Back to Chicago...for 7 months. Crap.

I'm in Chicago for the next 7 months. It might as well be a prison sentence.

I'll edit this post to include the last set of pictures that I took on my way back from Hood River, OR to Winfield, but it might take a while. I'm still in a bit of a rut; I miss what had become my new home town, and the people there.

Until I leave again, I'll be riding, running and rock climbing as much as I can in order to prepare myself for the next challenge that awaits me, and also to have as much time spent free and alone as I can until that begins.

October Update

Well, it's been a while. I don't really have an excuse; life hasn't been any more or less hectic than it was since my last update. I just sort of forgot to write on my blog. Oops.

Anyways, I'm doing well in Hood River, OR, and preparing to spend my first winter here. Having done my research before I moved here, I'm aware of the gray mass of clouds that will descend upon the Gorge for the next 4 months. Lots of rain, and temperatures that will rarely go below 30, and seldom rise above 45. I can deal with that. And if I can't, Bend is just a 2.5hr drive away. Dry desert air, instead of bone chilling dampness.

Don't really have much else to say, so here are some recent pictures:

State STXC Race. Shoot me now, please.

I'll try to keep this as short as possible, but I'm guessing it will be rather verbose in the end.

This past weekend, I toed the line for the Oregon state short track cross country championships. The race was 45min, go till you blow. I had a shitty start, and the guy who won the race ended up putting 10 seconds into us on the first lap, and probably got most of his final 30 second winning margin within the first three laps.

Despite the seemingly non-technical nature of the course, it was hard to pass, as there was no place to recover, or in reality, no area that wouldn't punish you for any extra efforts to get away.

After a couple of people ahead of me exploded, I decided to ride the wheel of the dude in front of me. In case you were wondering, this is where the plea for termination comes in to play. The guy I was racing for second place was a whippet lean college kid who couldn't have weighed more than 125lbs. He was strong, and technically sound. However, I was able to cover any and all accelerations of his with relative ease, and had no major technical bobbles of my own. The thing was, I was perfectly content to wait until 10min to go to make my move, and if that failed, try to out sprint him at the end, instead of actually racing my bike like a respectable human being, and at least TRYING to get away.

Plan A fell apart when the team who was running the show didn't have lap cards, nor did they feel inclined to tell me the time gone or remaining any of the 4 or 5 times I asked them. Now, I've never been a sprinter, but when they rang the bell for the final lap, I figured that I could out-muscle him to the line, instead of taking a flier. 1-2min efforts being one of the few things I'm good at, this should have been the tactic I chose, but the brain does weird things when presented with oxygen debt.

Unfortunately, we passed a lapped rider during a muddy section, which lead to a slightly bigger than normal gap between myself and the 2nd place guy heading into the last corner. I hit the gas, and closed down all but a bike length, but it was too little, too late.

Now, I love to blame other people for my failings. We all do. But I'm going to stand up and take complete responsibility for my 3rd place finish. I raced like a Nancy, and I deserved nothing more than 3rd place. I got what I worked for, which was a decent finish, a step or two below the guys who actually raced their bikes.

Did another MTB race today. The Cat1s started with the pros, and I started with the Cat2s. Yes...I looked around at everyone else on the starting line, noticed that they were a bit hairier than I expected, and then looked down at their number plates. Then I started pedaling, really, really hard.

The short period I gave up at the start ended up costing me. I murdered myself to get back up to my field, and ended up in the top half of the Cat1 field for the day, although only 6th of 9 or 10 in my age group. Could have been a lot better, but I stacked it hard in the feed zone trying to snag a water cup from a volunteer. I'll never directly complain about people spending their day to help me race bikes, because I've done it at ABD events, and I appreciate all of the hard work people put in. But a little basic education regarding "proper" hand-up methods would go a long way. Pulling the hand in, cup-in-digits, as a racer attempts to reach for a much needed sip or three of water, is a great way to cause a crash. And, gasp, that's what happened, as I ran afoul of some sand/dust, tried to bring it back onto the hardpack too quickly (some looming tree stumps probably didn't help), and the front wheel slid out. Like going off the road on a road bike, riding in gravel, trying to bring it back on too quickly, and eating shit. Same thing. A resultant dropped chain, stopping and starting again, and a false flat uphill lead to me losing a good 30-40 seconds. As I rolled into the finish, two guys in front of me had just crossed the line. Fuck. That stings.

On a rare positive note, I've learned how to handle my bike, at least on the flats, in a respectable manner. Still a bit skittish going downhill, but I was able to hold the wheels of plenty of people as I happened upon them on the tight and narrow. Repetition does wonders for you skills, and a 38mi MTB race presented a lot of opportunities to turn at speed. I hate to say it, but Bend definitely has an advantage over Hood River in that regard. I have to KILL myself to get to the top of Post Canyon in order to get some downhill at speed; in Bend you just roll out to any of the local trails, go up or flat for a while, then start railing a nice gentle descent.

Mt. Hood from the office parking lot, directly south of town; Mt. Hood from I-84, probably 30mi east of town; Syncline, which is much bigger than it looks. You can't see the cars that are driving by on WA-14, but you can see the old highway and the new highway, top and bottom. I think there's 60-70ft between them, elevation-wise. You can get a 6000ft ride in at Syncline in a two hour stretch, easily, if you have a decent pair of legs.

Off Day.

Of the 5 people who read this thing with any degree of regularity, 3 or 4 of you know that I rarely take a day off the bike. And more often than not, when I do take a day off, it's not because I NEED a day off. It's simply because life gets in the way, or like today, I just didn't feel like it.

Instead I drove down (out?) to Portland to drop off a check, in order to pay for new team clothing for this summer. Hopefully it (team clothing) gets here quickly. The season is approaching a rolling boil, and I haven't done anything more than two different weekly crit/circuit series, and a couple of MTB races. The weird thing about racing in Oregon is that the road and MTB scenes are over by July or early August, or so it seems. Hell, tomorrow is the OR State XC championship, and they've only had 3 races in the series so far.

Tomorrow is going to be a long day on the bike. I can feel it. I'm looking forward to riding tomorrow, and hope that the weather holds up. Never know around here. It can be pouring 5 miles away at Post Canyon, and dry as a bone on the east side of town.

Bike Racing...for Real

When I first heard about the opportunity to move out here, I promised myself that every race I did would have some sort of epic climb, and that I'd get so used to high altitude that when I descended upon the mere mortals of the Midwest, the air "down there" would be like soup to me. Thick, and delicious soup. With potatoes in it.

Well, I started my season off in typical less-than-grand style. A series of also-ran appearances on the road, winning a mountain bike race, making the "podium" (4th...top 5 in MTBing...which I didn't stick around for) in another upon upgrading to the next level, not a single road race (yet), a couple of Tuesday night Portland International Raceway (PIR) efforts, and finally, this week's iteration of the Hood River Criterium Series.

Let me preface this by saying that yes, I realize that my racing achievements are few and far between, so for me, it's the effort that counts.

Race recap:

18 starters. 4 corner industrial (several breweries, actually) crit with a set of railroad tracks to cross on the back stretch. A solitary rider went up the road, got 5 seconds, and I jumped after him. I caught up to him shortly, and we began putting time into the field. We were away for somewhere around 15 laps, and as the field began shattering behind us under the constant attacks, we lapped two riders. Normally I'd hope that they would have the good sense to remove themselves from the course, but they weren't getting in the way, and they more than likely drove 60 miles from PDX, so I had no problem with them getting in some training miles.

I have to give credit where credit is due; my partner in the break was killing me. Or maybe I was killing myself. Either way, a quick run down shows that he did about 60% of the work during our escape. Although it appears that I was taking slightly faster pulls, albeit of shorter duration. 320w during that ~30min effort.

Now for the downer. We both began running low on coal, and steam production faltered. Or the 6 man chase behind had enough power that we were doomed regardless. Whatever. We were caught with 4 laps to go, and shortly before we were swept up, I told my break partner that I'd do whatever I could to help him at the end of the race. He was stronger than me, and I appreciated him not attacking me towards the end of our time off the front. So, for the next two laps, I chased down everything I could, and then blocked when he and another guy attacked with two laps to go. With 3/4ths of a lap to go, we started to close in on them as people started attacking out of the new chase group, and I attempted to bridge up to them solo. Failed, and ended up not only blowing what little I had left, but dragging the guys I was trying to ditch up to a decent position. I rolled it in for 8th. Break partner ended up winning the race, which was pretty cool. Not a great result for me, but my legs are coming around, and I'm getting some speed to go along with the endurance/time trial strength I've been building.

Hood River Part Deux

So I've been in the Hood for 6 days now. The highlights? Work is pretty cool (learning = best thing ever), and the riding is awesome.

Lowlights? The Dupage Credit Union f***ed up, and my cell phone has one foot in the grave.

This is probably the shortest update ever, but I have some pretty rad pics to make up for it, so check them out. Please note that the one trail pictured is pretty uncharacteristic of the area; many (most?) are still under a bit/a lot of snow, but are filled with 20-60min climbs and wind through the timber of Mt. Hood National Forest. However, being a Midwestern boy, a 30min climb and 50 degree weather in March are both amazing, so I'm willing to get over the semi-drab surroundings until the other trails open up for business.

Hood River, OR.

Well, this has been a long time in materializing. Some time, in the middle of April, I will drive my champaign colored Subaru Impreza from Winfield, IL, to Hood River, OR, loaded down with as much junk as it can safely hold.

In the rare event that anyone ever reads this post, no, it has nothing to do with the town that I grew up in, or the people I've come to call my friends. Really, leaving Wheaton/Winfield and my friends will probably be the hardest thing I've ever done. I'm moving to a place I've never been, where I know one (1) person, and the only frame of reference I have comes from friends, Google image searches, GoogleEarth, and MapMyRide. After 5pm every day, I won't have anyone to talk to, to hang out with, or otherwise spend time.

Those of you that know me fairly well understand that I am a person who does just fine by myself; since I've been home from college, and aside from riding, I have maybe 15min of conversation/interaction a day with parents, friends, or people at the local coffee shop. So really, I don't foresee that part of my life taking a downward plunge. If anything, this will finally force me out of my shell a bit, and I'll actually make an effort to meet new people.

However, I'm hopeful, and confident, that I'll meet plenty of people who are into the same sort of crap I'm into. Campfires, nights skies, and laughter. Bikes an added bonus.

Why Hello There, Sun.

Like many of my fellow Midwesterners, I have been bitching for quite some time about the weather we've had this winter. And, like most of those who complain, I check the weather pretty regularly, looking for a day or two when I won't get dumped on from the heavens, or freeze to death should I stop riding for 30 seconds outside.

Well, turns out the tide is turning, so to speak. While I'm certain that we'll get another 3 inches of snow before spring is officially here, I'm please to see that we'll be getting several days in a row of 55 degree weather. Will I get rained on from the turnaround point, all the way home, on every ride? Most certainly. Will I flat both front and rear simultaneously, resulting in the cyclist's version of the walk of shame? Pretty bloody likely.

But, I've waited all winter for this, and I'm willing to take those risks. As long as it's not 40 and pouring, in the Biblical sense, I'll be outside for at least an hour a night, until next winter.

Aspartame: The Devil's Sugar.

If the title didn't give it away, I am not a fan of Aspartame, the artificial sugar found in many "Diet ___" products. Most notably, Coke Zero.

In a hopeless attempt to reduce my caloric consumption while retaining some semblance of both caffeine intake and flavor, I started drinking the aforementioned product. Well , I succeeded in that regard; it does taste a hell of a lot better than Diet Coke. However, 3 weeks of Coke Zero intake has resulted in about a month of what can only be politely described as "bowel distress". During this time, I'd been taking Tums in order to help calm my stomach/lower GI. Unfortunately, those tums were actually the sugar free variety, and, you guessed it, contained my new best friend, Aspartame. Even my favorite gum has f***ing Aspartame in it.

Yesterday, I went in to see the good medical care professionals at Cornerstone Medical, right across the street from the blight that is Wheaton Warrenville South High School. After relieving myself on said "educational" institution, I went in to see the Dr. She poked and prodded my stomach, noted the areas of pain, listened while I awkwardly described my symptoms, and agreed with my self diagnosis. Satan, most unclean, had transformed himself into Aspartame, and lodged himself firmly in my large intestine. It's getting better, and Aspartame/Satan is being removed from my body, bit by bit.

So, I'm back to square one. I'm taking probiotics in order to restore the bacteria culture in my digestive tract, and I'm avoiding any kind of sugar replacement substance like the Black Death.

And yes, I realize there has been a rather poor showing in terms of pictures lately, but given the nature of this topic, believe me when I say that you're better off without them. Woof.

2009 Plans.

With each new year, I'm required to come up with a list of "Resolutions" that I more than likely won't keep for more than a month or two.

So, here goes nothing.

1) Reduce my Los Burritos Tapatios intake. This shouldn't be TOO hard, as it's currently around 5 meals a week. Woof.

2) In conjunction with numero uno, I'd like to get down to 63.5kgs. Or, for all of you uncouth Americans, 140lbs. Currently tipping the scales at 144lbs, raced at 143lbs this summer. I don't really watch what I eat, but I'm not eating a pint of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream before bed every night, either. So, I think that this also relatively feasible.

3) Ride myself into the ground, and Phoenix my ass out of the ashes several times in preparation for whatever I decide are my goal races for the year. This will depend on my life situation later on in the year, obviously, and if I'm too broke or live in Australia, I won't be racing in Pennsylvania in July.

4) Tying numbers one and three together, I'd like to be a bit more fiscally responsible this year. I bought a new bike and completely rebuilt, with new components, the same bike TWICE last year. I have enough basic parts (two sets of Campy shifters and one set of SRAM, RDs for each) to get me through the season, shoes that are serviceable for both road and MTB pursuits, and will spend some money to keep myself in new cassettes/chains to keep my shifting sharp. I plan on buying a new track frame/fork, and with some cheap cranks, BB and chain, I'll be set for entry level track racing a night or two per week. With single speed and 9 speed chains being cheaper and lasting longer than 10 speed chains by a significant margin, this can only help in the long run.

5) Bicycle maintenance. The often irrational, ridiculously tall John Meyers has rubbed off on me. I will be power-washing my bicycle quite often this year in an attempt to keep it clean and running smooth. After riding with Jay and Ed in early December (or was it November?), we power-washed our bikes at the local Do-It-Yourself Carwash. Air dried them on the drive back to Jay's house, lubed upon arrival. Shifted and rolled like new.

6) Bicycle racing. Basically, I need to stop being a Nancy. If I do that, and race in an intelligent manner, the results will come. Throw enough turds at a wall, and eventually one will stick.

Woah. 2009.

Having realized that it is now 2009, I feel required to look back on who I was, and the general state of society itself, in the year of our Lord, 1999.

The bowl cut had recently faded into memory. Hair gel and looking like a character out of Dragon Ball Z was all the rage. As in damn near everyone had a bottle of green goop that they squeezed half a gallon out of every morning, and used to essentially mess up damp (but not wet, mind you) hair as much as possible.

1999 also found me in a relationship. Not the worst thing that ever happened to me, but definitely not the best. This began a long streak of bending over backwards for girls/women, a habit I've kicked by simply not talking to them (women) in general.

Sports. High school sports changed my self-perception. I'm still a small POS, but as a result of wrestling/cross country/track/soccer, and now cycling, I'm fairly confident in my natural abilities, in the hunter/gatherer sense of the word.

Ninety-nine was also the year of the Y2K freakout. Everyone was worried that the world as we knew it was going to come to a grinding, screeching halt when our increasingly computerized world came crashing down around us as a result of worldwide computer failures. Microsoft, Apple, and everyone else were shitting themselves, people were re-stocking their parents' 1950's-era bomb shelters, and there was a general feeling of "what if" doom-and-gloom. Post-apocalyptic radiation aside, and taking into account the previous paragraph, I'd like to think life would treat me better than most if we were suddenly thrust back to, oh, 1200 A.D.

I can't remember too much else from 1999. Whether my mind is saving me by repressing memories, or I've simply forgotten a rather boring year in my life, that's unknown.

Well, I've been able to ride in real, honest-to-goodness sunshine the last two days, and by the way things look right now, I should be able to get in two more rides during the day this Saturday and Sunday.

While this may seem lame to some, as a person who works from 8am-5pm, five days a week, I rarely see sunshine, unless it's through a window or perambulating the ten seconds from my car to the back door of the office. And days like this, despite the 35 degree weather, are pretty nice. I can go out, ride my bike for 2-3hrs, and get away from the hustle and bustle of life, to one degree or another. Especially on a mountain bike.

And, somehow, I got sunburned today. Perhaps it was the sun reflecting off the snow on the path, or the fact that my skin has reverted to its normal winter shade of "deathly ill white" and has little to no ability to resist burning at this point in the year. Whatever it is, I don't mind.

Anyways, I'm off to bed. Going MTBing with Jay and Ed tomorrow, and perhaps Tim if he can drag his lazy ass out of bed.

Oh, and the new word of the week is "roostin'"; it's an MTB term that I think relates to railing a hard turn on the very edge of your tire's traction/grip. Stolen from Adam Craig, US MTB champ. Funny dude.

Motivation: Falling

Maybe it's the weather, maybe it's the lack of any (positive or negative) news, bicycle racing related or otherwise.

Right now, every time I look at my bike, I just want to go back inside, climb the stairs, hop into bed and pull the blankets to my chin, and go to sleep. Hell, every time I leave the house, I just want to get back in bed.

Maybe putting my non-disc PT wheel on the Paragon will help motivate me. Seeing feedback, aka how terrible I am right now, is the best source of "you best start ridin', boy" mojo I can think of right now*. Well, no. Getting your ass handed to you at SuperWeek is pretty damn motivating, but there aren't any 100km/62mi crits right now in this neck of the woods.

Or maybe some new 29er wheels?

Or a new 700c carbon rim? (Mother, are you reading this?)

Don't get me wrong. While I'm fond of new toys, bike parts don't "motivate" me. I don't race my bike to get free bikes or chains or inner tube caps. A nice perk, but not the reason for my prolonged interest in the sport. Bicycles and their components DO, however, give me something to look forward to, to help pass the time. I suppose any hobby would do that; I just happen to be sufficiently boring that cycling is both my only hobby, and athletic pursuit of choice. Cars and women might be a bit more normal, but if I day dream about either one of those in any detail whilst out on the bike, I might get hit by the former and run over the latter. So, I keep it nice and boring with bikes.

*=To any "socially networking" L'Eberts (that's French for "The Ebert") out there, I've been riding quite consistently. I've gained 2lbs, not 30lbs as I commented earlier.

Politics

I very rarely comment on any of my political beliefs, in person or through my blog.

That said, today is an exception, and one that I hope, in this highly contentious voting year, will be forgiven.

At lunch today, I heard two statements that I found to be, well, wrong.

1) "Liberals aren't religious." This was in the context of church attendance rates between liberals and conservatives, and how the way to fix what is wrong with the country, most notably the poverty level, is through the churches, and the communities they serve.

2) "That's not what this country was founded on." Relating to the founding fathers' ideals and principles that they had when wrote the Constitution and established the early form of government that came to be the democratic form of governance we have today.

I didn't want to say this directly to anyone, but their comments struck me as particularly humorous. Given the fact that several of the founding fathers were atheists, or had little to no real religious leanings, I think it's strange to combine statement #1 and #2 in one argument. That, and the founding fathers were the liberals at the time; the conservative colonists were regarded as Royalists and had little to no involvement in the formation of the constitution.

So, I guess I'm either too liberal to understand, or many republicans are mistaken about the values they hold so dear, and prevent them from seeing and understanding another viewpoint.

**I should point out that the only issue that I really care about is the environmental policy that the two candidates are bringing to the table. Obama has me there. Neither of them are going to win my heart, but he seems to have something bearing a passing concern for the world climate, and the future of the planet.

If I had my way, every SUV sold would include an additional gas guzzler tax, with the proceeds going directly to "fuel" clean energy research, development, and production. At this point, it might just be pissing into the ocean (as I firmly believe that most coastal European cities will be underwater in the next 20 years regardless of any efforts likely to occur within the next presidential term) but I think clean energy could and should be the way of the future. Sure, there have been many periods in the planet's history warmer than this; that is very evident when you look at the fossil record and rock composition of the central US. But, aside from a catastrophic event such as an asteroid collision creating a world-wide dust cloud, there has never been, to the knowledge of academics, a period of such rapid global temperature change as the planet is currently experiencing. It is very real, and very scary.

-End rant.

Winter Training Mantra.

Mother! There's a mad man riding in the streets,

And he's humming a tune,

And he's snarling at dogs,

And he still has twenty more miles to go!

"We will never be here again."

A lot of people don't know who Svein Tuft is; and plenty more didn't know who he was until Worlds a short while ago.

Dude got 2nd in the Worlds TT behind one of the Bert Grabsch*. He also has a pretty sweet tattoo on his forearm which is oddly inspirational/haunting/whatever.

It says "We will never be here again." Not sure where he got it, but I like it.











*I hope and pray that they are both clean, for their sake, and for the sport.

One more thing...

I also fall asleep at bars. 

I am a D Bag.

Honestly, I should sign out of other people's computers.