Leaving Hibernation

A lack of posting here is maybe a good thing. I’ve been busy. The end of last year concluded with me riding each of my 5 bikes around some of my favorite locales in San Francisco (after riding each bike >1,000 miles each in 2011). Since then I have put in my 10 longest rides since I started keeping track. A few extended weekend tours and a good amount of taking the slicks to dirt have kept me busy through the summer.

One selection from the road (near Waldport, OR)

For now the big news is that I decided to join the Mad Alchemy / Verge Grassroots Cycloross team. I guess I won’t get to enjoy the team tent, but hopefully the power of embrocation will be sufficient. Anyway, cyclocross training is underway, and hopefully I’ll start updating this more…

I am the Champions!

Early in the year, I decided that I wanted to do more in 2011 than 2010. I also wanted to keep doing a lot of different kinds of riding and make the most of my bike collection. Hence my 5 grand goal – 1000 miles on 5 different bikes. One bike to look pretty and have hard to replace components, one to carry all sort of stuff, one bike to not have anything stolen off it, one to ride on anything, and a last bike to ride anything with a single gear.

Can you guess which is which (note: I snapped a frame this year)

Well I did it today. I am super proud to make this happen and possibly more on that later. More importantly, a New Years Eve day extravaganza of my favorite SF rides is in the works – likely culminating in a butter lap with my panniers full of beer (at least to start). Come join me.

Race Reports are for Suckers

The further I get behind on my race reports for the season, the more I come to realize there’s not always a story in a race report. People like stories. At least they’d prefer them I’d guess. So conflicted about writing race reports when my hearts not in it, or I don’t have anything interesting to say. Ah fuck it, here’s for posterity…

Be Nice

One morning last week I was hailed by a guy with a broken chain and stopped to help since I had a tool and he didn’t. “That guy” turned out to be the head of Chrome Bags, so my good citizenship was rewarded by his generosity in the form of shoes:

Santa came early – new kicks! be nice out there….

Always race hard, occasionally race fast

My return to Sierra Point was two years in the making. My initial experience there was in my first year racing. The result – a DNS. The rare abbreviation: did not start. Yeah, endo-ing in the pre-ride is pretty pro. This time around, I raced probably one of my cleanest races to date. Certainly my best single speed effort. Of course that doesn’t necessarily translate into placing. Not that it really matters.

Turn that grimace into a pain face (courtesy of Kevin White)

On Sandbagging

So I led the Cat C field after the first lap and managed to get 4th overall at Stafford Lake. I know what you’re thinking – “How is that possible? Aren’t you slow?” That’s what I thought too, but with just the right conditions strange things can happen: even I can be a sandbagger.

If you’re going to be a sandbagger, make sure it looks like you’re working hard (photo by Veronika Lenzi)

Time to Suffer

I don’t know what it is about Halloween weekend that means cross cranks the suffering up to 11. With the past couple years up in Astoria for a mudfest at the Cross Crusade series, this year promised to be drier with a trip down to Santa Cruz for Surf City. Luckily, relatively dry courses can still be painful.

[Did anyone get a picture of me trying to strangle myself with course tape?]

Fastest 45 Minutes

If you were at the Bay Area Superprestige at Candlestick Point and heard a loud noise about 45 seconds after the SS B race started, it was probably this:

How to race 45 minutes in 45 seconds

It’s not enough to succeed, others must fail

Maybe their chain comes off in the first minute of the race. Perhaps it’s a flat half way through the race. They could always pre-reg and just fail to show up. Inevitably there are moments in cyclocross when someone else’s failure ends in your success. In my case, that is certainly relative. The slower you are, the more you relish these moments. Trying my best to race single speed this year has meant the competition is fast. Seriously- fast.

 

gazelle v. lion – lion fairs slightly better

Minimalist Race Report

Sept 17, 2011, Folsom, CA, Cyclebration:

180-185 bpm for a lap or two; brief discussion with tree; slow flat becomes pinch flat; ran about 1/4 lap, tasted blood, walked; ran some more, rode grass w/ flat; test rode zipp wheel; didn’t DFL, didn’t puke.