he was just checking to make sure I didn't sprint. When I gave it a final effort he completely took off. However, he then stopped to talk to some friends at the 2 meter line and I pipped him at the finish! BOOSH!

After this, Cliff found a ride home with some other people, Bob raced in the Cat 5s and I volunteered as a corner marshal in the afternoon. Basically, all I do is wave a stop sign and point in the direction where the riders should turn maybe about 20 times and then chill out and get to race for free, which saved me $30. I drove Cliff's car out to the corner of Crow and Petzold and went for the chill factor by blasting music out of the doors of Cliff's car. This was going all nice and well, but I thought, hmm maybe this isn't good for the car's battery. Maybe I should check if the car will still start. I turn the key and the car doesn't start. I accept the fact that I'm a moron and decide to radio in for help after the last field passes. I do so, but the car then starts right after this! Yes!

Vance Creek

Vance Creek is apparently the Washington State Road Race Championship of the year. Or as my local bike racing hero Jamie Stangeland would've said a while ago The Undisputed Championship of Nothing. I scored a ride out there with another Guinness teammate Joe (one of several Joe's on the Guinness team). It was a long race of about 77 miles with some hills, but not pure hillclimber hills. Since I was tired from my rest week, tired from Eugene Roubaix and slapped in the face for being dumb at PIR, I tried to race smarter and conserve energy. I tried only a few break attempts in the race and managed to save some energy on the hillclimbs. A break of 3 and then 2 riders was off the front by the final lap. I could see a lot of the teammates of these riders bunching up at the front of the pack, so decided it was time to get away while I could. There was another guy that was bridging up and I was joined by a strong Hammer kid guy as well. With 4k and the hills to go I was on the front and Hammer kid yells "let's drop these guys." I turn back and say "you ready?" and then attack off the front. Me and Hammer kid have left the other 3 off the back and take pulls until the final hill. This kid is probably 40 pounds lighter than me, so my goal at this point is to not explode and get swallowed up by the pack like the Friday at Walla Walla. The final hill wasn't too steep so I kept it in the big ring and mashed it up. I could see the pack coming up but from a safe distance - that is until Hoover started attacking. So I dug deep and gave it one last push for 2nd place. Fist pump!

And with that I've just finished eating my celebratory Pizza and Total Domination IPA (yeah that's right Osama). And I may even get to bed before 11pm. Signing off.

What the heck, I'll race

2011-04-17T18:16:00.003-07:00

Today was the final race, a 64 miler through some Palouse hills. I just did my usual thing of riding a bit and then attacking quite early. Unfortunately, when I got away one of the teammates of the GC leader was with me and didn't help. After the pack caught me, I was really tired. I was getting dropped on hillclimbs but always managed to get back to the pack.

After the final hill I was still with the field and decided that since I was still here I would still try to race. At the 1k we had the whole road and I manged to manueveur past 30 guys, scoot by a gnarly crash and then found a hole to the front where I proceeded to sprint for 6th place. Pretty stoked about a top ten finish considering how hard I had worked this whole weekend.

After the race I downed a half gallon of rich chocolate milk which apparently contained 2160 calories. And I was in a milk coma after that. Now for the drive back to pdx. Walla Walla, I'll cya later.

Not racing today

2011-04-16T22:08:00.000-07:00

I managed to recover from yesterday's race. But I slept in a tent over the night. I set it up in the rain. And then I wasn't intuitive enough to realize that the mattress pad required airing out before you actually used it. So I was part sweating warm in my 15 degree sleeping bag, part getting cold and went on the bottom. Did not sleep well. And then I got so hungry I couldn't sleep at 3am so I had some granola and raisins.

I made my way over to the TT start and got in an ok warmup and adjusted my bike except for the stem. I thought I would do ok since there was a hill on the course, but got passed by 3 people for 66th.

Then I bummed a shower from some friends and ate some pizza. Then it was time for the crit. It was a real technical course with 8 corners and cracked pavement all around. I didn't start too well and felt like I was slinkying for no good the whole race. I finished 50th.

Now I'm bumming half of a bed from the same people in hopes of feeling rested enough for tomorrow.

Explosion

2011-04-15T19:56:00.001-07:00

I rode my bike real hard like up that hill. I hit 194 bpm on the final climb. And now I'm zoning out at the Waitsburg Elementary Pasta Feed. It's $5 yo. And I just ated my 2nd serving. My brain feels like the cabbage I'm eating.

Me n some Olympia Ortho guy put 50 sec on the field by the bottom of this climb. And then he rode real hard and I explodeded. Finished maybe 20 sec behind da field.

I think I have pasta coma now.

My bike hates me

2011-04-10T17:54:00.001-07:00

This weekend was the suck in terms of racing.

Building on top of last week's chain derail just before a big hill. This Saturday I had a chain derail just before the big attack that got away. I got back to the peleton and after 6 minutes of just watching 2 guys go and moving up I broke off the front and started chasing. But these guys had already put a whole mile on the field. The rest of the race was me attacking and getting swallowed up by the loser group all the frickin way to the finish. I couldn't believe how epicly the peleton gave up despite some teammates trying to shut down the breaks. I ended up 20thish.

Back in pdx I went to the shop and had them do a number of things to make sure I wouldn't get another chain derail. I had the cable retnesioned and got a new chain.

Today I shouldn't have even raced. I zipcarred up to Brady for some more racing. It was miserable weather - cold and rainy. And the course was 72 miles. But I had to fulfill my racing addiction. I was feeling good, but then flatted out on lap 1 of 4. It took too long to change the wheel and I never caught up. I gave up after lap 3.

I'm now very demoralized and frustrated. If only I could not have a mechanical I know I can get in a break. Saturday I just despised being in the loser group with all the people saying "whelp I guess those guys will get away". And then today I got dropped and dnfedmylife.

Next week is Walla Walla and I don't know if I'll be able to find anyone to go with. And it'll be my 4th hard week. Whatevs tho.

The EVAN ride

2011-04-07T23:13:00.000-07:00

Each week I have at least 2 rides where I'll ride for about an hour at a really slow and boring pace. I have been getting very bored with these rides lately, so this Monday I tried to make it a bit more interesting. Here is how:

Stage Rage

2011-04-03T23:59:00.000-07:00

This weekend was the first stage race of the season: the Cherry Blossom Cycling Classic. I really like stage races. Last year I only did 1 stage race and an omnium, but really enjoyed getting out of town, the hecticness of travel and lodging arrangements and competing with the same riders for a few days.

Up until this week I still hadn't nailed down my travel plans. Now I do have the means to get a nice hotel room and car just for myself, but am trying to save money through all this and found that it made for a much more interesting journey with either friends or acquaintances. I had gone in to get my bike tuned up and found out that the mechanic at the shop was also going to the race so I was able to get my travel and lodging taken care of which was great.

Thursday

The plan was to head out Thursday night, spend the night in The Dalles and then race Friday-Sunday. It would be with the mechanic, his wife and another racer. I got all my stuff ready and was waiting for my ride at the appointed time. Some other guy was also waiting in the driveway of the apartment for a ride as well. Then, a car showed up that looked like this:

I was very confused. Is this really my ride? Nope it was the other guy who looked like he was about to go play basketball. Next, this car rolls up:

Ahh, that's my ride! We jammed everything in there and then zoomed off to The Dalles. Here is a view from my seat:

We got to the hotel and began the ritual of unloading all the bikes and bringing them into the room. Then we all went to bed.

Friday

Friday was the first race, a 57 miler with 3 19 mile laps of one decent hillclimb and then a puncher and then a long decent leading into a sharp corner and then a sweeping finish. This was my first Cat 3 race so I was expecting the pack to have more attacks and thus higher speed. WRONG! I was surprised at how slow we went. Nearly all the race I was dangling on the edge of the right side (once I even got nudged off a bit) with the pack staying mainly 4 wide. The field stayed completely together.

On the 3rd lap, 3 theraputic riders got side-by-side-by-side on the front and led the pack at an appalling 17 mph. I was waiting for my moment - a random junction with pavement on the right to mount an attack off the front. It came and bam! I put 200 meters on the field. I was going ok, but was worried about the hillclimb coming up. It came and I couldn't hold a breakaway pace and got swallowed up.

Then, 6/7ths up the hill a crash occurred slightly in front of me. I had to walk around it on the gravel on the right and then chased back up to the lead group. The field still stayed together on the punchy climb. The decent was not that fast and consisted of a lot of positioning. When we rounded the tight corner I was 4th or 5th row on the right. Then another crash happened on the left. I safely pedaled my way to a 13th place finish for my first Cat 3 race. Not bad, coulda been worse. After this I was reflecting on how if I had just had more hillclimbing power maybe I'd be top 10.

Saturday

Saturday was a big day, a Time Trial in the morning followed by a Crit in the evening. Our crew got up and made the journey into the remote town of Dufur. It was cold. It was windy. And I had put on only my bib pants and jersey to be super aero. But it was cold and windy enough that I went on a borrowfest of extra clothing managing to score some tights and an undershirt. Those were needed.

It was grueling on way out with a fierce 20mph wind with gusts blowing fiercely. I had just bought some aero bars and also had set up a TT position so I was confident that I would get a killer time. But that wind blew the confidence out of me. I was mashing along at 16mph at times and got passed by the guy 30 seconds behind me. When the turnaround point came I was so stoked. I put the bike into a bigger gear and immediately started storming down the road at 30+ mph. I had seen two guys approaching me from the turnaround, but I must have left them in the dust I was going so fast. The wind was still fierce with crazy crosswinds. The final corner of the TT was just after a good downhill, banked upwards, with some gravel and had a nasty wind. I almost lost control of my bike there, but kept the rubber side down. I finished my TT and knew that it was not a stellar effort. I placed 31st and was 3:16 down in GC.

After this we all headed back to the hotel to take a nap. Or were we going to? Our driver said he was counting on there being a gas station in Dufur. There were some pumps on the main street, but they looked abandoned. I went in and asked someone at a coffee shop where the nearest gas station was and she said "The Dalles". The gas tank was at the E. Would we make the 13 miles back to The Dalles? Each hill I was getting nervous. On the last hill I was praying in my head "please make it up this hill, please make it up this hill". Well, we made it. Whew.

Naptime. The people I was traveling with came from sort of the same racing background as I in doing alleycats and then moving to sanctioned racing. Both of the dudes traveling with me had been messengers before and had kept their sort of punk traits. Both dudes had noserings and maybe a tatoo here and there. However, both were quite chill people. In the hotel room it was quiet save for the bicycle chatter and watching youtube videos of Chris Hoy in the 2011 International Track Championships. We all quietly fell asleep each night. In the car we were listening to some death metal. At one point the conversation went like:

Dude in backseat: "hey what's thing song? ... what's this song? ... HEY, what's this song?
Dude driving: "I dunno it's just on Pandora. ... It's Vader."
Dude in backseat: "Who?"
Dude driving: "VADER"
Dude in backseat: "It's pretty good"
Dude driving: *nods in approval*

Next up was the Crit, a fast 4 corner course. I was a bit tired from the previous races, so we'd see how it would go. I started out all right and was able to move up front relatively easily. On lap 3ish, the Cat 3 travel buddy I was with broke off the front and I decided to try to work with him. This lasted maybe 4 laps before we got caught. I was starting to cramp so decided to hold position for a while. Eventually a prime for a set of Armadillo tires came up. I wanted this prime. When we came around the 4th corner I was on the front and started sprinting for the line. Someone nearly caught me on the left, but I managed to get the prime with a bike throw. At this point it was 3 laps to go and all the ~~sandbaggers~~ sprinters started moving into position. I could've tried harder to get in a better position, but just didn't. When I rounded the final corner in 15th I just easily pedaled in with the field for 31st. After this I had dinner with my parents and ate two orders of spaghetti.

Sunday

Today was the big day. A hillclimbing stage. I was hoping and waiting and hoping for warm weather all morning checking the internet for temperatures every 3 minutes. The sun was out, but it was edging ever so slowly above 50 degrees. I banked on the sun staying out and did this ride in just bib shorts and jersey - a first for this year. I thought that I would try attack early in the race, but proved to be a ineffective tactic. I ended up tired at the back right before the big hillclimb. The smarter guys were at the front and just stayed up there while the rest of the field shattered. However, I kept going at or faster than the front guys since I was catching up. The hillclimb must have been over 800 feet and we had to do it again with another 400+ ft climb on a dirt road in between. I was quite surprised at my hill climbing abilities and this gave me a big confidence boost.

On the way to the dirt climb I was trying to work with another guy to bridge up to the lead group. We were about 3-4 hard pulls away when all of a sudden he just flakes out and says: "oh look a chase group, let's stop." I look back and see them a ways back and see him drifting back. My gut tells me this is a wussy move. I look back again and now I can't even see the guy. I hold my position a bit and start climbing up the dirt. The chase group does make it up to me and we work hard up the dirt and then let it loose on the descent. This was crazy fun and we went so fast that we caught the lead group at the bottom.

This next time up the hill I'm making sure I'm at the front. And I was. I shifted down to the small ring and my chain derailed. I stopped and put it back on and then Andy Schlecked myself back towards the lead group. I again passed a lot of people and made it as far as the second chase group at the top. There was a slight punchy hill just after this and I wanted to be in the lead group before the crest of that hill. I was chasing them at the front of the chase group. The guy right behind me was not going to help me. So I pulled the move of my race and quickly made 4 strong strokes and blasted off the front. I could literally hear that guy behind me popping. I worked hard and was about 10 meters behind the lead field at the crest and accelerated enough to get them before the main downhill.

We all climbed up the dirt again and I held my position well. Once I could see the top I attacked a bit, but didn't really get away, perhaps I shed some slower riders tho. On the descent I led the field down again at high speed. Through the final 4 miles after this I just stayed in the group. The final 300 meters was up a major hill and I did not have a sprint climb in me so I steadily pedaled up for a respectable 10th place finish. This also earned me 10th overall in the GC. Was quite satisfied with the result and am excited to race smarter next time.

Coming up

I am now a bit tired (especially since I'm writing the blog so late), but still planning on Kings Valley and Olympic View next week and the Tour of Walla Walla the week after. We'll see how that goes, I kind of want to work on fitness and also rest a bit, but still excited to race too.

The next level

2011-03-27T21:45:00.000-07:00

It's time for me to step up to the next level of bicycle racing. This week I joined an Oregon bike racing team: Guinness Cycling Team. And also with the results this weekend, it's pretty convincing that I'm ready for the next level.

The Guinness Cycling Team should work out well for me. There are a few Cat 3s and a few Cat 1/2s that race, but not dozens so it will be possible to perform well without competing with a ton of teammates. Through brief encounters I've had with riders on the team I'm looking forward to the season. Last summer when I came down for some Crits, I saw Alex, a Cat 3 rider, do a solo breakaway at the Franz Bakery Crit for the win. And then down in Eugene I had a humorous encounter with a Guinness rider whose pre-hill-climb strategy was to chug a can of red bull - and it worked, he was 40+ seconds faster than me and I was 2nd in the 4/5s. This year, I met Cliff who was the guy who gave me a ride to the Capitol Crit last week. Cliff is a very chill and nice dude who races a lot. On Tuesday I met up with a group from the team for some drinks and it seemed like I would mesh well with the team. And another pro about this team is that it's cool if I still wear the Tacoma Bike jersey in my Washington races. However in Oregon I'll be wearing some white and green.

As for training, this week was a rest week. And it was a rest week where I was resting after coming off of a win streak that I was resenting resting and really wanted to get out and do some sprints. At work I was having trouble focusing because I wanted to race so badly. The weekend could not come soon enough for me.

The weekend finally came and I was excited. I had reserved a Zipcar for the first time and made my way up to the gloomy area by Centralia for the Independence Valley Road Race. On the way I was listening to the Chemical Brothers and The Prodigy so I was amped. I got to the race area and it was packed. It was so packed that the only parking spot left was in a huge puddle. I parked there and did a little dance of getting out on the passenger side and tiptoeing on some dry land. After putting together the bike, I barely made it to the start on time.

The race had a big field of 76 riders, however, I only saw a few sprinter threats and was really wondering if some climbers would make or break the day. The race began and I was playing the move up through the field game for a while. The first hill came and it was quite big. The field was going hard up it, but mostly stayed together. On the other side of the range I kept moving up when I could. Finally about 15 miles in I found a hole going up to the front so I attacked and didn't have enough to really go, so the field caught up.

Coming up on the 2nd climb of the big hill I was planning on attacking on the upper part of it, however when that point came, I was already at 188bpm, so I was not in a position to mount an attack. The field seemed to break up a bit and a few of us were trying to paceline away. However, this paceline of ours kept growing in number, so I stopped doing pulls and waited for the next small hill. The next hill came and it was again a big effort for us, but this breakaway field of us stuck together. At this point, I knew it would come down to a field sprint, so I focused on positioning. When the 1k came up I put myself at about 5th and made my sprint at the 200k mark. I flew past the 4 guys in front, but apparently gave a great leadout to the guy who won the race. I placed 2nd and that was fine by me since I have found it hard sometimes on the field sprints. I drove on back to PDX and got some good sleep.

Randy and I after IVRR

Sunday morning I headed out to Hagg Lake with Cliff again. The weather was quite dreary with rain nearly the whole race. The field was much smaller - maybe 25 guys. And the race had a bunch of small hills, but nothing major. There also weren't really any attacks either. I made a few but still felt like I couldn't keep them going. On the 4th lap my front derailleur started having issues and couldn't shift to the big ring. I decided that I would hold onto the pack for the field sprint since I could power up the 200m uphill finish in a big rear gear. However, with about 2k to go the chain randomly shifted up to the big ring. I thought "wow cool. ATTACK!!!" And I did, but again I didn't have enough juice to get away for good. At this point I was debating about downshifting again, but kept it in the big ring for the finish. I was in the 2nd row approaching the 200k and then went. The Banana Belt series leader made a good jump too and powered out for the win and some other guy managed to claim 2nd. Still though, a podium from the field was satisfactory for me.

After this I volunteered as a corner marshal to pay my race fee and hitchhiked with a masters guy back home. Whenever I can on Sundays I go to church and have lately been contemplating whether trying to be better than all these other bicyclists is really showing mercy and being nice and basically doing God's will as opposed to helping dig a well for some poor Malaysian tribe. One of my friends suggested that my rationalization process of saying: "ok I've been working since September on this bicycle racing thing and now I want to stop? I don't think so." might actually be the righteous thing to say. And in this week's message I randomly flipped in a pew Bible to Psalm 107 telling stories of how people desert God but then decide to come back. And the Sermon was about Hosea who I guess invited Israel to come back to God by naming his kids weird names. I'm still unsure about whether this means that this bicycling is the wrong thing, or this message was a warning from straying from my bicycle racing. I'm gambling that it's a warning to not stray away from bicycling so I'm going to keep pressing on.

And with that, it's time to upgrade and go to the next level: Cat 3. At this point, the only way to move up another category is to be good. It's possible in Cat 4 and 5 to simply do a lot of races and then you can upgrade, but in Cat 3, you must earn 30 points to get to the 2s. And then with the 2s you're racing with the 1s and Pros so it is quite hard. But I've proved myself out of the 4s and it's time to see how well I can do at this next level.

First 1st!

2011-03-20T21:34:00.000-07:00

I am feeling pretty euphoric right now. On Saturday I got my first victory of the year.

This past weekend and week started out as a lot of weeks have with me trying to keep up with everything. And this week, I had to deal with losing my helmet and ulock somewhere between Tacoma and Portland. I made a bit of a dent in the dishes but that didn't last for long since I worked late on Thursday.

Friday night I decided I needed to alter my state of mind towards thinking about winning Saturday's bike race. So I downloaded this youtube video a repeatedly watched the finish like 7 times while thinking about tomorrow's race strategy.

Saturday the stress was added again when I realized that I had lost my OBRA Membership Card. I let it go and decided to pony up the extra for a one day license at registration.

I was quite excited since I had found a ride with someone to the races. This made the journey less lonely which was appreciated. I was in a good mood at the race site since it was sunny and the course was dry and very wide.

I warmed up with a few short sprints to get the body going and then rolled up right onto the line to start. The race was going well and some dude had shot off the front first lap. The group was making sure he didn't get too far away, but he did earn the first prime outright. The field caught him shortly after that.

The next prime came up and I decided to test out my legs. Nobody really chased me, but when I did see someone chasing I dropped down 2 gears and hammered it out for those hammer gels at stake. After this I was feeling good and got in the drops and kept going to see what would happen. Eventually the guy that blasted off the first lap bridged up to me and wanted to work with me. So we did just this and started riding away from the field with maybe 7 laps to go. At some point I thought I saw a group of 5 chasing us in short range. However, our gap kept widening and by the final lap we knew we had it. The final straightaway was really long. I had just let this guy take his turn pulling but about halfway down the straightaway I broke off to signal that it was on for 1st. We both sprinted hard for the line and neither of us knew who had got it.

Try to see for yourself who finished first in this race photo.

Both of us congratulated each other and were pretty stoked to have rode away like that. The guy I was working with told me "I'm from Salem, you better not have beaten me on my home turf!" in a half-jokingly way. I could only reply "what do I gotta do, it's a bike race?" At the finish line we were both trying to figure out who won and getting congratulated by a few people. Eventually, I made my way over to the result tent and was informed that I had in fact won the race. This was pretty awesome. There were no hard feelings for the guy in 2nd except that he had gotten 2nd. Such is bike racing.

After this I hung out with the guy who gave me a ride and then watched him race. It was like opposite race day at the Capitol Crit, the 4/5 field had a break that won, whereas both the 3s and 1/2s came down to a field sprint. And once I got back home I slept 9hours. Aw yeah. Also, I plugged in the result numbers and it now looks like I have earned 21 points in Cat 4. I'm going to see what my coach thinks about upgrading.

This next week my coach has me doing a rest week, but there are 2 races this coming weekend. I'm planning on doing IVRR and maybe even Banana Belt on Sunday.

Weekend of racing accomplished

2011-03-13T18:37:00.000-07:00

Warning! This post will may be TL;DR for some people so here is a really quick summary:

seized pedal
Train
lost bag, with all my bike gear
Good party, not enough sleep
Early drive to Sequim
Fast race with wide shoulders
some breaks, but field sprint at end
held on for 8th
lunch in Sequim
drive home
Land Before Time
Too early, DST kicked my ass
too early to race
rainy
less intense
Attacked on lap 4, got away 2nd attack, TT all the way to 400m and then got enveloped by field
Lunch with Scott and Andrew
train home

Now for the details. I had been planning this weekend for a while. There were two races on WSBA's calendar (classic spring races of Sequim and Mason Lake) and only 1 race in Oregon. Seemd like a great opportunity to head up to Tacoma to spend some quality time with my sister and Tacoma friends while getting in some racing. On Thursday I had one of those 'glad that happened now and not in the race' mechanicals. My left pedal suddely seized itself after a grueling easy ride around Southeast Portland.

On Friday, I got on an earlier train that got into Tacoma at about 3pm at which point I proceeded directly to Tacoma Bike to get my pedal fixed. Turns out I had ridden this pedal to death and that since I hadn't been regularly greasing the pedal I had screwed myself over. Oh and that new chain and brake pads I had put on back in January were already shot. So turns out I had to buy some new speedplay pedals. Ouch.

At this point, Tony asked me whether my cleats were good or not since I'd be getting new cleats with the pedals. I said "yeah I think so, say, where's my duffle bag that has my biking shoes? Oops, I left it on the train!" I began calling Amtrak, but their line was completely busy and their website even said it was probably a better idea to go to the train station. So I did that on the sweet Civia that Mike B graciously loaned me while my bike was being fixed. I got down to the train station and a lady there made some phone calls, was able to find it and have it sent back down to Tacoma on the next train. Nice.

At this point, ~~my sister Tracy~~ Tracey and my sister had gotten down to Tacoma Bike so we all eventually carpooled over to the train station to pick up my ~~bike~~ bag I had forgotten. The drive was quite exciting as ~~Tracy~~ Tracey had some interesting news to share. We got to the house at which point I still had to go on my bike ride for the day. I got all kitted up and headed out for 1.5 hours. I was making some good headway and was definitely getting farther on the usual route than I was when I began training this year.

I got back to the house and a party for the newest housemate was already going on. I changed into my Irish theme and began to eat. The party was fun as I saw a bunch of Tacoma peeps. Most notably for me was Dean who referred me to my coach. When he saw me he was like "wow, you have really leaned up." That made me feel good. For a party it was good, but I got to sleep at maybe 11:30pm which was not so good for my bike racing.

The next day we got up at 5:45am to head out to Sequim. It was a bit of drive through a lot of rain. And then we hit the rainshadow of Sequim. The line to register was quite long and the I was busy changing and putting together all my bike stuff that I was finally ready to go once the race started. There were some good attacks and all that, but nothing stuck. It came down to a field sprint and I was fighting hard to get and stay up there. Randy made an attack on the final lap, but didn't realize we still had 4 miles to go or so, so he got swallowed up. We rounded the final corner and I held on for 8th place. I was satisfied with the result.

Photo courtesy of Karly Siroky

After this, Landon, Randy, my sister and I went out to a restaurant that ~~Tracy~~ Tracey recommended and we gorged ourselves with food. However, I still got hungry on the ride home. Once home, Karly and I just chilled, ate some stir-fry and watched Land Before Time and went to bed at 9. We got up at 6 which equated to only 8 hours of sleep due to daylight savings time. Zzzzzzz.

I got up, but really wanted to sleep more. My sister was hopeful about riding around Mason Lake instead of being bored standing around while I raced, so she brought her bike too. We got there super early at 7:45am. I thought the race was going to start at 9am, but no, it was at 9:30. It was also raining out there. I have been used to riding in the rain, but with fenders my nice rain jacket and not behind a bunch of dudes flying at 24mph. So it was slightly unpleasant. Also, the facemask I was wearing was starting to become a problem. As it was raining and then being splashed with a constant stream of water from whoever's wheel I was on, the facemask became so wet that at one point I slurped up a big splash of water from it. At that point I tried to keep it below my chin.

Photo courtesy of Karly Siroky

The race was much less intense than yesterdays and about half as many people in the field. Nobody was really attacking all that much which was kinda nice I guess. Eventually I felt like I had to get something started so I tried attacking the 4th lap. I made a move on a hill on the front stretch which didn't really stick. But then I made another daring move on some of the rollers on the backstretch and really got away from the field. I was really time trialing hard and at times didn't even see the peleton behind me. The facemask was now covering half of my left eyeball and I was feeling the meter on my gas tank decrease after each little hill. After a while I was starting to fade on some of the hills closer to the finish and finally the field caught me with 400 meters to go. I didn't have sprint speed or power in my legs so I had to give up and finish just off the back. I just did't have enough to stay away and I was disappointed in that. However, Randy did finish 2nd which was awesome.

Whatever. After this, sister and I headed back to Tacoma where she made some fantastic grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato soup. I had invited over Scott and Andrew who didn't know each other or even realize that they lived on the same street 5 blocks away from each other. This was quite fun. Then sister and I made our way to the train that I caught in my own personal style: just after I had finished my bicycle hauling contraption the train started to arrive. On the train I chatted with my coach and he applauded me on my effort at Mason Lake, and that made me feel a little better, but I want to WIN.

This next week I'm gonna hit it hard again and will do either Sequim again, or a crit down in Salem. On the horizon I'm really looking forward to the Cherry Blossom Cycling Classic, a 3 day stage race out in the Dalles April 1-3. There will be a road race, a time trial, a crit and then another road race. I'm really lookin forward to that.

DJStroky is back, watch out you lousy motorists!

2011-03-08T23:11:00.000-08:00

So, here's an update.

Last weekend I was still feeling sick. Or was I? Whatever it was I felt a bit sinused up but really demotivated. I didn't feel like cranking the pedals around and didn't race over the weekend. Earlier in the week I went to see a doc who diagnosed me with a sinus infection and hustled me some antibiotics.

I took 'dem antibiotics and have been trying some other stuff too. Via a google search, I found this website www.earthclinic.com which says you should take Apple Cider Vinegar for every single ailment know to mankind. I tried it sporadically, but it tastes very bad. My coach is all about the garlic. He said I should work up to eating a bulb a day when I'm sick. I also tried this Emergen-C powder which has like 800% daily value Vitamin C and a bunch of Calcium and Vitamin D. Over the weekend I was doing ok in combating all this. Was drinking lots of water, taking the Emergen-C with a splash of ACV twice a day, eating maybe 1/2 bulb of garlic over the day and popping the pills.

It has finally seemed to work. Yesterday I had a good ride out to Sauvie Island and back and didn't cough up a storm. And today I did a bunch of hill intervals and felt like I did a bunch of hill intervals but not worse than that. However, I finally knew that I was back in it when my alleycatting blood shot through me. I was riding east on Burnside and have found that if I maintain a good pace, I can hit all green lights all the way from I-405 to the Burnside bridge. I was doing just so weaving in and out of traffic. I got down to Chinatown and there was some event with a bunch of people going on on the right.

Now in Portland, drivers almost always know how to deal with bicyclists - even at night. This means that if a bicyclist is on the right and a driver wants to turn right, the driver will wait - stopping in the road for the bicyclist to pass - it's pretty awesome. However, for whatever reason, this ~~n00b~~ normal anywhere except in Portland driver was clearly not paying attention to my presence to their right and was certainly not aware of my bold quest to hit all the green lights on Burnside. NO NO, that hoppin party with all the people on the right was far more important. So much so that they made a right turn in front of me slowly scouting out how awesome the hoppin party was and if there happened to be a parking spot exactly in front of the hoppin party. Well, my alleycatting blood shot up. I sprinted out in front of the car - while flipping them off (I'm not sure if I did it right since it was a balancing act) - and got back on the green wave and made it to the Burnside bridge with all greens! BOOSH!

At that point, I had one of those "I probably shouldn't have done that" moments. Anonymous driver, if you are reading this, I am sorry. But anyways, I realized that I'm back in the game and am looking forward to getting back on my training plan and race schedule.

This weekend I'm planning on going up to Tacoma to race with the Tacoma Bike team at Sequim and Mason Lake. Really looking forward to this.

A week of cancellations

2011-02-27T21:12:00.000-08:00

Well, back in my post about all the races I wanted to do this year, I mentioned that there were 2 this weekend. And then midweek I said I was sick. Well, turns out that I was still pretty much sick through Friday. However, both bike races were canceled due to freezing cold ice patches and the other due to snow. So turns out that I didn't miss any races and I didn't have to ride in the snow or freezing cold.

I got back on the bike Saturday and Sunday. My coach told me to take it easy, but I felt demotivated while riding for the first time in 3 days! And I still have a little bit of a cough. I'm really hoping I'll be good enough to train this week since I've got some long and intense intervals scheduled.

Also, I want to give a shoutout and congrats to my teammate Randy Resch who upgraded himself to Cat 4 before the season even started in Washington by going to a Cycle U class. It's going to be a great showing of Tacoma Bike with him, Landon and I at Sequim and Mason Lake the 2nd weekend of March.

Mid week update

2011-02-23T19:23:00.000-08:00

Thought I'd give a mid week update here and a summary of some interesting rides I've done. Right now, I'm sick with I don't know what and it is sucking the life out of me. I didn't go into work and played Open TTD most of today. Something hit me yesterday and I haven't been able to fight it off yet. Hopefully by tomorrow I'll be all right.

With that I'll reminisce about some cool rides I've done lately. With many of my rides, they are often into areas and roads where I've never been before.

A Long Ride

Two Saturdays ago I had a long ride scheduled for me: 4.5 hours - the longest yet this season. Here is a link to the data from that ride so you can follow along. I decided to go exploring southwest of Beaverton and climb over Bald Mountain and then do an interval near Newberg/Yamhill. I started climbing up Holly Hill rd since on the map it looked more interesting and curvy than going straight up Bald Mountain road. The road was very low traffic which was nice, but then suddenly at maybe 2/3rds up the climb, I see a sign that says "Pavement Ends".

I think "aw crap, I'll just trudge through it, it's probably not that far to the top." It was gravel and slightly muddy gravel, but the bike was handling it very well considering I was riding my Kysrium Elites with Michelin 23c tires. It was maybe 3 miles of gravel, very steep at times until I finally got to Bald Mountain road which was paved.

After this, I bombed down to the Newberg area down some exciting twists and turns. At the bottom I chilled out a bit and started a 1 hr interval in z3 and was really flying towards the end where I had the wind on my back. At the end of this, I was going north on Dopp rd, but it too turned into gravel (at about mile 45). I had had enough gravel already this ride, so I turned around and headed back on a road I knew was paved.

After this I pretty much zoned out in a long journey back to civilization (aka the closest MAX station so I could take the train home). I ran out of food completely at 4hrs. I had 2 water bottles with HEED and 3 CLIF Bars. I stopped by a grocery store to pick up some Gatorade and then headed to the MAX station. Done and done.

Trail Ride in the Dark

Last week on Wednesday I decided to start my ride from the office. Here's the data. Today was an easy day for me, so I usually take this time to go explore some areas of Portland since I don't have to worry about keeping speed. Also, going on trails at night is also good since there isn't much traffic. This combination of riding slow and at night enables me to go on trails more often since I don't have to worry about nailing some kid at 20mph or being that creepy bicyclist who doesn't ring his bell or yell on your left when passing an attractive and vulnerable female just trying to go for a run while not being bothered by the world.

Anyways, I decided to go explore this trail or series of paths from Beaverton along this creek towards Tigard. I got lost or rather didn't know where the next turn was numerous times on this ride so I was checking my handy dandy phone to see where I was and where the trail began again - it wasn't obvious -- especially in the dark. The trail was actually quite long and fun when I got to it. It went through a bunch of wetlands. At one point the trail was flooded about a foot deep, but I decided to go through it since going around would've entailed crossing a delightful 5 lane arterial. I made my way all the way to Tigard and then to Lake Oswego where I picked up the Terwilliger Trail and then Blvd. All in all a pretty fun ride.

Mt Tabor

And finally, this past Sunday, I rode up Mount Tabor for the first time. Like a lot of things in Portland, it is just so cool how special places like this mountain are sort of randomly located in an otherwise flat city and so close together. Portland's terrain and how it was all built upon makes me all happy inside. I had to use someone else's picture for this since my camera had some problems.

7th in Cherry Pie Cat 4

2011-02-19T17:07:00.001-08:00

This was a great race to start the season off with. It was gorgeous sunny out in the Willamette Valley between Corvalis and Salem. My race started at 12:50 so it wasn't freezing which was great. The race was somewhere around 60 miles, so no attacks every stuck and I didn't ever attempt any myself. The finish had two uphills. I was able to squeeze through traffic a bit, but started too far back. In the end it was 7th which I'll settle for for the first race. Next weekend should be good as well with two races both with slight climbs to the finish.

Racing! My 2011 tentative schedule

2011-02-14T15:25:00.000-08:00

Both the WSBA and OBRA schedules have been up for a while, so I've made a little schedule of what races I'd like to do. Here it goes:

February:

19: Cherry Pie
26: Sublime Sublimity
27: Banana Belt I

March:

6: Banana Belt II
12: Sequim I
13: Mason Lake II
19: Willamette Crit or Sequim II
26: Piece of Cake or IVRR

April:

1-3: Cherry Blossom Cycling Classic
9: Kings Valley Road Race
10: Vance Creek
15-17: Tour of Walla Walla
23-24: No OBRA or WSBA RRs or Crits :( Maybe I'll find some alleycat to do. There are 2 races this weekend in the Sacramento area.
30: Longbranch

May:

1: Olympic View
7: Ravensdale
14-15: Wenatchee Omnium
21-22: Mutual of Enumclaw or Take Weekend off
28-29: Umpqua Crit and RR

June:

3-5: Mt. Hood Cycling Classic
10-12: Capitol Stage Race
17-19: Elkhorn Stage Race
25: Franz Criterium
26: Fairview Circuit Race

July:

2: Swan Island Criterium
9-10: High Desert Omnium
16: Fremont Crit or Ironclad Crit
17: Brad Lewis Crit
22-24: Cascade Cycling Classic
30: Tacoma Twilight Criterium or Gresham Crit
31: Renton Crit or Vancouver Crit

August:

6: Longview Crit
7: Albany Crit
13: LWV: Gig Harbor
20: Tigard Crit
21: Ronde Ohop
27-28: Eugene Celebration

September:

18: Mt. Ashland Hillclimb - rather late in the season with no other races in between (in WA or OR). Not sure if I'll do this.

2,000 miles and counting

2011-02-07T21:42:00.000-08:00

This past week it seems that I have surpassed 2,000 miles of logged bicycle rides since I formally began in September. That seemed like a statistic worth sharing. Now I really need to go to bed, this week is going to be intense.

Weightlifting thus far

2011-01-29T17:41:00.000-08:00

Today I just completed the last "Strength" phase of weightlifting. For the past month or so I've been pumping the iron hard trying to lift as much as I can safely. And before this I've been lifting 3 days a week every week since the beginning of October.

When I started out I was lifting really light. I didn't even begin doing squats for a while. And when I did it was just the bar to begin with. I've been focused on 3 core leg lifts: Step Ups, Squats and Leg Press. In all of these I began with body weight, the bar and the leg press machine without weight respectively. Progressively I've been adding more and more weight.

Today was probably the last time I will focus on lifting the maximum weight possibly as next week I'll begin doing higher-rep lifting. I finished strong today posting new records for weight in the Squat and Leg Press. On the 6th set of 5 reps, I lifted 250 pounds in the squat and 700 in the leg press if the machine alone is 210.

For nearly all other lifts, I've just been doing a high amount of reps just so the muscles get a good burning. I find it pretty funny that I'm lifting 4 plates in the squat and still burning the pecs with 95 pounds total.

I just got one more month of lifting and then I'm done and I'm looking forward to that. Going to the gym and lifting involves a lot of transition time - changing clothes, travel to/from the gym, setting up the machines, etc. Once I'm just biking there will probably be some more free time for me - I'm hoping.

First Post and my bicycling story

2011-01-24T19:08:00.000-08:00

Hello World,

This is the first post of a new blog that I will use to inform people about my bicycle training and racing shenanigans. I'll cover past, present and future. Past memories of bike races, bicycles and bike rides. Present training schedules, rides, modifications to bicycles, etc. And future thoughts on how my bicycling lifestyle may evolve. But first, an intro to those who don't know me:

Hi, my name is Evan Siroky. I ride bicycles. It all really started in 2006 when I was hanging out with some sorority girls and one of their friends, Brian I believe who was a Pike, I think. Anyways, Brian was going to do a triathlon. And then my competitive urge came up inside of me and very clearly said "I can beat that guy."

I went down to Recycled Cycles and bought a used Puch for maybe $500. I'll go into detail about the history of my bicycles later. I trained a bit - biked, ran and swam. And then I did my first triathlon - the Seafair triathlon. I was probably 5th to last out of everybody (all age groups (>1,000 people)) in the swim, but was probably top 100 in the bike and swim.

I did a few more triathlons, but completely lost interest because I sucked so horribly at swimming. And so I became a recreational cyclist for a while. And a decent recreational cyclist at that since I commuted lots of places, did the STP in a day yada yada yada.

One day at a party with my Christian friends, I met a certain Lee Williams who invited me to among certain bike groups, the Dead Babies but more importantly, Point83. I didn't go for a while, but eventually I made it and was hooked with the camaraderie and general asshatery of the group. Although this group usually just goes around and drinks beer while happening to have a bicycle, they informed me of unsanctioned races.

The first one I did must have been their monthly Midnight Greenlake Race. It took me a while, but I managed to win two of these and thus compete in two Races of Champions. Point83 also clued me into Alleycats. The first one I did was I believe the Seven Hills of Seattle where I got 2nd place. My first Alleycat win was the Safety First Alleycat. I made quite a "career" if you will of racing in alleycats coming up from Tacoma and still winning sometimes. Worth noting is that I purchased a nicer and more fitting 62" Trek 2100 from Paul for $200!

Eventually I heard a spiritual whisper to quit hanging out with the Boozing and Biking scene and take my racing to a higher level. It took quite a drastic event to really get me focused in that direction, but I'm on steady track now. I trained somewhat regularly according to the Cyclists Training Bible through the winter. My sanctioned racing began at the Mason Lake series where I placed 8th in my first Cat 5 race. I raced regularly at Pacific Raceways throughout the year and did what races I could manage to travel to early in the season.

According to Joel Friel, you have to peak for a race, and my first race I was peaking for was the Wenatchee Omnium. I rode in the Cat 5s and placed 6th in the TT, nearly rode away from the peleton in the Crit holding on for 6th and then got 4th in the Road Race. A decent finish, but I told myself it was just Cat 5. I did the Cascadia Crit Series but didn't perform well getting a top place of 9th at the Brad Lewis Crit.

In mid-July, my favorite bike shop, Tacoma Bike had one of their mechanics tell me I had ridden my Trek to death. With about an hour to spare before they closed and two important rides to do in Wenatchee over the weekend, I walked out of there with a brand new Felt F75. I didn't do much racing at this time since I was into MapMyRide's Tour de France Challenge where in the previous year, people had submitted lousy rides, but still won awesome $6,000 bicycles. I couldn't for the life of me figure out how they calculated their winners, so I lost interest. And so I went back to Pacific Raceways and on the first time with the new Felt I got into a solo breakaway for 3 laps for the win.

In the late part of the season I was psyched about racing. Some highlights include winning Pacific Raceways again, but only on a 2-lap solo breakaway; 4th place on LWV Gig Harbor and 7th at the Seward Park Season Ender. I also did the Tour de Watertower and won by 12 minutes with a flat tire en route. But my season didn't end there, I had even gone down to Oregon for a weekend of racing where I got 3rd in the Franz Bakery Crit and 11th in the Albany Crit. I even planned a weeklong vacation where I competed in the Eugene Celebration Stage Race: 2nd in the Prologue Hill Climb, 7th in the RR, 8th in the TT with the Felt road bike sans aero bars and 11th in the Crit for a 4th place stage finish. Next weekend was the Mt. Ashland Hillclimb. It was grueling and in the end I pushed myself hard at a finish line sprint to get 1st place Cat 4/5 - my first sanctioned race category win - and 4th overall.

The competitive spirit had really taken over my mind from July on. I wanted to advance and as fast as possible. Out of all people I talked to, they said getting a coach was the best way to do this. I was referred to Steve Higgins by former Pro-speed skater Dean Burke. I figured that if pro was where I wanted to go, getting coached by someone with that track record of producing pro athletes would be a good idea.

So now, at the end of January I am now living in Portland, OR. Everything in my life now revolves around work and bicycle training. I normally ride 7 days a week in my training and on top of that have been lifting 3 days a week as well. But this is only the schedule of a Cat 2 racer that I'm being prescribed according to my coach. Nonetheless, I am where I am and that is halfway to Cat 3. Racing is no longer a bunch of checkpoints with whisky shots and tallboys of pbr at the end for all. It is now a pursuit of physical excellence while I am at the peak age for bicycle competition. And I want to see how far I can get.