Pain on the Peak... truth in advertising!

A fabulously sunny Saturday in September. Kind of hot, even. This was the first edition of Portland Velo's "Pain on the Peak" cyclocross race on Bald Peak in Hillsboro (Oregon).

Fantastic views all around.

My wife and son came out too-- the boy was stoked for racing and his skills have improved greatly this summer! Riding off-road is now wayyyy more fun and far less frustrating for him. Which is good.

Overall it was a fun race, and a great venue. It would have been super-rad with a little moisture, but hey-- I'll take what I can get.

Let's do a little post-race analysis:
First I load up on Nutella slathered (gluten-free) waffles a mere hour before the event. Mmmm. Oh yeah. Good stuff.

I drank one cup of water and two or so cups of tea with breakfast and a final sip of water pre-race. (When I got home and took a whiz, it looked like orange juice. Whoops! I guess I was just a teensy bit dehydrated. I wonder why? I drank like a fish the rest of the day.)

Warm-up? That's what the first lap is for.

After the first lap I feel like vomiting up my waffles. However, given how precious Nutella is to me, there is NO WAY I'm letting those go. So they keep insisting to be let free for most of the rest of the race. I also have zero go-power. Doubtless a result of the massive carbo-bomb that my gut is dealing with. My legs just have nothing to give. Zip.

So sad and pathetic.

I'm also being treated by my chiropracter for a wacky neck. So every little bump on the course I can feel amplified in my shoulder and neck. I feel better if I keep my head down so that just adds to my overall whupped appearance to spectators (and contributes to my hang-dog feeling... I suck.)

Going into the race I didn't feel especially competitive. Indeed, that morning I felt really out-of-sorts. Like this was my first race ever and I had no idea what I was doing. Bleah.



The dust was epic. Ankle deep and powdery in places. Incredible stuff. There were points where I couldn't see the gound in front of me-- I had to look way up and follow the crowd of helmets-- everything else was obscured by the billowing brown clouds! Breathing was kinda like squeezing a bottle of baby powder into your gob. Hack!

My son had fun and did quite well-- he was obviously pushing hard and didn't whine even once! (He's five.) Well... he did complain that the race was too short and wondered why he didn't get another race. (The adults were still racing... why couldn't he?) So I took that as a good sign. He's really liking the bike-- definitely a good thing. The announcer pulled my son aside and tried asking him about his race-- did he like it? Did he have fun? Did he get dirty? That sort of thing. My son got stage fright or something and only answered "yes" and "sure" and "uh huh".

In the end it was a fun time. The organizers (Portland Velo) did a great job of putting on a class-A event. the OBRA folks also have my undying admiration for all their work providing the "glue" that makes all this stuff hold together. Oregon is an awesome place to ride and race bikes! I look forward to next year's race!

Unfortunately I eventually had to wash of my dirt tattoo. I called it my "Pain on the Peak tat".

The obligatory "cyclocross is coming" post

Ah, sweet steel. A boon to cyclocross thou art.

The first CX race of the 2008 season is nigh. This Saturday! I'm already nervous. Will I suck spectacularly? Will my bike remember what to do? (It's been enjoying some off-time as the MTB has been doing most of the playing.)

I'm going to go to the CX clinic tonight-- hopefully I'll pick up some tips that will help me banish my "stutter-step" remount. Curses!

I still need to reposition my brake levers slightly downward and re-tape my handlebar with the super-yummy orange Cinelli tape. (I love the feel of the Cinelli tape, but its adhesive backing makes re-wrapping almost impossible.)

To quote Chowder: "Excitement!"

To train or not to train...

I've thought about this subject quite a bit. Just about every time I go out riding. During races. The last few wretched miles of a century.

I should train more. I should train- period.

Work on my core by sitting on a big inflatable ball, do crunches. Maybe some yoga. Pilates.

Drop Sets. Intervals. Hill surges. VO2 max something-or-other. Get a power meter? HR monitor? (Thanks Bicycling mag! Honestly-- reading that magazine every month just gets more and more depressing. Plus they keep referencing stuff I don't understand, like "stock portfolios" and "golf" and "luxury, SAG supported bike trips". Seriously, WTF?)

Most times I just thumb my nose at the notion of "training". It seems an impediment to fun-on-a-bike. I have a job. I have a child. I have a wife. I have a house that always seems to have something breaking or needing repairing. When I DO get out on my bike I want to enjoy it. But I also want to be able to enjoy racing and longer rides without feeling like I'm going to barf or my knees are going to explode. *sigh*

I have recently discovered/realized that "training" also means more time spent riding. Now THAT I can agree with.

The Bike Snob just neatly skewered the whole training notion. It's a lovely piece of work, really.

bikesnobnyc.blogspot.com/2008/09/so-what-now-coaching-and-end-of-summer.html

My cigarette lighter, if I had one would be raised and lit.

I'll go ride my bike, instead.

Slurpee run!

Today was the last day of "freedom" before my son hits Kindergarten. I can't believe that this idea didn't occur to me sooner, especially on the hotter days we had earlier in the summer.

A Slurpee run!

Remember back when? When you were maybe 10 or so. Head out on your bike to ride a few blocks to the 7-11. (Back in the 1980's 7-11 was the Starbuck's of the time... there seemed to be one every few blocks and more popping up every minute.) Dump your bike out on the curb, proceed directly to the Slurpee machine in the back of the store, get your Slurpee, check out the comic book rack and then sit out front on the curb chasing that last little bit of Slurpee slush with the "spoon straw" with a comic book balanced on your knees.

So anyway-- I take my son out this afternoon. It's maybe mid 70's out. Not ideal Slurpee run weather, but nice enough by any standard. We're both rolling on red and black singlespeeds! I love it! (I finally got clunker #1 converted to a drop bar. It's no longer a "clunker" thankyouverymuch.)

This is one of the great joys of parenting a young child. It's like you are a guide to a visitor from another planet. He has no idea how things work, what things are called and no concept of the "Slurpee run".

"Where are we going?"
"Are we there yet?"
"What are we going to do?"
"Now what?"

It's a distinct pleasure to introduce him to the various little things that make life fun. (Visits to the doctor for shots? No so much fun.)

The bike can get you where you want to go. He's gotten this idea pretty quickly and deeply. The other day he wanted to ride to the grocery store. Unfortunately I didn't have any way of ttransporting the quantity of groceries that we needed to move.

The bike can get you to good things like Slurpees. The bike makes getting the fun things... fun.

So we got to the 7-11 and got our Slurpees. He even grokked the idea that you mix several colors all together. Right on!

He wanted to know how we were going to get the Slurpees back to a park we had passed on the way. I told him that typically Slurpees are to be consumed on the premises of the 7-11. In a few years, as his skills improve, I'll let him know that the Slurpee can be consumed while riding home, one-handed.

No comic book rack in the 7-11, though. Bummer.

Junk bikes?

No. For years and years and years I've dreamed of putting together my own bike. Bikes? You mean plural? Oh good heavens! Get out!

Well guess what? I'm livin' the dream. More or less. Mostly less.

No custom frames here. Not even midrange Shimano componentry. Wellll... not quite true. I did snag a set of old XT hubs from the Community Cycling Center. I wish they were in my community. Anyway-- the 18-or-so year-old hubs run much smoother and are a definite upgrade from the Deore hubs of the same vintage. Ooh-la-la. Deore XT.

Anyway-- So now I'm building up a pair of singlespeed clunkers. #1 is my old 1989 Rockhopper Comp (In 1989, the only difference between a Rockhhopper Comp and the Stumpjumper was paint, stickers, and Deore vs. Deore XT.) #2 is a poor, neglected "MTN TEK". It came to me as a 7-speed so it's probably late-80's early 90's vintage. It's a Taiwanese frame, so doubtless it rubbed shoulders with other frames destined for decidedly fancier headbadges and downtube stickers. I remember seeing these things crowding the bike section of sporting goods stores like "Pedersons" and ski shops in southern Idaho.

Whatever. #1 has already been reincarnated -- reinbikenated -- as a single-speed with a Mary handlebar. I hooked up the trailer-bike to it so it sports the hugeugly hitch. Now it's getting a drop bar. The MTN TEK will get the Mary bar and become the loco for the trailer bike. It'll also be the town bike/errand bike. It'll actually be sharing these duties with all the other bikes since I'm equal opportunity that way and don't believe in "rain bikes" or "commuter bikes". They all like to take turns at different kinds of rides. (The road bike doesn't like the trail stuff quite so much since it seems to flat every time I do that. Even with the sausagey 25c tires.)

#1 is getting the Bonty cyclocross drop bar that I pulled from the LeMond Poprad. I'm not sure if I'll like that or not. I have a feeling that I'll need to score a used Midge on Ebay eventually. To be happy. We'll see.

Still. I never imagined that I'd be building up a couple of bike from used/scrounged/Ebay parts.

And digging it.

omigosh! omigosh! omigosh!

Jacquie Phelan's got a blog (or two).

It's right here: jacquiephelan.com

I spent my formative bike years reading about Jacquie Phelan, Cindy Whitehead, John Tomac, Ned Overend, Greg Herbold and others in Mountain Bike Action magazine.

It was (is) mostly Jacquie that I remember. She had that craaaazy drop bar. That I totally wanted. And Jacquie was totally cool, too. Even Greg Herbold was uptight compared to Jacquie!

I'm totally stoked that Jacquie has a blog.