There's work to be done

What a whirlwind of a past few days. I did ok facing a logistical nightmare for this weekend. Unfortunately, I did not setup my two new bikes in time for Enumclaw, but things are in the works for them. Even still I had a whole lot of work to get done and used a lot of cool tools to make sure I had everything planned out in an accomplish-able manner. Most of the weekend it seemed like I was either completely busy or had wayy too much time to kill.

Friday:

6:30: Woke up, prepared today's and tomorrow's breakfast. Prepared my race bike for transport by strapping my American Classic Wheels to the bike so I could have Amtrak take a bike with four wheels. Walked and caught the MAX with my big red suitcase, wheelbags with my carbon American Classic 58s, my backpack and my race bike with four wheels.
8:00 Train to Tacoma. Ate breakfast on train and did some work which included booking airline tickets for an upcoming 2 week trip to Austin, TX.
11:00 Arrived in Tacoma and picked up Karly's car at Tacoma Dome Station. Went back to the train station to pick up the rest of my luggage. Drove to Seattle to pick up a TT frame and Disc that my teammate Todd Gallaher sold to me.
13:00 Picked up my frat bro Gianpaolo and chose a restaurant to eat at in Little Saigon that had a direct view of Karly's car. Food wasn't so great, but the conversation about women was.
14:30 Drove to Tacoma Bike and picked up a trainer that Mike Brown graciously loaned to me for the weekend. It was rather strange this time in Tacoma Bike since I knew nobody that worked there. And furthermore, compared to my new bike shop of choice of Athlete's Lounge in Portland it didn't seem all that race-worthy as it used to. Also picked up a bike box and had to put the TT Frame and disc inside of it and remove the headrests of both front seats in order to fit everything into the car.

16:30 Met the newest housemate of Tracy's no... Karly's no... umm that house on South 7th. And she was a cute Christian chic who was about to go on a bike ride! Zing! I kitted up really quick and rode with her out as far as 19th and Jackson and then did some intervals around the 5 mile drive.
19:00 Took a shower and then biked out to a Taco Truck. Saw Gary (a guy who I used to be cool and ride fixed around Tacoma with) walk by and chatted a bit.
20:00 Bike conversion to TT setup and then in bed just after 9pm!

Saturday:

6:00 Woke up, packed all stuff for the day into the car and drove out to Enumclaw.
7:30 Setup and warmup for the TT.
9:54:00 TT Start
10:08:30 Finished TT. Was not happy with that time. A number of things were not right for this. Firstly, I didn't have a TT bike. I now have the frame so I am solving this issue. Also, my heart rate monitor wasn't working. And I was riding the course for the first time, but man I was hoping to have rode that faster.
12:00 Terriyaki lunch with Todd G.
13:00 Killing a lot of time.
15:00 Decided to go do some work in the Enumclaw library. Did that and then watched the last stage of the Tour of California that another racer was watching via internet feed in the library.
18:30 Sort of warming up for Crit.
19:40 All of the Cat 3s had lined up for the crit that the tech guide said was actually starting at 7:50. I still managed to get a good starting position on the line. In this crit I really realized that I have a lot to work on in my cornering abilities. The only places to move up were on the long straightaways or the corners, but using the corners right meant everything. I just could not find a good line through the final corner and despite being 6th wheel going into the finish I didn't make the top 10.
20:40 Talking to my coach and Klipper about my suckiness averageness in the TT and Crit.
21:00 Drove home. Showered, ate some food.

Sunday The Day that Cycling BC utterly dominated the Mutual of Enumclaw:

7:00 Woke up. Biked to the Hilltop Safeway, cooked breakfast, setup the bikes and headed out.
11:00 Let a borderline hypothermic Andrew Austin warm up in the idling car. He was waiting for his dad to finish the masters race so didn't have any spare clothes. But even then I had to pretty much yell at him to take off his damn soaking-wet kit and change into some dry clothes I borrowed to him.

I also checked out the Cat 3 GC standing at the moment. It read as follows:
1. Apex
2. Apex
3. HSP
4. Cycling BC
5. Olympia Ortho
6. Apex
7. HSP
8. Apex
9. HSP
10. Team Stanley

And I was sitting 29th. At 1:42 back.

13:00ish The Cat 3 Men begins. Weather is wet, but there are still perhaps 50ish riders at the start. On the corner to 456th a Cycling BC kid takes it too hard and crashes himself, but that is the last thing that goes wrong for that team today. Next an obligatory early break starts off with what appears to be an Apex guy and someone else. I try to position myself towards to front to see what this hill is like. The hill is pretty good, nice and long with a few steep sections. Then a long downhill where I was either braking to go the speed of the pack or nearly hoverplaning over the rumble strips.

OK, I'm now just as bored with writing this race summary as I was with actually racing going on a fun ride up until the final 2 laps. Basically mostly HSP and Apex set a pathetic pace that had my heart rate dipping into z1 territory. I made some attacks, but then they just sat on my damn wheel so hard that I literally had to stop pedaling entirely for them to pull through. On lap 3 there was some action going on with the climbs and I was up there with the attackers, but the field kept in contact.

Lap 4 is where things got interesting. Right before the hill, a Cycling BC guy kindly asks me "do you want to go on the hill?" I reply "If I have it". Cycling BC attacks hard with 2 of their guys on the 2nd steep section on the beginning of the climb. Nobody responds. I myself at that point thought "eh, that part is too steep." But then I didn't even go on the false flat. And nobody went! When we got to the downhill we could see Cycling BC catching the day-long break up the road that was 1:40 away at the last random-voice-from-the-road.

At this point the field was reduced to perhaps 20 riders, but it was seriously only 2 guys working and again lots of braking on the downhill. My breakaway tactics had no success on the flats and after seeing Cemanski and Tim pull - if you can call it that - a good distance to the bottom of the climb I knew I was going to attack on that climb. Shortly after the two steep sections there is this little bump and I went there and nobody except another Cycling BC guy followed so we started breaking away from the field. And we worked together until we reached the break up the road which was not the other two Cycling BC guys from the previous lap, but one Cycling BC guy and an HSP guy which really surprised me. Me and my breakmate were pulling hard still, but then his teammate yelled at him "No! We have a man up the road!", to which at first he replied "No, c'mon we can do this!", but his teammate insisted on not going. Also me hammering my ass off on the downhill probably convinced him to let up as well.

I was just trying to breakaway and get any seconds or at least 5th in the race so I kept going hard downhill. HSP dude didn't pull through until we got to a flat section of the downhill and it was quite clear - clear due more to his speed of pulling through than his constant ranting of "I dunno if I can keep this up, I think I'm going to die any moment!" - that he wasn't going to keep a strong pace. Cycling BC didn't pull once in our break. And then when we turned right onto 284th, both guys from Cycling BC laid down an unmatchable attack up the little riser. It was then a left onto 440th and the field was closing in. HSP was now even more ferverent in his predictions of imminent explosion. I kept pedaling past the 1k and it was gonna be close. Left onto Railroad and I started getting out of the saddle and got passed only by 1 person from the field for 5th place.

Race post mortem

In this race, Cycling BC took 1st, 2nd and 3rd place. 1st place solo'ed away to put 1:40 ONE MINUTE AND FORTY SECONDS!!! on the field plus a 10 second time bonus to take 1st in GC. And this wasn't the Cycling BC's guy who was 4th GC going into the race - he was right around the exact time back I was! Cycling BC's 4th place GC going into the race got 2nd place, had 10 seconds gap and added 6 seconds bonus which put him in 2nd in GC. The GC leader going into the race came in nearly 7 minutes behind, but only one Apex guy held onto the pack to salvage 3rd GC and the only final top 10 GC from Apex after beginning the day with 4 members in top 10 GC. HSP pretty much held their spots, but then the 3rd place Cycling BC guy launched himself up 2 spots in GC into the top 10 at 9th.

I personally am asking myself some serious questions like "why didn't I follow the race-winning attack on the hill?" or "should I have tried harder to mess with the minds of my breakmates when I did breakaway?" or even "should I have been yelling at the field for being a bunch of sandbaggers?" Whatever the case, it is still clear that my road racing tactics are not perfect and need more work. And for the other teams out there, I'm not going to go into any more detail, but I hope you all realized how badly you got your asses whooped. If you don't realize this then I would be happy to explain it to you.

And onwards

16:30 Changed in my car, packed everything, called in an order to go at El Camino, checked race results, picked up fajitas to go, drove to Tacoma Amtrak and had about a half an hour to spare.
18:00 It now was really dawning on me how bad Cycling BC beat us and I was explaining in detail the situation to a long-lost friend-of-my-sister, Becky that was taking the train too. I ate a bunch of food on the train.
21:00 Transported my race bike, bike box and suitcase with the help of Becky back home.

23:00 Losing sleep thinking about Cycling BC's domination.

Monday

8:00 Packing for trip to Austin.
12:00 Lunch with family.
13:00 Struggling to fit 3 wheels and race bike into a bike box. Had to call Brent from veloshop Portland Bicycle Studio to figure out that I was a total moron and was twisting my pedals the wrong way as hard as possible in trying to get them off.
15:00 At PDX.
00:30 (Central) In AUS.
01:00 Rolling in a rental Jeep through massive Texas interchanges.

And with that publish post button I'm off the bike for this week. I'm planning on doing Austin's version of PIR next Thursday and then driving for 5 hours to get to a road race that Saturday just to drive back to San Antonio for a crit the next day. And then I'm flying back just in time for Mt. Hood where if any of you poser Cat 3 racers from Washington come down you're probably in for an even worse ass-beating unless you all learn real quickly how to climb hills and protect your GC leaders. Actually, I look forward to seeing you in all honesty. :)

Thanks to the following people/entities for their support:

My sister Karly for going out of her way to loan me her car and to let me use her dwelling place.

My employer Mygistics for being very flexible with my racing schedule

TrafficBug^® - The Commuter's Companion^SM (ok, I helped myself with this) for being such an awesome traffic app that provided realistic travel times for driving and thus scheduling my weekend.

Tacoma Bike for letting me borrow a trainer for the weekend.

The residents of the house on S 7th for good company and some garlic I took

All of the volunteers and coordinators who made the MOE happen

Becky for helping me haul all of my bike equipment back home on the MAX

My family for delivering me to the Airport

Roller Coaster

Guess I better update this blog. Last time I wrote, I was high off of the stage win and ultimate 6th in GC at the Tour of Walla Walla. So clearly, I was back on track towards a future pro career in racing, just like I may have believed last year. Not!

Next up was winning the Washington State road champs of course up at Olympic Valley. Now, all right, this year I think I have a little different perspective on racing. At this point perhaps I have given up on being the next Lance Armstrong overnight, but I have not given up on improving my aptitude and fitness as a bike racer. I approach races considering what the course is like and learning from mistakes which always happen, but the fewer, the better.

Olympic Valley

Honestly, Olympic Valley wasn't much of an event to write home about. Apex and Olympia Ortho sent some guys out on an early break and then proceeded to sit on the front. At one point, an Olympia Ortho rider went to the front and seemed to be actually doing some work. A douchebag concerned Apex rider thought out loud, "gosh does that OO rider know he has a breakmate off the front? I better go up and tell him." At this point, I just got so pissed off at this lack of racing and put in a hard attack and closed about half of the distance to the break with Apex sitting on my damn wheel and no other teams doing anything. The race after that was rather boring except for all the pointless crashes and slow-speed jockeying for position towards the end. It came to a field sprint and I ended up following a dumb move at about 200m meter sign which was actually 500m. Once the real 200m actually came, the actual sprinters sprinted past me. However, on the plus side, I still rode hard enough to avoid getting rammed into from behind.

PIR

Again at PIR, it became apparent that I have to work on my field sprint. I tried to breakaway a lot and didn't have much of positioning or sprinting abilities. Good thing this race is every Tuesday and there are hot spots which makes for lots of practicing opportunities.

Vance Creek

And now for a course that isn't mostly flat! As I drove to the course, I noticed that the finish line was moved about 200m further west than last year so it was a false flat followed by very slight uphill immediately after the big hill. A finish very suited for me. This turned out to be a really fun race for me. The weather was really interesting in that it was dry on the western half of the course, but then rainy on the east side. We were going to do 6 laps, but on the first lap a big breakaway with all kinds of teams got away. Another highlight from the first lap was that there was another random pointless crash that I nearly missed - in fact there was a wheel of a bike flying in the air that I nudged out of the way with my right hand. There were perhaps 7 riders in the break so I decided that I should try and get in on that break since although it was really early, it may have a chance of surviving. So me and an Olympia Ortho rider attacked the filed and took about 2/3 of a lap to catch the break. But when I got to the break, it became apparent that the pace was a little too relaxed. It was so weird, there were like 9 of us - all from different teams - and on lap 4 we lost the entire 1:40 gap.

Well, back to the drawing board. There were some attacks after that, I can't really remember, but nothing was sticking. On the final lap Alex from Old Town made a good move for his abilities by attacking right before the farm road. He held a good gap, but lost it on the rollers. It was going to be a field sprint again. I positioned myself on the right and kept following wheels and scooting around people getting dropped. By the time we got to the top, I was third wheel and then Matt attacked. The wheel I was following jumped out and I had to give him some room to not take me out, then I followed that wheel, jumped around it and sprinted for 2nd! Woot Woot!

Montinore

On the way home from Vance Creek, I ended up getting to bed later than desired and not sleeping as much for the 9am race start the next day at Montinore. The course was really cool with lots of corners and a long power hill. The Klipper-mobile came by and we all got to the race with less than an hour to prep which is usually not enough for me I have found out. I kind of need to do everything before the race. Change, go to the bathroom, get the carbon wheelz ready, get my food ready, get my numbers ready. Perhaps I'm just slow at this prep work, but I got to the start line barely before the race started without having made as much use as desired out of the bathroom.

The pace was fast from the beginning and I was already getting slinkied off the back due to no warmup. The first time we went up the hill I knew I was in trouble. I was moving backwards in the pack and had to chase on the downhill. I also really had to go to the bathroom. The 3rd lap I had managed to get to the front and figured that since I was probably going to get dropped anyways, I might as well put in a good pull since not many other teams were racing. Just before the hill, I used some sharp corners and speed up and really strung out the field going into the hill. And then I proceeded to drop back through the field and ended up off the back at the top. I had to chase with a few other people for a while on the flats to get back on all while being in pain in the groin area at that point. Next lap I was dropped for good and detoured to the porto-potties at the staging area. But I still went for some riding after that and paced the women's field up the climb again. However, on the descent I noticed that my rear wheel was noticeably flat, so now I just called it quits altogether.

Rest Week

I'm pretty sure I still have not figured out how to execute on a getting a good rest week. The afternoon of the Montinore race I hung out with Klipper originally intending to hangout and help him with some yardwork. Instead, that turned into drinking 5 beers, watching the Giro, then watching Rugby 7s, then watching the Giro again and me finally biking home slightly intoxicated at about 11pm.

Two days so far this week I have gotten 9+ hours of sleep which were immensely needed, but the rest of the days have been around 7 hours and I am now grumpy. And I'm probably going to not do the OBRA champs tomorrow cause I'm grumpy due to lack of sleep. And now something smells in my apartment which is probably due to me not cleaning it. Right now I am in such a grumpy mode that I just want to yell "SHUTUP" to those little children nextdoor; I am entertaining going on another Facebook unfriending rampage against some people for really petty crap; and I want to even further highlight how disgusting some of my friends are for eating ice cream with a topping that had - I am not making this up - lactic acid as one of its ingredients. But I know all these things are counter-productive. Kids are actually very positive and fun, I regret unfriending some people from previous rampages and now it'll be weird if they ever find out, and there is actually debate as to whether lactic acid is as bad as it is made out to be.

Next rest week I seriously need to start it out right with going to bed at 9pm the first night. All this unpreparedness and lack of sleep I'm blaming on myself not getting a good start of getting to bed early enough and then not starting my day right enough the next day. I feel like a bike chain that hasn't been lubed in a while right now.

Coming up on DJStroky Racing...

1. Mutual of Enumclaw is going to be a serious race for me next weekend.
2. I'm getting a new race bike
3. I'm getting a TT bike
4. I'm not upgrading to the 2s yet, however I calculated all my upgrade points and I am still in the zone where I have enough to upgrade, but not enough for a forced upgrade! So all you people calling me 'sandbagger' can ponder that info. I actually don't have anywhere near enough points to upgrade if only my Oregon races are counted. My plan is to upgrade after Mt. Hood.

Tour of Walla Walla 2012

I had a really fun weekend. Things really came together in all areas. I got a lot of thoughts, so let me try to go through them chronologically.

The weekend before.

I went out to King's Valley and got a flat on the first lap and had wheel change issues and dnf'ed. It sucked and it was hard to even force myself to do a second lap. The next day I went for a long ride out as far up Larch Mountain road I could with some new biking friends. That was a lot of fun and a nice day.

Things start clicking... literally

On Monday I went to a shop to have them glue on a new tire. While there I also was planning on putting on some new speedplay cleats - a task that was long overdue since I had not done any maintenance whatsoever to the cleats since I first bought the system in July of 2010. They were so bad that the screws attaching the cleat apparatus to the cleat mount were totally stuck if not fused together in a huge pile of rust. Luckily, a shop mechanic was able to drill out the cleat screws and then hacksaw off the apparatus.

Once the new cleats were on (and I had inserted the cleat anglers the right direction) my bike felt like a totally new bike. It was responding with seemingly no loss of power transfer to my every stroke. That night on some hillclimb intervals I easily got the farthest up the hill than ever before. Then at PIR, it felt easy to hang with the pack and even get onto Beardsley's or Ginsberg's wheel in a sprint. However, the wet track and my still slippery tires made things seem a little to sketchy to want to risk sprinting. At least a teammate got in a break so the team got 4th.

And now for the main event

The first stage race of the year for me! There really has not been a stage race that I've been to where it wasn't awesome and this one has been the most awesome yet. I feel like the Tour of Walla Walla is a really challenging regional stage race where doing well means far more than doing well in a local race or even a smaller stakes stage race.

Logistics

Getting there was definitely a battle and I was set on not camping this year. It was also tough to even find a ride out there again, but things worked out. Ted from Audi hooked me up with some other Spokanites (Spokanistanis?) that were renting out a house for the weekend. I slept on the couch the first night and managed to negotiate half of a bed the following evening just like last year. On a sad note, my housemate has been in India for a family emergency, but was gracious enough to loan me his car for the weekend. And off I went!

Friday

This year I have been trying to be a little smarter in choosing where I make my efforts. That means that I did not bury myself trying to breakaway on the first lap. I saved most of my efforts for the hill. The first time up was moderate and I was a wheel-length out of contention for a mountain prime, that was pretty cool though. After that, nobody wanted or could breakaway so I just waited up at the front for the hill again. It came and the pace got harder. Attacks came at 5k to go, but then the winner went at 3k and stayed away by 10 seconds. I came in 9th which I was quite satisfied with. And my mom had some homemade applesauce for me at the finish! Nice.

Saturday

It would seem as if I need to take on some better strategies for criterium riding. Namely not hammering on the front for 75% of the race. After the final prime I actually got away from the field, but then Team Bonehead Cycling sent a guy up to me who then proceeded to attack me and didn't get that far away. Ultimately the peleton caught us after a valiant imbecile pull from another Team Bonehead Cycling guy. I was amazed and then nervously pedaled on the back of the pack in anticipation of a crash that never materialized. Nice.

I took things to another level in the Time Trial. Compared to last year, there now wasn't any wind, I had carbon wheelz and I had a skinsuit. But moreover I again set speed targets for each section of the road. On the first section I didn't anticipate the very slight wind so was a little slower than I wanted to go, but then I crushed it over my target up the hill. On the long downhill I wasn't going as fast as I wanted, but I was still flying. Then I didn't really have a good sense of how far that last stretch was and probably could've pushed it harder. I passed one guy and only got passed by the TT winner which is fine by me, especially since it was Tim. He's all right. My time was 21:16 compared to 24:37 last year. I am pretty stoked about that improvement.

Sunday

Sunday was my day. This time all things came together in the Success Equation, but more importantly I added a dynamic element to the equation in that I adapted my strategy as the race played out. I was sitting 9th in GC, so I was going to breakaway, no question. Last year I attempted to breakaway on the long downhill backstretch on the first lap and then barely had enough energy to stay with the pack after getting caught. This year I was going to go either on the hill after the sharp left or the feedzone hill.

The race day weather was predicted to be 80 degrees with very little wind. So I took 3 water bottles with me. Just before the race I had to swap rear wheels after I had had enough with this valve extender that could not accept air. Right before the start I took a leak (in a port-o-potty) which was a good sign that I was staying hydrated.

As the race began nothing much was happening, except Audi was absolutely intent on getting a break going. They had a guy get away with some other people by the time we got to the backstretch. I was waiting for the GC guys and their teams to do the work to bring it back. Tim (2nd in GC), his teammate and #1 GC put in their time at the front. Eventually we caught them just before the long hill on the front stretch after the break just died completely perhaps due to someone getting a flat, not quite sure.

Now it was time for some counter-attacks. Another Audi guy went up the road along with 2 others. Then a pro-city rider (they had 2 guys in top 10 GC) started mashing his pedals like no other to bridge up. I decided I may as well jump on this free ride and see what happens. It was a little early and not according to my plan, but the effort to stay on that wheel didn't require a lot of exertion for me, so I gave it a shot. We got up to the break quite easily and then were joined by an HSP rider (also 2 of them in top 10 GC). The Audi guy and the Pro City guy fell off, but we still had a yellow jerseyed (not GC-leader yellow) Canadian who claimed he was about to explode due to lack of water.

And so it was 3 of us and we began working. Each of us seemed to be putting in our fair share of effort even despite me taking a break here and there at the back to eat some food. We motored down the long downhill backstretch and then tempo'ed up the feed zone hill. All of us grabbed a watter bottle, but then hammered it down that hill so hard that we almost ran into the lead car if it weren't for us yelling at it. Then up the final hill and we still had our gap. It was then an intense mental and physical battle for us all the way down the hill to the finish. We could see the peleton just dangling about 20-15 seconds behind us most of our descent. After each pull we would nervously look over our shoulder but still kept working. All in all we were quite lucky that the field didn't organize themselves.

We got to the 1k mark and this little 3-man break that could had the podium sealed. After having downed my remaining half a energy bar at 1.5k I was ready for the sprint. We knew yellow jersey wouldn't contest so HSP sat on his wheel and I on his. With 180 to go HSP made a slight move to the right and then I blasted off to the left and pounded it out. At first I was like, is this happening? Am I about to win? Did HSP somehow cross before me? Whoa, I crossed the line! I think I won! I WON!!! YEAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!! YEAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!! I actually screamed "YEEEAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!" twice. First time as I pumped my left hand in the air. And the second time while pumping the right hand. YYYEEEAAHHHHHH!!! I just screamed that again in my apartment as I'm righting this, but not too loud, don't want to wake the neighbors. That was an amazing win for me and ranks up there as one of the hardest won and deserved wins given the challenge of the reputable Tour of Walla Walla. I have been so psyched and pumped since this win.

Me and Team Guinness really want to obtain a picture of me winning this stage. Please let me know if you or anyone you know has a picture. I am going to put it here in this blog.

Not Quite, but Almost

All right back to racing! Oh wait, blah blah blah training, lots of hill climbing intervals this 3rd intense week of a build. But wait wait!

An Important Announcement from My Employer

TrafficBug^® - The Commuter's Companion^SM was released to the public in both website (with Flash) and iApp format this week. TrafficBug helps commuters and travelers navigate through traffic finding the fastest route possible and alerting users about any traffic incidents along the way. TrafficBug has the ability to create personalized trips between any two locations (accessible by roads in the US, Mexico and Canada). Not only does TrafficBug have the ability to create personalized routes, but it also allows takes into account the historical and realtime traffic along the way based on the time of day of your trip. Leave the worrying about your commute to TrafficBug as it is constantly monitoring the roadways to give you the best advice on how to get to your destination quickly or even if you need to leave earlier in order to arrive by a specific time.

I've been working on parts of this app for a long time - over a year now and I am very happy that we finally have a product to sell. There are a whole lot of things I still want to improve, but at some point we have to have something to sell since nothing will ever be perfect. So, please download the app or go to the website and try it out and let us know what you think about it. We would love to hear your feedback and would be ecstatic if you purchased even a one-month subscription let alone a three-month or even yearly subscription.

Piece of Cake

Getting There

Now, it is a huge oxy-moron that I work for a company seemingly obsessed with auto-transportation yet bike nearly everywhere. But the bigger oxy-moron is that the only reason I get in a car these days is to go bicycling (at bike races of course). And now each time I travel to bike races I'm constantly checking our TrafficBug app to see what it actually is like using it in a car.

I had the pleasure of commuting to the Piece of Cake Road Race in anti-bike racing rural Amity, OR with the Guinness Cycling Team Leader extraordinaire Dave Klipper and the cool Cliff Heaberlin (another one of my teammates in Cat 2). Getting to Amity is an interesting task because there are numerous ways to get there and we had opinions from everyone on which route to take. Ultimately it was Dave driving which meant that we were using whichever navigation system he preferred at that moment in time. At first we were using his car's Navigation system which told us to go through Salem, so we headed towards Salem. TrafficBug said to go back-roads via McMinville, but later I found that the geocode result it got (from Google, yes I am blaming them) put the location about 6 miles north of where we actually needed to go.

Once we started driving over the Salem bridge we had a massive navigation breakdown. We had just exited the highway somewhat accidentally and were in a predicament. Cliff was suggesting we go north via backroads, the car navigation still thought we were on the highway and I couldn't press buttons fast enough to make TrafficBug recalculate. Eventually Dave decided to get back on the highway and asked a passing bicyclist how to get back on the highway - local knowledge trumps!

The race

All right, 3 laps with 3 miles of gravel per lap and a whole bunch of relatively flat countryside to spare. I started at the very back which was a bad idea because I had no idea that the gravel came at mile 3. So from the car horn we were rocking and rolling! And then we hit the gravel and people began shattering off with flats about every 20 seconds. Earlier in the week I bought some brand-new tires anticipating this, but it turns out that these tires were the absolute worst tires I have every bought because not only were they incredibly slick in any kind of rain but I flatted out 5/6ths of the way through the gravel on the first lap. These tires will go unnamed for now in the event that I can't return them to the store and need to sell them.

I got a wheel change but the support crew said it was sort of rubbing the brake pad - it was definitely out of true, but I was happy to have a thick 28c tire to support my heavy ass now. I suffered to just get back onto a flat tire chase group and caught them just as they caught the rest of the field which was thankfully going really slow. So now I made damn sure that I was close to the front before the gravel came again and I was 3rd wheel when it came. Just before the gravel, Kyle made his move and motored away from the field. I thought it was still a little early and waited for other moves since there was good representation from other teams. Eventually it became apparent that none of the other teams had any kind of arsenal or organization (except for Soraz's blocking abilities) to chase down Kyle and now Eric was running up the road solo.

The gravel was coming up again and I attacked and started bridging up to Eric and caught him just before the gravel. For the next 10 miles Eric totally put me in the gutter - especially when he was taking his pull! We were closing in on Kyle and riding away from the field, but I lost contact with Eric's wheel and it was all over for me at that point. Well, not all over because I rejoined the chase group and then got to watch the sprint which involved a spectacular crash which involved a guy that seemed to lose control of his bike and hit the ground and then the finish sign and then the ladder holding the finish results camera and finally the medic's car. But apparently he was ok and got 5th! Woohoo!

Meanwhile, in the P 1/2 race

The p12's had to do 5 laps and I was waiting for a long time for them to get back. It turns out that Dave had won it in the sprint by a handy 3 bike lengths! There was quite a story about the race and all the tactical battles and how Dave ultimately found that finish line before anyone else. Very well played.

Public Urination

Uh.. excuse me? Yes, this topic deserves a whole section whole blog post due to the circumstances and fine mannerisms of the bicycle racers on this day in Oregon bicycle racing. It is a wide-known fact that bicycle racers are douchebags and the epitome of the bike racing antics is our need to urinate. You see it is all a function of making sure our bodies stay hydrated during the race in order for the body to perform well. As a result, us bike races need to urinate often - sometimes even during the race - sometimes multiple times in the same race.

Due to the request from some specific people on this matter I unfortunately cannot provide the internet you with further details. I'll just say that there is a big difference between public urination and discrete public urination and also that I learned that I need to hydrate to the point where I should need to publicly urinate. Gosh, I really want to tell this story in greater detail, but I cannot.

Onwards

On Sunday I rode out to Estacada by myself since everybody else was too cool doing their own rides. I had a good time though since I had never biked out there before.

This coming week I've got a rest week, and I am going to try HARD to rest. Starting with publishing this blog post before 10:45pm any further errors be damned! So I've got a few goals that will help me rest.

#1 NO TRYING TO SCORE DATES WITH HOT BIKE RIDIGN CHICKS. I spent wayyy too much effort on this the last two rest weeks I had and probably ultimately drove them away for doing so.

#2 Do fun stuff that I like doing. I'm going to spin some records, work on a website or two and maybe even make this blog look a little prettier.

#3 clean up my messy apartment. I've been all home alone with my housemate being in India for over a month now to support his sick sister. Pray for her. But I need to clean a bunch of stuff since everything got disorganized due to lack of time this week.

Bike riding is fun

No racing this week, but riding as always. Some highlights:

Tuesday

Steep hillclimb intervals and then some more hillclimb intervals after that. Felt great.

Wednesday

Had a confrontation with a MAX fare inspector for being the 5th bike in the train car. He wanted to see my ID because I was supposedly blocking the walkway. I didn't comply and a bunch of other people argued against him too.

Thursday

More hillclimb intervals, but didn't feel as strong. Maybe it was because that by the end of the ride I had realized that my front deraileur cage had broken. The top metal holder had broken so now the right side of the cage was rubbing on the crank, but the left side was rubbing the chain no matter where I shifted to.

Saturday

Rode my own Ronde Von Flaanderen. Went up the SW hills via Terwilliger/Westwood then out Fairmount/Hewett, then up 59th, then out Skyline and down Old Germantown and then up North on Kaiser back to Skyline, back down Old Germantown again, then up Springville then down Thompson and I still hadn't had enough so I went out to 82nd/Glisan and then headed back on Burnside.

Sunday

Was trying to avoid the intense rains, but eventually made my way out to St. Johns then along Marine View where the fun started. There was an intense crosswind that was nearly blowing me off my bike all along the airport. Then I got a slow leak just after that on the front tire. I put in a new tube, stashed my bag with all my gear behind a tree and headed out for some intervals. Halfway out to Troutdale in the middle of interval 2 of 3 my rear tube exploded. I started walking back and eventually hitchhiked with a very nice old couple back to the I-205 path where I had left my bag. I put my slow leak tube back in and then attempted interval 3 up the 205 trail to Gateway Max. And then at the Gateway MAX I was threatened by another fare inspector with a $159 fine for not walking my bike on the platform - but by walking he meant that I couldn't even straddle my bike and stand up.

I need me some more racing to push myself though. Piece of Cake is coming up Saturday and I'm looking forward to it.

Same old, same old

In each of the four races I've done so far this year, a break got away and I wasn't in it. That is all.

Something isn't right

Well, it was a rest week and I had some days off, but at times I struggled to rest. I would be laying in my bed for 10 hours but only sleep 7-8 hours. My mind was keeping me up. Anyways, come Saturday I was back on the bike doing some z4. I had a delightful ride heading out to St. Johns around the terminal past the airport and did an interval out to Troutdale and then headed back towards the airport and then down to Dave's Killer Bread to stock up on gluten.

Hagg Lake

Then Sunday, it was on to racing. I headed out to Hagg Lake with the help of the awesome Eric and Ellen from my church group. I thought it was going to be about as miserable as last week's Mason Lake, but the weather turned out to be nice and sunny. There were only 13 riders in my field. All was going well, but I could tell there were some monsters in this field who were about to rip things up. On lap 2, Tim attacked on the decent west hill and then Kyle, Jesse and Al all matched the attack and proceeded to put the hurt on. I was trying to bridge but had just nothing on the steeps it seemed. After the sprint hill I tried harder to bridge with the help of my teammate Tyler, but by the time we got to the middle of the dam we gave up and decided to wait for the next 2 chasers.

Eventually we had a little chase peleton of 6 of us going, but I knew it wasn't close to the pace Kyle would be setting. Lap 4 we dropped the Hutch's rider and then it was me who was struggling to keep up with the group on the steeps. Lap 5 I got dropped for good on the sprint hill and pedaled in z2 the rest of the lap. Turns out 2 other cat 3s quit so I was 10th and second to last.

I got dropped, really?

Wow, guess I'm not in Cat 4 anymore. But still, last year I was the one doing the attacks even in Cat 3 but admittedly the breaks I did get in weren't solo breaks. But I could always stay with the peleton, but this week's peleton was quite small.

After talking to my coach about this, I'm thinking that I'm having a self-confidence problem. The problem isn't that I have utterly no self-confidence, it's that I don't have a massive self-confidence. Based on what my coach tells me and what I've seen myself output on the bike before, I know that I should be able to stay with the pack and even get in that break. And looking at my data, I was only at 172 beats per minute heart rate when I got dropped on the final lap - not even in my z5!! It could've been that due to only believing 70% of the way in myself that I was only able to output 70% of the possible power that I can actually output. It could've even been that it wasn't my body that felt like it was shutting down, it could've been that my mind was perceiving a shut-down even though I had room for exertion.

So my diagnosis is that without a strong self-confidence or perhaps faith, challenging situations are going to be much harder to excel in since the mind limits whatever needs to be done to perform at the high level. It seems quite likely to me that especially in a bike race pain can be amplified through a loss of self-confidence. But not only in a bike race, nearly anything where there is effort required low self-confidence can just ruin people. I imagine and can even relate to the homeless people outside who may at times just piss themselves yet do not have the self-confidence that they can stand up and pull themselves out of the literal shit they have created. Or perhaps you can take Arthur Ashe's quote for it as my Mom shared with me:

The most important factor determining success in athletic competition is often the ability to control mood swings that result from unfavorable changes in the score.

I'm perhaps a bit reluctant about this self-confidence thing however, because I'm a firm believer in using numbers, statistical evidence and formulas to make decisions - I will try to rationalize anything in excel if I can. And I further dislike that self-confidence is often times used by people instead of hard evidence in decision making. But often times this self-confidence thing is what people kind of notice and can use as a gauge to estimate someone's ability to deliver on something, and perhaps it is quite a reliable trait that can be used as a gauge for some items.

Nonetheless, I must admit that self-confidence matters quite a bit. In trying to categorize it in the success equation I came up with, I'd say it would fall under the execution parameter. It's possible to have massive self-confidence in say biking at an average speed of 30 mph for 20 miles, but if you don't have the resources (fitness) it's still probably not going to happen. It's rather weird thinking about how the mind works and directs the body to do things, but that is what is going on - it's not like the legs control the mind, they just whine and complain under stress hence Jens Voigt's saying "shutup legs!"

So what to do, or what would Arthur Ashe do?

I knew that I had to do everything possible to keep this avalanche of deadly emotion from starting. One simply must not despair, even for a moment.

It's so cheesy, but it's so true about letting bad thoughts entering your mind. When you start believing less in yourself in anything that you do, your mind will be unable to perform at the level you want and in the case of bike racing it won't be able to overcome the whining and complaining of the legs saying "stop, this is haarrddd. wawawawa" and perhaps the mind will give in and give up. Instead, excellence must be pursued.

IVRR, I'm coming for you

Goal: annihilate myself on the hills of Independence Valley. I will not be satisfied with any race performance this weekend unless I hit a heart rate of 192. I know I can do it, I've seen myself hit a heart rate of 196 last year. Aside from that, I think I'll be satisfied if I stay with the pack, but if I'm still with the pack after that last hill, we'll see what happens.