Gearing up to gear down...

Well, with the weather bad, my pants too tight, my attitude screwed and racing season kicking off in five or six weeks, it's time to buckle down, hit the trainer, suck some weight and try to keep the legs from atrophying into tiny chicken wings before the weather breaks and I can get some builds in.

So I gritted my teeth and hit the trainer tonight for 90 minutes of zone 2 time with some intervals. It was a bit different than my uncommitted trainer sessions - a few of them - over the last few weeks. It was more focused and a bit harder.

I noticed that I was walking with a bit of a slump and cursing all the way downstairs into the basement getting ready to ride. That's good. It takes some desperation to drive me into the right mindset to take my training really seriously, but I know from last year, once I'm in that mindset, I'm good to go for a month or two, in the serious training groove and on my way. I'm grim, a pain in the ass to be around, kinda humorless, usually low on beer in the fridge, and kind of snappy around people I should be nicer to. I don't make small talk with the staff in my office. I curse people out when I'm driving. It's not a healthy outlook.

But when I hit the mindset last year, I lost 30 pounds, went from getting lapped in "C" training races to comfortably hanging out in the front of the lowly Cat 5 packs and actually being around for the sprint at the end, and to not being the slowest guy every time on the HON hillride. (just almost all the time, but still, for a big fat crit specialist, not a bad deal).

So yeah, short version, this crap-awful weather, the burning butt torture device (AKA trainer) and the impending race season has pushed me into full-on asshole mode. It's necessary, and although I can feel my temperament getting sort of nasty and shitty, it isn't a bad thing. It's what it takes to prepare for tough challenges ahead.

Bring it on, beaches. Bring it on.

No Ride-y...

This sucks. Bad weather here. No riding. Depressed.

Feel free to leave a comment bitching about how the weather in your neighborhood is screwing up your ride/training plan, whatever.

Kinda puts me in mind of the worst rides I've ever had. I always say "a bad day on the bike is better than (doing whatever.) But it's really not. You can say something like that on an epic ride, where it's very tough, painful, awful but still good. Occasionally though, there's a day when your ride is so filled with suffering and so lacking in redeeming value, that you'd do about anything to have it finished. Unfortunately, you're usually 15 miles out when you come to that realization. Yep, there's some days I'd rather empty the friggin' cat litter box than have a bad ride (and the cat poop gives me the dry heaves, so that tells you how bad the ride has to be, before I cry uncle).

Worst rides - rides nastier than emptying the cat box - include a 5 flat day, and a ride in bitter cold when I had such a bad asthma attack, I thought I was going to die. I had a seven flat day that was on a trajectory to be worse than either, which halfway ended with me in a bike shop buying new tires. That sucked, but I rounded out the day with some craft brews and chili, and in between I ambled into a pretty cool local bike shop, so it wasn't unpleasant on the balance, I got my epic ride in Howard County in, and the pleasantness at the end of the day sort of helped the ride rally out of the "hell" category, and into the merely "more interesting than I care for" category.

The other wicked flat day, the five flat day, ended with me hoofing it up the road toward home. A local racer - Jay Murphy - stopped and gave me a ride the last mile or two, but the two hours prior to that were sheer suckage. Jay is buddies with Jon, my LBS guy, and we know a lot of the same people, so it was five pleasant minutes after a couple very bad hours, but I wouldn't do the ride over again just to have five good minutes. No offense Jay - it was a really shitty ride. The company didn't make up for things like having to tie knots in my blasted apart tube, re=insert it in the tire, inflate it, and ride along going ca-lump, ca-lump, ca-lump, breaking off a too-short stem on my aero rim, all that jazz.

On the asthma near-death ride, I didn't even have that little bit of a bright spot. In fact, as I coughed up blood and made gurgling noises - still keeping up a good 90 RPM spin mind you - if you had offered me the opportunity to clean a hundred of the foulest cats' litter boxes all day long for weeks on end in exchange for getting that ride over with, I might have done taken you up on it. It was that bad. Then when I finished up my feet were damn near frostbite, and I was hypothermic for hours, and still had to drive home. That wasn't even really good for a story, because the upshot of the ride was "I was really cold and could have died." That's about as interesting as getting locked in the potato section freezer at the grocery - tragic maybe, but not interesting at all.

Those are my epic hell rides, the only two I can think of right now I'd trade in, in favor of just not riding that day.

You got any good hell ride stories like that? Share 'em in comments or shoot me a link and I'll link to your sad tale.

Meanwhile... pray for a bit of global warming to get this cold weather to lift. It's killing me.

Cross World's

Three Cheers for Johnathan Page, who took Silver today in the Cyclocross World Championships, missing out on the rainbow jersey due to a slip in a corner near the end, with Erwin Vervecken slipping past to take the win.

Shouts also for Katie Compton, who rides Women's Elite and from time to time Men's B (at the front) here in MABRA. She picked up silver in the women's competition.

Two Americans on the podiums at the worlds?

Okay, somebody better go check on Belgium. Make sure they're okay and all, and able to pick themselves up off the floor.

Meanwhile, I've got a new 'cross rider to root for. Daphny van den Brand. But it's only 'cuz she's so damn good on the bike, and took 4th at World's...

The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

The bad first. I slung a new 18 tooth rear cog on my single speed mountain bike last night. I was going to ride Rosaryville with Tom, Trevor, and Jon. This morning, at 5:55 as I'm headed to John's, I notice that the damn thing feels like it's skipping a tooth - like a missed shift - every time I put a reasonable amount of power to the pedals. John tried a couple quick chain oriented fixes at the shop, making him a little late for the ride (sorry guys) but we couldn't get it. I've had races end after 4 laps and 5 minutes... but never had a ride end nearly an hour before it started. Bummer. Riding this afternoon, I decided I need to check the MTB to see if the cog is skipping around the freewheel hub body. That would explain how it's happening, given that the chainline seems straight and the tension good.

The good. I did get out for a little under two hours on the fixed gear Surly Cross Check this afternoon. I averaged about 17.5 MPH without hurting myself, and my legs felt stronger than they have in a while, even though my spin didn't feel fluid. I suspect that my less frequent but higher geared (fixed & SS MTB) riding over the winter along with my recent start on the trainer is building up some raw strength. Doesn't matter too much though; what matters is it was a fun ride in nice weather. The light was weird - it was sunny, 53, with very blue skies, but the light had that mid-winter sunset-at-noon tint to it. Strange.

The Ugly. Spent the morning at Lowes, buying stuff to redo the next bathroom in the house. It's funny - if you buy the materials yourself and figure out how to do the work, you can do a really nice update on a half bath for $500 to $1,000 - thereby adding a couple to several thousand dollars value to your house. Basic wiring, sweating pipes, laying tile, painting and basic crown molding work is not that hard to do. Here's the ugly though - it eats up a lot of time, including riding time. The first bathroom I did has probably 60 or 75 hours of labor in it. This next one will only take 40, because I sorta know what I'm doing now. But that's 40 hours I'm not on the bike, spending time with my wife or kid. So yeah, that means my spring is going to be kind of ugly - unless I take a couple days off from work and just knock the thing out. We'll see.

Not Much Riding Lately...

So not much writing lately either. My bike is my muse, and she hasn't visited me in a while.

In lieu of riding, I'm spending time in agony in the basement on the trainer. Yuck.

I recently bought some great cold weather riding gear, including some Castelli Wind Bib Tights, which are awesome, and worth every penny. OMG, I've never been this comfortable riding in cold weather, ever.

But a lot of days the weather is still too crummy to ride no mater what I wear - my body feels fine in 22 degree weather with a rating of 5 degrees equivalent including windchill - but I have enormous cold weather/exercise induced asthma attacks when it's this cold. So I'm on the stinkin' trainer bored to tears. The latest atrocity - I'm watching Enemy of the State with Will Smith and Gene Hackman, the unrated version. Excellent film. My three year old toddler comes down, so that movie has to go off. Then he starts demanding Make Way for Noddy. A bad but tolerable situation then turned utterly to crap, with the high pitched Brit kid cartoon drilling holes in my skull with a 1/2" bore bit.

Then my beloved wife shows up and stands right next to me, and wants to have a conversation about the bird feeders (with me having ragged LT threshold breath during the one leg drills), whether the birds like them more in the front yard or the back, and at some point when she gets real close I lean away (pack riding reflex) and the bike tips out of the trainer mount... I could only hack another 30 minutes of zone 2 spinning and one leg drills. Ack. An hour in purgatory turned into an hour of hell. How am I going to keep this up?

Oh well. Here's an artist's impression of my basement suffering:




Puddles of sweat, brought to you by M.C. Escher, who was an artist, not a hip-hop D.J.

Sweat, brought to you by the Unholy Rouleur.

Oh well. While you're here, might as well click on over to Chris Nystrom's joint. He's got a primer on how to enjoy watching the World Cross Championships available live on the World Wide Innerwebs, from Hoogleide-Gits Och Deysa Cheekenbone Stok-in-Troat, Belgium. He is a pretty fair cross racer and he knows his beer and apparently likes frites, so it's clear that he isn't clueless about this subject matter.

Seeya on the road tomorrow folks - gonna be 50 degrees. Zone 2 cruisin' heaven.

Fixie Fever...

Dave B. tells me that the fixed gear ride we did with the LBS (Family Bikes, Crofton) sold him on the idea of riding fixed. So he's looking at a couple bikes.

I don't have a monopoly on fixie knowledge, not even close. But I got some thoughts.

Dave is considering the Surly Steamroller and the Soma Delancey. Both are nice bikes. The Surly is stout, cheap, and has a grunge sensibility. It's track-ish in geometry, which means fast because you are slung low, but not necessarily a comfortable utility bike though the Geometry is in between track and street. I like the Soma Delancey - it's stylish and looks comfy, and Soma makes topnotch frames.

Of course the big Manufacturer's fixies are nice starting points - though you'd probably wind up customizing bits and pieces here. One nice thing about a fixie is it's stout. The wheel isn't dished, so it tends to stay true really well. There's no shifting, so if you keep the chain properly tensioned, the chain / cog / ring combo last a long time. Unless your name is Trevor in which case you are riding atop a ticking time bomb. You don't need mondo brakes on the fixer because you always have the Human Coaster Brake option. So a cheap or old build is fine. I built a 74 Fuji Dynamic as my first fixie and it was wonderful, other than the amazingly major bottom bracket flex. But the old Trek wheels and a recycled Shimano Ultegra crank on a square taper bottom bracket worked just fine. Lotsa options.

However...

If you want a combination of rugged, attractive, stylish, and Surly Crosscheck versatile, you owe it to yourself to check out the On One il Pompino. You can rig it as a cross bike, commuter, trainer, or if you feel wild, something like a 29'er. It's a little heavy, but it does a lot. And daaaaammmnnn, the styling is amazing. Maybe its looks are like liquorice - you either love it, or gag on it. I'm in the love camp.


I think the Van Dessel Country Road Bob is nice, as is the Kogswell. IRO makes some nice gear too, the Jamie Roy and Rob Roy are pretty sweet, and very economical. Of course an old Schwinn or Colnago or Masi has mucho style, 'specially with high flange hubs...

Whatever you do, flipflop hubs are key. The option of going single speed when your legs are blown is nice, and you can also race single speed cross, which is a test in and of itself. As if merely racing cross wasn't enough.

I like the notion of a fixed gear as a performance utility bike. My Crosscheck is built up with Salsa Delgado cross rims, Surly New Hubs, flipflop, 32 hole. I have only had to true the wheel three times, once initially, once after a brutal cross race, and once after breaking a spoke on a 200 mile ride down the C&O with about 50 pounds of luggage in a pannier, and the spoke only broke because I crashed out trying to hop a 6" diameter downed tree. (Yeah, with panniers. I didn't claim to be smart). I run it with 700x35 treaded touring tires. Even on club rides. Which makes my legs really hurt, but that which doesn't kill us, makes us... subject to ridicule from the Dedicated Followers of Roadie Fashion we ride with. But screw them. The utility bike notion works for me, and I'm happy with the bike as it is, kind of plain but all about function and fun. I do major fixed gear mileage, for racing training and because I just like the damn thing.

Did I mention we were doing some light off-roading tonight after work on our fixie cross bikes? Yeah, try that on your Pista with 700x19 tubulars... You can get a lot of fun from a "utility" rigged fixie.

Dave talks a little about pimping his new ride up a bit, but unless it's an old classic, or a modern bike converted with an eccentric hub or weld-on track forks, I'd feel guilty about putting Phil hubs on a beater cross/trainer bike. Now if I was going to really pimp it out, black or colored Deep Vee rims with DT 240 or 340 hubs, aero spokes, Chris King headset and the green and copper Brooks saddle. But pimping a Surly is kind of creepy, like hotrodding a VW.

In the end, Dave - or anybody else going fixed - you need to find a bike that moves you and develop a vision of your own. My vision is basically a Jeep Wrangler of a bike - simple, pared down, nice (but not bling-ey) components, and highly, highly functional in a lot of different arenas. Some guys like bikes that are like Ferraris, others like old MG's, and still others like Cadillacs. It's a very personal thing and in the end, the bond between fixie rider and bike is a lot closer than the bond between the normal geared bike and the rider. Ultimately, when buying fixed, you have to follow your heart, not the advice that I (or some other equally presumptious idiots) give you. Try a couple, or at least read up on a few different ones, and you'll find one that wins your heart.

Just make sure it doesn't capture your mind, too, because until you get really used to riding fixed, there's a danger you'll forget to pedal, an offense for which the bike will punish you promptly. I guess that cantankerous side is part of the charm, too.

Why am I having such a hard time this morning?

Epic question.

Let's hear it for Tom, with the cellphone video of a great LBS fixie ride last Saturday.

And while you're at it... Holy shit, I need to lay off the food for a few weeks. Looks like I got a friggin' basketball in my jersey, along with a couple pork loins. Sure, the goofy resolution of the cell phone cam don't help much, but jeebus, Jim...

See y'all out on the C&O tomorrow... time to start doin' an extra hour of zone 2 on the way to work.


[If there is a positive side to being a fat bastard, it's that I should have whopping great leg strength going into the season. ]

Warning:

If you are riding a bicycle, I highly recommend against sticking your feet in your spokes. Although the world seems very interesting when viewed upside down, macadam and concrete surfaces typically retain their non-porous, non-elastic properties regardless of the rider's vertical orientation.

If your friends stick their feet in your spokes, there isn't much I can tell you that will be of assistance. Perhaps, "Get some new friends"?

More advice? Watch out for Belgian cross fans, square edged walls, rails, and ponds. And you might want to just think about wearing a helmet. And I don't have a clue about how you avoid this stuff.

You may want to think about not jumping your mountain bike over the Peloton in the Tour de France... the Gendarmes get really funny about things like that.

And last thing, if you happen to see a motorcycle-borne camera during your pathetic citizens' race, do not mug at the camera in lieu of keeping your eyes on the road. Unexpected Expected things may happen, and you could end up with your 124 closest friends all wanting to have a discussion with you at the same time.

Ham

I love ham. Really. I could eat ham, and nothing but ham. I was pondering that fact this morning as I was eating my pre-ride [two inch thick] peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and looking to slip a bit of lunch meat to the cats. They love ham too, but I've had one of two kinds of ham for every lunch sandwich this week, so they will just have to settle for turkey breast.

Ham is definitely the finest and greatest of the lunchmeats. Parma, Virginia, Boiled, Pit, Honey, Prosciutto... it's great stuff, all of it.

The only lunchmeat that even comes close, is Capacolo.

Come to think of it, that probably counts as ham too.

The situation was best summed up by that great philosopher.

Mmmmmmmmmm.... Haaaammmmmmm.

Or, alternately:

Homer Simpson:		Marge, prepare the celebration ham.
Marge:		All we have left are the earthquake ham and the condolence ham.
Homer Simpson:		Marge, they're just hams. OK?

Yes, ham. It's the meat that keeps on giving.

Happiest Days in Riding

The new Colorado Cyclist catalogue came in tonight. I was unduly overjoyed by it.

This is a happy day indeed, when the CC catalogue shows up.

This got me to thinking about my happiest cycling-related days. What days were they?

- Obviously, the arrival of a Colorado Cyclist catalogue is only exceeded by one thing: the arrival of a big box of stuff from Colorado Cyclist.

- Picking up my new Giant TCR from the dealer last fall. Going for a ride and feeling not an ounce of buyer's remorse.

- Those rare cold weather days when you find you have exactly the right blend of clothes on, you are warm but not sweating, cool feeling but not cold. Perfect.

- When you finish a ride and its been very cold, the water bottle is frozen, but they've fixed the sauna in the gym at work, and somebody brought in a gallon of Starbucks (the high octane French Roast stuff) and left it in the breakroom.

- Managing to pull off a podium finish in a race.

- Managing to dodge an enormous crash in a race.

- Finding out some professional associate you deal with regularly is a semi-closeted bike freak, just like yourself.

- Getting some free bike goody like a nice stem or handlebar from a friend who wants to clear out his garage.

- Putting a new set of cleats on your bike shoes, and the cleats are perfectly positioned the first time.

- Finding the right style of saddle for your anatomy, and when you ride it feels great.

- The day my wife and I were at the bike shop, and she pointed out the bike I was thinking of getting her for her birthday, and said, "Oh my, that's beautiful." So I bought it right then and there.

- The day my wife came back from a long ride, where she got lost, stopped twice for drinks and food, and came home 5 hours later, saying "That was great... I think I'd like to ride a century."

- Any time I'm out on the LBS ride early in the morning, stopping for a coffee, shooting the shit, and just having a great time.

- Riding on a club ride with 30 other guys & gals in identical team kit and passing little kids on the side of the road, eyes wider than dinner plates, waving.

- Dropping somebody on the Wednesday hill ride. (Dropping anything other than my liver out my rectum on hills, is quite an accomplishment for me).

- When a friend hangs with me on part of a ride he had trouble with before.

- Hearing something nice or interesting in blog comments.

- Getting off the bike after a three or four day - or longer - layoff.

Yeah. There are a lot of happy days when you ride a bike.

Water Bottles #76.1(12)(b)(6)

- Man, I am riding sweet lately. I think I may have broken my chain because it doesn't feel like I'm pulling on anything. I was cruising along on some flat ground today, in dead calm weather on the way home, just maxin' and relaxin', in very low zone two. I looked at the speedo and noticed I was doing 20. All that zone 2 riding has my legs in fine form, for going relatively slow, though 20 is fast for an easy cruise. The TT's I did the other day to update my lactate threshold numbers must have sharpened my legs up a bit because this is the best I've felt on the bike since late last spring.

- So I needed some carbs after my post-work commute ride today. I've been cutting some weight and sometimes you just get carbed out. I needed a quick shower too prior to heading out for some excellent VietNamese soup, some Pho, for dinner. So what to do? Easy. Crack open a Sierra Nevada, and drink it while basking in full out, 135 degree water. Yeah, sure, that's scalding temperature... just the ticket on a stiff back. Beer in the shower... a real treat.

- It was raining hard today on the morning commute. I recently put Planet Bike fenders on my OCR 2. Yep, I've caught some crap about it. I don't care though. They don't look bad on the OCR, which is a jet black bike anyhow. They also keep me *really* dry in the rain. I wore a cheap rain coat with winter tights, and felt snug as a bug when I got to work. I would have ridden a reverse muffin ride this AM, but my lights' battery was a bit weak and had shifted the lights to autodim mode, so I figured I should just go to work. Besides, I'll catch 30 or 40 tomorrow on an easy LBS ride, and maybe do a 70 on Sunday, so, no need to push it. Better to go to work, hang up my still-clean jersey in my office and admire its utter absence of a brown mud stripe up the middle of the back.

- I'm trying to help an experienced triathlete make the jump into road racing. The triathlete insists, "I want to learn how to race before I go out there and do it." I am having trouble impressing on this individual that while group rides and skills practice may help, nothing I can say or do will make her *ready* to race. I didn't understand this until I raced, but you just have to go out there, stick your nose into the beehive, and learn by doing. After you've done that for a while then others can start teaching you. But the peleton is sufficiently alien an environment, that you can't really truly explain things to anybody who hasn't lived there for a while. My advice to you if you think you might like to try it, but are afraid to and want to know more? Now's the time. Go register for your local training race crits as soon as registration gives it a shot. Due to the comprehension gap, nothing I can say or do will make you understand what it is like, you just have to try it a few times to learn what it's like and whether you enjoy doing it.

Water Bottles, Felis Novo Ano Edition

- After doing a couple short time trials this afternoon to establish lactate threshold, I had to commute home. Spend 20 or 30 minutes plunged in the depths of lactosis, and it suddenly becomes easy to keep your heartrate in zone 2... just spinning slowly up hills and whatnot.

- Kosta has a great term for the guy on the bike trail who passes you like it's a race, smiles, says through clenched teeth "Great day for a recovery ride!" and then gets to the next junction and vomits. It's a Biketrail Guy. A lot of commuters suffer from this syndrome. Don't be that guy.

- I got passed by a Biketrail Guy on the way home tonight. He was pedaling squares so hard that his head and entire back was bobbing, like a high speed version of one of those old 'dippy bird' woodpeckers you could put on the edge of a glass. I just kept the Hr down around 134, pedaled easily up the Capital Crescent, downshifting every time the Hr hit the high 130s... and almost caught up to the Biketrail Guy near the first street crossing in Bethesda. I didn't have the heart to bridge up to him and tell him that he'd go faster if he could ride slower sometimes...

- Some mornings it is colder on the bike than the temperature and weather stats would indicate. This morning was one. It was only 34 degrees, with little wind. But there was just some combination of wet bulb temp and humidity that made it nearly unbearably cold. Which is weird because I'm happy riding in 25 degree temps most of the time.

- My bike's drivetrain is making whistling noises. I'm going to ride it past the White House tomorrow morning and see if the Uniformed Secret Service guys stop me for suspicious activities.

- That's it. Off to do some drywall patching, then bed. Oh, the rockstar life I lead...

A New LTHR for Christmas!

Yahoo! Yippee!

I did a time trial workout today to determine my Lactate Threshold Heart Rate. Last year around this time it was 157. Today - 162! Yahoo! Yaayyy! Yippee!

I have no idea what this means, but I'm sure it's important.*


Actually, I do know what it means. It means I have to recalibrate my !(#%@ heart rate monitor, and memorize a new set of numbers to hit when I'm doing training.

I guess my aerobic zone, the only one that matters for the next 60 days or so, is 132 to 143. Tempo is 144 to 151. Subthreshold is 152 to 162. Suprathreshold (5A) is 163 - 165. Aerobic capacity (5B) is 166- 170. Anaerobic capacity is anything above that...

The good news here is I spent a handful of crits this summer with the Hr pegged at about 168-170, and spent one 'cross race with it pegged at about 174 average, hitting in the upper 180's from time to time. (On really long hills if I go all out, I can catch in the mid-190s. I don't like doing that, much... it's instant migrane territory). Over the course of one year this is quite a substantial improvement in fitness, especially considering I had trouble just one short year ago holding my heartrate at 165 for a 5 minute interval.

Interestingly, my maximum heartrate per the old 220-age calculation, is 181. Under that scheme, I would be in my aerobic training zone at 75% of 181, or 135. Yeah, that would be a tiny bit on the low side, but decent enough of an estimate to work. I kind of prefer Friel's (Bompa's) system...

Anyhow, enough of that. Want to know my training plan for the next month? Ride as much zone 2 as I can, and eat little.

Pretty simple, eh?

What I've Been Up To...

Haven't been posting much because I haven't been riding all that much.

Instead, I've been renovating one of the four bathrooms in our house. We've been renting here for a few years and purchased it. Consistent with my wife's master plan, I've embarked on some renovations. So over the Christmas holiday I pulled the old toilet and sink, ripped out the vanity and the mirror and lights, removed the old tile floor, laid new tile, and installed new cutoff valves in locations more amenable to the pedestal sink that will replace our old ugly vanity. ("You're so vain, you probably think this blog is about you...")

I'm inordinantly proud of myself because in the last four days I've learned the basics of laying tile and of soldering pipe joints. The tile laying wasn't hard at all, just drudgery. Picking up the knack of sweating pipes took some solder and a lot of flux. I think I have it now and the keys are really sanding the pipe to be fitted until it shines, using lots of flux, keeping the coupling really hot so you only have to try to solder it once (otherwise it gets gunked up) and ramming white bread up the attached pipe, to ensure it remains dry through the soldering process.

Really. White Bread. Works like a charm and out of six joints I had to solder, I only needed to redo one for a very slight leak. Oh, happy day.

Yes, it's possible I've died and just don't know it yet.

Tomorrow starts a month of starvation and very long rides. I'll keep you posted on the progress, assuming there is some. Keep it safe out there.