Superhero Dirt

We had superhero soil conditions last night at 'cross practice. It had rained a bit, but things had mostly dried out, so the ground was soft and grippy. It felt like you could lean your bike as much as you wanted. At one point, on the off-camber turn around a big tree, I could feel clumps of dirt being thrown from the tire hitting my leg... pretty cool.

I'm still getting used to my new tires. I'm not sure if it was the tires, soil conditions, or what, but it seemed like I was starting to get the bike to rotate under me a little bit. When I was in to driving cars and karts, this feeling of rotation was one of my clues that I was starting to get the corners right. Not so much rotation that the rear tire breaks free (which usually slows you down), but enough that you can feel you're doing more than just tracking around an arc.

My legs felt pretty decent once I got going a bit (it was cold last night!). I felt like I mostly rode pretty well too, but I still am not riding quite as smoothly as I could. There were a few times on connected corners where I'd nail the first one, get the light moment in between the corners, but then decide I was going too fast for the second one and brake a little, which wrecked the smooth weight transfer. Intellectually, I'm sure that I could transition from that light moment into the next corner, really cram the tires into the ground and rip the second corner, but my body still isn't convinced yet. Just takes more practice I guess...

I've been running a bit for the past month or so. Just short easy runs to get the legs used to it a little. Except for the very first run, they've all gone fine, no pain or soreness later. So, with that preparation work done, this morning, I did my first session of hill sprints. It was cold enough that I was glad I was wearing a hat and wishing that I'd brought gloves too. The sprints didn't feel too hard while I was doing them (a benefit of the cold?), but I could feel it in my legs later this morning.

Ithaca GP CX - 2009

This weekend, I made the trip up to Ithaca (Michigan), for the Ithaca GP cyclocross race. This was, I think, the third year that they've held the race, but it was my first time doing it.

We brought the whole family: wife, kid, dog, so it was a full car. Everybody but me slept all the way up, so I had a nice quiet drive. It turned out that the park was really nice and had a huge play area; that made it much easier to have everybody there all day.

The course itself was pretty fun. It was a nice mix of rolling hills, flat open sections, and tight turns. I felt pretty bad on my warmup. Since this wasn't a high-priority race for me, I'd ridden kind of hard (maybe a bit too hard) the day before.

I got to the start line shortly after they blew the whistle and found that the bulk of the field was already there (we had 23 in my race). So, I lined up in the third row; somebody moved a bit in front of me, so then I squeezed into the second row. There was a holeshot prime, so I guess that's why everyone was there early. From the second row, I figured I didn't have much of a chance to contest for it.

I got a good start at the whistle and stayed right with the front group. The road was pretty narrow though, and I didn't see a good opportunity to get around anyone. In hindsight, maybe I should have been a bit more aggressive at the start and through the first couple corners, because I lost several spots and wound up getting slowed by some early crashes.

For whatever reason (riding the day before, or that this was a one-off race), I didn't ride the first couple laps with the intensity that I usually do. I noticed this and thought that it might end up working out for me if I didn't slow as much in the middle laps. We didn't have chip timing for this race, so I don't know for sure, but I felt like I slowed down in the middle anyway.

As it was, I had some good battles in the middle and near the end of the race and worked my way up several spots. I did completely flake out on one of the middle laps and rode straight off the course. Even though I was staring right at the course tape showing the turn, I just didn't turn. Fortunately, the tape was placed high, so I could duck under it, but still, it was a really dumb mistake. By the last lap, I had pretty well dropped the guy chasing me, but I couldn't get close to the guy ahead of me. Every time I started making up ground, he'd notice it and put in a hard effort to hold his advantage. I ended up finishing 6th out of 23.

The course was varied enough that it showed me what my strengths and weaknesses were pretty clearly. I was making up ground on the climbs, slower twisty sections, and whenever we had to get off the bike. But then I'd lose ground on the open flat sections where you just had to put down the power. I also need to fix this problem of losing focus during the race; it seems to be happening every race and probably costs me at least one position when it happens.

Waterford Pictures

Hans Nyberg pictures from Waterford last weekend.



(Looks like this is exactly where I dropped my chain.)

(Yikes! How not to do it!)




(Better...)

Fangos

Last night, I got my first real chance to test out my new Challenge Fango tubulars. The conditions at the track were a little loose, but not as bad as they were over the weekend.

I ran my first bunch of laps at 25psi (measured on my pump). At this pressure, the tires were really soft and soaked up the bumps nicely. Grip was mostly good, but I occasionally had moments where the rear tire would suddenly break loose. I also think I bottomed it out once.

So, I added a little more air (with a different pump). It read 30psi, but my hunch is that it was closer to 35psi. At this pressure, the tires seemed too hard and the ride was pretty rough. Grip felt pretty good though.

Finally, I let a little air out by hand and turned a few more laps. Afterward, I checked pressure on my pump and measured it at roughly 30psi. At this pressure, the tires still seemed a bit stiffer than I'd like, but the grip was consistently good.

Next time out, I may try some pressures between 25 and 30psi.

So, in general, while my new tires are nice, they didn't provide the kind of step change that I was hoping for. I think that this speaks more to the quality of the clinchers that I was using rather than anything bad about the tubulars. That said, I think that my tubulars do provide better grip than my clinchers, in particular on off-camber corners.

Waterford CX - 2009

Cyclocross started for me this past weekend with two days of racing at Waterford Hills. Even though Waterford is my "home turf", it's really not one of my favorite venues... too flat and too bumpy.

Even though I had my new tubular tires glued up (I did end up getting some Challenge Fangos), I only had a total of about 20 minutes of easy riding time on them, so I decided not to use them for the race. I kept thinking how they might take the edge off of some of the bumps though.

My race on Saturday was good, but I made a lot of mistakes. I got a pretty decent start and was briefly in the top 5, but I really didn't have the pace to hang with the fastest guys. As I said, I made a number of physical and mental mistakes in the middle laps that probably cost me a spot or two. The most time-consuming one was dropping my chain after tapping my back wheel on a barrier. But the more interesting mistake was that I nearly went off-course! There was one section of the course that was a little chicane past a big tree; in our weekly 'cross practice at the track, we almost always go all the way around the tree. So, about 3-4 laps into the race when I wasn't thinking so clearly, I started going all the way around the tree instead of following the marked course... not good.

Still, I ended up in 9th place (out of 30), which is pretty easily my best finish in the "B" field.

On Sunday, I had a big crowd watching me (my parents plus my wife and daughter... hey, that's big for me!). I hadn't intended to do this, but I got a great start off the line and jumped into first place. At that point, I figured I might as well just let it rip and see what would happen. I led for maybe a quarter of a lap or so before I started getting passed. That's the problem with going to the front at the start... you can only go backward from there. As it turned out, only my Mom actually saw me leading the race.

My race on Sunday was generally much better. I stayed more focused and made fewer mistakes. Coming down to the last lap, I was in a tight battle with another guy. I was feeling good about dropping him or out-sprinting him on the last lap, but it never came to that. I overcooked the last corner before the start/finish straight to begin the last lap and got some course tape tangled up in my shoe. Seeing this, the guy behind me punched it (I would have done the same); he was almost halfway down the straightaway before I got clear of the tape. I chased hard and got close to him, but not close enough to really do anything. I ended up placing 8th on Sunday.

(Me, briefly leading the race on Sunday. Photo by Bruce LeBlanc.)

Anyway, despite that little disaster, it was a pretty good race. Actually, I'm really pretty happy about how the whole weekend went. I still have lots of ideas about things to work on to keep improving, and I'm looking forward to trying out the new tires this week.

Power Meter Concepts

So, I ran across an interesting couple of blog posts by Joe Friel.

Estimating TSS and Projecting Race Readiness

In "Projecting Race Readiness", he describes how you can use your power meter data and software to track your fitness, fatigue and form. From those numbers, you can get a pretty good idea about how physically prepared you are to race. Nice, if you have a power meter, which I don't, and won't for the forseeable future.

In "Estimating TSS", he talks about how you can estimate training stress from RPE or heart rate and volume. Now, it's getting interesting! His intent (I think) was to show this for the triathlon community, where you're competing in multiple disciplines and may not be able to gather data in all of them, like swimming.

For me though, it suggests a crude method of projecting fitness without a power meter. In fact, I tried to do something similar with my own formula a couple years ago, but I couldn't get the numbers to work out to anything useful.

As I read and re-read these posts, and started playing with their implementation in a spreadsheet, I realized that a big part of the value to doing this is in planning your training relative to your races. I guess that's clear enough from the title "Projecting Race Readiness", but for some reason I didn't get it at first.

Anyway, so I put in some rough estimates for my workouts for the rest of the year, and marked my races. What I found was that, according to these numbers anyway, I will only be marginally "peaked" for a couple random races (with my best peak happening at the new Maybury CX race, which I may decide not to even do!). The numbers also show that I will generally not have good form for a lot of the races I do care about. (This actually reflects pretty well how past seasons have gone for me.)

(After just a little work...)

Here's where it gets tricky though. If you decide that you want to change your workout plan so that you get better numbers prior to a race, how do you go about doing it? It's not straightforward, since you're trying to optimize a couple outputs, and the "rolling sum" nature of some of the equations makes them difficult to work with. Still, for an engineer, it's an interesting problem.

Addison Oaks XC - 2009

Yesterday I raced the Addison Oaks cross-country race for the first time. As I posted before, I was really motivated for the race and I thought I had a good chance to perform well. I did end up having a really good race, but I just didn't get the placement I was hoping for. So, here's how it went...

I changed my warmup routine a little bit for this race. Instead of doing several 30s intervals, I did a few slightly easier 2 minute intervals. I felt like this change worked well for me. I also spent about 10 minutes sitting under a tree going over my strategy and visualizing key sections of the race. This was also really nice.

At the starting line, I lined up on the front row of a pretty decent-sized field, 14 riders. My plan was to go as fast as possible on the grassy field and up the first, long climb. At the signal, the field took off, and things split up pretty quickly. I made the front group of four; the other guys here were the top guys in my class, so I tried to stay with them as long as I could. Once we hit the singletrack though, they slowly pulled away from me. That was the bad news; the good news was that I couldn't see or hear anyone behind me.

In a trend that would continue on every lap, I rode by myself for the next 40% of the course. And then, as happened on every lap, although I haven't figured out why, a small group caught me going into the last long section of singletrack. They caught me, but no one could make a pass that would stick. At the end of the first lap, an RBS rider did pass me on the singletrack, but I went right back around him in the grassy field by the start/finish area.

Basically, aside from having company on the singletrack at the end of every lap, it was a pretty uneventful race. I pushed hard on all the open sections and tried to ride smooth on the singletrack. Because of the nature of the trail, it seemed like I was going fast the whole time.

Near the end of the last lap, I had company again and was a little worried about who was behind me and how the finish would play out. As it turned out, we came up on a little slower traffic. I moved through it pretty quickly and pushed hard to build a gap. I had a decent gap by the time I exited the singletrack, so I just kept a moderately hard pace to the finish.

I ended up in 4th place, about 2 minutes back from the top 3 guys. The 5th place guy was in the group right behind me, he ended up finishing about 10s behind me. There was another big gap behind him though, about 4 minutes (!) back to 6th place.

Before the race, I was hoping for a top 3 finish, but it was clear that the top 3 guys were riding a step above me. I'm still really happy with my race though; I did everything I wanted to and I felt like I rode really well.

Since that was my last mountain bike race of the year ('cross starts this weekend!), I'm thinking about what I want to do for next year. At this point, I'm fairly sure that I'm going to move up to Expert. My lap times are at least now comparable to the lower half of the Expert field, so I shouldn't be totally getting crushed. I also don't know what I would have to gain by racing Sport again.

Bike Washing

Helping Dad wash the bikes... she had fun, but she was completely soaked by the end. She kept wanting to get between the hose and the bike.

I'm really fired up about the race at Addison this weekend. I feel like I'm more fit than I've ever been for a mountain bike race, and I think the course suits me well. We're going to find out...

Addison and 'Cross Tires

I went out to Addison Oaks both days this weekend to try to get ready for the race next Sunday. I definitely had more fun this weekend than I did last weekend, when the rain cut my ride short. I had good rides on both days, and I'm getting to know the trail well enough so that it's pretty fun to ride.

Even though I don't know the exact course (this will be the first time I've done this race), I've been timing my laps. Mostly, I haven't been pushing too hard, but I did do some harder efforts last weekend. Based on last year's results, it looks like I should be pretty competitive. Like I always say, "it all depends on who shows up." I feel prepared anyway.

It's September, and 'cross is definitely on my mind. Over last winter, I bought a set of used tubular wheels and tires from another racer. I was pretty sure the wheels were OK, but I wasn't so sure about the tires... now I think I have my answer... I need to find something else. I try to get out a couple times a week and practice basic 'cross skills in my backyard. Mostly I just work on barriers, but, depending on what I'm doing, I also corner moderately hard. Up until this week, I've never had a problem (using my Michelin Mud2 clinchers); I think traction in my yard is probably pretty good... better than most 'cross courses anyway. This week, on my Vittoria EVO XG tubulars, I heard my front wheel squeek in the corner, then it washed out and I fell... yes, in my backyard! (I'm almost too embarassed to admit it!)

Normally, I'm not one to blame my equipment for my problems, but I've done this turn countless times on my other tires with no problem. So, unless I totally blew the tire pressure, I don't think this tire and I are going to get along.

But, I think this was an instructive experience for me. I know a couple things that I'm looking for now. One is more (or better) side and intermediate knobs. I know that there are a lot of 'cross tires out there with minimalist tread patterns, and that people can ride them fast, but I'm not one of them. Two, I'd like to find a tire that has a little softer rubber. The rubber on these Vitorrias seems a little hard to me (maybe because they are older tires?). I know the rubber on my Mud2 clinchers is much softer, and those tires are a few years old.

I'm thinking about the Challenge Fango's. They're intended to be mud tires, but I've read several reviews where people have had good success using them as more aggressive all-purpose tires. Hopefully the weather will hold for 'cross practice at the track tomorrow night; I want to scope out some other people's tires. As for me, until further notice, I'll keep riding my clinchers.

What Did You Do?

I had a pretty decent night at the track last night. Running my tires at 30psi instead of 25psi worked much better. I surprised myself a bit by being able to keep my pace up through all of our hard efforts. A lot of other people seemed to fade quite a bit as we went on. After our last effort, Jeff said that he thought I looked much improved over last year and asked me "What did you do this summer?" I didn't give him a great answer, since I was still breathing hard, but the question made me think. So, here's the long version about what I did:

1. Practiced cornering... a lot.

2. Practiced riding in a "neutral" position, with little weight on my hands. (I think a couple of the crashes I saw last night were due to people trying to steer their bike with their weight forward, resulting in the front wheel tucking under and them going down.)

3. Rode less, but made sure that my rides were high-quality.

4. Rested more. The result has been one of my most consistent years; I haven't been sick since Spring (knock on wood).

5. For the last month or so, I've been much more diligent about sticking to my Paleo nutrition plan. It's surprising what a difference this makes.

6. I've been working on not letting my bike bash into bumps or dips. So, lifting my front wheel over sharp bumps/dips and pumping the bigger ones.

It also helped that I'd just come off of a rest week and I worked a normal day yesterday. The week before, I'd just finished a hard block of training and had worked a longish day.

Cross Practice

Wow, it's been a while since I've posted. I've been really busy at work and at home the past couple weeks, and blogging falls pretty low on the list of priorities.

I had originally planned to race at Maybury or Fort Custer last weekend, but, after having raced the previous two weekends, I felt like I needed to get in a good week of training instead. (I also wasn't terribly excited about either race.) I did a couple hard rides during the week, and then again on Saturday. The Saturday ride was interesting, instead of riding out on White Lake road toward Indian Springs, I turned down the park road to the campground at Pontiac Lake. For all the times I've ridden by it, I've never actually ridden on it; it was much longer than I thought... definitely worth riding. The campground at Pontiac Lake also looked nicer than I expected.

On Sunday, I went out to Addison Oaks, not to go hard, mainly just to familiarize myself with the trail (I'm planning to race there next month... last MTB race already). I think I've only ridden there twice over the past 5 years or so. I checked the weather before I left (for Waterford, not for Leonard, where the park is), 10% chance of rain, sweet... no need to check the radar...

I parked at Bald Mountain and started getting ready... I noticed a few raindrops... then on my ride over to Addison, it really started raining. I thought, "just a 10% chance of rain, so it probably won't rain long." Partway through my first lap of the trail, it did mostly stop, so I did a second lap. The trails were just a little wet when I rode them, the trees seemed to keep them (and me) relatively dry. Near the end of the second lap, it started raining really hard again, so I started riding back to my car. It poured on me the whole way back to Bald Mountain, and I was soaked by the time I got to the car. Fortunately, it was warm enough that I wasn't completely miserable, and I had fun riding at a different trail.

Last night, I went to the track for my first cyclocross practice of the year. I thought my legs would be OK, but they really didn't feel that great for any kind of hard effort. So, it ended up not being so worthwhile from a fitness standpoint, but it was worthwhile to get out and ride my 'cross bike off road. My rear tire was really squirming and sliding all over the place though; I may have also bottomed out the rim (or came close) at least once. Same tires as I used last year, and I thought the same pressure. This morning I checked my setup notes from last year: I saw that I eventually settled on runnning my tires at 30psi; last night I had them at 25psi. So, I can probably safely say now that 25psi is too low for me on these tires. I also need to work on getting back on my bike and into the pedals quickly... I was fast getting off, but slow getting back on.

PLRA XC - 2009

On Sunday, I did the Pontiac Lake XC race. It was another very hot race (temps around 90F for my race). I was very conflicted going in. From a technical riding perspective, I feel like I've made some good progress again the past few weeks. But, my legs had also been feeling pretty bad for most of the week. I was a little concerned that racing would be counterproductive, maybe undoing some of my technical progress and possibly hurting my confidence. As it turned out, I'm glad that I raced.

First, I set up my goals for the race:
1. Start at a reasonably hard pace, to set the intensity level for the rest of the race.

2. Relax and maintain good body position in the technical sections.

3. Have fun!

I've started thinking about cyclocross season a little already (it's not too far away now), and I realized that I'm almost always more relaxed and have more fun at a 'cross race. Why? I'm not completely sure, but I think I get more tense about the technical features of a mountain bike race, even at a trail I've ridden many times. So, that was the reason for #3. Anyway, going in with the idea of relaxing and having fun at the race seemed to help.

I got a good warmup in, but I didn't get a great starting position at the line. There was enough space on the grass field before the singletrack for me to move up and get a decent spot in the train that quickly formed though. (I've been practicing clipping my race starts a little, just getting my foot clipped in and sprinting for a few seconds... it helped!) The pace was high, but not too bad... I think everyone was holding back just a little due to the heat. I finally got gapped after the first real swoopy section on the trail (I don't have a better description); it was a combination of the high pace and bike handling. By that point though, I'd also built a decent gap to the riders behind me.

I kept up a fairly high pace until the sandy stretch where the mountain bike and horse trails cross. I'd picked off a few of the slower people from the classes ahead of me, and just a couple people (from classes behind me I think) passed me. For sure, I got passed by a lot less people this year than last. Andrea was stationed at the little drop just before I slowed... looks like I'm desparate for some O2!

Andrea Picture #1

The rest of my first lap was pretty uneventful. I mostly rode by myself, trying to recover from my starting effort. I figured I was still doing OK in the race though, since most of the people that had passed me seemed to be flying, I figured they were the fast guys from the other classes.

Me on the last climb... (from Bruce LeBlanc)

End of lap 1 (Hans Nyberg)

On my second lap, it felt like I was mostly just riding to finish. I didn't really feel like I could push a little again until about halfway through the lap. I rode most of the lap with some guys from Cycletherapy that were in a later start wave. It seems like I always end up racing with these guys for a while. So, the three of us finished more-or-less together (although all in different classes), and that was it. I was glad to be done, and fairly pleased with my effort.

Andrea Picture #2

Last climb again (Hans Nyberg)

I was a little surprised to check the results and see that my effort netted me 3rd place (out of 8). I was about a minute out of 2nd place, and the 4th place guy was about 3 minutes behind me. So, it was a pretty good result for me, the first time I've made the podium this year (as always, placement is also dependent on who shows up!). In terms of lap times, my first lap was about a minute and half faster than last year, but my second lap was about a minute and a half slower.

Podium!(from Bruce LeBlanc)

Position

I've changed my setup on the mountain bike this week. Taking the advice of the skills gurus out there (Gene and Lee), I put a shorter stem on the bike and raised it. I already had a 75mm stem on my singlespeed, so I used that, replacing the 90mm stem that was on the bike. My estimate is that the changes moved my bars back and up about 1 inch each.

Lee mentioned a test to see if you have adequate skill to rip with a longer stem. He suggests dropping off a curb 100 times. To pass, you have to land with the rear wheel first every time. I didn't try to do it 100 times; I only did 10, and I landed correctly 8 times.

Last night, I got my first real ride in with the new setup (at Pontiac Lake, my "home" trail). I can say that it's definitely different; it took a little while to get used to. While pedaling, I felt much more upright; it felt a little odd on the road, but fine on the trail. My first impression is that I descend and corner a little better this way. For sure, it's easier to lift the front wheel. I didn't notice any real problems climbing, maybe the front end wanders just a little more, but it wasn't too bad. I did stall on the steep climb after "The Chute" on both laps, which is pretty unusual for me now. I attribute that to the rider rather than the bike though, my legs just felt dead for the whole ride.

I also had Sarah record me doing Figure-8 drills in the driveway earlier this week; it was really interesting to watch. I expected to see that I wasn't leaning the bike nearly as much as I thought (I wasn't), but I was pleasantly surprised to see that I looked reasonably smooth. What I didn't expect to see was how bad my upper body position was; I mean, I knew it probably wasn't great, but what I saw wasn't even close.

(Lee, demonstrating proper, although exaggerated, form.)

So, I've been working on getting myself into a good neutral "attack" position whenever I'm not pedaling. I figure, if the ground is flat and straight enough to pedal on, I should be in a pedaling position; otherwise, I should be in the attack position. I found that being in a good attack position also makes a big difference in my comfort level while descending and cornering. What I realized last night though is that I basically never corner like that; instead, I go to some position where my butt is hovering just off the saddle and my chest is still high. I expect that this position puts too much weight on the back of the bike, which is why I feel like the front of the bike doesn't want to turn. For sure, in that hovering position, I can't lean my bike very far without leaning with it, there's no place for the saddle to go!

Hines Park TT - 2009

It looked for a while like this race wasn't going to happen. When I went to bed on Saturday night, the report was that there was 1-2 feet of water over the road. I woke up a couple times during the night and could hear it raining hard. So, I was a little surprised to check my email Sunday morning and find that the race was still on (although probably delayed a little).

So, I loaded up the car and drove down (through more rain) to the race, where I found out the race was delayed 30 minutes, then an hour. By the time I started, it was getting hot, humid, and windy... perfect weather for bike racing!

The race went OK for me. I felt like I settled into a good pace pretty quickly. There were still some big puddles on the road; some of them where I wanted to ride. I hadn't considered that there would be a difference in puddles in the road created by rain (which is what I usually see) and those created by a flooding river. Turns out that the flooding river kind are really muddy. So, just a few minutes into the race, my bike and I were covered in mud... I usually finish mountain bike races cleaner than I finished yesterday. I tried to avoid the puddles a little more after I got coated the first time.

When I've done this race in the past and it's been windy, it seems like I usually get a good tailwind on the way out. There may have been some of that yesterday, but at times, I got a pretty strong crosswind instead, so the going wasn't too easy. There were strong headwinds and crosswinds all the way back too. Add the heat and humidity, and conditions were pretty tough.

I passed a few people on the course, including my dad, and only one guy passed me. I ended up finishing nearly a minute slower than last year. I'd like to attribute it all to the conditions, but I'm not sure if that's really the case.

Pontiac Lake

This weekend is the Hines Park TT, a 20km road time trial. I enjoy doing this race quite a bit. It's short enough that it's not too hard (I did the 40km race one year, and that was not so fun), there's nothing about the course or race format to worry about, you basically just pedal as hard as you can for about half an hour. My dad is coming over for the race too this year, so that will be fun.

So, in an effort to not really prepare for the race, I've been splitting my riding time between two activities: mountain bike "skill" rides in my backyard and rides at Pontiac Lake. The skill rides have been interesting. I'm making progress on cornering, but not so much on hopping. The improvements in cornering have mainly been due to looking farther ahead and improving my upper body position.

I'm starting to see the influence of my skill work on the trail too. I had really good rides on the trail on Sunday and Wednesday. I've noticed that I have the most trouble on corners where I can't see the exit (due to trees, grass, whatever), even if I know what the rest of the corner looks like. In those situations, you're supposed to look "through" the obstacle at where the trail will go, but I seem to have trouble doing that in practice.

Maintaining

I realized that I hadn't posted in a while. Not too much has been going on lately. I've been spending some time working on my technical skills again. The things I'm working on (mostly cornering) are getting better.

I rode at Pontiac Lake on Saturday and Sunday. Particularly on Sunday, I thought that I rode really well; the time spent on the skills stuff seemed to pay off. My biggest issue seems to be just not looking ahead enough; at times, my vision gets "stuck" on certain parts of the trail and causes me problems.

Speaking of working on skills... I'm strongly considering heading down to Virginia this Fall to attend a skills camp by Gene Hamilton. Ashwin has done this twice and has found it very beneficial.

Stony Creek TT - 2009

Sunday, I raced the 2009 edition of the Stony Creek Time Trial. I didn't feel particularly well-prepared for the race, but I still had some reasonably high expectations.

The preparation problems revolved around just not riding enough after my trip to California, and that my legs were still very sore after what I thought would be a pretty easy workout Friday night.

In the past, I've gone with the strategy of holding back a little at the start of a time trial, and then (hopefully) speeding up as the race goes on. In the distant past, I've also gone out too hard and blown up in time trials. Anyway, what I've been finding more recently is that it works better for me to go a little harder at the start, to psychologically set the intensity level for the race. So, that's what I did.

The format of these MTB time trials is that pairs of riders go off every 30 seconds. So, I went out pretty hard, as planned; the guy that started with me seemed content to draft me on the grassy start. Maybe this should have bothered me, but I'm not sure there's a huge aero advantage to be had at the speeds we were going, particularly behind me ;) . Once we got to the gravel road, he dropped me pretty quickly. The good news was that I could see that I had nearly reeled in the guy that started 30 seconds ahead of me (there was just one, the other guy didn't show up at the starting line).

Everything went fine through the first water-crossing, and then I passed my 30s guy just before a short section of singletrack. He was still close when we hit the first big climb; I pushed hard over that climb and dropped him. Even though my legs felt bad, it seemed like I was doing OK. Just after that, the guy that ended up winning my class passed me.

I hit the first long section of singletrack, The Pines, and backed off just a bit. I rode it about how I usually do, which is probably not aggressive enough. I got passed by two guys.

Basically, that's how the race went. I pushed hard on the two-track, and backed off a little on the singletrack. The passing I mentioned above was the only passing that happened. Later on, I did run into the guy that started with me. He had some problem with his chain that he'd just fixed. Once he got going, I didn't stay with him for long.

Anyway, I finished in 1hr 1min. It's a little hard to compare this time to my 2006 time, since the trail is now a little longer, but in 2006 I did the race in 1hr 4min. I guess I'm a little disappointed that I didn't finish in less than an hour. Despite the sore legs and rustiness, I actually felt like I raced OK, so the time surprised me a bit. Maybe this is a case of letting a bad result ruin an otherwise good race, I don't know.

There really wasn't one area that I can say caused me to be slow. My fitness seemed OK (despite the sore legs), although it could always be better. My singletrack riding was OK for me; it's still a relatively weak point, but (at least at Stony) I don't feel totally outclassed like I used to. I did a pretty good job of staying focused mentally. I think it's a case of going just a little faster everywhere, which would add up to going a lot faster overall.

California Trip

"Bears are everywhere, but not all the time."

- Yosemite Park Ranger

So, the trip to California... The basic plan was this: me and one of my old roommates (Greg) that still lives in Michigan would fly to San Fransisco and hang out there on Thursday afternoon. We'd meet up with a third roommate (Jacob) who lives out there, and then drive to Yosemite National Park that night. Friday, we'd hang out at the park and do our "big" hike. Saturday morning, we'd hang out at the park, and then drive back to SF in the afternoon. Sunday, the Michigan guys would fly home.

San Fransisco was pretty cool. From the airport, Greg and I took the BART to Chinatown and had lunch there. Somehow, we managed to pick a Vietnamese restaraunt, but it was good. From there, we walked to Fisherman's Wharf. We saw Alcatraz (from a distance), the sea lions on the pier, and the different ships. We used a combination of mass transit and our feet to get to Fremont, where we got our food for the weekend and met up with Jacob.

The drive to Yosemite was pretty uneventful, although we did see a coyote on our way in. Unfortunately, we got a late enough start that it was dark by the time we got to the park. It's too bad, we could see that the views from the road were pretty awesome on our way out. That night, we got the bear lecture from the Curry Village staff. As if to emphasize the point, later that night, some people did see a bear in the camp area not too far from us. The park rangers set off a big noisemaker, and we saw them outside our cabin with radio equipment, big flashlights, etc.

The hike on Friday was awesome. We took the Mist Trail up to Vernal and Nevada Falls, and then we came back down on the John Muir trail. It took us about 6 hours at a pretty liesurely pace. The trails were a little more crowded than I would have preferred, but it wasn't bad.

Friday afternoon, we drove down to the south end of the park and saw the giant Sequoias. On our way back, we stopped at one of the picnic areas to cook some dinner; we were the only ones there. We'd been there about 15 minutes when we heard some crashing noises from across the road. We scanned the woods until we found the source, a bear had climbed a little way up a tree and was scoping us out. We could see his head peeking out around the tree trunk. We quickly packed up our stuff and got ready to leave. We must have made enough noise to discourage the bear, because he wandered off... but we did see him cross the road to our side. Needless to say, the rest of our meal was a little more tense.

On Saturday, we packed up and decided to drive around the valley and visit some of the points of interest that we couldn't see too well the day before. Because these areas were easily accessible, and it was now Saturday, the crowds got worse as the morning went on. We were happy to be leaving when we did. We did see one more bear, swimming in the river, on our way out of the park.

The trip home was fine, except I ended up seeing a lot of the San Fransisco airport, since my flight was delayed about an hour and a half.

Feeling Better

A post (with pictures!) about my trip to Yosemite is coming soon, I hope.

I've been focusing on getting more sleep the last few nights; I've been generally feeling better since then and it's helped my motivation. It also occured to me that I might have been suffering from a little jet lag... even though (as a super Europe/Asia traveler) I usually scoff at that idea of jet lag from a little 3 hour time change.

I got out to ride last night again. It took me a while to get warmed up, but I felt pretty good once I did. I did a few hard efforts, which also seemed OK.

I registered for the Stony Creek TT this weekend (on my birthday). It's been a few years since I've done it. My goal in 2007 (the last time I planned to do the race, but didn't) was to get down to 55 minutes. I'll probably stick with that again this year, although really not sure what to expect. I'm a very different rider now than I was the last time I did this race, in 2006.

Stiff Legs

I got out on the bike for an easy spin last night. I didn't want to push too hard since I haven't ridden in nearly a week and haven't been sleeping enough. Sure enough, my legs felt like they hadn't seen a bike for a week... stiff and weak. Hopefully they'll come around quickly; I'm planning to race on Sunday.

Interesting interview with Jeremy Powers at Cyclocross Magazine. Part 1 and part 2. The comment that stuck out to me was: "Work on anything you possibly can. Because you are putting in 20 or 30 hours a week riding your bike and you’re not doing those things, then you’re not giving yourself a full chance. I think it’s important to just look at yourself from the outside in and say, “o.k. what can I do to make myself better, what do I know that I am not good enough at?” If that’s running, or if that’s riding in the mud, or if that’s just power, all of those things can be worked on. You can run more, you can train harder at intervals, you can go out and wet down your back yard and ride around in circles in the mud. You can make sure that you do all these things to at least give yourself an opportunity, and if you don’t give yourself that opportunity, then you have stumbled out of the start gate as if you never even tried. I would say breaking it down piece-by-piece and then taking your game to a different level is the hardest thing to do, but you have to look at each individual piece and then focus on one at a time and just knock them off. That can take years."