A few weeks back I picked up a new clincher wheelset. I ended up choosing the Dura Ace carbon reinforced aluminum wheels. The version I got is tubeless ready which should open up some interesting options in the future. For now, I really like these wheels and they roll great, as they should at over a grand for the wheelset.
Our adopted cat hanging out between my road bikes. Chunky Monkey Ninja Kitty. She is settling in well with the dogs and showing them who is boss.
Well, it is not as bad as all of that, I haven’t raced out of town since the Oxford July 4th weekend. I had an unusually long racing break in the middle of the season. I started off heading up north to Wisconsin and Michigan and generally recharged my mental batteries. Once I got back, I started to ramp up intensity and volume in the sort of stochastic way that I do. Thankfully I got through most of it with my SRM in working order.
Right after the training race at the beginning of the month, my FSA SRM crank decided to start to fail on the drive-side crankarm. Having been experienced with this issue (non-drive arm failed in April), I spotted it right away and stopped using the crank before it got scary. I mailed it off to Colorado and I hope I will get something back before too long.
In the meantime, I have been riding on the road, for the first time in 8-9 months, without a power meter. I put my super light FSA K-Force Light crank that I got on closeout earlier this spring (and which has been collecting dust since then). I ended up capping off my training ramp up with a moderately heavy week with lots of group rides (as I like). I only rode 5 days, but all were at least 50 mile days.
Part of the reason that I rode only 5 days was that, on Wednesday, I attended a new officials clinic put on by Vicki Mackzum to get my USAC class-C officials license. I am not sure when I will use it right off, but it was worth it just for the perspective in understanding how races are judged. Also, I will know which official I should talk to at a particular event when there is a problem.
With all of this time at home (relatively speaking anyway), I have been working on various projects around the house. I have replaced most of the light switches in the house with rocker switches (removing the standard toggle switches) and added countdown timers to the bathroom fans. Is it strange that I find electrical work sort of relaxing? Maybe it is so relatively easier to understand compared to chemical interactions at work or physiological changes w.r.t. to training for cycling.
Another quick project to finally trim out the 2 yards of stone project is installing the loose landscape timbers that have more or less kept the stone and lawn apart. Not really hard, but just time consuming to level the ground and then nail them down (I used 10″ galvanized spikes driven through a hole I drilled in the timbers).
On the bike front, other than shuffling around cranksets on my road bike (SRM / regular crank swap out), I started to mess around with my Polar power meter on my TT rig. On my Sunday ride (previous Sunday), I was getting pretty annoyed at the power readings cutting in and out when I rode my TT bike with Andrea (after riding my creaking SRM / FSA crank about 2 miles before returning to do a bike change).
When I first got the WIND power meter, I had problem with chainline over the pickup, but this problem seemed to be related to the cadence magnet. The magnet that came with was pretty thin and I found out why. I took a magnet from my bin of parts and found that when in the biggest gears, the magnet would lodge in the chainwheel teeth (fun!). I put on a thinner one and made that work. The next day (Monday) I did a long solo ride (3×20 min intervals). The first two went well, but the 3rd one was plagued with constant cadence/power cutouts. It got to the point that had to just ignore it and finish the workout.
On Sunday, I spent a few minutes putting the original Polar magnet back on and this time putting it out past the pedal spindle. A quick run down the street showed the difference… night and day. The power picked up right away and gave reasonable numbers. I will give it a go on a ride on Wednesday night.
With that, I will conclude the post with a quick CX preview. I have my Ridley X-Fire that I build up last January and my CrossBow (flipped over) which I am going to upgrade to SRAM Force (and retire the Dura Ace 9). Does anyone need a DA 9 drivetrain?
My biggest question at this point is whether to continue to just run tubeless or to take the tubular leap for CX this year?
Races…. Meridan/Cuba (1/2/3), then State RR/Oak Ridge (3), and finishing up at BMW Omn./River Gorge in Chattanooga (30+? or 1/2/3?).
Andrea and I got up early and made the drive down to Covington this morning with the purpose to make the 2pm tour at the Abita Beer brewery in nearby Abita Springs, Louisiana. After eating lunch, we arrived at the visitor center / tap room. About 1 minute after we got there, they opened up the bar to allow all the visitors to sample the complete range of their brewery. We each tried quite a few partial cups….
Driving around, I spotted this scene… I am pretty sure this is same place I blogged 2 years ago….
Tomorrow is of course the Tour de Louisiane. This has become one of my favorite races on the calender. I decided to race this instead of traveling back to Chattanooga for the state criterium weekend. The format is a bit different than last year with the RR first, followed by different courses for the TT and the criterium on Sunday. Unlike last year’s rain drenched RR, it promises to just hot and muggy.
Instead of heading west to race the Joe Martin Stage race, I went with Andrea for her first mountain bike race. Rather than go small, a little 2-3 hour jaunt, she wanted to start out at Dirt, Sweat, and Gears 12-hour race in Fayetteville, Tenn.
The plan was camp out and for Andrea to race DSG, solo on her new Niner Jet9. I brought my road bike along so I could go out on a road ride at some point during the day. I emailed Kevin Freeman (promoter of Beat the Freak cx series) and he sent me a good route. So we loaded up the car with all the gear and headed east.
Friday night was a bit windy, but otherwise the weather was good. In the pre-race fesitvities, they rigged up a road frame with 20″ wheels and had a time-trial contest over the grassy area where the start/finish would be the next day. Andrea lined up in the group right away and posted a pretty good early time (57 seconds?). The big issue was that bottom bracket height was so low that the pedals were constantly hitting the ground… I went a bit later and managed to post up a time in the high 40’s… The best time ended up being in the mid-30’s. It was all about technique and my start was less than awesome as I barely got going at first until I figured out how to make that bike go.
before
The next day, the weather was supposed to turn rainy… The prediction came true about 2 minutes before the shotgun lemans start. The first lap had the leaders coming around in about an hour, which was expected. The amateurs however, really ended up being stretched out… In fact, by the time Andrea came by the tent after completing lap 1 and doing a bike wash, 2:25 had passed.
It turned out the rain had turned the course to a muddy slog that involved a lot of pushing the bike along… The weather was improving and the sun came out. So after she started on her 2nd lap, I geared up and went out for a ride. It was sunny for the first two hours of my hilly road ride, and then it started raining again, this time for about an hour.
Out on course, the rain, then sun, and then rain again turned the course into sticky peanut butter mud. When I rolled back into the campsite (from my road ride), about 4 hours had passed and Andrea had not came through again… What she was doing was pushing, carrying, and dragging her 80-100# bike through the ups and downs of the 10 mile course…. After a while, she came back to the camp, but hadn’t yet completed the lap yet since it was slow going (one could leave the course as long as you went back to the same place).
Her bike was pretty well encased in mud.
She came back to get to get my road bike… She wasn’t allowed to just run the trail without a bike, but she could take a change and my Felt at ~17#, was much lighter than her 27# Jet9, and easier to shoulder.
Even with the road bike, it took her another hour or so to cover the rest of the course. A photographer got a photo of her riding across the finish line. She did it at the urging of the announcer….
Here are a bunch of photos from the start and a few from the middle of the race….
Andrea and I spent a rainy afternoon moving the stones. I turns out that 2 yards is quite a bit of stone (it was the minimum for delivery).
Anyway, here is the result:
The side yard in front the fence also doesn’t drain well, so we pretty much tore it up like a cyclocross race in the wet.
Even after changing the job scope to include a 3′ wide strip down to the bottom of the yard, we still ended up with 1/2 to 3/4 yard remaining. We consolidated it and decided to wait until it dries up before moving the rest somewhere? Other side yard? Maybe the side yard in front of the fence (muddy part shown above)?
Whilst out for a ride, it looks like we were paid a visit. Andrea and I came back to see that the gravel fairy had arrived.
The plan is to move this 2 cu. yard load of stone to finish what I have started with a dozen 1/2 cu. ft. bags. This pile is over 100 of these bags. So for $85 delivered versus 100 x $3.50 ea. at Lowe’s…
Now I need to get on moving this off the driveway. Time to get to work.
Since Andrea is away, I had to fend for myself tonight.
Here is the recipe
Sauteed the shrimp in olive oil to firm them up (were frozen). Made and drained the pasta. Added the sauce to the shrimp.
I ended up microwaving the veggies to get it all together since I was getting pretty hungry by the end of all this. (I went out for a 2 hour ride since I didn’t ride Thursday night.)
I have leftovers for forever.
Indy has two distinct sides….
Calm. A good booger.
But attempt to touch his hind feet when being held and….
I suppose that is what it looks like if you are a vermin down in a hole….
The snow held off enough to allow the Marx & Bensdorf spring (winter?) training race to occur this morning. Despite the lack of snow the morning the conditions were in the mid to upper 30’s with occasional very light rain (at the start of the A-race).
The first race was the B-race at 9am. Andrea lined up with 29 guys (her report) to race the 6 lap, ~31 mile race over a lightly rolling course with a 1 mile 3-4% finishing climb each lap. My team (Memphis Velo) was well represented and it yielded a victory for new MV member Todd Hickman.
The A-race started at 11:30am, which pushed our luck on the weather a little bit… It started to rain a little bit at the start, but that didn’t last thankfully. At the start, it was clear I had a small problem. As the only MV in the group with 4 M&B racers lined up, it looked like it might be a long race.
So, I decided to see if I could go up the road with one of them. I attacked the hill on the first lap to see what would happen. I was pulled back. On the second lap, Russ Griffin rode away solo and I didn’t cover it. Whether it was him or anyone else, the result was the same, now it was either attack / try to bridge or slave away at the front with Boomer and Will. I tried both.
Russ held about 1-2 minute lead for middle part of the race. On lap 6, Boomer and Funston rode away from Will and I on the hill. They caught Russ with one to go with me chasing behind. The race was cut to 8 laps due to threatening weather moving into the area. I finished the race with 3 laps (about 15 miles) at threshold or better most of the time. I ended up 4th making $30 against my $15 entry. Not a bad day.
(despite the low stakes of the race today, I wanted to test out my new rims/tubies. Reynolds DV46T with Conti Competitions)
Here is the gallery link for the race. I took the B-race photos and Andrea took the A-race photos for obvious reasons.
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After the race, most of the A-race and some others hit Mezcal for some Mexican food and a little beer (maybe we had food with our beer). While we where there, the weather turned to sleet and then snow. By the time Andrea and I made the drive from Arlington to Cordova, there was ~1″ of accumulation on the lawns and streets. Winter is not quite done yet I guess.
(snow covered bike after taking it off the roof rack)
(Turbo in the backyard investigating the snow. More photos on Andrea’s blog.)
Yesterday, Andrea and I joined the Saturday morning Trinity ride. The morning was sort of cold (~40°F) with rain threatening to make it an epic ride. We rolled north up towards Brunswick as we normally do with the cold dampness getting supplemented by stinging rain. Fortunately, the rain was short lived (only a few miles). Although it did come back a few times before the colds rain really came to town (after our ride fortunately).
Our plan was to do the ride, but keep the watts at or below Tempo watts (<90% FTP). This is easy to do 85% of the time on a subdued Trinity ride (like yesterday). Up and down hills, not so much, so we fell off the group over the rollers at Macedonia. By then the conditions were looking grim and we headed straight into Arlington, bypassing Galloway. We ended up getting caught by the group on Memphis-Arlington Road… only to fall off on Seed Tick. For me the whole experience was annoying, trying to stay below these numbers while watching the group just walk away from us. Anyway, we did this to prep for a super-long Outdoor’s ride extended (~100 miles) with some intensity in the middle. Since the weather this morning is just off freezing and it supposed to warm to about 40°F later, we are going to delay and do the ride by ourselves out east heading towards the S&N GP race course.
After our ride yesterday, we went to Newk’s (as we do) for lunch. Following that, we headed up to Home Depot to look at their blinds. When I bought the house last September, I had the seller include the window treatments to avoid having to get everything at once. The kitchen ones were especially terrible, just some thin curtains hung cafe-style over the bottom half of the window. Anyway, problem solved.
Next thing will be doing some painting of the plain white walls of the entire house.
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