double take...

So I really did see a guy riding down Apperson with a full on carbon disc wheel today. Full on tri-bike decked to the halls. His buddy up the road of him was rollin' a pair Hed 3's. It was a well deserved chuckle after a super tough 3 hours.

Nifty iPod Trick

Now that it's winter time, my iPod is usually sandwiched in between my jersey and a vest or jacket. I've found that this tends to create condensation on the iPod. While I haven't found this to be a problem... I don't want it to become one. Here's my solution: You know those old bike socks with holes in the toes? Yeah... just put the iPod (or anything other mp3 player) in the sock. Simple enough. So far it's worked well...

It's gettin' cold outside!

Can't forget Walker...

Don't want to leave Target's brother Walker out either... I don't think he wants to go to any races anytime soon though...

Racin' Wife

She doesn't race... but she loves goin'! Not too big on time trials though... but managed to crack a smile at this one!

Racin' Buddy

People take their dogs to races all the time... it's a shame you can't take cats! Target clearly wanted to go to this one!

Reloaded.

The "offseason" has passed, and it's time to start rebuilding for next season. I enjoyed my time off... maybe too much! Milkshakes, burgers, a lot of food! So it's time to straighten up. I've never been big on calorie counting, but I'm going to at least try and pay a little attention to it this year. Last year I never really got to race weight. Oops!

So what's new? I've started seeing a chiropractor for some adjustments. Dr. Walter has been adjusting my fairly crooked body. Perhaps crooked is an understatement! Nevertheless I'm very optimistic that I will be much more comfortable on the bike in 2007! It helps to have an expert uber-certified fit techinician at my disposal to help adapt changes to my lower back/pelvis on the bike!

My next move to is to focus on core strength. After a year of nothing but riding my core strength and stability has all but disappeared. It's amazing how little you use your core in cycling... but just how important it is.

Things are looking good for JRVS in 2007. We've got some new riders and everybody returning seems super motivated for '07. We should have a super strong Cat 3 squad!

Anyways, I think that's all for now!

Ride of the Falling Leaves

I almost didn't ride this morning. I'm at that point in the year where it takes A LOT of motivation to ride. My body has pretended that's it's been October 30th since September 11th (the day after Carolina Cup). But.. I did get rolling anyways. The stroll up 12 O'clock Knob was a BEAR... almost turned around, but kept going. It was wet, but at least the fog was clearing up. The temperature was rising, but it felt good. The descent down the Roanoke side was fun, I rode conservatively... a CRV decided my lane was optimal... so we both swerved out of each other's way, and then a cat ran out in front of me.

Got to the bottom, the sun was super bright and blinding as it reflectedoff the still wet road. I didn't go all the way down to 221, I turned around and headed back up. The climb was much better, it's more gradual. I put in some tough efforts mear the top where the grade is more friendly to a congenital flatlander. I made sure I pushed hard and big ringed the last 1/2 mile.

The ride back down the Salem side was as tough as ever, wet pavement, steep sharp turns and leaves falling. Speaking of leaves falling, a gentle breeze was blowing the leaves like an orange October snowfall. Back to the descent, a heating oil truck climbing the mountain decided to hog the entire road.. leaving me with a four foot swath of pavement to manuever through the steepest and sharpest turn of the entire descent. Good stuff... I'm glad my bike has nice brakes, nice tires, and descends like a rocket on rails!

Burnin' Rubber

I've burned through an incredulous number of tires this summer. A couple Vittoria Open Corsas and a Bontrager 29" ACX... all prematurely toasted. One Open Corsa lasted 4 races (in a span of two weekends)... at the Cobblestone Crit my hub flange disentergrated in the first turn of the first lap. In the short stretch between the turn and the wheel pit, my chainstay managed to bald the tire.

A week later, I was sporting a new Open Corsa on the PowerTap wheel. It was the day after the Tour de Ports crit, and I was too lazy to swap tires. Sure enough on a wet ride in Williamsburg, I sliced the heck out of the tire and casing coasting down Diascund Reservoir Rd. I don't usually do training rides on race tires. Lesson learned.

This past Sunday I managed to tear a 1.5" gash into the sidewall of my rear 29er tire. Bummer. It was only the second ride. While not the finesse rider of a decade ago... I'm certainly not a basher. The sharp rocks of the mountain service road at Carvin's Cove got me again. No lesson learned here... just frustrated. On a positive note, it's motivation to run my old Stan's NoTubes system on the 29er. Worked great with 26 inches... I'll know by the Douthat race if I dig it or not.

No real point to the post... just ranting!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I realize I've been MIA on the blog. We've been busy... and well, I've been super unmotivated to write! In sum, I got married earlier in the Summer, which was outstanding. My return to racing in July was incredibly humbling... several DNF's later, I finally began to get my swagger back in August. Although satisfactory results elude me, it looks like I will at least have momentum and motivation heading into the offseason. Next year's big goal is to upgrade to Cat 2!

That's all for now, hopefully it won't be another 3 months before I poset again!
-Tank

Day Off!

I had a good day off yesterday. Of course, the obligatory pass out on the sofa, waking up oblivious to my surrounding occured... although I at least had a productive day.

For lunch, I decided to give Mama Maria's italian lunch buffet a shot. Katie and I dine at Mama Maria's fairly regularly... and it is very good. The buffet isn't huge like a Calabash or Super Crazy Chinese... but it is tasty. I filled up on Plates of spaghetti, a salad, tons of garlic knots, and a couple slices of pizza. Very tasty, and very filling! Mama Maria's seems to be catching on with the cycling culture as well... there were quite a few cyclists in the room. How often to you get to talk about the Giro with another cycling fan? Morris Elam and I speculated on Basso, Ullrich, Guitierrez, Simoni, and of course Cunego's lack of prosperity. Good times.

After lunch, I switched out chainrings on the Klein, got a haircut, and returned home just in time to see the UPS guy dropping off my new rear disc wheel (not that I'm a great TT'ist... but I'll pretend). After stretching out the S3 tubular it was nap time! I passed out HARD on the sofa... only to be awakened suddenly by the phone ringing and Katie getting home at the same time. By now it's 4:00, she has errands to run... and I've got a bike to ride. Unfortunately my power nap was just long enough to get to the deep REM sleep... meaning that I was incredibly groggy. No problem... a little Rock Star Juiced (70% real fruit juice!)... and I was partying like a rock star.

Time to ride... a Tuesday off means I can make the Famous Tuesday Night Ride in downtown Roanoke! I've only done the ride a handful of times... it's definately a lot of fun; a good route indeed. I figured to maximize my workout quality... I'd ride the fixed gear. I've been riding a fixed gear for a while now... but last night was the first group ride I've taken it on. Of course Bernie Sanders showed up... meaning I should've taken my Klein with gears and the ability to coast. In a nutshell... the ride was a blast, you can really fly up all but the steepest climbs on a fixed gear... but never get a chance to really rest on the downhills.

Back to the Giro. Looks like Basso all but locked up the Giro today. I guess it must've been too cold for Danielson today; I would've liked to have seen him move up in the GC... not down!

Is anybody from back East planning on doing Mountains of Misery this weekend?

Bontrager Batcage

The Bontrager Batcage H20 cage rocks... holds bottles like a champ, and can even tote a Venti Iced Chai from Starbucks. I've been meaning to sing its praises for a while now... but better late than never. I've been exclusively using the batcage for a few years now... only the XXX Lite Carbon cage threatens its existenc eon my bike. In other news, I had the worst bout with allergies since the Ed Elliot Crit yesterday; lesson learned... mow the lawn after the ride.

lactic implosion

Yes, it's true... I cracked yesterday. I cracked hard. It was mother's day, and the JRVS Sunday morning ride had a smaller group than usual. Missing were many of the regular heavy hitters, but present were the sluggers... Cam and Todd. Wow... I had not ridden with Todd at all this year, other than a few warm up laps at Tyson's this year. Todd is incredibly strong and is focusing most of his energy on road racing this year with the Snow Valley amateur-elite team. At one point he and I got off the front and he just hammered... I've never seen anybody hammer so hard, but so smooth.

Anyways, back to my morning. It seems the week's efforts were finally catching up with me; I can buffer a lot of lactic acid build up, but once it reaches critical mass... I'm done. Chris, breakaway specialist/lead out man extra ordinaire/fellow Cat3/fellow allergy sufferer, was also having a rough day with the legs. On the infamous col' de Stonehouse I popped... slowly bobbing and weaving at the foot of the climb watching the Snow Valley duo fly up the road. My plan was to salvage what I had left and ride back with Chris. Next thing, I see Cam dropping back... "great..." I thought, "know I've GOT to dig in an go". I woke up in the morning with heavy legs and tight hamstrings, not much spark, but they still worked. Nevertheless, I dug in deep to get up the road to Cam (who was going just easy enough for me to bridge up, but hard enough to make me dig deep). As I caught up with Cam, we could see Todd and Steve up the road.

I was completely spent... spent enough that if I was riding solo, I would've called it a day and spun home in the 39t. I had to dig in deep to stay on Cam's wheel... we were definately cruising, slowly reeling in Todd, but at a pace I could sustain. As we hit rollers heading inro the "Roubaix" stretch, the rubber band finally snapped. I was on my own. The legs refused to turn over. I was spent, my legs burned... and threatened to cramp. I could barely maintain 100 watts for the remainder of the ride. I've never cracked like that before... never so hard. In hindsight, I'm glad Cam dropped back and pushed me past my limits. On a normal day, I would've been able to keep up... and even contribute to the pace; I've never had that much lactic burn before.

I actually rode my mountain bike...

I rode my big 29er yesterday for the first time since New Year's Day. I admit I've been neglecting the mountain bike this year; but mountain biking doesn't have the appeal it once did for me. However, spending time on the dirt yesterday was exactly what I needed. The frustations of allergies and less than desireable results lately had taken a toll on my ego; my mind needed a change, but wanted to pedal... therefore a mountain bike ride was the remedy. I ended up riding part of the proposed Commonwealth games XC course. It'll definately be a great course; but it's a shame I'm not a climber. Fortunately, at least, the major climb is fairly gradual and super smooth. Who knows if I'll be racing or not... I've found that mountain biking agitates my twice broken collarbone. Regardless of my mountain biking plans, I'll definately make it to the 19th Annual Tidewater Mountain Bike Challenge.

As for racing, no plans until the PLT #1 Time Trial on June 11th. Watch out July.

worst performance ever...

This past weekend was incredibly disappointing! Chalk it up to a horrible time trial on Saturday and a laughable effort in Sunday's Ed Elliot Crit. Saturday's time trial was a 15 mile out and back course full of rollers... should've been the perfect course for me! Oh well... maybe next year I suppose; hopefully next year my breakfast won't continually try to come back up either. Sunday, my allergies were the worst they've EVER been while riding. After getting pulled by the moto-ref, I could not breathe... I could tell the inside of my nose was raw and bloody, my throat felt as if it were on fire. Oh well... while I'm frustrated and disappointed... this summer will be a different story.

know when to say when...

Three hours fast and hard were on tap for this morning's training ride. Needless to say, it didn't happen. First up the readings from the PT hub were intermittent, which really perturbed me! Nothing like cruising a long with inconsistent/no data! I looped back around to the house, swapped wheels... and off I went. Secondly, my iPod mini tends to have a mind of its own at times. For absolutely NO reason, it'll choose 3 artist, and only play those artists. My playlist or today featured 43 songs by several different artists. I think only 18 or so of the 43 tunes actually played. It's quite bizarre... there will be a long pause between songs, and chances are the next artist is the same as the one before. Today the iPod was on a junction, agents of good roots, and ryan adams kick... completely ignoring several other artists. Third the legs were dead... and not moving very fast or hard. So I turned around and spun home... perturbed.

Casey Auto Group Crit blog coming soon.

satisfied.

I'm satisfied with this past weekend. A little disappointed in missing the break that rode away on KOA. I was there... all I needed was a couple extra turns of the crank... and I would've been there. "KOA Hill" is an ugly monster of a climb near the end of the JRVS training ride. It's ugly, it opens up with a false flat, then a steep wall, and finishes with a relatively mild grade to the top.

Anyways, the ride was pretty good on Sunday. Fairly well rested, I was ready to roll. I told myself I'd ride angry... but try to save some anger for the end. The roll out started well and steady... heavy with conversation. Although Todd Helmick was absent, there were still a few heavy-hitters: Cam, Stephen DeLisle, Chris, Dave Rushing, et al. Overall, I was aggressive, but not stupid. Usually my efforts early on cost me dearly by the time we get to "Stonehouse Hill"... but I was wise to monistor my efforts closely. I rode Stonehouse aggressively... hitting the base of the climb with Cam and Stephen, then launching a few soft attacks once the group reintegrated in order to move up the climb (and to regain my tenacity of climbs!). For reference, by "soft attacks"... I intended to get a little off the front, but never try to stick it. Nevertheless, I was happy to arrive at the top of Stonehouse in the group; the past few efforts were marred by my lack of fast paced rides: I was ready this time.

After Stonehouse, we slowed the pace a bit before picking things back up through the "Roubaix section". The Roubaix section features horrible pavement and twisty roads... my kind of roads. Roubaix was fun. Next up was KOA.

KOA broke up the ride pretty well. Cam, Stephen, and Chris got away with a gap. A small group of us gave chase. We were able to organize a rotating paceline... slowly bringing them back. Eventually the pulls at 30mph began to wear down the group... leaving Dave Rushing and I taking longer pulls at the front. As we were on the verge of catching them... an old Caddy pulled right out in front of us... forcing us to all but come to a complete stop. After the caddy, Dave Rushing and I broke away to give chase. We were able to close the gap to just a few seconds when the sprint started. Cam took the sprint easily, but we never caught them... we just barely missed the catch and were waaaay too gassed to sprint anyways. After the sprint, we reunited... crusing back to the Waller Mill parking lot under and umbrella of conversation.

After the ride, Cam was nice and bought Chris and I smoothies. We hung out at the BikeBeat in the 'burg briefly with Chris and Steve (who finished with the main group). I dropped off Cam... then swung by the Beat in Kiln Creek about arrangements for this Saturday. After that, I helped my Dad move some firewood... ate Easter dinner with the family... then hit the road for Salem (leaving Katie behind!).

Peaking?

-7 degrees

It's good to feel good again. It's bad that I have exhuasted my supply of allergy medicine; hopefully I'll have that problem remedied tomorrow morning.

I flipped my stem, so it's once again a negative rise. I know that it is biomechanically counterproductive for me to do so... but to be honest, as a crit racer, I did not like the way it handled flipped positive. Perhaps for the occasional mountain timetrial I'll flip it, but for general training and racing, I'll keep it low. Besides... I went out today and posted my highest average zone 2 watts, so it can't be that bad.

I'm really looking forward to this weekend. While it's still to be determined when we'll arrive in Yorktown, I'm very much looking forward to Sunday's JRVS/Casey Auto Group training ride. Cam says, "Bring my race wheels and ticket puncher". We'll see who gets their tickets punched. I'm ready for a good ride, I'll be rested and feeling good. Oh yeah... and I get to spend Easter with my family too.

HCC

The Hampton Roads Cycling Classic kicked off and wrapped up this weekend. A windy April weekend played host to the events this year (quite the contrast from last year's oppressively hot July event). Saturday featured a 16 mile time trial in Smithfield; while Sunday featured the Conte's Classic (formerly the Ford Classic) in downtown Norfolk at Waterside.

Katie and I arrived in Yorktown shortly after 1am Saturday morning... I needed to be up at 5:30 in order to eat and get to to Smithfield on time. A little groggy, I finally got to bed at about 1:45... set the alarm, but didn't turn it on. Amazingly I awoke at 5:40, still groggy, but impressed I woke up without an alarm. I showered, dressed, top off the gas tank, then hit the McDonald's drivethru for a Nusbaumer breakfast (hot cakes).

I arrived in Smithfield in record timing... it really is amazing how much time is saved when 80% of traffic lights are green. I expected to be TT'ing in the rain, but fortunately the weather held out, and it was windy. Very windy... crosswinds, headwinds... more headwinds, and only ONE short stretch with a tailwind. I'm glad that I didn't ride a disc wheel (not that I own one)... I don't think they provided a significant advantage. I was also glad that my rear Reynolds Stratus with a hole n the rim held up (I'm not using it for mass starts... so don't worry).

After warming up and gettig ready, I was reminded of a lesson that I know all so well (and usually avoid these situations). My TT helmet (a Louis Garneau Rocket) had been stored in a closet since September... I took it out of its bag to find the shell slightly deformed and the straps extremely out of whack. Scrambling, I tried to get it wearable, only to have a 7 inch piece of the strap dangling. I wrapped that around the other straps and was on my way to the start.

I arrived late to the start, still putting my gloves on. They told me to come to a stop, put a foot down, and go. So I did. For the first 200 meters of the TT, I was putting my gloves on and making all neccessary adjustments. I'm not 100% sure how late I was to the start, or exactly how much time I lost fumbling around after the start. In sum, I don't think it made a huge difference, as I'm not a great time trialer (although I did a decent Mill Mt. TT last year); so a win wasn't lost here. I ended up 13th... snagging a couple of BAR points.

I awoke Sunday and turned on the local news for the weather... it's remarkable how much can change overnight: the day was going to be cooler and windier. I got there early, relaxed, warmed up... and was ready to go. The Norfolk course is tough and technical, a good candidate for a breakaway. In each of the races I watched (Women's 1/2/3&4, Cat 4, Men's 1/2/3) and our race, a breakaway succeeded. Very impressive when you consider the windy conditions.

I was disappointed in my legs not showing up 100% for the day, but all things considered, it's alright. Early on Chris took a solo flyer off the front for a few laps. I moved up to the front, determined to cover any chase attempts. There were several attempts, instigated by Seigler Imports and Hilton's Stephen DeLisle. My goal was to latch onto any of these attempts, hopefully bridging up to Chris, creating a big break with at least two JRVS/Casey Auto Group riders in it without me chasing Chris down. It was a good break attempt, and Chris at least got a prime out of it. Maybe next time it'll work out better in our favor.

Eventually a break of 5 got clear of the field in our race, and a solo rider chased in purgatory for 6th. Eventually the gap became insurmountable, and we gave up chase. The last few laps, I was hurting pretty bad, I really wanted the field sprint, but unfortunately could not force my way into the position I wanted (Ie I started the sprint from waaay back).

Chris and I shared a razor thin line betwen a rider moving over and a curb/sidewalk that jutted out into the lane. Both of us shared the same logic... either brake and coast to the line, or coast through between the rider and the curb with zero margin for error. We chose the curb line... interrupting our soon to be sprint (our pedals would have clipped the curb)... then starting the sprint really early. In the end we didn't catch the guys with a clear line to the finsh, but we did pass quite a few. I came across the line in 10th with Chris, Ken, Dave Olds, and Dave Rushing in tow. It was frustrating not to have at least one man in the break... but with every race I try to learn at least one lesson. Lesson learned; a kamikaze effort would've been approrpiate in the case to get into the break (for anybody on the team); even if I couldn't hang... then Casey Auto Group would've had a shot at victory. I was glad to have Rushing in our race, he's a vet racer with a lot of experience, and pointed out some things we could've done differently in the end that would've ensure at least a little more success.

Rest week, the home for Easter... see you all at Waller Mill for the ride.