ride joe ride

The Chicago Tribune is running a great story on cyclocross written by Luke Seeman, author of Chicagobikeracing.com. Luke manages to work the words “pride” “loathing and “hurt” into the first sentence, so you know he’s gotten things right. Also check out the photo gallery and photo #6 in particular — this photo features fellow TATI rider Dan Houle and is the cover image for both the print Trib article and the front page of today’s Red Eye.

Everyone who is reading this should go by one or more copies of the Trib today!

One year ago I lined up for my first bike race, a cyclocross race, without having any real idea what I was getting into. That race was Jackson Park. It took a few days to sink it, but that race hooked me on cyclocross.

As I stood on the front row of this year’s Master’s 30+ race, the first heat of the first day of racing, I thought how that day last year had caused an avalanche of change in what I did with my bike. I’d spent a long, long winter planning and scheming a training program to make me faster. I’d ridden more than 1000 miles in my living room. I bought a powertap or two. I trained with power. I did intervals. Oh man did I do intervals. I learned about my lactate threshold measured in terms of both power and heart rate. I learned how to ride tempo. I was dialed in. I did two full training periodization cycles. I learned to hate the build. I learned that for 15 seconds I can be pretty invincible.

I gave up 16 years of vegetarianism so it didn’t take me so long to recover after hammering my legs into oblivion. I recovered faster, and I trained and trained and trained. I subjected any of you still reading to all of this in excruciating detail.

I did this all for cyclocross.

This all passed through my mind Sunday as the race official put the whistle in his mouth, ready to start the race. I grinned maniacally, my first time to line up in the front row of a masters 30+ race and really mean it.

Cross was fucking here.

The whistle blew. I stood up ready to crush the pedals, ready to take the hole shot and worry about the other 45 minutes afterward. I knew in my muscles that I was going to get it. Before my second foot got anywhere near the pedal, my first popped out of the cleat, and I came down hard on the top tube. I saw stars. I swerved to the right running into people. Somebody behind shouted “dumbass.” I concurred. By the time I had both feet in the pedals, I felt like there was no pack and no race, that it was just another quiet day alone in Jackson Park kicking down the imaginary start chute, wishing that it was time for ‘cross.

I could tell you about how the race ended up. I could tell you how the next one didn’t go much better. I could try to wax contemplative and put things into perspective. For now, I think I’ll leave the first and second part of this story jarring against each other and work something out over the next couple of months.

Friends, cyclocross is here.

After you’re apprehensive, then excited, then eager, then reflective, then bored, then in pain, then in some more pain, then in abject pain, then doubtful, then despairing, then considering quitting, then planning quitting, then resigned to quit, then (and in my experience only then) do you find yourself in the absence of ambition but still moving and faced with the immediate and endlessly repeating question: “do I stop now, or keep going?” Every decision to keep moving, keep moving the feet, yields a forward motion at your invincible pace. Maybe someday you’ll stop, but at that moment your progress in inevitable. Finding my invinicible pace is what ultra events are about for me. I’d forgotten mine for a few years. I found it again at the Dairyland Dare.

Many thanks to everyone who made the ride happen and special thanks to Allison, Francisco, Steve and Angela. It was an awesome day and I am glad to have shared it with you.

By Thursday afternoon, my weekend was laid out complete with some time spent out of the city, a long ride, and some general relaxation. Little did I know that the innocuous looking post titled “racing this weekend?” which showed up in my RSS reader would lead to the end of all that. Click, click and suddenly it was Christmas in July or, more accurately, cyclocross in August.

After a mad dash to finish my half-built cross bike, and a Saturday maiden voyage on the grass that was probably a touch more intense than necessary, Allison and I met Dan at the shop to caravan out to the west part of the city to see what this bandit cross race was about.

We pulled up to the park to see a number of members of a local team responsible for another first race this season that was exceptionally fun. I’ll leave them in anonymity, but suffice it to say that I was instantly confident that this event was going to be done properly.

And it was. As we discovered in our “neutral lap” the course was awesome and had most of what you’d want in a park-based cross race. The sandpit was wicked deep, the pine tree gauntlet was prickly, and the bunny hop barriers made a nice crunching sound when you landed on them. The race was started in true style: on foot with a dash to grab your bike. I was second into the hole and managed to hang near the front for the first lap and a half, but as Dan noted, Ben Popper doesn’t slow down after the first lap. Soon I was doing the alka-seltzer maneuver as I sank back through the ranks.

By the hour mark everyone (except Ben of course) was cooked, happy, and ready to call it a morning. As I rode away from the smiling finish line group, I realized that this could be the best the cross season holds. Like the early season Kevin’s Crits (which were not quite bandit races, of course), or our practice crits, there is something particularly fun about an unsanctioned or out of the way race. I suppose it has to do with knowing that everyone there is just as eager as you to get the season underway. Maybe even more importantly, with nothing really on the line (not even the coveted king of cat 5 crown), the competition is really distilled to being simply a pursuit born from love of the sport.

Two weeks until the next race, and I can’t wait.

I should note here, in case I am maimed or unable to ever again look at bike related material, that I am signed up for the Dairyland Dare 300k. In addition to being 180 glorious miles, it also graciously provides 22k feet of climbing (the summit of Everest is 28k ft above sea level). Though I am already working on cross training, I figured that it would be a travesty to let the summer pass without at least once attempting some serious self-inflicted bike related torture.

Okay, that sounded like I actually made the decision as a rational agent. In fact, Steve preyed upon my post-baseball/beer/bratwurst intoxication and tricked me into signing up. I woke up the next morning with that awful “oh what have I done” feeling. I came to terms with this feeling by cajoling fellow Tatito and Morning Roll author, Francisco into doing it as well.

Man, it’s great to have friends.

Oddly enough, one year ago today I reminisced here about my first 100 mile run. Five years later, and still not very much sense.

I wrote a wrap-up of the cyclocross season last year and never got around to posting it. I pulled it out the other day and realized that in addition to a wrap-up it was a pretty good reminder of both how awesome the season was and what great people surround the sport. That said, it I think it belongs here however late.

Cross is a wrap. Going into the season, my goal was to race each of the CCC races. I managed to do that and add a race in Wisconsin. That comes up to 11 different days of racing and 13 individual races in the span of just under three months. It was a whole lot for a first season of racing bikes, and I am seriously whooped. Before old age takes it’s toll on my memory of the season, it’s time for a wrap up:

Thanks:

I have seen other people noting that it feels odd to offering thanks for support when you’re pack fodder all season. In fact, it’s us pack fodder that needs to be the most thankful — mostly for people putting up with us. To that end, I want to extend a deep thanks to both my family and friends. Allison came to nearly all the races, helped haul the bike stuff to and from the car, cheered for me, gave countless leg massages, cooked awesome recovery meals, went to go buy the Belgian recovery juice when I was napping after workouts and on and on. She was a partner in the truest sense of the word. El came to races and cheered, and there’s nothing like having your kid cheering you on when you’re out there hurting. My good friend’s Steve and Angela traveled seriously long distances to see races, put me up, and helped me build up a bike on short notice. Team K&B: you have my humble thanks.

Also a big ol’ thanks to all you awesome people I met over the season at the races. The Chi cross scene is full of some pretty damn cool people, and it was a pleasure of spending three months of Sunday’s hanging out with them. In particular I’d like to thank Devon Haskell and Aspen Gorry. They organized our Wednesday practices, provided a whole lot of expert advise, and cheered at the races. They also drove me and my stuff to the race on several occasions. Thank you guys, it was appreciated.

Bests of the season:

Without a doubt, my favorite race of the season was Lansing. This was mostly because of the fun competition with Patrick, but I think I actually enjoy the fast and flat grass courses. That said, I think the best course of the year was still probably St. Charles. I loved that course. The best overall race experience, though, was certainly my early season two day epic with Aspen, Devon and the Bagwells. It seems like a long time ago now, but two days of racing in the first cool days of fall with the trees in color is sheer heaven.

What I learned:

I learned a whole bunch, and most of it is mentioned in one place or another in the race reports from this season. Here’s the cliff notes, though:

1. Stand up. Out of each and every transition, you should be standing up. When you can no longer stand up, hammer from the saddle. When you can’t do that, you’d better be close to being finished. If not: train more.

2. Start hard. The first minute of the race is probably the most important so do it right. It’s so incredibly much harder to work up four places than it is to take those four places at the start.

3. Everybody hurts. Particularly after the first lap or two, if you find someone nearby you can be reasonably certain they are hurting just about as bad as you. At that point, he who can hurt more gets to drop he who can hurt less. Recovering from being dropped does cumulative damage. Hence, the game of drop or be dropped is born. Learning how to play this game is lots of fun.

That’s it friends. I’m already looking forward to Jackson Park next year.

For those interested, I’ve just finished up my ‘cross training program for the season. Things are always subject to change, of course, but the base period is pretty solid. I’ll probably shuffle in some interval variations for the build period later. As noted, green cells denote either cross practice or races. Some notes:

1. Base: Last year, my single biggest failure going into cross was the lack of a solid base. I’d done lots of long miles in July and August, but they were nearly all done at very slow speeds. The result was me essentially “burning through” that base about half way through the season. By the last few races, I was doing the opposite of peaking: I could barely handle wednesday practices and the sunday races.

I’ve had a nice long road season already (my base training started in December). Lots of base, two good practice runs at building/peaking, some fun road racing, and lots of hard group riding. In fact, I’m kinda tired, and taking the next couple of weeks super easy sounds like a nice plan. Then it’ll be time for a very solid endurance/tempo oriented 11 weeks. If I can keep to that plan for the base period, I think I’ll be heading into Montrose feeling good and with plenty of pep remaining for our ice cross series afterward.

2. HR based: You’ll notice that everything is planned in terms of heart rate, not power. The iBike died (a firmware glitch it seems). Rather than opt for another one, or returning to a powertap I decided to explore heart rate based training. I found a very interesting system which makes it possible to quantify training load based on heart rate — something especially interesting for cross where lots of the cross specific training happens off the bike. I’ll share this system in another post.

3. Running: Yeah there’s running in there. We’ll see how long that lasts.

As always, I’m happy to answer questions.

(cross is coming woohoo!)

The sun rose a minute later today. Tomorrow we’ll lose another minute of daylight. In four weeks, it’ll be too dark to get in a mid-week long ride before morning obligations. Between now and then, the sun will begin to rise after I’m already on the bike.

A year can be divided into time when days are getting longer and time they’re shortening, and they have just begun the slow slide into the dark days of winter. It hit me this weekend: we have a scant six or seven weekends left of endless mileage days and thousands of calories sucked up at coffee shops, ice cream joints, and pancake houses at the turn-around points of summer rides. Just a few weeks left of epic hammerfests and long slow recovery rides and putting in 30k to get coffee before fully waking up.

September always holds out the promise of extending the summer weather, but it’s not the weather: it’s the light. By the middle of August, the failing light is noticeable by even the most committed slugabed. How could you miss it? It’s dark when you used to ride. Your body can feel the days shortening, and it starts to tell you the time has come to ditch the long days on the bike and start holing up for winter with a giant stack of movies and something tasty to start building the winter layer of fat.

It’s enough to make one gnash one’s teeth and weep about the (somewhat) immanent end to summer riding. It would be enough, that is, if not for the factor which utterly mitigates the impending plunge into darkness of winter and endless hours spent toiling away on the torture device, er… trainer:

Cyclocross.

(It’s just around the corner)

I skipped Sherman Park this morning, but apparently there was a pile-up in the 4’s race which sent one or more riders to the hospital. Since corner marshalling at Monsters and watching a dozen or so people hit the ground and two get hauled off in ambulances, my feelings toward crit racing have been ambivalent. Today’s news made this somewhat more clear, though: I’m done with racing crits. There has never been a doubt in my mind that crit racing is potentially dangerous. This season has been driving the point home, though.

In my adult life I’ve been a “bottom of the top third” participant in two other sports besides cycling, and both are usually characterized as being pretty dangerous. Rock climbing has its obvious perils. Ultrarunning, especially when you move into the 100 mile distance, almost guarantees injury. In all three 100s I ran (including the one I failed to finish) I was incapacitated for days afterward. The creepy systemic things that invariably happen post-ultra (temperature spikes, massive sleep disturbances etc) are reminders that lurking around the corner are dangerous systemic failures. Most 100 finish lines are graced by a few people hooked up to IVs. People end up with transient and even permanent kidney damage from blood-borne byproducts of muscle damage. I honestly couldn’t walk for three days after my first 100.

The dangers of both of these sports, however, are different from the danger in crit racing in two important ways. First of all, in ultras and almost always in climbing, the dangers of the pursuit are directly dependent upon the participant. If you get hurt ultrarunning, and usually when you get hurt climbing, it’s your own damn fault. Too much vitamin-I causes kidney failure? Your fault. Your knot wasn’t tied properly and you cratered when you sat back to congratulate yourself on that 5.12 redpoint? Your fault. True, your life always sits in the hands of your belayer while climbing, but choosing your climbing partner is something usually done with a with some serious thought.

If you ride the low cats in crits, you know that cycling is not at all like this. It’s more or less like climbing with a belayer you’ve never met who also happens to look a little drunk. Your safety in a crit is only as secure as the wheels around you. More often than not in cat 5 races (cat 4?), those wheels are being run by somebody who is not entirely confident and/or good at what they’re doing but really really intent on doing it. I am, without a doubt, a very good example of this tendency. You know all that overshooting turns and then grabbing the brakes in fear? Yeah that’s me too. We all have lots of desire to win and less than perfect skills at not causing other people and/or ourselves to crash.

That said, I think the second reason for ending my road racing career early is the one which really sways me. It’s also the one that is more likely to piss you off if you’re a crit racer. If that’s you, you can finish up here and chalk this up to me stopping racing because I was worried about getting hurt. That’s fine with me.

So it’s not really the fear of physical danger itself that’s the problem: it’s the physical danger for such a small payoff. There is no doubt that crits certainly can be fun. When it comes down to it, though, crit racing is riding short laps around a park or a parking lot. The idea that I’ve sorta had floating around in the back of my mind since my first crit is this: it’s really hard to imagine a crit being epic. You know? What would an epic crit be? Can you imagine someone writing a story or making a movie about a crit?

That alone is totally not a problem — we all have fun doing stuff that isn’t potentially epic. The problem is doing something fun, but totally un-epic-able which is also pretty damn dangerous. I used to have a number of pursuits which could be described like that when I wasn’t such an old fart, I suppose. At this point in my life, though, I’d like the physical danger of my hobbies to be in direct proportion to their potential epic-i-tude. If I am seriously risking potential injury, I want it to be doing something that I really believe is worthwhile and not just entertaining. So with that, I’m done with crits.

Road races? Dunno right now.

Before talking about the iBike starts to seem as useful as talking about my Selle Italia SLR (well to me anyway, you may have already reached that point) I should wrap my test of it up as promised. The short version is that I haven’t used my remaining Powertap in a few weeks.

Before I give the pros and cons of the iBike as I’ve found them, I should note a couple of things. One is that I’m using one of the very early iBikes, and the newer ones are much improved by all accounts. One of the chief improvements relates to my second note. A very important part of the iBike system is the software which analyzes the ride data post-ride. On the early units (like mine) the difference between the numbers you see during the ride and post-ride can be pretty significant — think 15 watts difference in average shown on the iBike and in the software post-analyzation.

That said, the biggest pro of the iBike is that it’s accurate. I compared the PT and iBike post ride averages, max watts, normalized power etc, and with very few exceptions they were within a couple of watts of each other. The only time there was a significant variation was when riding in a pack, and this is something which was a known problem with my early unit — it’s fixed in the newer model. And significant variation is like 20 watts or so average for a long group ride. For the vast majority of my training, even this very early unit gives data accurate enough to meet my needs easily.

Speaking of data, the iBike generates a whole slew of interesting data, much of which I think I’d seriously miss if I switched to another power meter. How cold is it really? How much of a headwind is there? How steep is this hill? All questions which it answers and my powertap didn’t. Sure I could add a second computer alongside the powertap to have that information as well, but then my handlebars start looking like the bridge of the Enterprise. Not to mention weight. Okay mentioning weight: I also am enjoying the lack of the leaden rear wheel immensely. I am enjoying simultaneously rolling on deep dish carbon AND having power data even more.

Probably the biggest con to the iBike system is the importance of having accurate profiles for different equipment. Because of the way the device calculates power, the difference between a wool kit and lycra kit is actually enough to impact data. So I might have a racing profile and a training profile (to account for wheels) but then I also need a racing profile for wool kit etc etc. When you include different seasons, it’s not hard to imagine 10 profiles in a place like Chicago where we go through several phases of clothing. Each of those profiles must be made on the bike and essentially means time on the bike spent messing around with the power meter instead of riding. Given how limited riding time always is, this could be a problem for some people. The new model does have a mode which allows you to skip the profiles with some sacrifice in accuracy. While these might be useful in a pinch (i.e. an emergency large gear change maybe) or for getting started, I’d imagine most people wanting as much accuracy as they could get.

So yeah, I am an iBike fanboy I guess. It is certainly not without flaws, but no power solution is. I’ll likely upgrade to the newer generation model at some point but this one is working well enough to tell me that I need to work on my 5-minute power (duh). The graphs from the iBike software are really pretty amazingly geek-cool so I’ll post some of those soon.