Le Tour de Futon

Watched a bit of the Tour (live) this AM before heading down the hallway to my office. (I need a TV in my office. Just for the Tour.)

Is there anything better than sitting on the futon, in the cool of a summer morning, mug of tea in hand and watching cycling badasses?

Yep. It's doing all of the above AND EATING A DONUT!

Booyah.

MTB Short-Track #3

All portents were bad.

I left the house late. Traffic was stalled. I signed in with a mere 10 mins to go on the clock. However, the beginners were still going so I relaxed a little. I decided to go warm up a little, but kept the starting area within view.

Brrrrr. Brrrrr. Rrrrrr go my tires. Hm. Still no one lining up at the start... must be running a little late today. Caught a break there.

5 after. Still no one at the start. A little weird... better go in for a look. I happen to overhear the announcer mention that the starting line is "over there". Where? What?? Uh oh. I spy a cluster of healmets over BEHIND a building by the regular starting area.

As I speed around the corner I see a group of riders racing off in a cloud of dust. I ask one of the guys at the back "Who just went?"

"Under 40. Go go!"

So off I went in a cloud of curses. (Not really a cloud, just a single curt exclamation.) I caught up with the back fairly quickly and managed to work my way up to the middle before I faded. I must have spent my meager reserves on that first lap. Foo.

This time around the organizers had us climbing as many of those short, steep MX jumps as possible. By the last lap I was just CRAWLING up them. Ha!

Good news? I think I finished on the same lap as the leader. I hope I managed to save myself from teh suck.

The Fire XC Pros are working well.

I don't know how pro Shannon Skerrit does it. It's like he's in his own race-- I see him go by and it seems like 5 minutes later the rest of the pack comes by. How do people do that? I was just slobbering and grimacing and foaming during my race and he just zooms by like he's on a motorcycle... AND SMILING!

Keeping me safe...

So today my car is in the shop. No sweat-- I had a few errands to run and the bike is my preferred method of getting around. So me and kiddo saddle up on the trailer-bike, picnic lunch in my bag and head to the bank and then stop by the park.

I've been through the "drive-through" of my local Wells Fargo branch on my bike several times before. They have no bike rack there and all I ever do is deposit checks. So the drive-through is convenient to use.

Well this time the manager must have been out and about and decided to enforce company policy. I'm guessing it was a policy call-- the claim was that cars go through the drive-through "really fast".

So now I have the trailer-bike to deal with. So I end up leaning up against the ash-tray thing outside and go indoors to get my receipt.

This makes no sense. I suppose that the argument might be that pedestrians aren't allowed and thus bicyclists aren't allowed either. But pedestrians have no vehicle to park (or lock up) or in the case of this particular branch-- find a shrub to lean my bike against. What if I was on a motorcycle? I suppose that would have been okay. Why? A person on a motorcycle is not any less vulnerable than I am on a bicycle. So it's the engine that makes the difference? (Although I'm making an assumption about the motorcycle. maybe they don't allow motorcycles through.)

What a hassle. If I lived in Portland metro I would be fine. Out here in the 'burbs is like a different planet. Nothing out here is really set up to accommodate folks riding bikes. Bike racks are either non-existant or placed in really goofy locations. Like the nearby Albertson's: The rack is around the side of the building, near the back by the bottle/can return machines. At night the rack is conveniently located in the shadows and there is a convenient getaway...er, I mean EXIT to an adjacent apartment complex.

Cookies

I made chocolate chip cookies tonight. Shortly after they came out of the oven I ate a few. Mmm.

It's been a long time since I've had this pleasure.

Those of you out there that are gluten free can understand this a little. It's not like I can just swing by any old bakery and pick up a big-ass cookie to get my fix. (I remember back when I used to pick up bags of fresh-from-the-oven cookies at Albertson's.)

Making 'em my self is a bit more work... but the payoff? Oh yeah. I'm glad I'm not a pro racer-- I can do this kind of thing. Cookies are power food.

MTB Short Track #2

Well, I thought race #1 went okay. I went hard enough that I felt like puking at the end. I crashed a couple of times-- stupid, graceless little things that I attributed to loss of traction at the front.

An friend in the sport class (Will Cortez) finished 4 places in front of me. I didn't realize that we were that close together. After I saw the results I decided to use this as motivation. "Get Will!"

So for race #2 I bought some new tires-- something better suited to dry conditions with hardpack and loose terrain. My combination of front/rear Panaracer Dart/Smoke just wasn't cutting it. The front end was washing out like crazy. And the Dart just doesn't have the tread to offer good braking control.

I shod the F700 in some new Panaracer Fire XC Pros. I feel that they performed pretty well. I felt quite confident in dry hard corners and off-cambers. Maybe I had them aired up a bit much but they still performed quite well.

Unfortunately I seemed to be behind every racer that bobbled, stalled or just crashed. To be fair I had my own share of infuriating stalls. While I didn't crash I had a couple of near misses that lost me plenty of places. I'm not -- repeat NOT -- on other racers. I'm not a pro or some awesome cyclist, but it's still irritating when some guy in front of me is stalling and keeling over because of a miscalculation and then I wind up cramming into them.

I also discovered another little detail about when I can feed prior to a race. NOT within and hour of the race start. At least not for something so short and intense as these short-track events (which will include cyclocross races this fall). I drank a small bottle of HEED (That stuff tastes funny. Must be the xylitol. It's not bad--- just different.) and finished it 30 mins before the race start. I experienced some mild stomach cramping and "urping". Damned distracting. So I'm going to have to push back the feeding time at least 30 mins. Maybe more.

One highlight: I was closing on a racer from Team Beer and was set to take him on the inside of a turn when he dived down and totally shut the door on me. It was a great -- and gutsy -- move and totally made the race for me (even thoug we were somewhere in the middle of the pack). I tried to compliment him as I finally passed him, but he thought I was giving him grief for being slow or something. Next time I'll save it for after the race! Anyway-- I found him after the race and explained myself. So everything was cool.

So, looking forward to race #3 (and the half-way point of the series) I will:

1.) Try to get a little better starting position.

2.) NOT feed withing the hour before the race. Maybe even 90 minutes.

3.) Look ahead and predict trouble spots. I will not get hung up with other racers.

4.) Catch Will Cortez.

Frank talk about one's butt... Part deux

Okay, so the Falls City Firecracker (Firecracker at Falls City?) wasn't nearly as rough as the Bear Springs Trap. So it's hard to tell if the PI bibs and Chamois Butt'r made that big of a difference.

Still-- no taint complaints!

The PI bibs definitely fit much better than the Performance bibs and that DID make a big difference.

Speaking of PI I've detected some PI bashing here and there. What's with that? The ripping typically seems to come from folks that are touting the benefits of super-duper brands like Assos or other fancy-pants Italian wear. I prefer to keep some money in my bank account, thank you very much.