Rode out there. Got there 2 hours before race. Sat outside and got very cold. Warmed up in Byron's car. Lining up. Shivering.
Race time! Cold! Only 20mph. Cold! Bored. Gap on the right. Attack! Caught. Attack again! Caught again. Hot spot coming up. Go way too early, but Byron is right behind me and he gets 2nd! Colby goes solo! Chase! Chase some more! Dead after final corner. Avoided nasty crash. Success?
Heiser Farms
Zipcar it down there. Dirt and poop all over course. Gravel/dirt 1k from finish. Potholes everywhere. Follow Soraz for futile attack. Slip and nearly fall on corner. Dropped. Zone 2. Low zone 2. Too low. Contemplating being 'that guy' who complains about shitty course after getting shitty result. Getting lapped! Try to hang on. Dropped again. Probably my first DFL ever. Wait no! Once at a midnight greenlake race in February I was 3rd and DFL.
Hmm, I have a Zipcar and I'm low on Dave's Killer Bread. Sidetrip to Dave's Killer Breadquarters in Milwaukie. 9 loafs and 5 Sin-Dawgs. Back at Zipcar spot and unloaded with 2 minutes to spare.
Dirty Circles:
Ride out there again. Run into Justin & Jen who are also riding out there. Blue skies! Quaint farms. Munch down half a sin-dawg during the ride. RAIN! Blue skies! Alpacas. Run into Christina and Jeff! At the race.
Figured out why it's called dirty circles: cause you get your bike super dirty riding around in the sand parking lot.
Lining up for race. Right behind Beardsley and Boursaw. Fall down while standing still. Can't clip out. Embarrassing. Goal for race: pack finish.
HPC going from the gun. I'm feeling good, not attacking. Watching a veloce rider guide Rosenberg around. Rosenberg's got a train for the hot spot. Get behind Rosenberg. Fend off Bedford for Rosenberg's wheel. Sprint with Rosenberg for 3rd? in hot spot.
Back in pack. Boursaw unleashes it into a break. Almost chase down break, but Bedford and Porcella are both there. No sense in dragging pack. Pack finish is my goal. Chase break gets away. Slinky-ing peleton. Time to go. Bridge up to Liberles and a junior. Culpepper tries to stay on. Culpepper and junior done. Liberles and I catch an Evolution and veloce rider. I think to myself I ought to know these guy's names, but I don't. Pack is close. Another HPC rider bridges up. Doing best attempts at echeloning. Can't catch chase break, but ahead of peleton for finish. Cat and Mouse. Peeps looking at each other at 180. Time to go. Drag HPCer behind me, 2nd from 2nd chase break. Success!
Update Update!
My hot spot sprint points helped bump me up into the top 10 (10th place)! Super stoked! Success indeed.
Fast! That was fast. I held on until the last lap and then was dropped after a almost-crash-acceleration. I managed to do a few attacks off the front, but the problem was after those attacks I settled into the back of the pack as opposed to close to the front.
Overall it was a great training race and I was very happy to see people I hadn't seen since August! Man it's been a while. For the record, Tim Smith wants to clarify that his team didn't extend me a pity-invite rather it was a you-would-be-a-great-addition-to-our-team invite. In last-minute logistics fashion I borrowed a friend's car (thanks again Elizabeth!) and drove on up in nice weather. And then I drove back with the reigning Track Team Pursuit and Track Omnium Nation Champion Zac Kovalcik who showed me an awesome eatery in Olympia.
It feels so great to be involved in bike racing where all kinds of people come together for the sake of friendly competition. Although I'm getting dropped I'm confident that I'll be able to compete later in the year, hopefully by Walla Walla. On a more lame note, I had a mini-breakdown in my training regime and my coach has instructed me to stop weightlifting so I have enough time to rest, no get important things done, like my taxes, NO - write blog posts!!! Ugggh, being an ultra-competitive racer is HAAARRRDDD.
I've been debating about whether to make a whole new blog specifically about my travels, but instead I'm opting to post my couchsurfing blog post experience over here. So, without further ado...
Austin!
Oh how I love Austin. The sun! The bike rides! The frontage roads! The music! The gregarious people! The warmth! Oh it is so great. It was so great. I am going to try to get down there for a week every winter from now on. Well, there were a lot of reasons why I went on this trip. Firstly, to sell my bicycle that I left down there. Secondly, to escape to warm weather and sun. Thirdly, to get away from work while I transition jobs. And Fourthly, because although I hadn't realized it at the time, I needed to get out and do something exciting.
Prior to this trip, I had decided to give www.couchsurfing.org a try while in Austin. For those of you who do not know, couchsurfing is a concept where strangers act either as hosts and promote their abode's couch or sometimes even spare bedroom as available for other strangers acting as couchsurfers who surf from couch to couch while traveling. Although some thought it may be kind of awkward, I thought it was an idea worth trying, but I had no idea how incredibly awesome it would all turn out in the end.
Couch #1: Nick's Couch
...or should I say the cats' bed? Although I have stayed at random people's houses before in traveling to races and such, I hadn't done this couchsurfing thing before. Unfortunately, the owning couple of the house was off on vacation in the Virgin Islands (I guess paradise is relative for everyone). However, their housemate Nick was in town. I was quite surprised that although I had no references on the couchsurfing website, Nick simply left the keys for me that evening since he was working while I was arrving. The house was fantastic and undoubtedly had to be occupied by awesome people. Nick is a far more interesting man than I despite being about the same age. He works at a sausage food cart and has a pdx-ex-pat-now-living-in-Austin girlfriend. So he was out of the house more often than not.
But that was fine by me. The first day I car2go'ed out to the office and was at long last reunited with my Felt F75. And I realized that I had also taken the wheel/cadence sensor and watter bottle cages which I then promptly purchased over at Bicycle Sport Shop. The location of the couch was very close to the edge of town, so it made for an excellent home base for bike rides. During the four days I stayed there, I rode approximately 200 miles. I rode most of the way to Bastrop twice and just relaxed or pumped iron the rest of the time. It was such a great experience and although I didn't spend all the time with my housemate and didn't get to meet the owners, it was overall awesome altogether.
Couch #2: Aaron's Mini-Frat House
Only it was more awesome than a frat house in that two women and two men lived in the four bedroom house of awesomeness. I first met Aaron as we went to Winger's which is of course where all the cool UT college kids go. And it seemed like Aaron knew everyone there, ok maybe he didn't know 20% of the people there, but definitely everyone else. Aaron is at any given point in time doing something really cool. And this summer his coolness is going to be taken to higher levels as he participates in the Texas 4000. But in the meantime, he's going to school or hosting his Texas 4000 teammates over for some backyard firepit sessions.
I got the pleasure of going on a ride on the Lost Creek loop with Aaron where he proceeded to get his workout on. He recorded a "somewhat high" heart rate of 188 on the loop which required more zone 4 than I had planned in order to keep up. He is a naturally strong rider and that was enjoyable to see. Although I got sucked into doing some contract work that required me to miss some of the firepitting, Aaron was always welcoming and always smiles. Although he'll probably crush it on the biking part of the Texas 4000, he could probably use some additional help getting to his fundraising target, so click here to give him some money.
Zoom into the pic for the BEER PONG rules!
Couch #3: Ulf's
Ulf is the culmination of Austin hipness and technology. He lives in a meticulously organized apartment in quite possibly the most hip neighborhood in Austin. Although he is known to party from time-to-time, it was mid February which meant there was serious work needed in order for him to prepare properly for SXSW. Ulf is the type of person that could not simply just skim through a music guide of bands that were given a good review - no he reviews all 3,000+ bands in alphabetical order himself. Ulf has made a custom database that records every single band's relevant SXSW information - their bio, SXSW website, Myspace website, his own classification of genre and whether they make the cut of bands he may actually see. Since I was out and about, he was pleased that he could still be a good host and make good progress on his listening to at least 2-3 songs of every band. On Thursday night he was still in the E's, by Friday night he was working through the "Fat" artists like "Fat Pimp" from Dallas or "Fatima Al Qadiri" from NYC, and by my departure Saturday morning he was in the G's.
I find it pretty funny that the beginning and end of my ownership of this bike happened in extreme haste. In June of 2009 I had dropped off my Trek 2100 (I'll write up about that bike in a later blog post) over at Tacoma Bike expecting to pick it up for a weekend of hillclimbing out in Wenatchee. However, when I went in to the shop (at 4pm, expecting to ride out at 5pm) the mechanics informed me that the bike's headset cups are so worn out that I should just chuck that bike into a garbage can. I needed a new bike and so I picked up this Felt F75 on the spot and Tony gave me a real quick fit. Then off I was to Wenatchee. Tony gave me a stern warning to "not ride too hard" since it is good to slowly break-in the new components. I started smirking. Tony then warned me again "EEEVVAAAANNNNN!!" And then off I went to Wenatchee.
The first ride I did, I climbed all the way from Eastmont to the top of Badger Mountain. Twice. While I was descending I nearly crashed since the bike was really wobbling at 50mph. After the ride I decided to call the shop about this issue. The conversation went as follows:
Tony: "Halloo, Tacoma Bike!"
Evan: "Hey Tony, it's Evan."
Tony: "Heeeyyy Evan! So how's the new bike?"
Evan: "It's kind of unstable at 50 miles per hour."
Tony: (Speaking loud enough so that presumably whoever is at the shop can hear this) "IT'S A LITTLE UNSTABLE AT 50 MILES PER HOUR?"
Evan: "Yeah."
Tony: "Right, um... [long explanation from Tony and others about what might be the issue]"
And that first-complaint-after-getting-a-new-bike joke went on at the shop for a while.
Anywho, I did so much racing on this bike. The very first race race I did with the bike was at PIR (Pacific International Raceways). And I got in a solo-break with 3-to-go and won it by about 30 seconds. That was a big turning point in my season and I started doing great. I finished off the season placing 4th at Gig Harbor, scoring another solo win at PIR, 3rd at Franz, 4th overall at the Eugene Celebration and my first weekend win ever (in my category) at Mt Ashland.
Last season, I flew the bike down to Texas since I was going to be on an extended business trip that lasted a month total. I was so enamored with Austin that I was certain I was going to live there during the winter and ride to my heart's content, so I left the bike in the office down there. As noted in my last blog post, life caught up with me and now I'm leaning more towards building my transit technology career within Portland for the 5-years out future. So, I decided that it was time to go down to Austin and sell the bike there, of course after getting in a solid week of winter riding in Austin (look for an upcoming write-up about that in the next blog post).
Come the afternoon the day before I'm supposed to leave I still hadn't quite figured out how I was going to get rid of the bike. I learned about a few options and knew the next day was going to be a whirlwind of getting the bike ready for a sale, packing up and catching my 4:15pm flight.
At 9:20am I headed out for my final bike ride. By 10:20am I wound up at Frankenbike - a monthly bike swap that just happened to be that day. I knew I was going to take back my wheels, pedals and saddle so I was looking for those three items. With great luck, this one vendor happened to have my exact same saddle - except new, a pair of Ksyriums and cheapo pedals which I scored all for $275. I swapped out my tires and cassette from my current wheels, swapped the pedals and kept the old saddle on there and by 12:30 I had briefly cleaned up the bike. I biked up to Tsunami Cycles and they had that bike taken from me in 5 minutes flat as I ran south on Congress at 1:00pm.
I placed my lunch order at Wurst Tex and got to see my couchsurfing buddy before jumping into a car2go at 1:30pm. Then I loaded up all my remaining luggage as fast and as jam-packed as possible into the car2go from my final couchsurfing venue and set off at 1:50pm with an aim to catch the bus to the airport at 1:59pm. I drove over 12th to avoid Lamar and started throwing everything out on the ground near the bus stop at 12th and Red River at 1:58pm. And 50 seconds later the bus chauffeured me to the airport arriving there at 2:30. Done and done.
...or is life catching up with me? It has been an interesting past few weeks. This post will catch y'all up on the latest and greatest:
Romance
Since it was just recently Valentines day and all, let's get the romantic news out of the way. And what I have to report to the world is that I guess that I am single again. Without going into details, I'll just say that there were some communication issues that caused complications in the relationship and I don't quite know who is to blame if not both. However, I think the following video summarizes my thoughts on the situation:
My Career
And onwards to my passion in life: being a slave to my job. Yes I can easily say that I like my day job to a greater extent than my bicycle racing career. There are a number of reasons and I think they are as follows:
- unlike racing, I don't have to spend money to make money and the money I do make at my job is considerably more than what I make racing.
- unlike racing, the work that I do benefits people as opposed to crushing their dreams whenever I place better than other racers.
But perhaps I'm not fully realizing my potential as it may be if I were to start a start-up company in that I would have to sacrifice near-term earnings while I built up my business into something profitable. Hmmm. Nah. Another note to make is that I see other racers such as Eric Lagestrom and Max 'Missle' O'Neil who are young and get invited to go to these cool training camps in Southern California while the only invite I've ever gotten is to some Washington team merely because I was usually the only Guinness rider and that I may feel too lonely.
However, as it stands today, my day job is my primary funding mechanism for launching my aspiring pro-cyclist career if that is in God's will. And there was recently some uncertainty as to whether that inflow of racing money was going to continue. There was recently some uncertainty of my company being financially solvent which caused some fallout from my current company where three people I had been working with left the company. This was fairly concerning and gave me doubts about my future at that company. So I investigated whether there may be other options and I finally ended up applying, interviewing and accepting a job at TriMet - the transit agency serving the Portland area.
This is a rather huge move for me in my career. Ever since I graduated from college I have been working with the same people on mostly auto-related projects. However, my passion is transportation and within transportation my passion is basically anything but cars. Trains, bikes, planes, ships, aerial trams and buses all fascinate me. In my long-term career plans I have always promised myself that eventually I would leave the auto industry and switch to working primarily for public transit or perhaps biking. However, I thought that that would more likely occur when I was 30 after my pro-bike racing career was winding down perhaps. So, I guess that came sooner than later and now since I have pretty much landed my dream job, I think I may be officially giving up on any hopes of going pro and racing my bike everywhere. And I think that is a decision I can be confident in making.
And Bikes
So does that mean that I'm giving up on crushing all you poser-panzie-pussie-non Guinness Cycling Team-loser-racers? Absolutely not! I'm still going to bring it to you all! But in going through my rather life-changing events with women and working, I had a feeling in the back of my mind that something else bad was still going to happen. And I was correct!
Bang! Out of nowhere, or as explained through my success equation - out of bad luck and a lack of situational awareness, I hit something - I still don't know what - on Highway 26 between the Zoo and Goose Hollow at roughly 37 mph. I think that I ended up endoing over my handlebars and definitely slid for a while on my right side and worst of all bruised my knee so much that it was roughly the size of a baseball immediately afterwards. In these rare cases, I approve of the use of cars - such as the good samaritan high school kid - Cooper - who pulled over at the Goose Hollow exit and drove me back to my appartment. And later that evening, my housemate Senthil who drove me to the ER over at Legacy Good Samaratin.
The X-Rays showed no bone fracture, but I could basically not walk with my right leg. I stayed home, popped pills and iced it up for the next 3 days, but still managed to make time for 2 interviews at TriMet. I eventually did some easy easy rides, but the knee was so stiff and it didn't feel all that pleasant to ride. Then on my first attempt to do a decent ride, I was riding along and shifted down into gear 0 - the gear between the spokes and the cassette - and nearly crashed as I skidded to a stop. After yanking out the chain, two spokes were completely broken. So I just gave up and took a bus home and took it even more easy.
Unfortunately this all came during two weeks where I was supposed to be maxing out on my weightlifting and doing lots of intervals on the bike. I finally got back into the gym this week and was surprised to find that I still had some strength and even matched my previous highest squat weight so far this year. More than anything, the knee just feels tight and gets better after stretching - which I regretfully neglected for more than a week after crashing.
Waaaa :'( :'( :'''( , life is so hard
Drama, drama, drama. Man, I have felt like there have been more broken things in my life than there were good experiences. It was like, first this girl I like is falling off the face of the earth, my job is ending and I got in an off-season crash to top it all off. But on top of all that, the weather in Portland just sucks, it rains, it's cold and dark before you know it. I really guess the moral of the story is that it is easier for things to fall apart than it is to construct a beautiful situation.
But, but, it's so hard, it's not fair, things just aren't presented to me on a golden platter, God doesn't open up the heavens and rain down mana Dave's Killer Bread. Ok, maybe I shouldn't joke about what God can and can't do, but the point I'm trying to relate to is that accomplishing stuff is not easy - it takes work. And at the end of the day, each person is responsible for their choice to work or not work. Finding the motivation to ride in the nasty, cold, dreary, dark weather has been hard for me. I am not sure how I do it sometimes, I guess I just do the working out as if it were a chore to do and just get it done. But even then, I sometimes need a little nudge in the right direction. For inspiration, I think the following video has really gotten me going the most this season:
Ya know what I feel like doing, I feel like writing up a short little blog post about whassup. Last weekend I managed to find my way out to the coast. There were a number of reasons why I chose to do this. Firstly, I had been analyzing the weather intensely and noting that the weather was bitterly freezing fog any and everywhere in the Willamette Valley, however it was warmish out along the coast and very warm above 2,000 feet.
I couldn't really find any flatish roads at 2,000 feet nearby to ride on, but then remembered that one of my church friends was getting a bunch of peeps together to go out to the coast this last weekend. I managed to secure a car to go out there and even got a spot on a bed in a yurt.
On day 1 I drove out there and began riding north from Beverly Beach State Park and got a little past Lincoln City and then meandered around Lincoln City trying to find a decent place to do 20 second sprints. And then I headed back for a total of 3.5 hours.
Day 2 I headed south to just past Waldport. And I got a flat in Waldport which was nice because it had a really nice view and there was this plaque I found and there was this crazy plane that looked like it might fly under the 101 bridge. And then I rode back and then I drove back.
And that was the end to my last big week of training in a cycle so rest week here I come! I'm glad I got in one final good ride with the S1 in its current state because now I get to clean off all the ocean sand as I install a standard crankset and new chain that is really needed. Sometimes I wonder how far I'm stretching my welcome with friends due to me going off on my own on these strange bike rides while everyone else is being social and looking at starfish or taking pictures of themselves jumping, but I think I'm doing ok.
Racing is just around the corner! Can you believe that the international opener was just this past weekend Down Under? Greipel and Goss are looking mighty fast.
Yeah, that's right. What was I thinking, leaving this blog neglected for 2 whole months! Sheesh. It's like I've lost focus on biking or something. Perhaps the top caption would better read as: "The amount of things I take for granted..."
So, I am hoping to put a stop to all of my unproductive behavior which is primarily looking at imgur and facebook until midnight. No longer damnit!
Originally, I had this post as a draft which included the following 2013 off/pre-season goals:
Learn how to pee off my bike
Make this one biking website I've been wanting to make for a while
Squat 400 pounds
Leg Press 888 pounds
Consistently weigh 180 pounds
Spend < $400 on bike stuff (excluding coaching).
Sell all unnecessary bicycles and bike parts
Something else?
I don't think I'm doing so bad with these goals so far. However, with #1 I could drink more fluids to force some practice. I have started on #2 FINALLY and am keeping it a secret to everyone until I complete version 1.0. #3 and #4 are well on their way. I have already worked my way up to 3 sets of 20 of 235 pounds squatting and am about to start really putting on more iron on that bar these coming weeks. I've already lost 10 pounds and am hovering around 180-183 right now (watch out hillclimbers, I'm coming after you, Max Missle O'Neal and Tym Lang!). I have already totally failed #6, I got a $100 bike light where I've lost one of the lights and the thing that put me over the top was the REI used gear sale, but in my defense, I bought a $400 trainer for $160 and a $240 Showers Pass Jacket for $80. #7 is not going so well, I am not motivated.
And demotivated or feeling "meh" or taking things for granted is how I feel at the moment. And I think the reason I feel that way is that nothing terrible or devasting in my life has really happened to me or perhaps if something does happen that ought to instigate a reaction like that it doesn't. I tend to get desensitized easily I guess. And with racing being so far away and nobody really badgering me to do my workouts I end up like I did today where I ended up not working out at all. However, I do have a stuffy nose, so there's my defense.
BUT STILL, I feel like I need to get back on track. So you know what, I think it's time to remind myself that I'm going to race bicycles this upcoming season. I never really got around to doing a thorough review and lookback on my last season and in my current state of demotivated, taking things for granted, I'd have to say it went OK. Well, maybe it was cool that I upgraded to the 2s and won 3 times in 3 states. And perhaps it was also nice that by the time Eugene came around, my Time Trial had gotten to with 47 seconds of the best time of the day and 93 seconds ahead of my 2011 time and a full 222 (that is nearly 4 minutes) ahead of my 2010 time. So I got faster.
So if I was that much faster, winning more races and all over the OBRA front page then where were all the ladies at? I guess this might explain some things when I say that I've been dating a special someone since October. I've met this gal Martina who is super sweet and encouraging of my bike racing lifestyle and she is great cook that isn't a fan of leftovers. There are a lot of other great things about her and if I manage to rub off on her any bit maybe she'll start racing bikes too. This New Years we went to Bend, OR and I helped teach her how to skate ski and she was a very good sport about it despite all of the falling down, I'm pretty sure she's picking it up quicker than I was.
So I'd have to say life is good right now. Got a job, got a girl, got all my bikes, got a good family, so GAME OVER. NOT!!! It's really time for me to step up my game. I do have all these things, but in the paraphrased words of a Dan Harm tweet I can't find: confident but never content. And with that, I'm going to remind myself of the upcoming season. Last year I said that I wanted to race less, but still raced a lot. Honestly I can say that I improved the most after doing very hard races, but didn't do the best after doing numerous successive so-so races. So this year I'm really going to try to focus on tough races and skip out on the not-so-hotly-contested races. Also, at times I am favoring USAC-sanctioned races because the powers-that-be make it so a USAC Cat-1 license is not available by winning OBRA races.
2013 Schedule:
February 24: Jack Frost TT - didn't do
March
3: Dirty CirclesDid Mason Lake
10: Dirty Circles or Mason Lake
+16: Heiser Farm
17: Dirty Circles - just racing around
30: IVRR
May 1-5: Tour of the Gila (maybe, if I can find a good carpool/lodging buddy)
12: Banana Belt - I had it in me
18-19: Mutual of Enumclaw
26: Ski to Sea - Kids on [lactic] acid
June
1-2: Capital Stage Race - Finally some rest 8: Ballard 9: Volunteer Park
16: Rainier Road Race And back to racing
21-23: Mt Hood Cycling Classic (last ever!) Mt Hood 2013 29: Tacoma Twilight or 28-30: Baker City - family vacation in Montana
August
3: Franz (OBRA Crit)
4: OBRA TT
11: Bridge Pedal - wait that's not a race.
17: Giro di Portland
23-25: Eugene
September 15: Mt Ashland Hillclimb even though it's so late
October
5-6: Saw an Oregon Coast gravel ride and thought that sounded like a lot of fun! Oregon Coast Gravel Epic, Oregon Coast Fat Tire Ride & Run MTB
