Monthly Archives: July 2008

Lots of racing

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Elgin crit is on Sunday. There’s a 2-man TT I’m doing with aham on the following Sunday. In between the two I have the following:

  • Train all operators and managers in a new Lean visual board system
  • Set up a Kaizen event for the following week
  • Travel to DC for SPC software training from Tuesday-Friday
  • Set up my road bike to a full TT setup…for the first time including new brakes, shifters, bars, etc.
  • Validate the setup will work
  • Be a father and husband on Saturday before the TT while my wife is at work (no ride on the TT setup)
  • Lace 2 wheels, tension, true, validate 4 of them.

Traveling the week before a race will suck. I hate business travel. It’s extremely painful mentally anymore and it is a assured way to gain weight and lose fitness. To top it off my flight back is at 5:30 out of DC Dulles to Chicago O’Hare on a Friday afternoon….. = No frigging chance of being even remotely on-time.

I’m starting to wonder when I am going to get any of this stuff done. I was trying to commute, but even that has become hard to do with timing.

Perfect storm – family, work, riding. I am virtually a ghost on BF and basically have resorted to using this blog as my main outlet for now basically because I don’t feel the need to check for updates every 5 minutes.

If I have time later today I’ll update with a picture of some new toys for the TT, impressions of the Elgin Crit course, and thoughts about the fact that Sunday looks to be the hottest day of the year. Boo.

Music

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I love music, but I just don’t approach it like most people. I really can’t explain it, but I appreciate it at face value. I don’t listen to, or even sometimes understand, the lyrics as words. I don’t really listen to what the song has to “say”. I simply hear the vocals as another instrument. Mix of horn and percussion.

That is to say I most likely don’t know the words to a song I love, or even what they are saying, but I still love the song. The conviction in the lyric and the delivery are what I enjoy.

I have to think a lot of that is simply due to poor hearing. I seriously can’t hear 99% of what any artist says.

Exceptions to this are forms of heavy political artists. Hip-hop or rap in particular. For the most part I can hear every word and understand what they are attempting to say. I tend to like this type of work not for the message, but for the raw energy it taps into.

Rage Against the Machine is a prime example for me. They had the ability to tap into the primal energy of aggression, hate, conviction, dedication, hard-work, passion, etc. within me. I call that pool of emotion “Young Man’s Energy” mainly because that pool isn’t as deep as you get older.

Everyone has that kind of music. It’s the stuff that you put in and crank on the Friday night in a car on your way out to a great party, or get together.

For me it’s the heavy stuff. In that collection would be Rage, Eminem, Metallica, The Who, Green Day, Van Halen (old not ‘new’), No Doubt, Led Zeppelin, White Stripes, etc. Kind of a strange mix, but remember….I don’t really listen to what they are trying to say, or the image, coolness, etc….just the actual music notes….

Recently aham turned me on to the flobots. Rather he made me aware of their single “handlebars”. I’d like the youtube video, but meh. You have the internet….you do it. I loved the single instantly. I rarely fall for music like that.

….so based on a further conversation with aham I decided to get the album/cd/whatever it is these kids call the collection of music that is released at one time anymore.

First reaction….meh. I hate the idea of buying an album for 1 song. Just never really works out well although I have had great experience doing it before. I started realizing what was ind of turning me off about this one though….it’s the lyrics. They’re just too Young Guy moody, political, social, protesty, hip wannabe, blah for me. The message is OK for that kind of group, but they just do it so much more poorly than say a Rage Against the Machine.

Kind of in a rut music wise and feel like I am disconnected with a lot of the great stuff going on with the kids.

How fast is a race?

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I get asked frequently how fast races are. It’s a tough question to answer. It depends a lot on the terrain, weather/conditions, what’s at stake for the riders, etc. One of my favorite quotes regarding bicycle racing is from one of the old masters of the sport – Jacque Anquetil.

I can’t find the quote online so I apologize for butchering it but it was something to the effect of:

“Funny people these bicycle racers. They believe that a racing bicycle is built to go fast. It is not. It is only built to finish first.”

The essence of that statement is the essence of bicycle racing – the race is not always about who is fastest, rather it is about who crosses the line first. There is a difference. It speaks to the core of tactics in a bicycle race.

I often find this is the hardest part of cycling for armchair football watching couch jockeys to understand. As Americans we believe it is all about who is the fastest – most in shape. We tend to not understand or appreciate the nuances of the racing itself.

…Actually I also think, as a fan, that a lot of those tactics have disappeared due to over specialization, extensive use of race radios, the Lance era, etc….but I digress.

So how fast are entry level Cat 5 Crits? My usual response is, “Faster than you have ever gone before. Faster than you could ever go until you do it once.” I still stand by that.

I never had data to back that up until recently. I ran some numbers last night to see. I remembered that in the bensenville 4/5 race I was dropped about 6 laps in. Then I was lapped around lap 15. I could see the exact moments on my Garmin file because of things I remembered doing at that time.

I was basically thinking, “how far off was I?” I was turning in a tremendous effort solo and still got lapped in like 6 laps on a roughly 3/4 mile course. The math just didn’t add up….

So like any engineer I fired up the datafile and excel to see what happened. Turns out it works out perfectly. I’ll post the exacts later but basically the group was riding at a 26-28mph average. I maintained that average until I fell off the back. I then went to a 21-23 mph average alone. The differential in speeds accounts for the quick lapping. The pack actually maintained that 26-28 average.

Other data I have seen from recent events shows about the same kinds of speeds. These are short 3-4 turn flat crits with courses under 1 mile with wind. Can you say, “ouch”.

So if you’re thinking of racing the next time you are out on a ride just try to accelerate up to 26-28mph and hold it. Sure it’s different in a pack, but if you can’t even do it momentarily then how will you ever bridge that gap back to the pack if they gap you on a corner.

Then when you’re comfortable find a stretch of road that is open and try to do 10-17 miles at an average of 23-25 slowing to about 13-15 every 0.10-0.2 miles and then re-acelerating. When your heart gives out and your legs start to tremble as you stand to accelerate then you might have an idea what your first crit may be like.

hmmmmm…..maybe I should stick with distance riding…..

Coma

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I’m coming down from a wedding induced coma of sugar and alcohol. Driving long distances, family, and celebrations although tons of fun don’t make for a healthy self.

Got back in town and found the time to hook up a ride. Hot and heavy. I had raised the saddle a bit and again…I make more power there, but I pay a “price”….physically….

I hammered out about 10 miles then turned around. Ran across CyLowe almost right at the turn around point. We talked for a bit and then he decided to ride the return leg back with me before continuing on his ride.

He’s been in a leg burning mood lately so it was nice to make some good time back. For only being out an hour I got some good time in. Still slow, and a tad bit apprehensive about Elgin Crit this week.

Sent e-mails to the organizers so it looks like I will be in the Cat 5 race even though my ABR license says 4. Hopefully the day will be a safe one.

Oops.

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So…in a mad rush to prove that I knew what I was doing with SQL I made a poorly researched update query on the database that runs our company’s top staff level Sharepoint site.

….it should have updated about 81 records….

….it updated over 1,600.

Ooops.

Site no longer functions.

I looked at the IT guy across the table.

“So how old is the last backup?”
“Uh…it would only be the differential. Last full one would have been last Friday.”
“OK, so it will take a while. Let’s start with table xyz….”

“…uh….actually it didn’t run last Friday. Actually I don’t back up this server…you guys said we were going to re-deploy Sharepoint so I didn’t think anyone was using it.”

At that moment it dawned on me that I had just destroyed 2 years of strategic work. Nice.

I will get it fixed, but it will require a manual reconstruction. That is the suck.

2000

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I really haven’t been paying attention to mileage much this year. Just kind of riding. I haven’t even been keeping an excel log like I normally do. I have actually even gone on rides where my computer wasn’t working and just ridden (did it Tuesday for the group ride as a matter of fact).

Don’t get me wrong, I’m an engineer at heart so data is what I live for, but I just have more passion in measuring the pain instead of the distance this year.

That being said I did notice tonight that my total mileage for the year crossed 2,000 today. Not a killer year yet, but it is slightly different than years past. First these are road only – no trainer. I usually don’t get here until about August or September.

I usually start to lose my drive in July after RAIN and after watching the Tour so much. I kind of go into overload and find I am left with no goals until the following year. This year I have had some racing goals for late season to keep me going. I also haven’t spent a ton of time watching the Tour. Really hitting the fast forward buttons on the DVR when I finally do check it out.

Speaking of the tour…I am a few stages behind (Cadel is still in yellow in my world), but a lot of the fun really has finally been stripped out of it. Last year you knew there were still dopers and it would be a mess, but this year I was hoping to see some good racing between some young guns that would actually develop into tomorrow’s GC riders.

When I saw Ricco climbing the way he was….eerily reminiciant of the Chicken last year and Contrador…which…let’s all face it…is probably one of the biggest dopers around…I just thought to myself, “doper.” I haven’t really said that about any rider for a while. Last time was when Landis won Paris-Nice after winning Georgia the year he went on to win the Tour and start the total tearing apart of the sport I loved. Thanks Landis. Kind of proud I called that one here in this thread (post 21 on 3/8/06).

As most of you know it turned out Ricco and Sunny D were doped to the gills.

…meh….

So here I am tired as heck after putting in 3 hard days of riding with little sleep. I hurt all over. Everything. Today one of my knuckles swelled up from the vibrations on the bars. I figure that’s what arthritis feels like. I don’t like it.

I am contemplating putting in 3 more commute legs this week still. Mainly just to do it. Then taper a little (after the group ride Tuesday) next week for the Elgin crit. I think I need a rest day.

Group Ride

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Last night’s group ride was sweet. CyLowe got a case of the weirds from it though. I was feeling quite good and was able to pretty easily hold on to the pack for 95% of the ride. I gave up my usual ground on some of the hills, but I did actually finish the first one 2nd wheel – big accomplishment for a short fat guy.

There were a lot of new faces on the ride last night. Some were old regulars that many knew. The quick road nazi assessment was indicating that the fred level was rising slightly.

OK – my take on Freds…unlike many other elitist road weenies I tend to actually like Freds. This is mainly because I honestly feel a kinship of sorts with anyone who throws their leg over a bicycle (this obviously removes recumbent riders – which I will now refer to as recumbulators as picked up in the Two Johns Podcast – from my feeling of kinship.) I generally like them.

The ones I don’t like are the activist, self appointed safety monitor, retro-grouches that feel the need to spend the whole ride barking at people or trying to convince us that a 5 speed freewheel with friction bar ends is “where it’s at”. That ship sailed in 1986.

While I am on the topic I feel the need to lob a grenade at a local team. They are on the opposite end of the spectrum but just as annoying. I hate it because they are the closest team to my house and doing their rides would work into my schedule and I do know at least one of their riders, but they are just too freeking uptight. They gives enthuiasts and racers a bad name. They totally eliminate the joy out of riding and make it a task instead of an adventure. Total road nerds.

These are the kind of guys that will bark at everyone, insist that no new riders join up until they have passed some sort of 20 point inspection of riding skills and abilities complete with clinic, ride rigid pacelines with over the top protocols on their normal group rides, and eat their young. They look like a wannabe pro team when heading out on local century rides for Pete’s sake. Our buddy on the team skipped one of the best rides we put together all year just because the century ride….CENTURY RIDE that all of us were doign the next day he was going to be doing with this team and had to be able to perform at his best.

Despite all of this they basically suck in every race I have ever seen any of them do. Maybe it’s just something about them that ticks me off and I am being too harsh on them, but I don’t think I am alone. If you check their site it seems like no one is really active on it anymore and I really haven’t seen them at any local races this year. I have to think their membership has to be suffering because they simply found a way of sucking the joy out of one of the most joyous things one can do….ride a bike.

I won’t mention the name, but let’s just say they all supposedly have a phd.

So where was I……oh yeah the group ride. Fred Factor. The nice thing is that we rolled out uber slow. It was a nice change for me and I think it allowed me to actually warm up before hitting it hard. We did lose patience by the time we turned North. I took a flyer off the front. by the time I turned around we had basically halved the group.

So we get to a road closure. We all kind of knew it was there, but didn’t make the necessary arrangements to change the route before actually hitting the closure. So there we are…staring at the construction equipment. Some want to go back up the big hill we just came down. Others want to cross the construction site and keep riding.

hating hills I quickly joined the “let’s cross this thing” club. So we did….and ended up doing a little cyclocross. OK…more than a little. Jumping from one submerged rock to the next in a flowing creek with road shoes on is a little dicey to say the least….but it got me out of another climb.

The rest of the ride was fun. Fast and furious. I had brought along another new rider from Bike Forums that I had met during a race in Bensenville last week. Turns out he had a cleat problem right after the cyclocross adventure. By the time I realized he was not in the group it must have been 5 miles or more later. When I asked around no one had seen him since the crossing. I felt like an a-hole for not noticing sooner, providing a route map, and for not going back to find him, but he had said enough on the way up to imply that he was pretty familiar with the area.

Turns out he had an adventure finding the way back to the car, but by the time we rolled in he was there. I promise I’ll get him a map by next week…at least of the normal route….sans closure.

So…commute on Monday. Group ride on Tuesday. Commute this morning. Hopefully a commute tomorrow. Even a possibility of a 1/2 commute on Friday. If all of that comes off without a hitch then I will be enjoying the long weekend at the wedding that my wife and I have planned.

Knobbies Suck…..kinda

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So I finally got around to doing what I had intended on doing since I bought my cyclocross bike to use as a commuter…I put regular tires on it.

My intention was to keep the cross tires for possible cross races in the fall and put regular road tires on the bike for commuting. I have had a wonderfully new pair of Michelin ProRace 2s sitting around forever because at a 25mm size they were huge on a normal road bike and actually wouldn’t clear any frames I put them on. They’re like balloon tire huge.

A long spring, followed by lots of rain and then the eventual trail construction led to me just never getting around to switching out the knobbies. Well I finally did. This morning was the first time on the bike with “real” tires on it. Nice. It rides much better (in my opinion) and was noticibly faster. I felt so much better riding them.

The whole way in I kept thinking “I’m going to blog or post about this. I am so much faster with the regular tires on, it makes a HUGE difference. I mean I knew it made a difference, but come on….”

Then I got in and realized that I had the same time as just about any other time I have ridden in on that bike. Huh???!! Oh well. I guess I can chalk it up to the rain that decided to accompany me this morning.

Time will tell, but for now I am still glad I am off of knobbies.

Mrs. P

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I wanted to take a moment and formally thank my wife for driving SAG on the RAIN ride. It is a thankless job, and I know it was at times very challanging at times.

She even took the time to prepare little gift packs for everyone on the trip. She stayed up late the night before hand painting the gift bags, etc. Gave everyone a package of corn seed as a momento of their trip across Indiana, etc.

It’s this kind of stuff that made me fall in love with her in the first place. I remember I was changing an alternator on my POS 1988 Ford Rustang when it dawned on me that she was there “helping” through the whole process. Not really interested in what was going on, just knew it was important and interesting to me and wanting to be a part of that.

Over the years between the many moves I have put her through, child rearing, etc. she no longer feels the need to hide her disinterest in all things mechanical, but taking the time to jump in for SAG support achieved the same effect.

Thanks babe.
(BTW – the foggyness of the picture isn’t because the camera was in the car in the a/c and outside was extremely hot and muggy….it’s because my wife is so hot she steamed up the lens)

Also…thanks little p. Just for being a good sport I am posting this picture of you for the world to see….

Check out the quads. He’ll be a sprinter for sure.

I don’t run.

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…but today I ran a 5k during lunch. I sometimes run on days when I can’t really get out and ride.
I kind of felt like I had pent up energy from yesterday’s races. The efforts yesterday were high, but relatively short compared to what I am used to. I even went on a trail ride hauling the trailer with little p last night. That was mainly to get little p outside, but burning extra energy helped.
So I decide to run today. I was feeling spunky so after a few minutes of walking I turned on the ipod – Green Day. I love Green Day. I took off.
I ran faster than I normally do for a few minutes. Then I settled into a nice pace. I really don’t like running, but I believe you get a better health benefit from a shorter duration than you do from cycling. If you want to get lean and mean you just can’t get around doing some running.
I used the moment as an opportunity to push myself mentally – work through pain.
Pretty soon I noticed I was on track to do some good time (for me). I finished in 26:54. I don’t know how that stands up, but for me…a guy who just doesn’t run, and can list the number of times I have run over 2 miles at a time on one hand…I don’t think that’s bad.