Santa Ynez Valley Classic 09

Sunday ended my first big block of racing for this season. No more high priority races for me until September. I’ve finished up my Kenda US Cup West races and pulled off 3 x 3rd place finishes! That’s hopefully enough to lock in 3rd place overall. To quote Pos from De La Soul,

“Three is the magic number. Yes it is.”

My top results counting for the points series are:

3rd – Bonelli Park
3rd – Sagebrush Safari
3rd – Santa Ynez
7th – Fontana (and/or Sea Otter)

I’ll have to wait until the updated numbers come out but I think that should lock down 3rd overall .. if not I may be planning a trip to CO in June! In any event I am super psyched about the result and the series overall. I did WAY better than I could have ever expected. I wasn’t even sure if I belonged in Cat 1 a few months ago!

As far as the race yesterday, it was a ton of fun. Lots of chicken ranchers out in the Cat 2 race. Kim Lyons pulled off a victory while Kim Turner took the very first steps to becoming a mountain biker and pulled off a 2nd in Cat 3! Jos and her parents came out to watch. Jos did a spectacular job in the feed zone making sure I got a nice fresh water bottle each lap. John C even came out on his road bike to watch the podium ceremony… that lazy bastard needed me to drive him back to Santa Barbara afterwards though.

My performance was kind of a mixed bag. I went out hard, felt great for a lap and a half and faded really bad towards the end. I spent a lot of effort getting around people and passing zones were very hard to find. By the 1 hour mark, my legs just had nothing left and though my body felt strong overall, my quads just burned by the end of lap two and I struggled to put down power on the steep climbs. The last 20 minutes were done on sheer adrenaline and will power. I just kept imagining the pack of Cat 1 30-34 riders that was bearing down on me, ready to pass to me at any minute. Luckily I was able to hold them off just long enough. If the race had been 2 miles longer, Justin, Griffith, Daniel and god knows how many others would have blown by me. I was spent.

The course was 0.6 miles longer than the pre-otter due to the addition of a winding series of S turns thought the finish area/feed zone. My time was about 3 minutes slower and average speed was slower as well. Considering pre-otter was just a C priority race which I barely prepared for and was relatively fresh afterwards, I am perplexed why this race, my A priority race which I tapered for, could have been far more effort for a slower performance. I must’ve done something wrong. Not enough rest after Sea Otter maybe? I dunno .. back to the drawing board.

At least I’ve got until Sept to figure it out. My next A race is the US Cup race in Vegas on 9/26. So what’s on my plate between now and then? Not too sure actually. Next weekend I’m doing Idyllwild. May 16/17th I’ve got the Ventura stage race. A few CA state cup races in there, the So Cal Mtn Stage race at Rim Nordic, and Hecker’s doing a ton of local santa ynez races this summer to keep the engine tuned up. The only races between now and Sept that I’m really gunning for will be the Elings park race on 6/7. Its 3 miles from my house .. how can I NOT get pumped or that one! On the skinny tires, I’ll try to get some road races and crits under my belt so I can move up to Cat 4 (just 7 more races to go).

As far as training, I’m going to start putting in some longer rides in the dirt, technical trail riding, doing more cross-training, running, swimming, long trail hikes/runs and generally taking advantage of the longer days.

A little bit of Sea Otter

Oh man. What a weekend. I can’t really do it justice in words or even pictures but I’ll try to give the “executive summary”…

Friday I pre-rode the course. Took me 2 hours. It was a fun mix of fireroad climbs and singletrack descents. All of it with gorgeous scenery.

Got to hang briefly with some Chicken Ranch teammates. Blinger got 5th in the Cat 3 crit and John pulled of 2nd in the Cat 4 road race.

Perused the booths but surprisingly wasn’t really into checking out the bling. Checked out some of Sarah’s circuit race (Cat 4)

We got to see Bob finish up on the road race.

Lots of walking around. Legs were sore. Had a great time hanging with John, Sarah, Bob, Lisa and Jos that evening over dinner.

Saturday morning, Jos and I went into Monterey to play tourist.

We walked around Cannery Row and spent a few hours in the Monterey Aquarium. Definitely very cool – did you know sea horses are the only known animal where the male actually gives birth? I didn’t. And though the jellyfish were eerily cool, i am simultaneously perplexed by and scared shitless of them.

We then proceeded to laguna seca and checked out the pro short track cross country and dual slalom. The STXC race was crazy sauce…

My legs were pretty beat from being on my feet all day (I’m used to sitting at my desk, on my bike or on my couch!) so we made it an early night and rested up for the big day back at the hotel.

Sunday, the primary focus of my trip – the US Cup XC race. I pulled off a 7th place in the Cat 1 30-34. It was brutal. 39 miles. 6000+ ft of climbing. Came in at around 2:52. Really hot (90 degrees by noon) and blazing sun. I started out hard, finished hard, crashed once in a sand pit and gave it everything I had. By far the hardest bike race I have ever done. Recovery is coming along great considering how worked I felt afterward.

Jos and I waited around for the awards ceremony (at the time I was listed at 5th) but the race was under protest and we had a 4.5 hour drive so we hit the road. It was a scorthing day in the Salinas valley but the scenery was gorgeous and a much more pleasant drive than the 4 hours south through LA!!

On to round 5 of the US Cup West .. in my backyard course of Los Olivos!

Pre Otter

Getting psyched up for Sea Otter! Wed, Bob, John and I did some hill intervals and then jumped into the Wed night crit. It was a good test of my new Cervelo rig .. I freakin love that bike. It is the most responsive thing I’ve ever ridden.

Anyways, Saturday was the “Pre-Otter” race out at the stumpgrinder dirt club in Los Olivos. Only a 45 minute drive from home, we saw a huge Chicken Ranch team turnout!

That was probably about 1/3 of the entire race right there in that pic! It was very low key. Very fun local vibe. Props to Mike Hecker for setting this up and following through.

The course was the same as the Cowpie classic that I race in Nov. There are 4 significant climbs and the lap totals are about 1500 ft of climbing per 9 mile lap. It is fun and fast – lots of steep grinders and fast descending. Nothing technical but there are some tricky off-cambre turns that could really bite you. Course conditions were perfect as I hope they’ll be for the US Cup event in two weeks! The only bummer was the aforementioned “cowpies” which had not yet hardened and were eager to stick to your tires and smear themselves all over your downtube (and only your downtube if you’re lucky).

There were 13 pros/experts. I chose to race the Pro/Open class and pulled off a 3rd place behind 2 pros!

I love the way Hecker did the prizes – for beginners there were tires and tools and, for sport and expert, the prizes were based on percentage of total entry fees in that class. Given the small expert turnout, my 3rd place in pro/open was worth $12!! The 3rd place riders in sport were taking home $35!

One has to wonder, if local races can afford such prize purses, why can’t the us cup give at least something other than a cheap plastic trophy to podium amateurs for their effort. Seriously, take some of the crap out of my schwag bag and put that money towards prizes for the top three in each class!

The perfect storm

1. A weekly crit series just started
2. My cyclocross bike was acting very crappy all week
3. I came back from the San Diego Bike show with a serious case of bike lust.
4. I talked to two separate people over the weekend about how they loved their S1s.
5. Got an email from Dave when I got home on Monday letting me know that Fastrak just got a new Cervelo S1 built up in my size.

Now I believe in free will but every once in a while the universe is directed by fate – in this case I was just destined to own the Cervelo S1!

Initial review: Its fast. I mean, its really fast. Step on the pedals and it jumps. Keep pedaling hard and it just rockets forward.

Someone better stop me before I become a roadie.

San Diego trip part 2 – Sagebrush Safari

Round 3 of the Kenda US Cup took us to Lake Morena out in San Diego county. The beautiful desert mountains were getting some huge windstorms and, while the temps were just about perfect, the gusty winds were chilling things and blowing dust into the lungs.

10 seconds before our start, one of the starting chute barriers blew over and as we took off, we had to divert around it in a cloud o dust. Roadie tactics took hold for the initial paved miles until the climb (still paved) strung us out. Then came some of the most fun, fast, non-technical singletrack I’ve ever ridden. I made a foolish line choice early on, crashing hard but didn’t loose any time or places. There was more singletrack with berms, jumps, it was truly like a BMX course. Some fireroad descents and a Hike-a-bike thrown in , we then began to climb out to Mt Pinos on pavement. The descent back on super-fun singltrack, we began to mix with the other classes which added the passing element. Probably one of the best MTB courses I’ve ever ridden – it was so fun that I actually was hoping for a longer race!

I ended up in 3rd place on the day for the Cat 1 30-34 @ 1:59!

And thanks to Buz, Sharon, Jos and my dog Japhy for coming out and supporting me.

Once again I enjoyed the company of the great guys and gals out there racing. Rob and Kim of the Chicken Ranch team got 2nd in their respective classes. Justin Mann gets the award for all-around Karma points – after some mechanicals, he helped walk out a fellow racer with a compound arm fracture. Then Justin and Allison stuck around for, well forever it seemed, to watch our awards ceremony. BTW – congrats Allison for your 2nd place in your 2nd Pro race ! Very impressive!

San Diego trip part 1 – Custom Bicycle Show

Jos and I made the trip down to San Diego on Friday night. Saturday I took off for a few solo hours to explore the San Diego Custom Bicycle Show. What a blast!

There was a huge variety of bikes there, utilitarian touring and townie machines, road, TT, tandems, MTBS, track bikes, cyclocross and blinged out low-riders. It was really more like an art show – every artist/framebuilder had a unique take on what a beautiful bike meant to them. Each bike blended practical and aesthetic qualities to produce some of the coolest bikes I’ve ever seen. I wanted to take each one out for a spin.

It’s impossible to recount them all but here are some of the ones I found myself drawn to:

RRVelo/ Fred Markham’s carbon bikes with “lugs” – actually just sculpted carbon to reinforce the joints. These guys are the self proclaimed carbon masters.

Winter Bicycles – just liked the vibe of this one .. if I could only have one bike, a do-it-all road/touring/commuting/utilitarian bike like this would probably be it.

Kish made some beautiful Ti frames. The welds were just gorgeous. Normally I like the clean look of raw Ti but the half-painted look is kinda neat. This singlespeed cross bike caught my eye more than once.

Vintage lugged steel frames were everywhere.

Argonaut made arguably the sexiest bike at the entire show … this filet brazed frame was smooth and the blue Dura Ace cranks caught many eyes.

One day Jos and I will sell our cars to get one of these tandems from Calfee.

Calfee’s bamboo bikes were very cool as well…

Ahrens bikes had a great vibe to them. One of the only Aluminum frames at the show, this one used easton tubing with a carbon seatstay.

And last, but certainly not least, my favorite technical design and favorite paint job all in one sweet ass bike. Holland makes a hybrid Ti/Carbon frame that I shouldn’t even attempt to explain – but Bill Holland doesn’t seem to have a google-able website (email him at bike2@cox.net). Basically you laser cut a ti tube in diamond patterns then line the interior of the tube with carbon. Theoretically the blend gives you the best compromise between torsional stifness, vertical compliance, durability and weight that you will ever find. Add in a custom Grateful Dead paint job and you have me sold.. if I had $5000 to spend on a road frame!

So many more great bikes and great people to mention. Too little time.

I will say that I attended Brian Baylis’ seminar on beginning frame building. This was a non-technical talk aimed at giving newbies an idea of how to approach you first build. The basic idea was that practice makes perfect so start small and just build simple frames until you get that down to a science. Then start experimenting and going where you imagination takes you. Very helpful in case I ever find the time to fulfill my dream of designing and building my own bike.

Old San Marcos PR

Way back in December, when I was setting up my racing schedule and season goals, I wrote down “Break 18 minutes up OSM by April”. Sounded like a lofty idea at the time. Old San Marcos (for those not familiar) is a 3 mile, 1180 ft vertical climb in Goleta which makes for a perfect training hill – at 7.5% it’s not brutally steep but steep enough to force you to work hard the whole way.

My 2008 best was about 22 minutes. I’ve done it a few times earlier this season (but never “all out”) and was clocking in at about 20 minutes. I had forgotten about my OSM goal until I looked at the calendar on March 31st – crap – last chance to break 18 minutes on OSM before April.

I took off on my trusty cyclocross steed (with 23c tires – now my only “road” bike) and went for it. I used the powertap to pace my output and felt pretty darn good. And not only did I break 18:00, I got 16:55 ! My average power was around 360 watts and my HR was surprisingly stable right around my LT. Very nice!

Looking forward to this weekend – Jos and I are heading down to stay with her folks in San Diego. Saturday I’m going to hit up the San Diego Custom Bicycle Show and check out some frame bling, maybe attend a frame building seminar. Sunday is the Sagebrush Safarri, US Cup #3!