Bisikletci

Random brain droppings

2012-01-25T22:54:00.000-05:00

Our home was the target of a burglary a couple of weeks ago. iMac gone. iPad gone. Camera gone. Portable dvd gone. Jewelry given, received and accumulated over 17 years of marriage, gone- probably about a pound worth, most of it 18k gold.
To add insult to injury, our MetLife agent informs us that the jewelry limit on our policy is $1500. So now I'm spending money installing an alarm system. A day late and a dollar short.
From all of this, the worst thing of all is knowing that if you are blessed enough to have nice and valuable things, that there is an army of cowardly low life scum willing to forcefully take it from you without remorse, regret or consequence.
I'm 40 years old and scared of being in my own house. I'm angry enough that I'm looking for an opportunity to catch someone in the act of stealing so that I can teach them a lesson they won't forget. But most of all, I'm just hurt very deeply, knowing that there are cold blooded animals/ people out there, among us, without a trace of mercy, decency, or integrity. They feast on the hard work of others and I am sick with praying for the ultimate miserable misfortune to befall them and everything they hold dear.
I try to console myself by imagining that our $15000 worth of stolen goods and $7000 of damage to the house is worth it because the thief desperately needed money to pay for medicine or surgery for their sick child. But who am I kidding? It most likely went toward a gambling or drug addiction.
Fuck this.
Best,

Ivan Murat Altinbasak

FirstBIKE is an unbreakable kid's bike!

2011-12-01T09:46:00.000-05:00

3 days straight

2011-11-29T08:17:00.000-05:00

It's a good start. Three consecutive days of riding. The weather has been nice, making it a good opportunity to really enjoy myself. Today I'll try for a 4th day and maybe crack 2 hours (easy)

There's some exciting stuff happening over at www.WeeBIKE.com. Almost everything's on sale, including the new FirstBIKE.

It helps pay the bills, so if you're smitten with something over there, please take a chance. You won't regret it. If you're a New Englander, you are spending your money locally and will probably receive your stuff the next business day. To those of you who have been my loyal repeat customers: XOXO.

Thanks so much.

R&R

2011-11-14T10:15:00.000-05:00

Taking all this time off from riding, training and racing was the worst mistake ever. I do not feel refreshed. I feel fat, bloated, slow and unathletic. Way to let 3 contiguous seasons of form disintegrate! Phuck.

FirstBIKE USA Launches US Distribution of a Premium Toddler Balance Bike

2011-11-01T16:35:00.000-04:00

FirstBIKE USA Launches US Distribution of a Premium Toddler Balance Bike

Update time

2011-10-14T01:20:00.000-04:00

So I've been off the blog radar for a bit here.. A lot of stuff happening, but none of it includes any riding, unfortunately. I haven't taken a break this long in two seasons I think. One interesting thing that happens when you stop riding- I HAVE SOME FUCKING ENERGY TO DO OTHER THINGS! also, removing the training load completely has helped me to SLEEP AT NIGHT MORE DEEPLY AND FOR LONGER PERIODS! I still wake up occasionally from the lower back pain, but it's not as often. Plus I am waking up feeling a lot more rested. Soon though, I will go out for an easy ride and then get all wrapped around that axle all over again and proclaim that my 2012 road season begins in October etc etc etc..

Cyclocross-wise, I've been laying low. The MRI taken earlier this year proved that I have two bulging disks causing me such great agony from all the running and jumping, and tree roots and other trauma that cyclocross inflicts. It definitely AGES you more than road racing, of this I am sure. So once I find a cross bike to use, I may like to race Canton and NBX at Goddard. But that's probably it. It will take some pain-killers to get through those I guess, but hey at least I have an excuse for being slow in cross.

WeeBIKE is growing nicely. We picked up a European brand of balance bike and we're contracted to be the exclusive US importer. Lots of potential there for us, we feel very blessed and I pray that we don't blow it. Still selling merino wool, still selling a bunch of different brands of balance bike at WeeBIKE.com. We also picked up some new brands to sell as authorized dealers, including FirstBIKE, FootBIKE, FUJI, UVEX and Louis Garneau. So we're excited about the growth. Every day we're getting closer to the time when I can walk away from the construction industry forever. It has aged me more than anything else in my life, it very likely contributed to my father's illness and death, and I've just plain had enough of it.

Our little company sponsored a couple of new teams this year: the Boston Bicycle School and Velocite. We continue to sponsor and manage WeeBIKE-Hasyun Racing and maybe we'll add another team to the WeeBIKE family, who knows? Our team won a few races this year, we podiumed quite a few times too, and I'm proud of that. We have both the NE Regional Masters Criterium Champion, and your hero won the NEMCA rankings for his age group as well. We had a good year.

It's been rumored that we might be opening a retail children's bike boutique, and there's some truth to this idea. We are looking for some retail space where this could be successful. The idea is to have basically every brand of balance bike in a showroom, offered together with kid's helmets, apparel, gloves, and other kid-friendly cycling accessories. Sounds good on paper, but will it work? My thinking is that since we will inevitably be forced to rent storage space for our FirstBIKE inventory, it may as well be a location with a storefront. Seems like a no-brainer.

Thanks for reading. Maybe I'll see some of you at Canton Cross.

2011 Chris Thater Criterium 35+ results

2011-08-27T23:59:00.000-04:00

Not my dream result (19th) but a small stacked field makes this race extremely hard to even complete. To wit, there were about 45-50 starters. I've had my doors blown off at this race two times before and for once I finished it and got some cash too- it pays $2000 twenty deep. After what happened in the 2/3 race which followed, I am doubting I will ever go back. Kind of a long story and I've already driven 700 miles today so it will have to wait.
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FirstBIKE-USA

2011-08-11T01:05:00.001-04:00

Dear friends,
Just so you know, FirstbikeUSA consists of me and Ebru, putting our life savings, blood, sweat and tears, into a dream. Please take a look at what we're bringing to the USA as the exclusive importer/distributor of FirstBIKE. We could use your prayers/positive thoughts and we would be pleased immensely if a few of our friends decided to become our preferred customers. If you are reading this, then you are a friend and we want you to have special pricing for all of our products. Just reach out to me and tell me what interests you and I will give you the inside deal in the form of a private promo/discount code you can use at WeeBIKE.com
Thanks.

2011 Concord Criterium 35+ Photos

2011-08-08T11:59:00.000-04:00

Many thanks to the shooter for sharing these pictures (click title to go there). This one is my favorite:

We put a lot of trust in our rubber at this corner.

Almost Epic

2011-08-05T09:49:00.003-04:00

Missing cable :(

2011-08-04T06:15:00.001-04:00

I completed a very epic 150km ride the other day in a little over 5 hours. This ride included a shit-load of climbing, about 5500 feet of vertical rise. The final hill goes from sea level to about 1300 feet in 5 km. The first 2k are approx 12% grade- at least that's my guess. In my 5th hour of riding, this climb pretty much shattered me. So torched were my legs that I couldn't even get on top of the 39x23. I put a foot down and let my heartrate get down to 140 before continuing- which was pretty scary- I could barely stand up on this grade and almost fell a few times. Getting going again required some skill. This climb is expected to be rated HC once I upload it to Strava. We're presently at Ataturk Airport with 3 hours to kill before we board our 10 hour flight to JFK. Reis is zipping around the terminal on his Razor while wife and I share a 10.50 TL cup of Gloria Jean's filtered coffee (that's about $7)
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Update from Turkiye

2011-07-29T09:58:00.000-04:00

Hey New England, what's up? While all of you bake in the heat, I'm more or less doing the same here. We're presently at an ultra-all-inclusive resort in Antalya, on the south coast of Turkey, which is the north coast of the Mediterranean. Maybe Pettachi stayed here after the Tour of Turkey- he did vacation in Antalya after both of the last two editions, as did many other pros.
Training has been going well I think. This past Saturday was the uber long Hors Category Uludag hill climb, followed on Sunday with a very easy group ride with about 10 of Bursa's juniors and some old friends who I raced with as juniors here back in 1989. Sunday afternoon we loaded the car for a six hour drive from Bursa to Antalya. We had one white knuckle close call with a TIR (ginormous tractor-trailer).. But since a man's reflexes peak at the age range of 35-45 we avoided disaster. What amazing views along the way though- in some places you have a 360 degree view to 50 miles away.
Monday was spent taking care of my father-in-law, a retired math teacher who has lost his sight almost completely and more recently, his 2nd wife of 31 years who left him in his time of weakness. Nursing the broken heart of a hard-ass alcoholic chain smoker is hard work. I did not ride Monday or Tuesday. Before leaving to check into our resort Tuesday morning, we made sure the house was stocked with bread, alcohol and cigarettes. He's a hard liner when it comes to politics- communism would have been better for Turkey than anything else, IHHO.
Wednesday after getting settled in to our hotel I was kind of getting worried about form- what with all the free food. Three days off the bike was unacceptable, and a hard workout was missed Tuesday which I wanted to make up on Wednesday. So I headed out at about 6 am and did the work. It was a disappointing workout though- 3 minute intervals at FT +15%, to continue with 3 minute recoveries until I failed to match the average watts of the 3rd interval. I must have been pretty fatigued because the 4th interval was a failure after 90 seconds. I tried again a few minutes later, and again a few minutes later. Nothing doing- I must have simply burned all my matches on the first three intervals. Plus it's over 90 degrees out..
Thursday was a day for 3 hours of endurance pace. I coordinated a ride with a young pro who races for the ManisaSpor pro team. Ali Gulcan and I met up at 6:00 am and did a solid two hours together on an out and back course- there was a longish climb and some wonderfully flat smooth deserted streets at the top. We screamed back down the same hill weaving in between Mercedes tour buses. (All the "greyhounds" here are Mercedes- Made in Turkey- and many are only 3 seats across) if not for the traffic, we would have hit 55+ mph for sure. Ali has been my e-friend for a few years, and finally got the big break he was working towards this season- a coveted spot on the new ManisaSpor Pro Racing Team. It was pretty apparent early in our ride that my idea of rest pace and his were waaay different. Maybe we were just excited to finally meet and ride together, but it was half wheel hell for me at least 2/3 of the time. I'm very happy for this fellow- he had thoughts of giving up and with a lack of family support I understand completely how difficult it is to keep the belly fire burning bright. The living wage in Turkey is about 600$ a month. He's getting the UCI mandated minimum of 800 Euro a month, which is a handsome salary in Turkey for a 24 year old. The ManisaSpor team has some Serbs and Slovenians on it, and one dude who is former Tour stage winner. It's a bigger deal than it sounds to populate this team. Good for Ali. Next year their team will be wearing my Hasyun merino wool base layers.
Day three of training was today, consisting of two 20 minute intervals at FT, separated by 10 min of rest. This is the most intimidating workout on my schedule- I really do not enjoy pushing myself at a metered effort for more than 5 minutes. I decided to stay on the hotel strip which had only one rotary with a light, and it had hardly any traffic, and long enough that I could do 20 minutes on an out and back basis. I had a real lousy time with this last attempt a few weeks ago- I ended up doing them on the trainer, and missing my target watts by a mile. This morning was a bit different. I was a little light on sleep, but I was making up sleep time poolside. First 20 min effort was a touch restrained- I really wanted to nail both of these, instead of having a super 1st attempt and a lousy 2nd attempt. My average's range on the 1st was only about 10 watts- a good sign that I could have gone harder and handled it. But my mind is on the 2nd interval, which is not only much harder, it's the one which pays bigger dividends. I had a target on No 2 that was just 10 watts lower than the 1st. I soon discovered that this was a good call. Though I did "cheat" a little bit by doing a few short bursts to keep up with my goal. I did these in the first 5 minutes- only a few times. It ended up that in the final minute, I had something left and could tweak the average up to within 4 watts of the first interval. Success. And no iPod either to use for tempo- that always helps. The Normalized power of both efforts was only one watt apart. Tomorrow early morning I'll do a nice easy ride with my son- on the same lightly traveled hotel road- he will love it. Thanks for reading.

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The Climb

2011-07-25T06:06:00.001-04:00

Check my Strava account for the data.. There wasn't any official timing but the guy who finished first happens to use Strava and he's listed on my Strava account as a follower. It looks like he made it to the peak 21 minutes ahead of me. His name is Cihat and he's 28 or so. Judging from his watts he weighs about 120 pounds. My battle was with my lower back- it was absolutely splitting in two the whole time. Any time I got into a good rhythm while seated I'd have to stand to relieve the back pain. I have bulging disks down at L5-L6 region.. It doesn't bother me in the short crits or in the drops- mainly acts up when climbing long durations and in cross.
Overall it was 34 miles- the first 13 miles were controlled up until the turnoff onto the real climb. From there it was about 20 miles of switchbacks with about 2 miles of downhill relief in the middle. Strava rates the climb and some parts of it as HC. We basically climbed one vertical mile in 20 miles. When you factor in the short descent, the overall grade is a little over 5%. They will do this event again next year. Those of you who show interest and reach out to me- I will help get you registered and find you lodging. The route is spectacular. The views are like those you get in an airplane. I had a great time.
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2011 Uludag Hill Climb

2011-07-22T16:18:00.000-04:00

Here's the no-cost hill climb that has been organized by www.cyclingtr.com Not to poke fun at any other much shorter events here in New England, but forget $350, we're not paying one cent to participate in this 34 mile ride. There are 50 registered riders including your hero.. We drove a majority of the course today on kind of a pleasure sight seeing trip and the first hard 10 miles of climbing is on some of the most terrifying and picturesque roads I've ever seen. Yes I've climbed these hills before, but it's been a couple of years. The sheer drop offs on each leg of each switchback is just plain deadly. All it takes is one reckless driver to push you over the edge if your'e not paying attention. The climb is going to be brutal, plain and simple. I have my new Garmin heart rate strap and I expect to be paying close attention. Apparently there are some fast dudes coming here from Izmir who are supposedly very highly trained. We'll have to see I guess. I'm no natural on the long climbs but I have the advantage of experience- I've climbed this mountain a dozen times. So at the end of the day we will have ascended 8000+ vertical feet. Not bad for a day's work. Wish me luck.

Uludag mountain road view

2011-07-22T16:02:00.000-04:00

We're having tea at a roadside cafe with this view. It's another 30k of climbing to the ski resorts at the top, which are at 1900 meters.
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Bursa from a distance

2011-07-22T01:35:00.000-04:00

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Istanbul

2011-07-21T19:48:00.000-04:00

In a classy place like Turkey, you get to deplane in the middle of the tarmac and board a few futuristic bus which takes you to the terminal for passport kontrol.
I surprised my son by bringing his 20" Felt dirt bike. They charged 60 € for the privilege, even though there are parents checking in strollers and car seats for free. They inquired about the hard case contining my bike and I told them it was "full of socks and underwear- take a look". This sufficiently embarrassed the ladies in charge of playing God with my wallet.. But they drew the line with the open dirt bike. I just turned the handlebars sideways and removed the pedals- no erap or container. We will probably leave it here for a young relative to grow in to..
Enough about that. I am riding the new Fuji and finding that I made an error in choosing the Zipp handlebars. They have too much forward extension, and I'm too stretched out when I'm on the hoods. So much so that if I'm climbing a steep hill out of the saddle, it's hard to keep the rear wheel down. If I happen to hit a wet patch- forget it- no traction at all. So a shorter stem and a different handlebar are needed.
Saturday I am joining a hillclimb organized by the media company www.cyclingtr.com the route begins at 155m above sea level and ends up at about 1900m. We are climbing in honor of Rifat Caliskan, an old time pro racer from the 60s and 70s who passed away a couple of years ago. Highly regarded as Turkey's answer to Eddy Merckx, he is sorely missed by the cycling community here. So about 100 cyclists will start out on a 54 km route together, the first 13km being mainly gentle grade until we hang a left onto an unimpressive country road. We will ride neutral until this point and then whammo- balls to the wall for 37km. The climb has two phases. We will climb about 800m for 15km and then a 3km descent. Then we ramp up again for another 20km or so to the top. It's all switchbacks and pine trees and breath taking views. There is a yellow jersey for the first one to the top as well as trophies for the top three men and women.
I don't know how I will go on Saturday. I still feel jet lag and my lower back is really pissed about the 10 hour flight. But my legs feel strong. I did some climbing Wednesday and did pretty well with all things considered. Saturday I should be one of the top five to the top, who knows? There will be a fair number of lesser trained folks who are doing it for fun, and probably 10 or so guys with the ability to put the hurt on others. I'm not a climber so my FT pace is probably much slower than the specialists, we'll see. I suppose my best approach is to treat it like a zone 5 workout. I should attack at 5-6w/k for about 1 min and then recover at 3-4w/k for a minute. That's what I'm built for. This is much more likely to shed riders from my wheel. Can I do this for 2 hours straight? I'm not so sure. Wish me luck. Thanks for reading.
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Year to date stuff

2011-07-13T23:09:00.001-04:00

Update to this post- this blog needs some cool music. I dig this song, so play it.

I like to look and see where I stand every so often. It could be argued that I've ridden and trained enough this year to be ripping people's legs off.. well.. that will happen in due time. I had an inadvertant mini peak in late May, right around the time I fell down at Wells Avenue. Fortunately, this incident caused me to slow down and take some rest, just in time to ramp up and aim for a new, higher peak in late August. That's what I'm gunning for, and my current fatigue is expected to dissipate in a couple of weeks after I go on holiday the last week of July. Just 10 more days of winding the spring and then we'll begin to let it unwind. A trusted source of training wisdom said it best when he told me "the house is all framed, now all you need to add are the finishing touches." Let's see if this training plan is successful. There are just a couple of people helping to show me the way, and I appreciate it immensely. Now if only I can get out of my own way with 1k2go.. My recent crash at the finish of Attleboro was pretty horrible- bike is totaled and my courage/trust of those riding near/in front of me, is at an all time low. This does not make for successful finishes to races. The best sounding advice I've received recently- attack at one to go and don't look back. Worst case, the strongest few will catch up to you and you can hang on to their coat-tails for a decent top five.. I'm liking the sound of that- my most advanced duration relative to power is in the 60-90 second range. I've managed 630 watts for a full minute, which translates to 9w/kg- the only zone on my chart that places me in the Cat 2 bracket. Anyway- the stats below indicate 312 hourrs of riding about 5335 miles (about 8550 km) That's more than the distance which I will be flying to Istanbul on Monday. Cool.

Here are the races I am planning to do after I return:

Concord Criterium, Witch's Cup, Fall River Criterium, Chris Thater Criterium, Topsfield RR, Portsmouth Criterium and finally, the Mayor's Cup Criterium. Yeah when you look at it, we're really only 1/2 way through the road season. There's even Jamestown in October, if one were so inclined.

Thanks for reading.

2011 New Britain Crit 35+ Results

2011-07-11T09:53:00.000-04:00

Having raced with bandaged elbow, hip and a left leg that looks like a cat used it for a scratching post, and on a borrowed bike that weighs about 20 pounds, I am trying not to despair about placing only 15th. As a 3 person team we did a good job of making sure Ralf's break was successful. He gave it everything in the sprint and lost by less than a wheel. Kyle took 2nd in the field sprint, for 5th. So for the 5th time this season, our team puts 2 guys in the top 5. We're on a roll it seems. I just need to get my courage back in the final km of racing. Crashing takes that away from you.
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2011 New Britain Crit Pro-1-2 Results

2011-07-11T09:21:00.000-04:00

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2011 Exeter Hospital Criterium 40+ Photo Finish

2011-07-04T21:12:00.000-04:00

I wish I was included in this picture but seeing Matt and Kyle in the top 5 is enough to "make my armpits swell" s they say in the old country.. Being my first try at this daredevil venue with a stacked field of 100 opponents, I can't be disappointed by my 15th place. I did things, horrible things.. to get myself up into the money. Just kidding.. but it was really hard, seriously.

2011 Exeter 40+ Criterium Results

2011-06-30T19:54:00.001-04:00

100+ entrants and we beat all but one of them.
Pretty cool to point out that we're the only team with two guys in the top 10, and the top 5 for that matter.

2011 Keith Berger Memorial 40+ Criterium Finish

2011-06-28T22:53:00.000-04:00

A good day for the team.

Weebike.com: FIVE REASONS WHY TRAINING WHEELS ARE BAD

2011-06-25T12:02:00.000-04:00

Weebike.com: FIVE REASONS WHY TRAINING WHEELS ARE BAD

2011 Hamburg Criterium 35+

2011-06-14T10:55:00.004-04:00

Super high quality photos of this event can be found HERE. I will be buying a few myself.
My form was not super- though I have to admit I had a lot of fun. It was a .7 mile flat rectangular course- my favorite kind.
Only 20 guys signed up- mostly locals from NY and PA. The small field meant that there was really no where to sit-in and rest, not for very long anyway. It was single file 80% of the time. I rode the front of the race every lap, never outside the top 5. If not for a ton of defensive racing, there would have been a successful break on lap one. This tiring exercise continued for 20 laps and then finally two guys got away- a couple of laps apart.. I think everyone expected me to cover that those too and just looked at each other.. but the reality is that they were probably just the two strongest and most daring guys in the race. Game over. Five laps later, I came out of the final corner 2nd wheel (or maybe everyone else made sure I was there, who knows..), expecting at the very least to hold it to the line for 4th, but as luck would have it, a split second's hesitation to come around into the wind cost me 3 more places. I didn't have the power left to hold these guys off all the way to the line. To top it off, they reduced the prizes to top 6 because of the low turnout, making my 7th feel even less satisfying. Such is bike racing.
The Pro race was scheduled for 6:15 and I did not feel like waiting 3-1/2 hours for that so they kept my $15 as a donation. Promised my son I'd take him to Family Swim at the Y. Done and done.
A bad day of racing is better than a good day at work, but this was not a bad day. I really enjoyed myself, I raced honorably and I didn't crash. It's all good.

Another Wednesday another Ninigret

2011-06-09T09:00:00.002-04:00

I always try to warn dear wife when I plan to have a big ride to Ninigret and back. It pretty much means I will be gone from 5pm until 9pm. Even with the hall pass to do this yesterday, I found myself fumbling to get ready in time and ended up leaving with exactly 90 minutes in which to ride exactly 30 miles.. south.. into a headwind. A few times I really convinced myself that I wouldn't make it, but once I was past route 138, up and over that little rise on route 2, I started to really make up lost time. With about 2-3 miles left to reach route 1, I found myself a carrot- two triathletes on their TT bikes. It motivated me to press the pedals harder and I said hi to them as I passed, huffing and straining under the weight of my backpack. Got to the park at exactly 6:27, in plenty of time to hand them my pre-filled waiver and a $10 check hastily made out to "cash".
The race was hard! Strung out single file most laps, lots of attacks lots of primes. I took a few flyers to test the legs. The first was a quick bridge across to a lone Arc rider. Once together we rotated for a couple of laps- taking 1/2 lap pulls. but the field came around and that was that. Later on I saw a gap to a break of about 10 that looked do-able. I accelerated HARD and for about a minute I was cranking about 550 watts, hoping/expecting to see a tail of riders ready to come around and finish the break off.. but no one was there and I ended up falling short of the break by about 20 seconds more of that pace effort. Didn't have it and had to rest. By the time we hit 2 to go I was into mile 57 for the day. After I had freshened up at the back for a few laps I started looking for "the move" with 1.5 laps to go. The break up ahead was shattered- we picked up most of them and two guys were now alone surfing the field. (David K ended up beating his opponent for the win) Anyway I came up the wide open left side and saw Gary A on his hot pink Specialized just as he started hitting it hard. We got a small gap, he flicks his elbow, I come through hard and decide to go all-in but after about 15 seconds I'm really hurting. There's a little over a lap left and when I pull off the field is charging past. I actually sat up for a few seconds and let everyone go past me and basically let myself get dropped. But the bell was now ringing and I'll be damned if I'm gonna DNF at this point. I decide to ride myself back up to the tail-gunner position and finish the last lap. No sprint left in me though..
Mounted the headlight and set off north on Route 1 to meet the family at a friend's house in Narragansett. A pretty good ride of 76 miles completed. A big Wednesday like this is always the perfect tune up for my weekend racing. Now two days rest, some light spinning and I'll probably get on the floor and hump my Trigger Point cylinder a couple of times. Thanks for reading.

Race Report Code of Ethics

2011-06-06T22:42:00.005-04:00

As many times as I've been the offender.. I do try very hard to refrain from boring you to fucking tears. Nothing makes me want to stab myself in both eyes using freshly sharpened No 2 pencils quite as much as an endless stream of run-on one sentence paragraphs which explain in needless detail how poorly the narrator performed in spite of the previous two weeks of sloppy and deficient attempts at structured training that were hopefully going to result in some accidental success.

Forthwith, I am enacting a Code of Ethics which establishes proper race report etiquette.
1. If it wasn't a Win, write 1/2 as much as you would if it was a Win.
2. If it wasn't a top 10, write 1/4 as much.
3. If it doesn't include 3 or more laps solo off the front and/or the heroic winning of 2 or more primes, write 1/8 as much.
4. If you got your ass dropped and/or lapped, but you persisted and finished anyway, write 1/10 as much*
* If No 4 is the result of crashing horribly and suffering painful lacerations, contusions, sprains, strains, or breaks, skip to No 5.. Otherwise, stick with No 4.
5. If you crashed, got up, straightened your bars, collected your bottles, re-installed your dropped chain, continued racing, and finished the race, see No 2.

Big ride= big fatigue

2011-06-04T22:13:00.000-04:00

Untitled by hasyunusa at Garmin Connect - Details
Today's ride was a bastard. I expect to do something similar tomorrow, but hopefully not as hilly.

5-31-11 Scituate Time Trial- New PB Yay!

2011-06-01T22:54:00.004-04:00

I rode to the time trial in the perfect conditions on Tuesday afternoon. Light winds, sunny, dry, a gorgeous day all around. After careful depilation of the legs to avoid shaving off my road rash, I donned my new "Grape Crush" skinsuit, packed my backpack with some essentials and filled a couple bottles with 1/2 Coke and 1/2 H20. Heading out, I had a few feelings of doubt, and resolved to accept the fact that it would not be my best result at this 14.3 miles around the Scituate Reservoir. My hand was (and still is) swollen and achy right behind the knuckles. Earlier in the day I snipped the stitches and removed them. I actually pulled one of them the wrong way and lodged the quadruple knot deep into the scab- and then had to fish it out with the pointy end of my Swiss Army knife. Ouch. I popped a couple Advil, a B vitamin and a multi vitamin and set out toward Crazy Corners. The one aero advantage I took with me (besides the skinsuit- if that even counts) is my Louis Garneau aero helmet. I had used it once before and it really didn't make a difference. Today though, I was racing with an injured hand and nursing road rash, so I justified that the helmet would make me Even-Steven. One other difference- I had my 1600 gram Easton race wheels instead of my heavy Powertap wheel. Overall about a one pound difference, but mostly at the hub, not a rotational weight difference. One other ommission- no Power wheel means no power data. I haven't had any of that since I fell down at Wells..
Long story short, this TT hurts like a bastard. The climbs are short but challenging A couple are deceiving- you think you're done but then realize that you still haven't crested. The 2nd climb and the 5th climb are the hardest. My approach is to do the whole thing in the big ring, gain big time on the climbs. I pay dearly for this after cresting because it's tough to get back to top speed on the descents with legs that have been redlining for the past 2-3 minutes. I make up for this by getting into the most miniature tuck as I possibly can on the steeper descents (except for the last one- you really have to power down the backside of that one and ideally spin out the 53x11- it's not a steep descent so it needs some input) For whatever reason, maybe a local triathlon on the weekend, a lot of the big engines passed on this weeks TT. There weren't any leg breakers doing it and so it looked as though I could fall ass-backwards into the fastest time. This motivated me because if I was to have the fastest time, it needed to be a respectable time. As it turned out, my hand did not slow me down. The helmet made a difference. The wheels saved me lots of seconds. The diluted Coke was a good choice for hydration- it always agrees with me. My previous attempt was 38:56 (3 weeks prior). This week's result was 38:06. Woo-hoo! Good enough to stand as the 2011 season-to-date record, fwiw. I'm sure it will be smashed next week, but who cares? I'm way faster than my peak form in 2010, and it's only May. Cool.
Now if only I can get Providence Bike to correct the results so that my last name is correct!
Next time you are looking for a challenging Tuesday afternoon workout, head out to the Scituate Time Trial sponsored by Providence Bicycle. It's free and the first rider rolls off at 6:00. All abilities welcome.
Thanks for reading.

Crash update

2011-05-30T22:49:00.003-04:00

I took three days off the bike- Monday thru Wednesday. On Thursday I was going stir crazy and went out for about 3-1/2 hours. My left hand was wrapped with gauze and my road rash was still bandaged under my kit. Friday I rested and didn't ride. Saturday I went out to meet the ArcenCiel North ride and it ended up being a 93 mile day, with some really bad cramping in the last hour of riding. On the final hill going up Central Pike towards our starting point in Scituate, I had to shut it down and just whimper up to the top to a waiting group populated with men and women in their fifties. But to be fair, my hand was throbbing all day, I couldn't climb out of the saddle or grip the handlebar with my left hand, and every tiny bump and crack in the road made my hand ache and burn pretty badly. If I saw a rough patch coming up I'd usually take my left hand off of the bars. This also made it hard to ride in a double paceline. With a weakened left hand that's not good for front-braking, I had to let a gap open up in front of me to allow more braking distance pretty much all day meaning that I really never had the full benefit of a draft for 4-1/2 hours. I could barely shift into the big ring without wincing in pain.. so I'll go ahead and forgive myself for cramping and falling apart on the last climb, thank you very much! Saturday I completed my wife's new road bike and we headed to the bike path for an easy 10 miles with our son Reis. Memorial Day I got up early enough to meet up with the ArcenCiel South crew at 8:00 but an abundance of lolly-gagging meant that I left too late to make it under the circumstances (my hand) Normally I can gun it and get down there in 40 minutes flat. Today though, the hand was exceptionally tender, and a stiff wind was blowing in my face the whole way down. With some bad showers showing up on the radar I was apprehensive about a successful ride. Still I puttered down towards the starting point and got there in 55 minutes- almost 20 minutes late. After checking the radar again on my Crackberry and the Advil finally kicking in, I continued straight down Route 2 to Charlestown, all the way to route 1 (very close to Ninigret) and then headed back north on route 1. In Naragansett I detoured back south on 108 and jumped onto 1a North down by Point Judith. It was pretty fast until I got to Narragansett Town Beach but the winds shifted and made the last 20 miles home pretty much miserable. Another 66 miles logged and boy did it feel good to ice my hand when i got home at 11:00. My stitches need to come out tomorrow. I no longer cover up my bloody knuckles and some dark scabs have formed. Road rash is all skinned over- still pink/red/tender and peeling. Sometimes it itches like crazy. No more bandages since day 5 though (Friday). Tomorrow I need to go to Quad Cycles and drop off my pretzeled Powertap wheel for re-build or something.. I also need to check out a lightly used pair of Shimano 7801 carbon tubulars which are available to me for a great price. Selling my OVAL CONCEPTS carbon wheels on Ebay if anyone is interested. They are very fast and very nice looking eye candy but my svelte 154 pound frame does not require such an indestructible pair of wheels in a crit where the name of my game is accelerations.. i've also resolved to begin using only 12-21 cassettes from now on. Yes that's what they call a "straight block" or "corn cob", and back in the 80s it looked a lot more impressive to have a 11-12-13-14-15-16 freewheel. I don't need the 11. I don't need the 23. I want to have an 18 and a 20 for use in the more challenging/undulating crits like Fall River, Attleboro and New Britain. Jumping from a 19 to a 17 tooth cog does not please me, neither does going from 23 to 21.. They don't offer the new 7900 cassettes in 12-21- only the older 7800 is still available in this configuration, and I need to buy a couple- one for the [to be] re-built Powertap wheel and one for the new carbon wheels. I have an 11-23 cassette lightly used which will probably go on to my wife's bike.
I'm tired. Thanks for reading.

Wells Ave May 22 2011: crash and dnf and pictures added

2011-05-23T13:40:00.007-04:00

Photo courtesy of this guy ..Not that I asked permission, but there are definitely a few cool shots in there I am willing to pay money for, and will. Follow the link and you will see the whole sequence of events, from the time I had a nice open lane, to when my lane abruptly disappeared and I had little choice but to start keeling over. The Garmin indicates that our speed at this point was 35+ mph.

I knew I should have just stayed in bed.. I had my heart set on going to NYC for the Tour de Parc Criterium. No can do says the wife. Okay.. then I either do a 4 hour early morning ride or head up to Wells Ave to ride really fast in circles. I chose the latter because I could sleep-in until 8:30. Oh well.. No sense beating myself up about it. Here's the brief race report I wrote to my teammates:

Thanks Adam for hanging out with me today- it's a big comfort to have a friend there. Yeah after a pretty solid day of racing, I fell short of finishing the damn race by about 75 meters...

I blame myself for not being at the pointy end of the field when it counted but with 3 laps to go I had to sprint full gas for 300 meters to get across to the little group that got away (Adam you were up there I hate to admit, but I figured you would rather have my company than not) which included Gavin, Thad, Tobi, Dan G., etc.. Once across I almost puked hanging on up until the bell rang for 1 to go. Barely recovered and not fresh enough to get to the front, I ended up behind a 4-5 wide band of dead legs to get past for a possible top 5. I used poor judgment when I tried to pass on the right. I should have predicted that someone was going to drift in to me. Once my wheel overlapped I felt committed and within a split second I had my front wheel being pushed to the right. Game over.
I have little silver dollar sized scrapes on my ankle, knee, elbow and shoulder. My hip and back have hand-sized abrasions. My left hand took a beating (he..he..) The first two knuckles were both punctured completely and embedded with the wool fibers from my gloves. They took x-rays and stitched em both up after injecting the skin with numbing medicine and scrubbing out the contaminants.

My biggest regrets, now that I know I'm okay, is the rear Powertap wheel is kaput, brand new Schwalbe Durano tire is damaged, brand new Easton front wheel is not what it used to be, it's brand new Schwalbe Ultremo tire had it's side wall shredded, my carbon handlebars will go to the trash due to impact, my Rudy Project Kontact helmet is cracked in three places, and my left DMT Prisma shoe is torn up including part of the carbon sole. Oh and dont forget a ruined pair of DeFeet wool gloves, brand new Pactimo bib shorts & jersey, and Hasyun merino wool base layer.. I'm pretty sure that the Wells Ave asphalt bears a sexy impression of my ass and left fist, so take that!

I can't make a fist for a few days (good thing I'm not a southpaw) So racing in Baltimore at the Kelly Cup is a longshot I guess. I was so psyched for that too.. We'll see how quick the stitches heal up. I hate to waste the good form that I've worked 5 solid months to get. I guess a week of rest can't hurt if I want to take it to the next level later on in July. Last year I did not touch the bike at all in June and after some focused training in July I was flying in August/September.. Thanks.

So that's my story. The Training Peaks chart gives a low-down of my last 3 laps of the race, from the time I hit it hard to get across (and regrettably, the whole field followed) to the instant that I fell down going 35+ mph, finish line in sight..

Thanks to everyone for showing concern for me afterwards and especially to Marvin W., MD, for taking the time to make sure I wasn't cross eyed or broken someplace. Until next time.. You can be sure that if I race Wells again, I will not be sprinting unless there's nothing but daylight in front of me.

2011 Mystic Velo Crit Race Report 35+/1-2-3

2011-05-17T10:30:00.002-04:00

The weather has turned to crap. It's Monday night and I'm in the basement on the trainer doing a 90 minute active recovery spin. May as well multi-task and tell you about Sunday's action. I have a nice Youtube playlist on the computer showing me Giro highlights. I've watched so many race videos this winter.. Anyway.. Matt K and I headed to Ninigret in spite of the iffy weather. In fact it was raining at my house when I left, but the radar was showing a band of rain already past Charlestown. I crossed my fingers and headed out in plenty of time to give Matt his team-issue socks courtesy of our new sponsor, SoxySox. (WeeBIKE will soon be a stocking dealer.) Matt had 1/2 hour to warm up and I had 90 minutes to get ready. At the course, it was dry but overcast. Winds were surprisingly light. The usual chill in the south county air was enough for most to wear arm warmers, but I warmed up on the trainer for 30 minutes and went with bare arms- but I did have a merino wool base under my skinsuit, which proved to be the perfect choice..
Matt rolled off with a smallish 45 field at 2:00 while I continued to warm up. I could see right away that the local Arc team was not going to make it easy for anyone. Matt was gritting his teeth on the very first lap as he covered strong attacks by the Arcs. Then a terrible crash happened at the beginning of the final straightaway - I think it was the end of lap 2 or 3. I was on my trainer and couldn't see much. The race was neutralized while the fallen were attended to. Apparently Tony Hill's fork disintegrated from under him and sent him into a violent face plant. Makes you wonder if it's worth it to buy a frameset made from 2 pounds of plastic doesn't it? This was a relatively new frameset with no apparent defects. Tony was out cold, as I'm told, and an ambulance picked him up from the blood soaked course and to the hospital. He suffered some very bad road rash and a fractured face! It looks like there are no life threatening injuries, but I'm certain that it was scary as hell to hit the deck like that. Speeds were very high. His ArcenCiel Team attended to him like true soldiers of our sport, making sure he was taken care of, making sure his family was notified, his car and bike accounted for, and I'm sure he felt a lot of relief at the site of his teammates fussing over him. We should all highlight the Arc Team's crisis management as exemplary. Bravo.. And may Tony's pain pass quickly.
With the course cleared, except for about a 1/2 pint of blood, it was announced that the 45s would be reistarting their race combined with the 35s. This made perfect sense because all of the Arcs withdrew and followed the ambulance to the hospital. Only about 8 guys registered for the 35 race. Combined, I think we added up to about 20 guys, if that. We were going to be scored separately, meaning that I needed to take care not to let any 7-- bibs out of my sight. A small field means there is really nowhere to hide. All of your weaknesses are exposed. The usual attacks were launched pretty much every lap- Billy Mark, Gary Aspnes, Wade Summers, Zane Wenzel and John Gadrow all gave us some wicked accelerations to match. I took up chasing duties for a lot of these attacks, and it wore me down.. When the first prime was announced, I took pole position and picked up the pace a bit. I wanted to see either Thad or Matt come around and it ended up being Matt. He took the prime and kept going, solo. The small field watched him get smaller and smaller for about 2 laps, after which he got bigger and bigger. It was a bit early to drive it home solo. After we caught up to Matt, I took to the front and kept the pace a little bit high to discourage a counter attack. Without meaning to, I was making it needlessly hard for Matt to recover from the 4 lap time trial he had just completed. Poor judgment on my part. A few laps later we were offered prime number two. Again I made an effort to get the speed up by sprinting into the penultimate corner and putting myself on the rivet all the way to the final corner. Again, Matt easily comes around and takes it. Now there's about 9 or 10 laps left. The field slowed to a crawl and I decided to attack. Not the smartest move on my part, but I was feeling really good and willing to go ALL-IN. I opened a modest slim 10 second gap and held it for about 3 laps. I needed to hold that 25 mph speed for 6 more laps, and I could tell I was fading and didn't have it. I cooled it and let the field sweep me up, though I recall this to be the most difficulty I'd felt all day- accelerating on to the back of the skinny field after my attack. Now I knew how Matt felt.. But these situations are exactly what we train ourselves for, these moments of do or die. I look down at my shiny new team kit where it reads "FORTITUDINE VINCIMUS" and the pain lessens. Determination takes over. A lap or so later, I'm fully recovered. About 5 to go, Wade attacks again, and chasing duties fall to just a few of us, mainly Thad Lavallee, Gary and myself, though I could swear Gary was soft pedaling a little bit for his former teammate. We came right to Wade's wheel with 2-1/2 to go, but the gap opened slightly again. Someone attacked and got across to him. We crossed the line at 2 to go and I could be heard encouraging others to help close the gap. We crossed the finish for the bell lap and then speeds really ramped up to eye-popping. We caught the two escapees right before the penultimate left hander and just kept accelerating. I was not leading this out- I was very tired. Two lines seemed to form right before the final corner- Matt followed by Billy Mark followed by me, and on the right, Gary Aspnes followed by Thad followed by others. Gary dropped his chain, effectively shutting Thad down and costing him dearly. I hung on to Billy's wheel the best I could, hit it HARD for the last 100m, always accelerating. No one came around me, and I was the 3rd overall to finish, 1st of the 35s. The finish line camera shows me crossing alone so I think I metered my very last effort nicely.
The 1-2-3s lined up almost immediately while Matt and I scrambled with race numbers and topping off bottles. Another 35 laps of this?! My confidence was juiced from the last race, but this field was filled with the usual cat 1s, many of them half our age. Resolving to finish no matter what, I took my place in the sweet spot of the field and just made sure to position myself in the correct places, on the correct wheels. The field of 40 split at one point, and Matt got himself across to the break of about 11-12 guys. One of the younger Arc riders, Ian, took to the front and, with myself and another CF blocker on his wheel, proceeded to take a violent pull of about 2-1/2 laps, and all it took was a couple of more attacks by others to finish off the catch and make sure that this came down to a field sprint. I will admit the first 20 laps were hard, even in the protection of the field, but I was feeling better and better towards the end. I could see that Matt was moving up towards the front with two to go and I tried very hard to get close to him. At one lap to go in a 1-2-3 race there are a lot of [sacrificial] bodies seemingly going reverse. Maneuvering through such traffic takes some skill and experience- I like to think I have some of that. To my delight I found enough daylight to sprint to 9th place while Matt took 5th in a very fast 37+ mph sprint. We celebrated afterwards with a pair of ice cold Stellas I brought with me. I collected our prize money and Matt collected his 3 primes, including one from the 1-2-3 race. Hindsight is 20/20, but I already knew that I would have a good day if I did big volume Wednesday (with a crit inthrown in the middle), which was 85 miles to the Ninigret Crit and back. With all of Sunday's racing, I cracked 300 miles last week. And it was very pleasing to see in the 1-2-3 results that I actually finished 9th, when I was expecting 10th. This has been long winded, but hey my 90 minute spin is just about complete. Hope you enjoyed reading. Thanks.

2011 Mystic Velo Criterium Results 35+/45+

2011-05-15T18:41:00.001-04:00

Sorry this was all I had time to get. Matt also took 5th in the 1-2-3 which followed and I think I was 10th- it was a field sprint. We also took 3 primes!
2011 Mystic Velo Criterium Official Results
Correction: I was 9th in the 1-2-3 race.

2011 Sterling Road Race 35+ Results

2011-05-07T14:14:00.002-04:00

Full results will be on Bikereg in a couple of days. Maybe a short description of my first attempt at this race too. I'm a happy finisher.
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile
As promised:
Adam S and I did the 35+ race at Sterling today. I was not expecting to be put into this much difficulty, but the 2nd time up the climb I knew I had NO game. My engine runs very hot and when I reach a certain point the only thing that will help me is to back off and cool my jets. I was disappointed but not surprised- I'm in the thick of my training- fatigue is high and I'm in a weakened state. I do not taper or try to peak for road races, but it was apparent pretty early that lots of guys were there to rip legs off, not to add to a block of training. Our race was 6 laps. After getting popped at the beginning of lap three, I just put my head down and went to work, trying to meter my effort so that I can last four more laps. I caught and passed a lot of others who were dropped. A few tried to get in a rotation with me, but I was not in the mood for a collaborative effort and I rode away from them all. Kept catching guys here and there and just leaving them behind.. I was about 1/2 way through Lap 6 when the 45 field caught up to me. I took a place at the back of the field, and still, people thought it necessary to tell me not to "be in the way" at the end. I had a LOT of choice words for their poor choice of adding insult to injury. They were at the back of the race telling me to go to the back so that I would not impede their shot at 50th place? Wtf.. Try time trialing this course by yourself for 3-1/2 laps before dishing out unsolicited advice.
Anyway, I was in the 45 group for all of 5 minutes when a bad crash happened right in the gutter. I swerved carefully to avoid, I'm sure a lot of guys were shelled at this point because I was close to the back but lots of guys behind me.. Many handfuls of brakes were squeezed. We turned on to the final state road leading to the finish and I chatted with Marro a bit just as we approached the final turn, where I backed off and let these guys kill each other for 2nd (Tom Francis passed me solo on this stretch on my 5th lap) I crossed the line and made sure to let the crew know that a 35 rider was finishing. Nothing burns me more than going full gas by myself to complete a race, only to be omitted from results. So that's my story. I hope Adam had a better time. As predicted, this turned out to be an expensive training day- hopefully it pays some dividends in a month or so. At least I got some good tan lines.. These abdominal cramps and intestinal distress I've been having for the past hour are proof that I raced hard and didn't dilly-dally. Now.. If only I could have deposited three huge eliminations BEFORE the race started! Wow. Don't brag to me about making islands, these were friggin Continents.

5-3-2011 Scituate Time Trial No 2

2011-05-06T10:49:00.002-04:00

It's funny- those days when you know that fatigue is high, leg soreness is there, and finding the will to suffer seems impossible- sometimes all of those signs are leading you into the weeds about your performance. Tuesday of this week I decided to do the TT in Scituate again. On the way there, it was cool, windy, cloudy.. and every pedal stroke was giving me the "wrong" sensations. I practically resigned myself to just having a shit time and caulking it up for good training. Smaller group turned out this time- a lot of fast guys were absent, which seeded me as the last one to start. I did not feel like I should be there. Long story short, what feels like a terrible day can and often does end up being a decent ride. It makes sense that it hurts more when you're going faster. The misperception of those times that it hurts more is that you simply don't realize that you're going faster than when it hurts less. I ended up doing a time that almost matches my best time of 2010- missed it by 10 seconds, but still- I took about 20 seconds off of the previous attempt a week ago. I give most of the credit to riding the whole course in the big ring. I make up a lot of time on the climbs- though I find that on the flats and downhills I lose time to others.. but that's partly because I am going cannibal and they are all aero'ed out. My Garmin read 38:50, the timer (Sean) scored me at 38:55. Good enough for a top three I think. Thanks for reading.

How do my spokes bend like that?

2011-05-02T22:56:00.000-04:00

Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

4-26-2011 Scituate Time Trial No 1

2011-04-27T08:51:00.004-04:00

Been dying to test the legs in a TT and get a sense of where I stand so far this season. The Scituate Time Trial circles the Scituate Reservoir clockwise. It's a challenging route, punctuated with 4 short punchy climbs of about 1km or so, and a 5th longer climb of about 1.2 miles rising 220 feet. Ordinarily I don't like to do time trials, but the profile of this course suits me much better than a flat course. I have accepted the fact that I am built for repeated short bursts of VOmax efforts and accelerating. I do poorly at any kind of prolonged steady grind. The ascents and descents of this course give me a fighting chance to use my strengths.
I rode to the TT in my skinsuit, on my road bike, with backpack to hold my spares, some long sleeve stuff for afterward, and extra water. Moments before heading out at 5:00, I hear a funny sound from downstairs. It's like a dying animal. It crossed my mind but I couldn't believe it- my front wheel went flat all of a sudden. I had just topped off the air a few minutes prior. I ended up changing the tube and heading out a few minutes late. Front wheel carbon aero, rear wheel Powertap. It's a 16 mile ride to the start of the TT, mostly uphill. Got there just in time to get in line in front of M. Maloney. Not a huge turnout- maybe 2o or so riders.
I ended up doing a decent ride- two seconds faster than my last attempt back in September 2010. My form was pretty sharp last September so I don't feel bad about this performance. The first TT of the season feels a lot like the first cross race of the season- it's a shock to the system- the urge to stop pedaling is very strong on that second climb.. The training benefit of riding full gas for 39 minutes is pretty good I think, and combined with a 55 minute ride out there and back, makes for a solid day of training. So much so I will probably skip Ninigret tonight. The weather looks iffy and the legs are tired. Maybe I'll roll around on the floor humping my new Trigger Point massage drum. Picked it up at the Boston Marathon Expo. That thing is painful- I'm still working on my technique.
Here's the profile of the Tuesday night Scituate TT course, above. The course distance is 14.3 miles. I think the course record can be found HERE, set on July 28th by a current master TT champion. Thanks for reading.

Training plans, Wells Ave report, ToT Stage 1 Vid

2011-04-25T00:54:00.006-04:00

Not a bad week of volume.. 12-1/2 hours training for about 225 miles. This morning I was expecting to skip Wells Avenue in favor of more riding. The drive to Newton is a big time killer- which is time better spent tuning the engine here locally. I received this race report from teammate Adam S:

Brief Welly recap for those on Easter duty or recovering from hypothermia:
Unfortunately, just two laps in, there was a serious crash. Kyle S (Embrocation) went down hard and had to be ambulance'd out. I was in my customary spot at the back of the field so I can't provide causes or details. Hope he's okay...
After a restart, I jumped into an early break of nine including Jazzy-M (A. Myerson), J-Pow (Jeremy Powers - Jelly Belly), J-Spin (J. Spinelli), Thad L., and Marvin The Wangster. Now, it's long been a "pet" theory of mine that having 3 pros in a break can significantly increase its chances of success. Someday science may bear this out. Sure enough, after the halfway prime, the field was in sight. A major surge to catch and blow by the field whittled the break to 6.
And...yes, WeeBike was still represented :-) At 6-to-go, Myerson attacked, taking 2 with him. I was now caboose in the chase group with Thad and Powers. Three laps later, Powers spanked his cranks and I was popped. Cruised in for 6th. Ended up Myerson winning, Powers 2nd, Thad 3rd.

There's a good day's work! Almost regret missing it, although I can honestly say that my fatigue level this week is on the rise and if not for missing the registration for Blue Hills, this week would have included more rest, less TSS. I'll probably go next Sunday, except that it's my wife's birthday. Oh well, maybe later in the summer. Wells Ave is never a priority for me- it's a last resort. I like racing down at ninigret Wednesday nights, which is the plan for this week, weather permitting. I'm going to ride down and back, meaning that I'll need a fully charged headlight. Tuesday I expect to do the Scituate Time Trial (around the reservoir- starts at 6:00 from "crazy corners" where 102 & 14 cross) Again, I'll ride there and back. So my two big days will be Tues/Wed. Tomorrow, rest.
Checking the WKO data I see that I'm slightly ahead of 2010 relative to CTL, not by much. (in 2010, my training volume took a nosedive after 4/25, and I didn't get back up to 100 TSS/day until the middle of July) I'm definitely ahead in mileage for the year- about 2750 year to date as of today. This week ahead will be the one where I break through the 100 TSS/day barrier and hopefully sustain it through May unlike last year. I'm very psyched about the racing in Rochester NY on 6/3-4-5. Two crits and a circuit race, back in my hometown. It's been so long since I did a crit there. The last one was probably the 1989 edition of the Criterium at Cobbs Hill Park, where I got 3rd place out of a field of about 50 juniors, many from Canada. It will feel good to race there again. So I was saying.. One more week of building and I will take it easy that first week of May, hopefully show some good form at Sterling (and Maybe Bear Mountain). Then another three week period until I take another easy week at the end of May. I should arrive in Rochester with very fast legs for the Genesee Valley Park Criterium, The Powder Mills park Road Race and the Seneca Park Criterium. The weekend which follows is the Nutmeg/New Britain ordeal, where I can actually race 4 times, if the mood strikes (my record there is 3). Then what? Then I'll keep my eyes and ears peeled for info relative to Masters Nationals in Turkey- they like to wait until T-minus 3 weeks to announce the date and location, making it kind of difficult to buy a cheap plane ticket. I'll have to play it by ear.
Speaking of Turkey, the Tour of Turkey (ToT) is ON. This is a world class production with mega Euros at stake among the world's best pro teams. Don't dismiss it for it's location. Even VeloNews is finally giving it some coverage. A Turkish pro almost cracked the top 10 today- his name is Mirac Kal. If you're going to show interest in how the Turks do this year, he's the one to watch. Here's the finish below. Notice at the end how Pettachi lands a fist on the back of an opponent, relegating himself to last place with a time penalty. Farrar gets 2nd. Greipel flatted within 3k to go..

Thanks for reading.

No weenies allowed

2011-04-21T21:56:00.000-04:00

Murat's "hilly" ride by hasyunusa at Garmin Connect - Details
When you fight to overcome the urge to skip training and force yourself to do the work, it sometimes ends up being a religious experience. I'm walking on air after this ride.
You can view the route and profile of my workout with the above link. It was dark when i got home at 8:00!

Meee-mor-eeees...

2011-04-21T00:42:00.003-04:00

I was just perusing some blogs I hadn't checked in to for a long time and came across this entry from the 2008 Keith Berger Criterium (one of my FAVORITE RACES) It's nice to get recognition for a hard day's work.
It was a tough time for me in 2008. I had recently returned from Turkey after laying my father to rest. Emotionally, I was a MESS. The day before Keith Berger, I had a total meltdown in the 35+ race at the COX Criterium and again in the Cat 2 race I had NO GAME.
The following day though at Keith Berger, something clicked into place. I think it was the "stop being a fucking weenie" hormone finally kicking in. The week or so leading up to this day, wife and son were still in Turkey. I was curling up in the fetal position every night alone and mourning my dad. I was downing a glass of wine after work, before I headed out to train. I lined up at Keith Berger that day feeling like I had four legs not two. When they said 'go' I took off. (see above) Two laps later I was joined by about 12 guys. (See above) After surviving solo for 6 laps (I was the last one to fall off the break's pace), I am joined by Patrick R and I think Todd.. We worked together to keep clear of the field and finished together. There's a quick little race report I entered about it, HERE, but I like the other race report linked above much better. I was cruising towards 5th place in the sprint that day and my foot pulled out of my pedal. Getting 6th was still pretty sweet, all things considered. I even took a $10 prime, which still occupies the white envelope in which it came. This year I get to do the 40+ edition for the 1st time. I'm sure it will hurt just the same.

2011 Rick Newhouse Photos? I dont hava any

2011-04-19T13:07:00.002-04:00

Hey if anyone comes across some pictures from the racing on Sunday, please let me know where to find them. It got so warm at Rick Newhouse that I ended up wearing my one piece fat suit.. worried about how pear shaped I might have looked.. That and I was really hoping to see a picture of myself on the new FUJI, just so I can form an opinion of my bike position, relative to my old bike.. which is now being ridden by someone in Japan. Sunday was one of those criteriums where you're in the drops all the time. It was that windy.

2011 Rick Newhouse Criterium Results

2011-04-19T10:44:00.003-04:00

Click here for results! Cheers for getting them up on Bikereg so quickly! It's so much nicer when the number of entrants are indicated, relative to it's effect upon Road-Results rankings, NEBRA rankings and probably NEMCA rankings too. Just sayin.. I enjoy following such data and seeing who's doing what- it's all a part of the bigger package of bike racing. FYI the winner of the 35+ race was not DQed, they were a lapped rider mixed up in the finish.

Guess where I am

2011-04-18T10:04:00.000-04:00

I'm at the finish of the Boston Marathon in support of good friend Derek Larson from Columbia GA (orig from Western NY). We dropped him off at the shuttle buses at 7:30.
FYI everyone: Do you want to track someone who is running today? If you text the word "runner" to 345678 you will receive a reply asking for a bib number. Send a friend's bib number and you will automatically receive text updates at 10k, 1/2, 30k and finish.
My friend Derek's number is 8372.

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Rick Newhouse Vitality prime

2011-04-17T20:51:00.000-04:00

The socks are part of another prime that I won, but the rest of the stuff pictured occupied a doubled up brown paper bag that is the "Vitality Prime", along with a 12 pack of Mountain Dew and a six pack of Newport Storm. The last items in the bag are hidden where family will hopefully not find them.
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2011 Rick Newhouse Criterium

2011-04-17T20:02:00.002-04:00

I won't try to speak for teammates Dave or Adam. I had decent sensations in the legs today, but not good enough for being in the break with Vollers, Mark, Tobi and Ciaran.. On the bright side I took the infamous "Vitality Prime" (this is my 2nd time- I also won it in 2009) and scored a big sack of schwag including some playboys. Even better, I also won the prime on the lap right before, which made me feel pretty manly. It was a race of attrition- the wind was brutal. It was strung out single file and often in echelons all day. There was never any rest because if you let any kind of gap open in front of you it was over. Many guys cracked and lost contact and most of them already had a race in their legs. With 5 up the road there were 3 paying places left. John B attacked on the final lap and did exactly what I wanted to do. He held it to the line for 6th! Good for him. I set myself up for the sprint less than optimally, got caught out in the wind and couldn't pass Bill Y or Gary A so I ended up 10th. Lots of 45+ starters at the beginning made it a pretty good sized field of about 45-50 I think. The wind today was INTENSE! We were in the gutter all day getting blown around and into each other. Peter V won. I jumped into the Pro race afterwards and fell apart around 8 to go. I felt okay for about 50 minutes but the 35+ fatigue caught up with me eventually. Didn't feel so bad when I saw some other big engines pulling off as well. Actually, I got pulled or else I would have grinded it out solo to the finish. I hate not finishing. Overall a good day with great weather, sunny skies and no crashes. My only regret is letting someone else execute my plan on that final lap. I could have caught up to him but I'd also be bringing a bunch of opponents with me. I'm not anywhere near any kind of peak right now so all things considered, I'm pleased. This was a great practice race for me.. And the 3rd time in 4 tries that I finished 10th (I was 12th in 2009)
Big huge hat tip to Todd B and Randy R for making bike racing look so easy. Also salute Tim M for winning the Pro race and Dave K for winning the 45+.
Thanks for reading.
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2011 Flat No 1: in the rain

2011-04-13T11:04:00.002-04:00

I checked the radar. I could see a band of rain approaching from NYC but it was a long way off and headed towards Boston not RI.. So when I left at 1:30 the plan was to ride for at least 3 hours..
The rain started after 40 minutes- light at first.. then it got more intense when I turned north onto route 3 from Division Street (right there at the mouth of Big River) M original plan was to go south on Route 3, all the way to 138/Switch Road/Kings Factory to Route 1 North all the way home- about 70 miles. With the rain I ended up heading north on 3 and did my usual 32 mile loop.. but not before a puncture on 117. I had a spare tube and all- no patch kit though. Normally I carry two tubes, not today. The flat repair took a few minutes- no problemo.. but now the rain had stopped. Dilemma- do I try to salvage my ride plans and risk it without a spare tube? Of course not. By this time I was cold and pissed and my new shoes were soaked through. After getting going again and warming back up I thought about doing another lap of this 32 mile route- i could always stop at the house and grab a a patch kit.. but getting my brand new road bike and shoes soaked like this was unbearable to me. Especially the new DMT shoes. The bike could handle it, but road shoes stand to degenerate in many ways from being wet. At least i wore my shoe covers so the DMTs were spared form road dirt and grime- just wet but clean. It sucks that it was nice all morning but I was too busy to get out there in time to miss this rain. Oh well. I got a decent workout. It's pouring now. Tonight I'll put my bike on the new Kinetic Road Machine and make it scream for a couple of hours. Racing Sunday at Rick Newhouse, if the weather doesn't suck too badly. One of our new teammates has a title to defend in the 45+ race. So does my boy Reis in the kid's event, though he is less enthusiastic for whatever reason.

2011 Wells Ave Crit No 1

2011-04-10T22:15:00.002-04:00

Missed the opener the weekend before and with the nice weather predicted, I informed my dear wife well in advance that I was not going to miss it this time.. Still, I always entertain the possibility that waking up or being properly rested might be a challenge.. as was the case this morning. I slept in fits and starts from about 5:00 am until 8:30, when I finally got up. Where I live, you can't reach Wells Ave on time unless you hit the road by 9:00. No coffee left in the house and skipping the raisin bran meant that I did not have the pleasure of my daily morning elimination. Yeah, since turning 40 I find it okay to talk about my plumbing. When it's working smoothly I'm happy.. Anyway.. sorry. I had 30 minutes to get going. Two Eggo waffles with butter and Aunt Jemima Lite Syrup, one english muffin toasted with butter and slathered with honey, one multivitamin, one paper sack with all my clothing and bottles and gear piled into it like sedimentary rock. I made it there with plenty of time to spare- the Bs were just rolling off when I parked.
My form has been feeling a little bit short circuited this week. Chris Hinds Crit- 90 minutes of torture- took more out of me than I realized at the time. I dug very deep to be in there, and my lack of performance in the 35+ race which followed tells us the same thing. Sunday I took an easy bike path ride with my son- like 15 miles. That's a lot for a 7 year old- but he loves it. Mon and Tues I rested. I felt horribly tired. Wed and Thurs I went out and did some long rides, mostly in zone 3 but a lot of 2 and 4 in there between the climbs and the descents. Friday I wanted to do an easy spin but no time.. Saturday I eeked out a 2 hour ride which was relatively easy-going and just what I needed to shake out the cobwebs. Would I feel like total poo at Wells Ave? I wasn't feeling so sure. Sensations in the legs had not been encouraging at all this week..
Meeting up with my team was a relief. We had a shit year in 2010.. not to mean our results were horrible but rather that our morale was very low. This year is going to be a lot better. We lined up and couldn't begin racing because there were not enough marshals to monitor and direct traffic. Finally we got a late start but the course was down one marshal. Lots of traffic, OMG! We had to slow down damn near every other lap for cars which were parking, turning, stopping in front of us. It's a relief no one was hurt.
So on to the racing. Nothing got away. Before the start we decided that our best scenario is always going to be a field sprint, and we had two opportunities to show our colors: at the 1/2 way prime and at the ending. Long story short. On the 20th lap there's a 2 place cash prime and there were 3 guys with a 5-10 second gap. Matt, Kyle and I moved to the front with 1/2 lap to go. The field opened up on the right allowing me to go full gas with Matt and Kyle on my wheel. We went out of the saddle before the curve even begins and I buried myself long enough to reach the break and give Matt and Kyle an armchair ride to the finish. We were 1-2 in the 1/2 way prime. I was smoked for a couple of laps and retreated to the back of the field to recover..
20 laps later we executed it a bit differently. I was caught up in some traffic while I tried to hang on to the coattails of my teammates, but the last lap was neutralized due to traffic and so we had to do another lap. This time, all kinds of tired legs crowded the last lap and made it hard to find the space needed to change lanes and go. I made sure to plan my moves through the other sprinters and by carefully maneuvering through the dead legs I got clear and almost finished 3rd behind my two teammates.. but the finish line came too soon. I needed another 10 meters.. But hey I'll take 4th- there's no shame in that. Matt won and Kyle was 2nd. We took all but $5 of the cash payouts and divided it up between us, as it should be.
Next week is Rick Newhouse and maybe this time I will skip the Pro race to focus on the 35+. I'm getting too old to be doubling up on race day. I'd rather have one great result than have two mediocre ones..
Thanks for reading.

Thursday: Another 200 TSS

2011-04-08T09:30:00.002-04:00

I am still in this fatigued state and wondering if maybe I am fighting an infection or something.. It's peculiar.. Up until the day I ran out of a supplement that I've been taking for a month or so, I was fine. Then I ran out and I feel tired, sore, unmotivated, and irritable. Withdrawel symptoms? I didn't know that BCAAs can do that! One things for sure, when I take them regularly I feel like a million bucks. Thursday I did another 52 miles- an out and back ride to Pt Judith in about 2:45. Route 1 is in a sorry state until you get down to 1A, after that it's pretty okay.. Winds were out of the East, but the ride south was a lot slower than the ride home. I've done this round trip in as little as 2:28 and yesterday it seemed like an unbeatable benchmark to me. No way I can go that much faster, I thought to myself. Then as I was perusing old charts in Training Peaks I stumbled into my 2010 Chris Thater Crtiterium data. I didn't realize it at the time, but the final 60 seconds of the 2/3 crit averaged 32.1 mph. The final 30 seconds: 32.8 mph, 20 seconds: 36 mph, 10 seconds: 38.7 mph and the last 5 seconds to the line: 39.7 mph. I had never ridden so hard and so fast for a 24th place finish before.. and this was my 2nd race of the day. The Chris Thater Crit pays 20 deep, in case you wonder why I was sprinting. When you're cross eyed like that it can be hard to tell if you're in the money, so it's better to assume that you have a shot at it. I will definitely be going back this year- I love that venue.

Wednesday: Ninigret No 1

2011-04-07T12:36:00.003-04:00

Yesterday's ride was such a technical decision.. Winds gusting out of the southwest meant that I needed to ride down towards Ninigret.. where the first Wed night crit of the year was scheduled for 6:30.. Problem being it's too cold to ride out there, race and ride back.. not to mention dark. Additionally, the winds were scheduled to shift and blow from the Northeast at some point in the afternoon.. and 50% chance of showers was predicted for the evening.. I wanted to do a solid 3 hours, and I also wanted to race.. but better to keep my money and just get the volume over with before the wind shifted, before the rain arrived, before it got dark, and before I froze my ass off. Thusly, I decided to hit the road at 3:00 pm and ride down Route 2 all the way to Route 1 and head north back to my house. Instead of jumping onto 1A in Narragansett, I continued north on Route 1, even with the heavy traffic, it's the better choice because it's faster and the shoulder is very wide and safe. This knocked about 4 miles off my usual 60 miler and I ended up doing exactly three hours- about 56 miles. The winds heading down were such that I averaged only 15 mph by the time I reached Route 1. On the way back though- I averaged it back up to 18.5 by easily going 25+ mph the whole way home.
I wonder who won at Ninigret? That wind must not have been too much fun, lap after lap after lap.
Thanks for reading.

Under the weather

2011-04-05T23:41:00.005-04:00

I'm feeling extra fatigued since racing on Saturday. Sunday I did 15 easy miles with Reis on the bike path. Monday rest. Tuesday more rest.. Tomorrow I resolve to do some long steady distance of at least 3 hours.. I've been feeling a little bit down these past few days too.. and self-medicating.. with food. I'm so done with winter.. which is why minute 6:00 does it for me. Seasons.. Funny. (Nothing against Canadians!)

Chris Hinds Criterium P-1-2-3 Results

2011-04-02T14:50:00.002-04:00

Here's an update to this entry with more results for Cat 4, Cat 5, 45+ and some Chris Hinds Criterium photos I took after I was done racing:

Apparently I only had legs for one race today. My lungs tightened up so much in between the Pro and the 35+ races that it was impossible to continue, especially after the (unwise) aggressive racing I did in the first 5 laps.. This breathing issue cracked me and I just did some cool down laps by myself.. Then it started to rain/sleet/hail and then I decided I wanted to stay dry so I took myself out of it and went to my car. As we can tell from these results, nearly half of the pro field DNF'ed. I had fun out there. As always J-Lo manages an excellent race venue where everyone feels at home and has a good time, and for a great cause. All proceeds go to fund Sam Hinds' college fund, who lost his father Chris to cancer about 9 years ago. Thanks for reading.

2011 Data Round-up: First 90 days

2011-03-29T00:24:00.010-04:00

Today marks the 90th day of 2011 and I like to occasionally stop and see where I am relative to previous seasons. Before I get into it, I want to inform all three of you that I know how uncool it is to talk about our watts with others. Let's face it: if I really wanted to be cool I wouldn't have a blog in the first place.. and if you were really cool you wouldn't be here reading this shit.. So first I'll share the awesome flowchart explaining that no matter what you do, talking about your numbers makes you look like a tool. Okay we get it:

With that funny schematic from Velonews behind us, we can move on. Below we can look at a summary of my last six weeks and also my last 12 months of time, distance, TSS, kJ, etc. I think you will find it interesting that I have been training light every other week since returning from Florida. It wasn't a conscious decision or part of a master plan. It is basically what I've felt like doing, dictated partly by life requirements, fatigue levels, the temperature outside, and my motivation. Let's just say it's what felt right. Moving forward, I expect to build in blocks of 2 weeks during April and changing it up to 3 weeks in May. Or not. Life is unpredictable.

The chart below? Boooo-riiiiing. but still one of my favorites. I'm not going to show you the same period one year before. Just take my word for it that I didn't flirt with a CTL of 90 [in 2010] until after the 3rd week of April. CTL is the blue line which indicates "chronic training load"- a running average of the previous 28 days of training. For the data challenged, I'll give one piece of advice about this particular chart- you're not really flying on the bike until after you're deep into 100 CTL for a few weeks. Last season that period was from 8/1 thru 9/30, and I could tell that I was capable of very good things during that time. This year it appears that I'll be into 100 CTL by mid April. Let's hope I don't get sick of riding and take an entire month off the bike as I did in 2010. (See May/June, above) Maybe I'll rest a bit in May (during all those pesky road races with hills)

Lastly but not least, tonight's workout on the Kinetic Road Machine. This is by far my favorite workout. It's an unofficial fitness test, but not the kind that necessarily indicates your Functional Threshold. Sure if I did this set after a hard hour of warm-up or after a 5 minute VOmax interval, then it can be used for FT (by deducting 5% from norm power). But the way I use it, it's more a measure of how much I've adapted since the previous attempts. It's good to see that since my last attempt exactly one month ago on Feb 28, I've added 14w to my CP20 and 14w to my Normalized CP20. I do not expect you to be impressed. As I said, this is just a very good way for one to gauge their progress and determine if the training stress is forcing the good kind of adaptation. Those of you without a power meter can choose a nice 5 mile loop or stretch of road and test your fitness by doing a private TT every 3-4 weeks. Keep track of your times and see your progression. It doesn't have to be done in an "on/off" manner- that's just how I prefer to do it because it imitates criterium racing, which is where I'm interested in being successful. Anyway it goes something like this:
30:00 warm-up (intensity is at your discretion- but I don't recommend Z2 for the whole time)
1:00 FT+30-50% (for me this is a little under 5w/kg)
1:00 recovery z2-z3 (again, for me a little under 3w/kg)
Repeat total of 10 times (20 minutes total)- in the final minute, recover for the first 30 seconds and then uncork everything you have left for the final 30 seconds, then go for 45-50 if you have it in you, all out. Do it to complete failure.
30:00 cool down, z1-2
This workout does a good job of teaching you to handle the stresses thrown at you in the final 20 minutes of a criterium. You can't shut it down in between intervals- you should still be making woman noises during the "recovery" periods. I usually shift between the 53x15 and the 53x19 during this set. Everyone is different. If you drill it too hard in the first few intervals, you will not want to finish and you risk aborting your workout prematurely. Shoot for 10 minutes the first time and build from there. Usually by the end of the 20th minute, my heart rate is into the 190s, but going back and forth between 165 and 180 the rest of the time. Remember: the excuse you hear most often from riders who get dropped in their first few races of the season is "those accelerations killed me". Well here's your chance to avoid that early ride of shame back to the car.. It goes without saying that you need a base of about 1000 miles before doing a workout like this..Have fun!

Charge Pond and Wells Ave

2011-03-28T09:49:00.003-04:00

Teammate Kyle Gates took a very respectable 4th place at Saturday's 4th edition of the 2011 Charge Pond Series. It was my first race on the new Fuji and I am loving this bike.. but not the valve extenders.. they gave me fits of rage just before the start of the race Saturday, requiring me to try three different pumps before realizing that the tube was punctured. Per usual, I made it to the race with 20 minutes to get ready, and then I was dealing with this flat tire and shitty valve extenders with 2 minutes to start, smashing my hand into the brand new titanium cassette, bleeding, and I rolled up to the back of the field with less than a minute to spare. Warm up? I took care of that with a one-lap bridge attempt about 4 laps into the race. With 6 to go I bridged across to a couple of juniors and we had a nice gap. Unfortunately I could only pull through one time after bridging and we were caught with 5 to go.. Overall I felt pretty good throughout- not put into too much difficulty except for the times I was off the front. I like the course though- very exciting to race there with the undulations and the narrowness of the roads. Long story short I fought like hell to get myself into the top ten going into the last corner and that's about where I finished- either 9th or 10th. They don't rank you correctly past top 7 though so who knows what the official results will tell us. I could be mistaken about this, but judging from the previous weeks' results.. that was Frank friggin McCormack and one of his SONS driving the front of the race with 1/2 lap to go. How cool would it be if YOUR FATHER could lead you out to a successful win? If I'm correct about this, then well, words can't describe how cool that is to me. I salute them.
Wells Ave? Didn't race there, but wanted to. It ended up that my friend Thad Lavalee won it and our "king of spring" Kyle Gates took 2nd. I slept-in until about 12:30.. and took a day off from training.
What happened at Michael Schott? I have no idea but I'll be looking for results and reports on that one. Thanks for reading.

First ride: FUJI SST 1.0

2011-03-25T00:53:00.003-04:00

I took the new road bike out for it's maiden voyage- leaving the carbon wheels on and not even installing any bottle cages. All I added was the mount for the Garmin and headed out for a "quickie" with the new mistress. I didn't feel exceptionally fast on this 32 mile route (did the same route 3/15) because it was 40 degrees out and windy. Well I felt fast heading south and I felt fast when I turned west onto Frenchtown Road, but the rest of the ride felt slow and miserable. One thing I noticed about this bike right off the bat- it loves to corner- practically on auto pilot. All I have to do is think "right" and it goes right. By the end of the ride, I was pretty winded because I kept a pace somewhere in between tempo and LT and what felt like a slow pace actually took 9 minutes off my previous attempt of this route! Yee-haw! Must be kind of like when you're driving a Lexus doing 100 mph and it feels like you're only going 60. This bike is Fa-ast. Thanks for reading.

One troubling thing though- the headset was completely loosened up when I got home. Hopefully I did not ovalize my head tube or ride like that for very long.

Pro Cyclists from Iran beating up on Tour de Taiwan

2011-03-24T22:11:00.005-04:00

Mehdi Sohrabi (Tabriz Petrochemical Team) outkicked breakaway companion David McCann (Giant Kenda) on the uphill finish to win stage 2. Photo: © Tour de Taiwan

It's the kind of headline which has the ability to make some people roll their eyes, flare their nostrils, maybe even spit on the ground in disgust. You might not want to hear it, but I have a high opinion of Iranian pros, most notably on the Tabriz Petrochemical Team. For many years, guys like Mehdi SOHRABI, Ghader Mizbani and Hossein Askari have been earning results which would turn heads, if only their names were Johnny, or Matthew or Thomas.. I salute these guys for their consistent good results. Bravo. Their team is currently ranked 1st place at the Tour of Taiwan after Stage 5, which is no surprise after their team took the win on Stages 2 and 3.
There is more to pro road cycling than "Avrupa". (that's Turkish for "Europe") Asia is rapidly evolving into a pro racing Mecca, with very well attended national tours in almost every country, even in Turkey.. which brings me to a sore spot.. Turkey has very few "pros" attending these far eastern venues. It's a shame that in Turkey, most people look upon adults who ride bicycles, as imbeciles. Mountain biking is growing like wildfire, but road racing is pretty limited, with maybe 15 or so Federation-sanctioned venues throughout the season. We have that many races in one weekend in the Northeast US alone. Thanks for reading.Floris Goesinnen (Drapac) solos to victory in stage four. Photo: © Tour de Taiwan

Sister-wife has landed

2011-03-23T16:11:00.000-04:00

I can't decide whether to name her Nickie or Margene. Maybe I'll just go with Chloe. Ebru will always be my Barb though..
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Hills in Florida..

2011-03-21T22:53:00.000-04:00

.are mostly bridges, like this one spanning the Intercoastal Waterway. I want to get down there again to work on my tan lines, but this time I want to have my new road bike with me! This Fuji order is getting a little long in the tooth, and I'm tired of riding 'ol Bessie- my 22 pound Fuji cross bike- on the road. This SST 1.0 will hopefully be worth the wait!
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Long day No 2 ouch

2011-03-19T00:56:00.000-04:00

Untitled by hasyunusa at Garmin Connect - Details
The Garmin data is available via the above link. Almost 75 miles. I originally went out intending to go south to Charlestown (just like I wanted to do yesterday), but the winds shifted and picked up speed so I had to go N-NW into the wind to ensure that I didn't fall apart fighting a headwind for 2 hours trying to get home. As it is, I barely made it into the driveway before dark. Way more climbing than I wanted to do, but I took it pretty easy compared to yesterday- hardly ever went over 300 watts- and only on the steep hills where it really can't be avoided. So tomorrow on my birthday I can relax, maybe hit the gym for an hour, maybe take a swim,or go to the bike path with my boy.. but no bike training. My legs are torched after these two key workouts yesterday and today. I've been using Amino Vital BCAAs in pill form and as a drink mix- very happy with the way it is helping me to recover more quickly and do two hard rides like this without ever cramping.
Thanks for reading.

T-minus 2 minutes

2011-03-18T23:58:00.000-04:00

..and I'm officially 40 years old.

Longer ride today

2011-03-17T20:46:00.000-04:00

Untitled by hasyunusa at Garmin Connect - Details
I'm really liking the Garmin Connect site and all the information you are able to share with friends, so easily. The elevation, course profile, the mapping.. I'm very pleased with it.
Today I resolved to do a challenging ride, but not until about 20 minutes into it. Originally I was going to keep on flatter roads down south towards Charlestown and back, but I decided that I had the legs for a harder effort so I kept local and hit some of the hills in my area. The map tells it all! This is a nice 64 mile route which I am expecting to repeat in the future, hopefully with friends. It's hard to do these longer rides by yourself all the time. I wore a composite kit today- bottom was ArcenCiel (I sponsor them) and the top was the old Millwork One jersey. I went with a merino wool base layer of course and a vest over my long sleeve jersey. This weather is deceiving and can easily make you sick- better to slightly over-dress and ventilate when it gets hot. My toes were a bit chilled by the end of the ride- I wore lycra shoe covers- but mainly for protecting my nice new white DMT from dirt. lycra doesn't insulate too well. Saw some people out on the roads which is rare in RI, especially when you're "casually employed" as I am and go out riding around noon.
Thanks for reading. Enjoy the data.

Fire

2011-03-17T14:50:00.000-04:00

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Tuesday's short ride

2011-03-16T09:17:00.000-04:00

Untitled by hasyunusa at Garmin Connect - Details
So as promised here's the data from yesterday's ride. Colder outside than it looked before Ileft- I had thoughts of pulling a u-turn and going home during the first 5 minutes, but I warmed up quickly. This is a route which I often do when time is short. 32 miles that keep me relatively close to home and offer a lot of opportunities to take a longer route if the mood strikes. Lots of nasty pavement to deal with, especially along Frenchtown Road after crossing route 2. The cruising portion of the ride begins right after getting onto Division Street towards Route 3. My suspicion was confirmed relative to zeroes on the power meter. Apparently the Garmin display shows an average which excludes zeroes/coasting, but that doesn't mean it's not recording them. It's only when you upload to Training Peaks WKO v3.0 that the zeroes are put into play. For example, the Garmin display indicates that this ride averaged 221 watts, but WKO says that it was really only 207. Not a problem for me really, just good to know. I heard that there can be issues with the Garmins relative to calculating Normalized Power, but I don't see any problems. I did a workout on Monday night which included a 20 minute block of VOmax intervals 1 minute on, 1 minute off, and the avg watts were 242 and the normalized avg was 275. This agrees with previous editions of this same workout, which is one of my favorites. Its kind of like a criterium where you're attacking or chasing for one minute every lap, sitting in for minute in between efforts. Thanks for reading.

Garmin 500 thoughts

2011-03-15T18:48:00.001-04:00

I've been using the Garmin 500 with a Powertap Pro wheel for the past four days and so far I'm pleased. I just completed a 100 minute ride and the data on the screen is encouraging, but I'm suspicious that it's not recording zeroes into the average watts. When I'm coasting downhill, which is rare, the average watts stays put instead of decreasing. More later when I add a link to my workout.
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Hilly ride Saturday

2011-03-14T11:57:00.000-04:00

Untitled by hasyunusa at Garmin Connect - Details
I believe the above link will show you all of the excessive details of my bike ride on Saturday with the Refunds Now group, which includes the infamous Gewilli. I usually take a nice steady cruise with the RI elders on Saturdays but I was looking for a change of scenery and faces. My plan was to ride to the start of the ride but since I couldn't find my booties I lost all kinds of time and ended up driving to Providence at the last minute. Good group of 10 or so guys, some of which can climb hills a lot better'n me, which I can live with, no worries. I may have had the heaviest bike and wheels of us all- my front wheel weighs 950 grams, the bike is probably 22 or so. Gewilli on the other hand was riding helium filled Z101s. I cringed every time we hit a patch of bad surface, which is hard to miss in RI- our roads SUCK. The ride is advertised as being aggressive and hilly and I thought I was game for it but I should have known better. Holding down puke as I fight to the top of every climb is not something I really want to do until April.. I needed to be home at noon.. so after we turned onto yet another mysterious and hilly side road off of route 44, I started to back-pedal thinking about when I'd be getting back to the car. Also, my legs felt kind of thrashed and I wanted to just shut it down. I took a u-turn, waved goodbye to the group and headed back to route 44 and straight into town and to my car in Federal Hill. Home at noon, as promised. A solid 60 miles and about 300 TSS. Sunday I had dead legs and didn't even feel like doing an hour on the trainer, though I managed 20 minutes.
This morning I was at the spinal doctor's office. The mystery of why I have stabbing pains in my lower back whenever I do cross has been solved- I have a couple of torn and bulging disks at L4-L5. It has been eating into my rest because I awaken 4-5 times every night from the pain and need to change position often. This all started right after the 2009 Concord Criterium when we took a trip up to Storyland and I went on all the rides with my son. It fucked my back up pretty good. The damage was probably already there from years of carpentry and cabinet-making in the shop during my twenties, but those amusement rides suddenly amplified the pain ten-fold. Someone once told me that back pain is an indication of general weakness.. well that may be true but ruptured disks will hurt no matter how strong you are. Thanks for reading.

Do NOT wish me a happy birthday..

2011-03-10T21:44:00.001-05:00

..on Facebook. I no longer have an account there. My account was hacked by some piece of shit thug overseas.. and if you engage them, they will pretend to be me and they have the skill and technique to hack you too. There are Hacking forums loaded with the simple instructions of how to do it. Mostly a bunch of pimply teenagers I suppose- they talk about how cool and easy it is to steal someone's account "just to fuck with them". So please do yourself a favor and leave birthday wishes here, if you're so inclined.. My 40th is on March 19th, same as Bruce Willis and Spike Lee.. Then again, traffic to my blogs is kind of light lately so I'm not getting my hopes up. More than anything, I wish that people would take enough of an interest to pick up the fucking phone and call eachother. Fuck blogs and facebook and email and texting. No one talks on the phone anymore, and you can forget about getting together in person. Everyone is engorged with being popular and getting LIKEd on Facebook instead of "being" liked as a real person. Getting LIKEd is something people do TO you, sort of like getting punched or kissed. Being liked is what I would prefer to be, wouldn't you? It's pathetic how we've let technology erase our social skills and replace them with "social networking". Now that I'm out of FB it's painfully evident how many true friends are out there, and it isn't many.. it's few.. but a few good friends is all you need. Having a mutual friend with a total stranger has been sold to us as a good-enough reason to become friends with total strangers who, at the end of the day, don't give a squirt of piss about you. Stop buying that tripe and call your friends once a week instead of peeping tom on them every fucking minute of the day and masquerading it as friendship.
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Brian Piccolo Park Velodrome

2011-03-10T19:04:00.003-05:00

Here's another pic from Florida, after racing two criteriums on the 1/2 mile Ninigret-looking course right next to the velodrome. The locals turn out with their families and make a day of the crit racing here. Just like a picnic at Colt Park. Good energy.. Of course it's 85 degrees out so they could all be human flesh-eating pygmies for all I care. I heart Florida.
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Testing..

2011-03-10T18:45:00.001-05:00

I must say it's nice to see the spike in traffic since I quit Facebook. This was shot while training on Florida. Bike is rented.
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NSA

2011-03-10T09:24:00.001-05:00

Click title for a funny Craigslist ad. Good stuff.
NSA = No sissies allowed.

Year to Date Report

2011-03-06T22:37:00.006-05:00

Well folks my Powertap wheels are gone- sold on Ebay tonight. It's not that I don't want power data anymore, it's because I don't want any unsightly wires making my new Fuji SST 1.0 look bad.. So I'm now in the hunt for a decent wireless powertap wheel with ANT+. If you know anyone selling, hit me up.

Today marks the 65th day of 2011 and I wondered how it stacks up against the same period of the previous three years. Here it is:

So what have YOU done this winter?? The above doesn't even include December btw..

I was tempted to race at the Plainville opener on Saturday but my new road bike is still en route on a slow boat from China, literally. Having sold my LOOK to a lad in Japan and all of it's parts all over the USA, I am relegated to using my Fuji cross bike- the one I picked up used for $800 about 5 years ago.. I can't wait to feel how different it is to go from a 22 pound cross bike to a 15 pound road bike. Exciting times. The other problem is that I slept-in until 12 noon on Saturday- an indication that dragging myself to a stressful race was not going to bear much fruit..

My new DMT Speedplay-specific DMT shoes fit like a glove- actually they have some room in the front so that I can wriggle my toes. Such an improvement over my previous shoes- they had become too tight and too narrow for my evolving feet.. My wind trainer is toast too- the crank no longer does anything to clamp the rear wheel and there is a gouged out section of the aluminum drum, pictured below. Doesn't all that bad ass rubber dust impress you? I tried doing the roller the other day and they are pitiful, really. I bought these McClains in 1992 and the bearing are kaput, the frame is twisted, and they scream like a banshee with no resistance. Well the good news is that my birthday is coming up and the big 4-0 will be complete.. so it's okay to splurge on a few necessities and just play the 40th birthday card every time my wife reaches for her baseball bat.. I've been eying those Lemond trainers but they obviously dont work with a Powertap and their proprietary power meter add-on hasn't been widely promoted so there is nothing there to impress me.. If only I had Quarq or SRM.. Funny- the broken Ergomo Pro bottom bracket is now on Ebay and people are bidding on the thing- for parts. Now I must find a new Powertap wheel- one that will look good on the new Fuji. And I need a new trainer. It's really my favorite way to warm-up at a crit.

Thanks for reading.

Update brewing

2011-03-02T21:52:00.001-05:00

Hopefully I can put up some cool YTD data tomorrow. Stay tuned.

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Spring training report

2011-02-10T22:10:00.001-05:00

Day one: two fast criteriums, 3-1/2 hours total ride time including warmup and cool down. 15th and 23rd in 40+ and Pro, respectively.
Day two: left house at 6:15 headed east on Yamato Rd to coastline road A1A, went north 1 hour and backtracked same palm-tree, yacht and mansion lined road. 3 hours.
Day three: repeat day two, but no so far up the coast. 2 hours.
Day four: same as Day two, went farther up the coast and met family for a seaside breakfast in Delray Beach. 3 hours.
Day five: Rest day. Legs were really sore and fatigued day before. Did some suntanning and swimming like previous days, but much more of it.
Day six (planned): going to head south on A1A towards Miami, then double back to Palm Beach and home. Hopefully 4 hours.
Day seven: meeting the locals (mostly Zmotion, Coco and Garneau guys, presumably) for a fast group ride at 7:30 am (should be a one hour ride each way) probably 4-5 hours total.
All the training and racing has been "by wire". That is, no computer, no gps, no powertap, no speed or mileage. Just by my five senses alone, combined with some intuition, past experience and common sense. I don't even own a wristwatch, so all I had to use for a reference is my blackberry- for the time that is. The roads are as flat as Ally MacBeal's chest. Route A1A has the Atlantic Ocean on one side, the Intercoastal waterway on the other. It's a strip of land hardly 100 yards wide. It's gorgeous- those manicured and gated Mcmansions, private drydocks, yachts, palm trees, turquoise water, sandy beaches.. There's a designated bike lane and lots of riders heading in both directions. True there aren't a lot of young people around, but it's easy to get over this. It's between 65 and 70 degrees in the early morning. On day two the wind shifted and thousands of Man-o-wars were blown onto shore. My son touched one thinking it was a harmless jellyfish- his hand burned for hours! The M-o-W is not a jellyfish, it's a composite creature built from four separate organisms working together. It floats on the surface of the water using a self inflated "sail". Quite disgusting looking. Tentacles up to 50 feet long and potentially deadly. Water is 74 degrees..
Sunday we head back to wonderful RI. It's not expected to be a joyful reunion. Kudos to my mom for moving to Florida. We'll be visiting her more often, that's for sure. Many thanks to Relentless Cycles for the bike they rented to me for short money. Hat tip to all the racers who came out to the Rosewood Series crit on Sunday. I salute the promoters for a very professionally managed race. This has been a nice trip/camp for me. I didn't lose any weight but my legs are like veined marble and I'm mentally refreshed. My only regret is remembering about my allergy to excessive sun after it's too late- I'm covered in these tiny itchy pimples wherever I'm tan, per usual. That's the least of my worries because I don't know how I'm going to ride in the cold ever again!
Thanks for reading.
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Rosewood Series Criterium 40+ and 123

2011-02-07T00:39:00.001-05:00

Aren't you tired of the same old narration of everyone's cyclocross "adventures"? Ok we get it: you lined up, you went full gas for 45 minutes, almost fell a few times, and finished 5 minutes down on the winner. Yay! Okay we're done with that for about 9 months- good riddance!
I raced a crit down here in FL today- it was 85 degrees out! I rented a road bike to make this happen, and expect to ride it every day until we leave.
Long story short: tight technical 1/2 mile course. Laps were about 1:05 to 1:10. I did the 40+ race and with about 7 laps to go I attacked and tried to bridge to the eventual winner. This was the only difficulty of my entire race- the three lap that I held off the field. After getting caught I had about a lap to pull myself together- they rang the bell for 3 laps to go. Riding among all these total strangers on a rented bike, I took no crazy chances, but did manage to needle myself through traffic and up into 15th place. Not too shabby for a 1st race of the season, in February! I had an hour between races so I kept loose by riding around and lined up for the 123 race with good sensations. Unfortunately the fatigue of the previous race reared it's head right quick and my attacking style of the first 3 laps dissipated into a very conservative tailgunner position. This was a LOT faster with all the fresh legs (only one other 40+ racer successfully doubled up- there were 16 DNFs in this race. At any rate I successfully finished in the field (23rd) even though I was put into difficulty pretty often. My winter program seems to be going in the correct direction! A less technical course would have been preferred as well as my own bike- the rental is an Orbea Onix with shimano 105 and heavy wheels. Everyone is on carbon aero wheels. Everyone. Anyway I'm pleased with my form. All those soul crushing intervals are already paying dividends. Now for 6 straight days of long steady distance.. and suntan of course! Stay warm and thanks for reading.
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Everyone needs to vent

2011-01-26T22:28:00.001-05:00

It's no surprise that I have taken a new interest in blogging now that 311 friends are gone from my life. Let's be honest.. 8 out of 10 FB friends have you "turned off" as a more polite way of getting rid of you.. In my case, about 1/2 of them don't get what I'm saying because English is their 2nd language. So maybe there were 30 people altogether who took a genuine interest and who understood any of what I was saying. Fuck 'em- they can all come here occasionally to see how I'm doing. Seriously though I am really considering to limit my new FB account to people who I have had an actual face to face conversation with. Mutual friend? Unless you're a hottie with a nice rack expect your friend request to be ignored.
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More Facebook fun

2011-01-26T16:11:00.001-05:00

Well I encourage everyone to really tighten up security on their Facebook accounts. I fell into the habit of accepting friend requests from anyone whose profile showed them doing sports or who had a bunch of mutual friends. What a fucking joke Facebook has turned out to be. They have been notified 15 different ways that I have lost control of my account and that the offender has changed all my contact info, and each time I am given an assurance that facebook will send me an e-mail at least acknowlwdging that I reported a problem. So far, I have received absolutely nothing. Earlier today I sent a message to my old account saying basically "hey you stole my account give it back". I received a reply in Turkish saying "who the hell are you?". It sounds funny but it's not. This parasite has unfettered access to all my photos, pages, and friends.. And no one at Facebook has given me even the slightest indication that they give a squirt of piss about it. It will be the same for you if it ever happens, so use those new security features which they keep reminding you about every time you log in. Don't let yourself be violated like this.
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New license!

2011-01-26T11:00:00.001-05:00

Paid my 2011 USAC dues yesterday so I can race a criterium in Ft Lauderdale on 2/6. Are the Latinos going to kick my ass or what? I hear they are fast year round.

Facebook account stolen

2011-01-25T23:23:00.002-05:00

Apparently there are people hacking Facebook accounts and then chatting with contacts and asking them for money, pretending to be you, of course. Today I was kicked off of a bicycling forum in Turkey (DO NOT join this forum- they are a bunch of self hating wanna be a cyclist Turks- how can they possibly like YOU or refrain from insane jealousy of everything you worked your whole life to get?) for some kind of TOS violation (I posted a link to one of my Ebay auctions where I was selling a bike- oh my!) Coincidentally, My yahoo, gmail and facebook accounts were all lost to me within an hour. I recovered yahoo and gmail thanks to security questions and such, but Facebook account is still wild. I have no access and no control of it whatsoever. Whoever this parasite is, they deleted all of my yahoo and gmail emails, and I also see that they also deleted my whole contact list on ebay except for a few family members, unless they just changed the public profile settings. What a piece of shit. Expecting to receive a well deserved "I told you so" from my new teammate.. Anyway, it would help me if you went to my old profile and clicked the "REPORT" link at the bottom left and indicate that I am being impersonated. Facebook is slow to respond to my multiple requests for help. Here is the link to my hijacked profile.
And if I come crying to you via fb chat or message saying that I am stuck somewhere and penniless and need you to send me money, please don't send a penny.

WeeBIKE-Hasyun Racing on the new SST 1.0

2011-01-23T16:31:00.001-05:00

The team was sized up for the new FUJI team bikes on Saturday at Quad Cycles. We will be racing on the 2011 FUJI SST 1.0 which weighs a whopping 15.1 pounds equipped with carbon wheels and Shimano Dura Ace grouppo.. We're very impressed by the quality of this bike and encourage you to find your nearest dealer and take one for a test ride. All cables are internally routed for a very clean and aero finish. There is an I-Beam rib (RIB-Tech) inside of the high modulus D6 carbon frameset and fork tubes. It's the top shelf bike you have been looking for, available in three different price points: 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0- the most affordable of which is light enough and stiff enough to use in an NRC criterium, all day long. If you're in the Boston area, please make a visit to Rustem at Quad Cycles in Arlington. They have the Fujis and the Hasyun merino wool base layers for you to check out and they will help you make the correct buying decision.
Hasyun merino wool base layers are now also stocked at Providence Bicycle. Please pay them a visit when you're in the Ocean State.

3 hour road ride..

2011-01-16T21:38:00.000-05:00

..Or equivalent. Lately I am leaning more toward the benefits of riding indoors for longer durations. For one, it's just plain safer. It also takes a lot less time to get ready and dressed. Typical winter road ride includes frequent stops- to meet up, to pee, to eat, to fix flats.. It is never a contiguous 3 hours of pedaling. Since you're usually in a group, you're also not working very hard, if at all, 80-90 percent of the time. You end up doing a lot of coasting- sometimes because of downhills, sometimes because you're in the paceline and the pace is slow.
Here's a solution: get on the trainer, spin 100+ rpm for 2 hours straight, never stop pedaling. Today I pegged my heartrate in the 165-175, kept the watts in the 175-195 range and felt pretty torched at the end. A 3 hour road ride would have been more enjoyable for sure, but much less efficient. I guess I'll be mixing it up a bit this winter. Doing 3 hours solo on the road is torture, and sometimes it forces you to work too hard because you need to keep warm!
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Road bike stuff for sale

2011-01-12T19:07:00.001-05:00

LOOK KG486 carbon frameset and headset.
Dura Ace 7800:
170mm cranks
Rear derailleur
Front derailleur
Shifters
Brake calipers
Bottom bracket (only one year old)
Easton:
EC90 all carbon seatpost
EC90 carbon stem
Tempest 2 clincher wheelset (one rear spoke is pulling through- needs re-build, and front bearings are worn, 1500 gms for the pair)
Size large clip on aero handlebars
Ergomo Pro bottom bracket (one bolt is broken off- good for parts)
Crank Brothers egg beater pedals (this is the better version)
Ultegra cranks 172.5mm (only one year old)
Mavic GP4 front tubular wheel with Campy hub
Louis Garneau Rocket Time Trial helmet (blue, small never used- in box)
Bontrager Powertap RaceXlite clincher wheelset (everything you need- wired version of Powertap)

Inquire at murat@weebike.com if interested. Make a reasonable offer or the stuff is all hitting Ebay very shortly.
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Happy New Year!

2011-01-05T10:40:00.002-05:00

Hi there it seems that I took a month off from blogging but in reality it was just a really busy time for me with the Christmastime surge in demand for merino wool apparel. We had a pretty good year in 2010 and we're grateful to everyone who took a chance on our products. Feedback has been nothing but positive! I've been training pretty regularly for the past few weeks, keeping the weight off and actually expecting to be on the good side of 160 in a week or two. Who knows maybe I'm just two shits away from the mark, but I doubt it because my portion control has been pretty good lately and I don't feel bloated. Could this be the year that my fighting weight goes under 150? Very possible if I drop two pounds a month from now through July. A few seasons back when I re-committed myself to train and race, I was a very steady 185-190 and remember how hard it was to throw a leg over the trainer when I didn't feel like a bike racer- I felt more like an obese out-of-shape has-been with little or no hope of achieving the form that's necessary to win or even crack a top ten result. Those days of training were the hardest. Beginning again, creating momentum. I'm glad those early days are behind me and that I'm blessed enough to be able to follow through with what I've started and make my mark. Taking 10 years off the bike (1991-2001) did not put me in a good place relative to health and fitness. I dabbled with racing in 2001.. again in 2003 (I was a regular at the old Lincoln Crit) and finally committed to being as successful as I possibly could, in 2005. Five contiguous seasons of racing and 30+ pounds later, my stubborn determination has started to pay big dividends and 2011 is looking pretty awesome too, from where I'm standing. Thanks for reading.

NBX GP of Cross Day 2

2010-12-07T08:47:00.007-05:00

It pleases me immensely to inform my readers that I am the Bronze Medalist in Sunday's Elite Masters 35-39 RI Championships (Rhode Island residents only). Never mind that I finished in last place or that I was lapped by the top 10 guys, or that they didn't even rank me as a finisher until I protested and got added onto the list.. It was a race against myself above all else because leaving the cocoon-like warmth of the carousel (we were selling our Hasyun wool apparel in there) required the resolve of 3 Buddhist monks and the strength of 5 small children. I chose to go bare legged with skinsuit, only a pair of wool base layers underneath, plus some arm warmers. Embrocation? I honestly just recently discovered what that word means and I've never used it. Long story short, your hero lined up at the back of the field and swallowed a mega dose of TTFU. Using the Fuji Cross-Pro which I bought used for $800 back in 2006 is becoming a bigger handicap than it used to be as I observe enough carbon fiber around me to build a 1/20th scale Airbus A380. My bike suuuuuucks! Before the start I was patching a hole in my tube and noticed that a spoke nipple is pulling through the rim of my trusty Easton Tempest 2 wheelset.. All my brake shoes rub. I have to over-shift and tune in order to change gears.. You get the idea. Hopefully it does not dishonor the sport to not take it too seriously, but the one part of it which I take dead seriously is always finishing what I start.. and for my determination I was rewarded with a handsome medal which designates me as an occupant of the Rhode Island Masters 35-39 Championship podium. Hat tip to G-Diddy for his silver medal. There were only three other Rhode Islanders in our race so I think one medal went unclaimed for the 40-44 class. It was a good time and the medal made an already awesome weekend even sweeter.
Many thanks to the organizers, promoter (www.nbxbikes.com), volunteers and officials for managing an excellent event.
On Saturday was impossible for me to race with the complications of being an exhibitor in the carousel, but the learning curve was behind us on Sunday making it possible for me to race. To be honest, the whipping winds of Saturday did not encourage me and it was almost a relief not to jump in.
Oddly enough Sunday's last place result awarded me a more successful point rank at http://www.cross-results.com/ than last year, where it would appear I was more successful 2009.. Cool.
If you haven't already noticed, we are trying very hard to make our 100% merino wool base layers successful. So far they are a hit, and I'd like to thank my few loyal readers with a discount code for 10% off at http://www.weebike.com/. Just enter WEESAVE10 at checkout. With the long sleeve base layers already on sale for $54, you will snag one for under $50. We ship same day and use Priority mail, so your order is never more than 2 days away. Thanks for reading and thanks for supporting a local small business.
So thanks for reading.. Sorry to let this go for so long without an update..

I'm a freaking elite bike racer..

2010-11-10T20:32:00.001-05:00

Pack 71 Cowesett Christmas Wreath Drive

2010-11-03T15:31:00.003-04:00

Please use this link to order and pay for a wreath ($15.44 each) or mail me a check for $15 payable to "Pack 71 Cowesett"to: 150 Cumberland Road Warwick RI 02886
My boy Reis is a Tiger Cub this year and we are trying to win a prize. Thanks!

Yellow jacket and water damage control

2010-10-26T01:02:00.001-04:00

What started out as a simple bee infestation has turned into a full blown rehab project at our house. Where I originally believed that the nest was responsible for the rotting wood, it turns out that there has been an ongoing penetration of water into this corner of the house for probably 20+ years. Indeed the bees chewed and bored right through the joists and studs, using the next-over pocket between joists as a dumping ground for the chewed up lumber- there was 10 pounds of sawdust mysteriously piled up in there, and sort of petrified into a mound with bee saliva.. But the real damage was caused by H20. In these situations, it needs to get worse before it gets better- kind of like cutting away gangrenous limbs. I had to cut a little bit past the decay and rebuild from that point. The pictures are self-explanatory but I like explaining things.. I did a similar rehab on the east end of the house where an outdoor duplex outlet was also penetrated for years and the sheathing rotted to mush. That was a little bit easier to fix.
This little crevice was packed with thousands of honeycombs, filled with squirming larvae, meaning that their numbers were about to double or triple if we did not poison them to death.
Thank God that fist joint was not destroyed- the end is a little rough but it is otherwise solid, and I used it a base to re-build around. The fascia 2x10 had to be cut to the centerline of the next floor joist.
3/8x16 bolts hold the new material in place securely, above.. below, that sheathing is split in two pieces for a reason- if there is going to be moderate penetration and decay at a corner, only the 4" wide piece of sheathing is affected while the rest of the sheathing escapes serious damage. It almost worked in this case (orig built in 1963) and I simply repeated the design- I did not come up with it. Below you can also see that the left hand side of this set-up required a saw-toothed piece of sheathing to be custom fit in place. That was the hardest part.
Below, meet my new best friend- peel and stick flashing! This stuff was not around in 1963, but if it had been this whole mess might have been avoided. Love it. The new trim pieces you see are not real wood, but impervious-to-everything PVC. It doesnt even need painting. I love it so much I could cry..
Only two more pieces of trim, some new cedar clapboard, and one soffit panel to pop in there. Then I'll secure that little crown moulding that's pulled down, apply caulk to all the joints, prime and paint. I figure a contractor would have charge me $500-600 labor to do this work, plus materials. It is going to take me about 20 hours total, and I don't exactly hustle when I want to do a job like this correctly. I take my time.

Hey did I mention that I rode my bike today? Yeah, the 2nd time since Providence Cross Fest. Did about 45 awesome miles down to Narragansett and now I feel like a human being again!
Thanks for reading.

2010 Providence Cyclocross Festival Elite Women's Podium

2010-10-09T19:04:00.005-04:00

Today's Elite Women's podium: Sally Annis, Andrea Smith, Amy Dombroski each autographed a Pink YBIKE donated by WeeBIKE.com and it is up for grabs tomorrow at the Providence Cyclocross Festival! Find the US Open Cycling tent and buy your raffle tickets. Proceeds will benefit breast cancer research.

2010 Providence Cyclocross Festival Results 10/9

2010-10-09T18:00:00.000-04:00

Wool. It's what's for dinner.

2010-10-04T10:49:00.005-04:00

Well.. figuratively speaking, because right now it is our primary source of income and puts food on the table... Sorry to get so commercial on my readers but this is a legitimate venue to promote the new 100% merino wool base layers which are now in production for us. We have done a complete re-design of the apparel, making it form fitting, with longer sleeves and torso, and in 5 colors and 3 sizes. ETA is end of October. I have some prototypes which I'm wearing and I dont want to take them off- so comfortable and they look pretty damn good as outerwear- I'm not hiding mine under layers.
In the mean time, please help yourself to one of our prototype merino wool (blend) skull caps, only $15 while supplies last. Fits perfectly under your helmet, your hard hat or your Jason mask. and.. Now you can look just like The Edge did 15 years ago. When the new ones arrive later this month, they will be 100% merino wool and cost more. Next year, they will be in five colors too. Here's a picture of me modeling one of the prototypes. I know what you're thinking: "He's more handsome than I remember, the devil."

WeeBIKE October Newsletter

2010-09-29T00:35:00.000-04:00

2010 Portsmouth Criterium (Results Added)

2010-09-19T00:52:00.003-04:00

I will refrain from boring you with the details of how I finished the Pro-1-2 Portsmouth Criterium on my first try, which i am pretty happy about. The only distinguishing moment of the race (other than the awesomeness of the speed we were doing the entire time) came on the last lap, when a rider decided to sit up going into the first corner, effectively splitting the top 25 from the bottom 30. Ugh.- this pissed more than few people off. What impeccable timing, such a coincidence! At any rate, it was a day of fantastic weather, cheering crowds, fast racing and good times with people who I care about. Great to see so many friends in Portsmouth enjoying themselves. I will be back next year!

This space will be populated with a riveting race report in a few days. I'm a little nervous about tomorrow's competition. The past few days have been short easy rides. Wednesday was a 2-1/2 hour ride to Point Judith- a hard one. Tuesday was a pleasure ride with my son on the bike path. Monday no riding at all.. Sunday beaucoup miles.. But back to the last few days.. I'm concerned a bit. After two days of rest, Wednesday's ride felt pretty decent. Thursday's ride was just an easy spin, but legs felt like I was thrusting a knife into my leg with every pedal stroke. Friday I did another easy one hour ride and again, legs felt highly fatigued. Today after we arrived at our hotel in Dover, I set out for an hour's spin to check and see how the legs felt. After warming up I hit some short choppy rollers and sprinted over them- finally the legs didn't feel like beef jerky. I was feeling some of the correct sensations, such as a rapid recovery after a brief Zone 5 effort. Still didn't feel like I could rip anyone's legs off, but the speed was there. Swimming in the hotel pool with my son a few hours ago, it occurred to me that we are ruled by our "sensations". I think our strength, speed and endurance are more stable than we think.. What changes radically depending upon fatigue, diet and rest, are the sensations we feel while on the nose of the saddle turning 6 watts per kg, single file on the back stretch of a Pro criterium during a $100 prime lap. That's where the dreaded "moment" we've been training for occurs. We either triumph over the bad sensations or they conquer us and hand us our hats for the dreaded early exit and ride of shame back to the car. Sometimes the sensations are good though, and sometimes it's when we least expect it. I've completed more Pro-Am criteriums this year than any before, so I've been to this rodeo before. I finished a very fast Fall River and Chris Thater, so tomorrow should pose no big problem. Pittsfield was an aberration- I had trained and raced for a combined 100+ miles the day before. Anyway, wish us luck tomorrow (7 year old Reis is pre-registered in the 10-12 race). It will please me immensely to finish top 20. I know it's within my power, but the sensations need to be good for the mind to believe it. Thanks for reading.
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I sold my soul to be here.. how 'bout you?

2010-09-12T22:12:00.006-04:00

Okay that's a bit dramatic, but it's also a pretty damn good song to add to your winter playlist for those indoor workouts coming up in a few months.. For what it's worth, I had a good season of racing. More on that later. What is abundantly clear to me though, is that there was little more I can do, short of going to Arizona in February like a lot of the hot shots around here, to improve my 2010 results. I feel like I gave it everything I had to give.. even with the four week break in late May and June. (I had employment issues, buying a 2nd house issues, moving etc.. plate was too damn full to even think about riding) As a couple of racing associates correctly noted, being forced to take the time off was going to help me to reach a higher peak.
I'm glad because there are still a few key events coming up such as Portsmouth Criterium, Mayor's Cup and Jamestown Classic. I am planning to do whatever it takes to keep myself lean and mean for the above named races. That means riding every day, taking good care of myself, and watching my diet.
Here's some recent data: today's almost-epic 85 miler and a Summary of the past year's mileage, training time and peak watts. My watts have never been impressive to me, but now that I'm down to 155-156 range, they don't seem so bad.. Anyway, here you go. If I've done anything correctly this season, it's the past 10 weeks of volume, esp. July and August. Most of today's ride was with the big boys of ArcEnCiel Racing.

Not a Topsfield Race Report

2010-08-31T00:10:00.010-04:00

Here is the proof that 24th place receives 17 USAC rank points in an NRC criterium (such as Chris Thater):
I did not finish the Chris Thater 35+ event again this year, same as when I DNFed it in 2008. The one compelling difference is that this time it was not lack of form or speed or nerves in the corners. No this was a little bit more honorable as it was an all-out do-or-die assault on the race, made during an attempt to bridge across to what I [incorrectly] believed to be the winning move of the day. My balls are apparently bigger than my brain, and like a wounded animal which would rather chew it's own foot off than wait for help, I persisted in my effort to the point of burying myself hopelessly and needing 5 minutes of recovery. Stuck in no-man's land, I thrashed myself to get connected and came so close it broke my heart. I should have known I was beat and I should have let the field do it's magic to shut the break down.. When the legs no longer go, they no longer go, no matter what. I wanted to get across so bad- But here's the thing: It was not smart. This small stacked field of 40 is populated with about 15 guys with the form, the experience and the confidence to win. The rest of us are in the "pick two" category, if you get my drift.. After a generous push from Alain as the field swarmed me, it was abundantly clear that my race was over. I had really screwed myself over trying to bridge across.. to a group that failed within a few laps anyway.. I guess what I'm saying is that it sucks to race to failure during a tactically incorrect move. But these things are never easy to predict. I am not intimately acquainted with the many cat 1s in the field who are using this race as a means to tune up for the main event and have fun picking money from a tree of $50 primes and the 20 deep purse of $2000. For me it's more of a crap shoot to pick the correct break because I hardly know anyone in this field besides my teammate. So it goes.. A lapse in judgment caused me to strike out pretty badly. Not to worry though- I did not drive 5 hours to go home without a completed result, even if it was DFL, I was going to race again and finish it. Fortunately, this year they introduced the Cat 2/3 event, which is a first I believe. There were two hours to kill in between my races. I used part of it to take a nap in the Land Cruiser. I used another part to register and change my numbers, and I used most of the time to warm up on the trainer. The experience at Fall River was fresh in my mind- how my legs felt awesome during the 2nd race and felt dead during the first race. Maybe this is what turns my crank- a really long and intense warm up. This thinking was obviously a deliberate way for me to improve my confidence because truthfully, I have not done anything besides Pro-1-2 races and 35+ races since I was a junior. This was going to be interesting. The youthfulness of the 78 rider 2/3 field was intimidating, but I felt pretty good about my form and my crash avoidance skills and my cornering speed. What I did not expect at any point during the race, was to get within striking distance of the 20 deep $2500 purse. Let me re-phrase that. I knew it was possible.. that is, about as possible as throwing a pair of dice and getting snake eyes 6 times in a row. Right from the start I was back on my heels in this one, which averaged about 1 mph faster than the 35s race (I used my Powertap wheel) Starting from the nose bleed section, it took me about 20 (of 35) laps to get up into the top 20 guys. A tiny bit of bad luck separated me from the wheel I wanted to follow in the final lap (take a guess whose..)- with two laps to go a rider skidded out in turn no 1 and caused the field to break up. About 20 guys were separated because a bunch of us had to grab the brakes and maneuver around the skidding bike and body. It took 1/2 lap of being completely on the rivet to get caught up, which is about when my calf started cramping. I was fatigued and fighting very hard to get my nose to the front of the race.. and now the bell is ringing for final lap. What a horror show it is to populate the 21st to 30th spot in the train at this point. It's a knife fight to get into the top 20 paying spots. When the guys from PA and NYC and NJ get a whiff of the dinero, they get a little bit crazy. I don't know how I didn't crash on that final lap- it was insane. Well.. I survived to the final corner about 25th wheel. It's a terrible corner because the inside line sucks (there's a crazy dip in the road right at the apex) and the outside line gets you easily pushed into the hay bales up on the curb. (Huge crash here on lap TWO!) At any rate, I took the final corner with great speed and remember being in between two riders who thankfully, could handle a bike. From there the course dog-legs slight uphill to slight downhill to the finish. Somehow I hit 40 mph in this race and this must have been the moment when it happened. For what it's worth, I held my position from the corner and ended up 24th. Four places out of the money.
At the end of they day, I'm satisfied to have completed a highly competitive NRC criterium against a very strong field without falling apart as it's definitely not something you ever fall ass-backwards into. Full results are up on USA Cycling.
Thanks for reading.

2010 Chris Thater Criterium

2010-08-28T22:41:00.001-04:00

I will refrain from pining about my mediocre result and instead give you the silver lining of today's test: NRC1 level races award rank points to the top 40 finishers, meaning that my 24th place in the 2/3 race is worth a cool 17 points. How 'bout that? I'm sure you're as excited as I am..
If you see Alain Ferry or P. Ruane, squeeze their hand and congratulate them. Alain was in the winning break of 5 and very narrowly lost to a current national champ (in the 35+ race) Nice 2nd place for Alain in a field that was totally stacked.. Mr. Ruane was as calm as a Hindu cow in both the 35+ and the 2/3, snagging 8th and 6th respectively. The 35+ had about 40 starters. The 2/3 had about 80, and was about 1mph faster than the masters race. Long day-
! I'm completely wrecked after driving 10 hours. Thanks for reading.
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Ninigret No 4: Success is all relative

2010-08-18T23:40:00.003-04:00

My 4th edition of Ninigret in 2010 was a good day for me I think. I rode down there, I raced my ass off and I rode home for a total of over 100 miles in 4:57. Granted I raced for 58 minutes at an average of 26 mph, the ride down and the ride home both averaged about 19 mph. I held back both ways because I'm traveling to Pittsfield to get my legs ripped off in the Greylock Federal Criterium. Well it seemed like a good idea when I registered anyway. What I failed to think about is that today's/tonight's workout was a key one for me- more important than the race. Maybe I would have thought twice about it. No worries, my reasons for racing tomorrow night are not about winning. I want to just get some H.I.T. and be ranked as a finisher. That's it. Problem is, tonight's ride is about 350+ TSS, which technically requires 2-3 days to recover from. Oh well!!! Another reason I want to go to Pittsfield is to show off our new LikeTObike 16 model, just in from Germany. I plan to strap my demo model to the top of the car and try to promote it. It's a high end 16" aluminum kid's bike, and it's not cheap. The build quality is the same as the legendary JUMPER and it weighs only 16 pounds. Compare that to the cheap throw-aways you cheap bastards are buying for your kids at Wal-Mart that probably cost less than the saddle on your road bike. Anyway, that's enough of a shameless plug for now, but let's not forget I'm between jobs at the moment and any wool apparel or kid's bikes I can sell right now puts food on the table for my family. How's that for a guilt trip? After tonight's crit I was getting my backpack and was kind of jaded to discover that they only pay 5 deep at Ninigret (how should I know?) I could use the do-re-mi.. Alas, your hero finished 6th in a very exciting field sprint. As many of my FB friends already know the top 6, I'll repeat it here primarily for the benefit of a curmudgeony old coach in our area who, for reasons he himself can't explain very well, refrains from joining us lemmings on the social networking highway.
1. Gary (CLR dude who won Fitchburg cat 3)
2. Shawn M (who just won the 24 Hours of GG with his team)
3. Ernest Tautkus (who took a friendly earful from me after the race)
4. Tobi S. (who just won Fall River Crit 35+)
5. Paul C. (what hasn't he won?)
6. ME.
I was sucking wind at the very back with 2 laps to go but I really felt ON tonight and a tired field is easy to navigate through at a venue which you're very familiar with. Also, there was hardly any wind tonight. I can happily say that I spent more time at the front of this race than I remember doing for a long time. Not less than 6 or 7 times I dragged the field through the start/finish while shutting down the breaks which looked dangerous. I got myself into a couple of difficult situations but had an easy time falling back for a lap to recover. The increased volume of these past few weeks is bearing fruit I think. The recovery which needs to happen quickly in a crit- it's definitely there and it helps immensely. As I was saying with 2 to go I started moving up in leaps and bounds. The sprint was winding up nicely and I took an outside line in the final corner, passed a few people, kept my head down all the way, stayed out of the saddle all the way, and never let up until I crossed the line. I was thinking to myself during yesterday's 3 hour ride.. that sprinting is as much about discouraging people from passing you as it is about passing others on the way to the line. By this I do not mean changing your line and endangering others, no. I'm talking about staying out of the saddle and rocking the bike vigorously no matter what (especially in a crowded sprint) and not showing any weakness/not slowing down in the last 20 meters. A strong rider in your wake who is looking for a way to pass you will be encouraged to do so if you:
-sit and sprint in the saddle, reducing your footprint on the course and opening lanes on either side of you
-slow down, sit up, or stop pedaling (duh)
Tonight's race was a relative success, compared to the last two times when i rode down and back. Those attempts were not successful. I was too fatigued to race when i got there, and I cramped at the end of the crit, making my legs useless. Now typically, on a night when I ride down there and back, and especially the day before a big race, I tend to hold back and try not to use much of my ammo. Tonight for whatever reason I said the hell with it, enjoy your good legs.
And with that I give you some data which hopefully impresses you and underscores why your puny training volume is such an embarrassment. Totally just kidding. In reality it's I who is embarrassed because I should be winning races with this much training! Thanks for reading. Wish me luck tomorrow night.

2010 Fall River Criterium Results

2010-08-16T01:51:00.004-04:00

It was not one of those days where I felt like I had anything special. The 35+ race was insanely hard- I was at my limit more times than I can keep track of. It actually surprised me to have finished in the top 20. I've done better at previous FR crits. I've also done a lot worse. Last year was a disaster. I barely finished the 35s and I got ejected from the Pro race after 5 laps.. Today's edition of the Pro-1-2 was where I felt good today.. that is, relative to the 35+ race. I think a more closely matched field makes a faster race easier to navigate, whereas the 35s is a much more lop-sided talent pool. I found myself a bottom feeder in that pool today.. but I evolved somehow during the one hour break in between races and felt pretty damn good in the Pro race. The hill was a breeze and following the accelerations was not hard to do. Yeah I did not do anything special at the end- a moment's hesitation on the final lap put me in tailgun position somehow and the only people I seemed to have passed after the hill were the guys who sat up. Still, I caulk this one up as a win because it basically took me four tries to be strong enough to complete the 35 race followed by the Pro race at this venue. A breakthrough of sorts I guess.
Gotta take a moment here to salute my team mate J Alain Ferry- 15th at Masters Nationals Crit and repeat 15th at the road race.. Top 10 at the Witch's Cup where he populated the winning break which lapped the field.. and today Alain was the only top 10 finisher in the Pro race who already had a [top 10] race in his legs (9th in the 35s).
For me, 17th and 21st sounds like I was basically pack fodder, but considering past failures at this difficult course, I'm pretty happy with my form in the 2nd race. Here's the field sprint from the 35 race below- you can just barely see 'ol Murat at the tail of this train on the far right. Yeah it looks pretty pathetic to me too, finishing 17th, but when you repeatedly grit your teeth and rally through those moments when thoughts of sitting up and quitting pollute your mind, I think it's a win.
Thanks for reading.

2010 Concord Criterium Results and 35+ Race Report

2010-08-08T00:03:00.007-04:00

I'm not going to feel like doing this tomorrow (or remember much of it) so here goes:

Well well.. today's lesson learned was that guys who are 5-10 years older than me can kick my ass in their 2nd race of the day. Humbling for sure.. but my options were a little different. I either do the Pro-1-2 followed by the 35+, or do just the 35+. This event means more to me than most other races so I saved my A game for the 35s.. I was off to a good enough start (this morning I mean). Expecting a 2-1/2 hour drive to Concord, I left at 10:30 (race is at 2:00). Needless to say, lady luck was not by my side, not even for the easiest part of my day- just getting to the race. Let's just say that there are fingernail imprints in my steering wheel.. That so many people are dying to get into New Hampshire on a Saturday morning is nothing short of astonishing. What is the effing attraction up there!? Somewhere near the border, four lanes squeeze into two and that's what set me back about 1/2 hour. The final 20 miles were 80-85 miles an hour and even so, I parked the car at exactly 1:32.. leaving me 28 minutes to ride to registration and back, get pinned, kitted, stretched, warmed up and lined up to start. Luck finally caught up with me at this point- the Pros still had 20 laps to go, which meant I had at least 45 minutes to get ready. Sweet.
I went to Concord expecting to have a good result. In 2009, our team won the race, and we had two others in the top 10 as well, including Yours Truly. That was a hard race last year- I was coming off of a period of declining volume and form. My teammates pushed me kicking and screaming to the front of the race a few times.. and on the final lap when it mattered I got up there thanks to teammates. Today I was without team as Alain was at Nationals and Matt and Adam had promises to keep in the afternoon. They raced the 45s (which Matt won) and had to take off afterwards. So I'm all alone this time, but I've been training like a banshee, getting loads of sleep, eating right, taking vitamins, stretching.. most of the ingredients for success were there. It's been a long year since the last time at Concord, and I can assure you that hours and hours of visualizations have been logged (mostly in the past 10 days), especially relative to that magical final lap where I get myself into the top three going into that wonderful 180 degree corner leading into the final two turns. Well well.. visualizations do wonders. Picture yourself doing something enough times, over and over again.. and with a little luck it will be so. So it was for me today.. Now back to the beginning..
The race started off very hot. On the first lap I was off the front with two others, and the field went pretty hard to shut us down on lap two. Power meter data indicates that my peak 5 minutes occurred in those first 2-3 laps. My plan for today was reasonable. I thought to break up my efforts into fifths, so a 20 lap race meant that I would go very hard in the first four laps, recover for four laps, then I would be ready for action again on laps 9-12 and then shut it down for 13-16.. allowing me to recover sufficiently to empty the tank in the last four laps. Sounds ridiculous, but breaking it down this way kept me from burning too many matches, which I'm prone to do. Nobody wants an early "ride of shame" back to the car. As a friend correctly pointed out to me recently, my fuse burns pretty quick- so I gotta be careful about blowing up. At any rate, after the first recovery period, the bell rang for a two place merch prime.. Recalling the Solobreak won a $150 women's ski jacket as a prime in teh 45 race, I got all jacked up and went with the action. I was fifth wheel out of the final corner and it ended up being a photo finish for 1-2 between myself and another. That sprint took my breath away, literally and figuratively. Mentally I was stoked for getting it but physically I was ready for that 2nd recovery period. After sprinting we rounded the corner and who bolts up the road like a Scud missile- Wild Bill Yabroudy. My first mistake of the race was realized at that instant. Nobody could cover that move, least of all me. He dangled out there for a bit before being joined by Dave Kellogg and another guy (who I won't name because we're not acquainted). A lap or so later, Solobreak himself attacks with a bridge attempt. While all of this is happening, I am completely cross-eyed as I dangle at the back, trying not to get gapped. It was in those few laps with about 9-10 to go, that I had to fight thoughts of quitting, I was seriously in the hurt locker.. and thinking that the match or two I burned winning a shitty prime (which turned out to be an XL pair of $7 socks, thank you very much) could have been better spent covering Yabroudy's attack or trying to bridge across. I remember in the 2009 edition of this race- I did not contest any primes, but when The Move attacked up the hill with about 6 laps to go, I was on it like a bad suit and per team's orders, I sat there on Billy and Ciaran so that the race would come back together, ensuring that it came down to a field sprint, which favored our team.. and worked..
Recovery period No 2 took more like 5 laps and with about three to go I moved back up to the front. Not all at once like a maniac, but gradually.. a few places after each corner. When I heard the bell for final lap, I could really appreciate all of the visualizing I had done because like magic, I was up there in the top 10 guys going up the hill.. This is the part of the race where you need to appear larger than you are.. like when you encounter a bear in the woods.. Elbows are out a little bit.. guys are fighting to be just an inch ahead because that forces others to submit and yield some space. The slightest weakness is detected and if you show any at this point you can get pushed aside like a red headed step-child. I took the inside line on corner two where the field squeezes together. I accelerated out of there nicely on the right hand side, moving up some more, making sure that I have a clean exit for when someone punches it. The back stretch dips a little bit before a slight rise and approach to the corkscrew. The field is hesitating.. We're three or four abreast and I'm in a very sweet spot on the right, looking over my shoulder every two seconds. Then a move goes- it's an OA and a CCB attacking before the corkscrew. I am immediately on it, 4th wheel behind some yo-yo who could not corner to save his life. You could park a bus in the lane he left open on the inside of the 180 degree turn, and I shot through there- quite safely, to get tagged onto the two in front. I'm 3rd wheel through the left turn, I'm out of the saddle for 2-3 strokes before the final corner, just to dissuade others from thinking they can move up on me. Out of the last corner with two fast wheels to follow, I'm fresh and ready for this. But I became impatient, and fearful that passers might block me in. I followed the wheel very briefly before taking the right hand lane and opening it up for all it's worth. Hitting my top speed a little too early (37mph) I'm thinking that the finish is right in front of me but it's really another 10 -15 meters.. I was passed by two riders right on the line. I gave it everything to get 5th in the field sprint with 4 up the road, so 9th place for me, again. I'm not jumping for joy but I am happy to have executed what seemed to be the most important part of the race- having the power to be in front on the last lap AND to sprint strongly at the end.
Afterwards I discovered that Solobreak took a very respectable 2nd place behind B.Y. in his 2nd race of the day. Dave Kellogg got another fine result after his success at Norwell- finished 3rd in his 2nd race of the day as well. Foley and I chugged a couple of Stellas back at my car to honor a fine day of racing, as it should be..
Only one racer repeated a top 10 finish in 2009 and 2010. Me! and 9th place both times. Interesting to note that Matt Kressy won the 35+ in 2009 and the 45+ in 2010. Bill Yabroudy won the 35+ in 2008, won the cat 3 in 2009 and won the 35+ in 2010. This is for my fellow data junkies:

The last five weeks of adventure

2010-08-02T23:55:00.003-04:00

Indeed 100/TSS day is now finally within reach- the magical level where good things are more likely to happen on a bike. I expect to cool my jets this week and then ramp up again in time for a peak at Chris Thater. Your opinion counts, so if it looks to you like I am driving myself into the ground, please say something constructively critical.. that is if you think you know better. I guess results will speak for themselves? Fine and dandy.
With wife and child away for the past 20 days, I have been able to partake in the FnF lifestyle- that is, doing whatever the hell I want, whenever the hell I want.. which will explain the 45 hours of training and racing since they left on 7/15. I've lost about 10 pounds too.. which didnt hurt me on Sunday at Norwell Circuit Race. My result there does not reflect the amount of success I had being up front and in the action most of the time, or being part of a lead out train on the run-in to the final corner to help launch Matt K up the hill to the finish.. (he ended up 2nd in the field sprint, 5th overall.. and I basically shut it down after the corner.. but my participation in the Pro race three hours later was purely for the training.. so after getting spit out the back on lap four, I soldiered on to the finish at my limit, even after being lapped by field. That's 24 times all together I sprinted over that little climb, and I actually enjoyed going it alone all those laps- I put the Powertap wheel on for the Pro race knowing that a light wheel would not help me- and I wanted a solid hour of race data- and got it. Other than that, my day is pretty much split into 1/4ths:
-tending to personal, WeeBIKE and Hasyun e-tail transactions
-working on the new house and the other one we still own as a rental
-training and racing lots
-eating, cleaning up after myself, and personal hygiene (this is the part that I have trouble with)
My latest project at the new place is a rehab of our multi-level deck. I have deconstructed it to a point where all of the railings are being replaced, along with the floors boards, and the joists are being reinforced, re-hoisted/re-leveled, and supplemented in a few places. From the street, it's going to look brand spanking new- and no more horrible white painted lattice all over the place. Who paints their entire deck white? Man it looked like ass. I'll post pictures later on to show off my very-sharp carpentry skills, before and after.
Gran Prix of Beverly, Concord Crit, Witch's Cup, and Fall River Crit are all swirling in my mind.. There's even a crit in Pittsfield MA.. the last time I did a crit there it was 1990 and I remember getting my doors blown off in my first year out of the junior ranks. That's when I discovered that being a successful bike racer would require me to train 3x more than a junior ever trains..
Freedom Tour Crit update- the race where I was tangled up in the final corner- locked handlebars with an opponent and still stayed upright and fast enough for 15th- a consolation prize was discovered. According to USA Cycling, my mediocre 15th place resulted in one rank point! Oh joy yes indeed. Apparently the Freedom Tour is a "C" Level event, and so the top 15 get rank points. So I may have missed my goal (and the money) by finishing outside the top 10, but this race was ranked higher than your typical New England "D" race, and I feel better about my result than before. I know I was having a super day because I was feeling very comfortable in the Pro race, up until the crash anyway..
I hear that Beverly is one tough SOB of a course.. I am still on the fence about it, mostly because I don't want to use a lot of ammo this week.
Hat tip to Dave Kellogg for getting 5th in the 45s and 2nd in the 35s at Norwell on Sunday. Well done! Full results of 2010 Norwell Circuit Race HERE.
Thanks for reading.

The Letter

2010-08-01T01:19:00.001-04:00

The old M1 Racing uniforms have a quotation on the back of the collar, by a Pulitzer prize winner whose work opened my eyes to some things, during a period when my father was in chemo, radiation, fighting lung cancer.

I'm saddened to report to you that Franz himself announced that he has been diagnosed with lung cancer this past week. He's a distant FB friend to me and he does not know that an elite New England bike race team has ridden tens of 1000s of miles carrying his words and his name: "We are created by being destroyed" -Franz Wright "The Letter"

I know that some of you might be saying to yourselves Franz who?? If your interest is piqued, here is the program in which I discovered him:

http://www.radioopensource.org/the-poetry-of-franz-wright-and-fannie-howe/

"The Letter" is read beginning at about 7:00.

I'd like to take one of the last remaining M1 jerseys and have everyone on the team sign it for him.

Thanks.

2010 Al Toefield Memorial Road Race 35+ (finish video)

2010-07-29T10:58:00.002-04:00

The organizers of this race, while they only rank the ones who finish in the money and ignore the rest, were kind enough to send out a couple of links to the finishing sprints of the masters and the Pro races. Here's my race from a few weeks ago- the one where I cramped severely and by determination and luck, got 15th place.

2010 Freedom Tour Criterium Results/Report

2010-07-25T22:33:00.004-04:00

I pre-registered for the 35+ and the Pro-am for this criterium in Stirling New Jersey. The trip was supposed to include a teammate but those plans were changed last minute and I hit the road solo at about 5:00 Saturday afternoon. A friend of mine was hosting my layover in Cresskill, NJ. Haluk Sarci is the first [and last known] Turkish athlete to complete the Ironman in Hawaii, and repeatedly. The walls of his house were covered in photo finishes, medals, plaques, and enough honors to fill a museum. Haluk and his family took very good care of me. I don't usually sleep well the night before a 'big' event (one where I expect to do well) so I took an Advil PM before hitting the sack at 11:00.. I should have taken two. It took an hour to fall asleep and I was up at 6:45 to get ready for a 45 minute drive to Stirling. I got to town at about 8:30 and stopped at the market for some extra water, Powerade and my ritual can of Red Bull. Hunting for parking near the race course killed some time, and I settled on a completely empty parking lot on a residential street that was blocked by the booth containing the officials, the announcer and the camera- kind of like the street behind the Whaling City Cyclone. This parking lot was completely FULL by noon time. I signed in and got my numbers at 9:00 with 45-50 minutes to prepare for the start of the 35+. It was a hot day- already 90 degrees when we started racing. I made the mistake of thinking that one water bottle was enough for a 45 minute criterium. It was not. My water was all but gone with 5-6 laps to go, but I'm getting ahead of myself here.. Let me just tell you that in New Jersey, asking your opponents for water has about the same effect as asking them for the Crabby Patty secret formula. Stupid grins and laughter. Had I been racing in New England, my request for water would have been successful, that's for sure.. Again, I'm getting ahead of myself, but with 3 laps to go a couple of guys went up the road and everyone looked at me to chase for some reason and I was like, "Screw you- give me some water if you want me to work.."
In a nutshell, I felt GREAT today. The race started and I was immediately on the front, within the top ten guys for all but 2 or 3 laps of the entire race, and even then, not very far back.. I'm now in the habit of using my lighter Easton wheels (1480 grams isn't bad for alum clinchers- these are the wheels which originally came with my LOOK 486- tried and true..) INSTEAD of my G-D Powertap wheelset. I love the Bontrager RaceXLites to death , but they are absolute PIGS as far as their weight. As much as I love seeing good race data (the best kind) this race was a flat 0.9 mile rectangular criterium where I wanted an edge relative to acceleration especially out of the corners. Not that I was touching the brakes very much!- When you're racing in the top ten guys you can power through the corners while those behind you are often required to grab a handful of brakes and then sprint back up to speed. Race positioning 101, Murat gets a PASS.
So the race begins at 9:50 or so. We're racing 45 minutes, plus three laps. There were a few primes- all merchandise. I could care less for them.. The course was flat and fast. The finishing straight had a very slight rise after the final corner, and then a slight downhill to the line. Okay not exactly flat, but it may as well have been because it did not affect speeds too much. Two ends of the course are short- about 200-250 meters. A police radar was positioned just past the finish and I do not recall any laps where the speed was under 30 mph on this stretch. Had I looked up at it on the final sprint to the line, I would have expected to see 39-40 mph. At any rate, where was I?? Oh yes- feeling great. Nice light wheels, one water bottle, 70+ starters, 91 degrees and rising, lots of the same faces I raced against at Prospect Park last Saturday.. I went into this race with what I would rank as a nominal amount of training. You have all heard me pine about missing four consecutive weeks of training in late May and June. So indeed I have done some solid volume in July, but not one single structured interval, not one Wells Ave, Ninigret or Wompatuck, not one day of sprinting drills. All I have for high intensity is a few races- beginning with Attleboro, then a time trial in Scituate, then Prospect Park, then today.. Tuesday I did the Scituate time trial plus 3 more hours, 4 hours total. Wednesday I did 3-1/2 hours, rode down to Ninigret to a race that was cancelled due to thunderstorms, and then rode home in said thunderstorms, mostly tempo. Thursday I went out and did 2-1/2 hours easy. Friday I spun on the trainer for an hour. Saturday morning I did 3-1/2 hours extremely easy- like 125 watts average. I came into this morning feeling like I had a good balance of training stress and rest. Believing is 80% of the game and I was spot on for a change. The legs felt like they could not possibly get tired today. I was in the front, chasing attacks, bridging to attacks, following counter-attacks, attacking. Once or twice pulling the whole field along, which sounds stupid, and it certainly can be, but sometimes you need to show your teeth, show opponents that you are not a weakling, especially if most have never seen you before. It can pay dividends later.. except when... you're out of water with about 6 to go. Then they're happy to exploit weakness.. My mouth is dry. I have a shot glass or two swishing around in my bottle and I use it to wet my lips a few more times before the end. Three to go is announced and it really starts to get hot. And fast. People are taking chances. Faces I did not see all day, appear at the front, and it kind of annoys me because I have been dancing on the edge and having the wind blow my hair back for the past 45 minutes. I'm starting to feel fatigued, so fighting for position in the top ten becomes a little bit difficult. It gets physical. Two to go and we're strung out single file- it's starting to hurt, but it's a good hurt. One lap to go- bell is ringing. We're diving into corner one, then two. The back straightaway is insanely physical. Guys are taking crazy lines across the road to grab a wheel and not looking back. If you're not focused on this 110% you may as well sit up. We head into the 3rd turn, about 6-7 guys wide. I am on the right, about 15th rider from the front. Field is all together. There is a small curb comprised of little granite bricks cemented together. It's not very tall, but it's jagged enough to blow out a tire. I am riding the edge of these stones at 30mph, grazing them because everyone wants to take the final corner wide and fast. It's not far to the final corner. We string out to about 2-3 wide at this point. Another surge and I am positioned to take the turn within the top ten guys. I do not have an inside line though. Just as I am about to take the corner, riding on top of the guy to my left, I have this weird feeling, like maybe when my dad grabbed the steering wheel while teaching me to drive. Someone on my right had rode up into me just before the corner and locked his handlebars with mine, and the left horn of his brake lever was against the inside of my right wrist as we cornered at very high speed. I'm pulling left, he's pulling right, and I am imagining myself changing bandages for the next 3 weeks.. Then instinct takes over, I take my right hand off the handlabars and I lift my right wrist to release this tangle of arm/handlebar/brake lever. It has the effect of letting go of the rope in a tug of war. Whoever this rider was, he was slingshot out of the corner and down the side street while I completed my left hand turn with only my left hand on the bars. It was a split second hesitation of not pedaling right after I freed myself, but that's all it took for the front of the race to open up a gap on me. The finish is 400 meters away, but to keep in contact with this leadout train, I have no choice but to sprint, now. I get myself onto the tail of the action, which is already stringing out as the final selection is made, but the slight uphill turns into a slight downhill and I'm completely spun out. I attempt to shift but nothing happens. I punch it again and I get a gear which I can turn and I'm immediately on top of it. I pass about 3 or so guys who were torched before the line but 3 or so also passed me as I inevitably ran out of power. I ended up losing 5-6 places in the corner screwing around with tangled handlebars. It's a small miracle that I'm not in the hospital or covered with bandages. For all the success and good form of the past 50 minutes, the best I can manage is 15th, in what I consider to be a very highly ranked masters field. I set a realistic goal of top 10- I was expecting to finish in the money, and I almost did. If not for a little bit of bad luck, I would have had a clean entry into the final corner, with both hands on the bars and no hesitation. That's bike racing, eh?
On to the Pro race! At noon when it's probably about 95 degrees, but at least there was some wind. The field seemed to have about 100 guys in it, and the announcer was all giddy announcing this person and that person, Olympics this, Bissel that, Jackie Simes, GS Mengoni, an elite team from New Zealand.. all the things which might make a lesser rider want to shit his pants, the announcer was gushing. Immediately this 60 minute race is strung out single file. Your hero is tail gunning the first few laps, but slowly, surely, moving up. Every lap gaining a few positions. After about 30 minutes of very painful and fast racing, I have moved up through about 1/3 of the field. I'm hurting though- on the edge. I can really feel that last race in my legs. With extreme caution I'm metering out the effort so as not to waste a single watt. We're in the 44th minute, maybe it's lap 21 or 22.. two bikes in front of me look like they hit a patch of ice- these guys are sleeping on their right side tonight, that's for damn sure. This happens on my watch, right in front of me as I begin to lean. I'm prepared to bunny hop one of these guys, or one of their bikes, but they are sliding uncontrollably. It takes a split second to correctly predict their direction and pick a line, but not without grabbing two handfuls of brakes. I do not stop, but if I had to go much slower I may have had to put a foot down. I'm in the drops immediately, chasing an accelerating field. A few guys are tagged onto my wheel and for a second it looks like we can make it across.. so close. Then I come to my senses. I decide to go for a free lap. I'm the 2nd to arrive at the pit, and within 30 seconds another 10 people line up behind me. The announcer doesn't miss his opportunity to point out that since we were caught behind the crash, we were probably on the verge of being dropped anyway. Grrr. I was feeling fine and had every intention and ability to finish this one, dead last or otherwise. The field goes by and we all sprint to get back in the field before the first corner. I'm suddenly not feeling so good. Turn 2 goes by, the back straight has me cross-eyed. Turn 3 and 4 my teeth are clenched. (Indeed I had plenty of water this time) We're back on the finish straight and the announcer calls out that we're 48 minutes into our event. Twelve more minutes plus three laps, probably nine laps total. Speed is insane. I make it past the start finish and I'm all arms and legs, humping the bike to garner every last bit of speed. After turn one, I cut to the left side and wave everyone past me. Put a fork in me, I'm done. So close.. to.. the finish. That 1/2 lap of chasing after the crash took me deep into the red and no chance of recovering enough to hold the speed. From the sidewalk, I observed the last few laps of the race- some insane speeds. I watched the break of ten guys go past when the bell rang one to go, and they were blown apart completely when they arrived at the finish. The break didn't form until after I was popped- I bet it slowed down some right after I sat up. Such is bike racing I guess. I hate DNFs!
It was a long drive home. Well, it should have only taken 3 hours but the approach to the George Washington Bridge was such that I went 4 miles in the span of 2 hours. Then more delays on I-95 passing through Manhattan and the Bronx. My trip home took 6-1/2 hours. If I had any idea how fucked up the GW bridge traffic is, i would have gladly driven 1 hourt out of my way to take the Tappan Zee Bridge, which is how I got to Cresskill in the first place. Who expects to be in line for 2-1/2 hours to cross a bridge? $8 fucking dollars to cross the GW? Never again. As I said to others already, I would sooner drive a knitting needle through my eyeball and into my brain before crossing that pig of a bridge again.
I kind of went out of my way to make this a good report for you, so I hope you enjoyed reading it. Thanks for reading it if you got this far! Here's the results of the 35+ and Pros:

Stay Tuned...

2010-07-23T19:48:00.001-04:00

...for a race report from the 2010 Freedom Tour in Stirling, New Jersey.