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The rain and lightning end up delaying the starts by 45 minutes to let the bulk of the rain dissipate.

I managed to ride a better TT this week, averaging 24.5 mph on the lightly rolling 3.8 mile course. For the Cat 4’s, teammates Aaron (8:48) and Bryan (9:10) managed better than my 9:18. I think we ended up 6th, 17th, and 23rd places out of 32 that started. Definitely felt the day of racing in the legs and next week I will start a 1-2 week rest period. I need it. I have had some disappointing race weekends, I might be getting burned. I am definitely paying the price for a lack of winter base training. I could use some race wheels as well, I might need to move that up the list.
A criterium down in Collierville is on the menu for tomorrow. I was originally thinking of doubling up (Cat4 and 30+), but I think the Cat 4 will probably be enough.

Raced part 1 of the local ominum race co-sponsored by my team Memphis Velo. For me (as a category 4), it was 6 laps of a 8 mile course for 48 miles out in the mid-day heat. I generally felt fine and was able to move up in the tightly compacted pack, especially later on during the 2 hour race as people started to weaken due to the heat. The course is rolling hills with nothing to break up the pack, so most that started finished up together. I wasn’t in a great position up the final hill, which sets up the left-right combination to the finish. I would guess I was 25th place, with a hand-full strung out behind me from the field. All-in-all, not bad, but nothing much to write home about. Just another work-a-day in the saddle. At least there were no crashes (that I saw).

Despite drinking 3 bottles plus most of a 4th from the neutral feed, I finished the race very dehydrated. I consumed several gatorades, cokes, and bottles of water before getting home. I was the same weight as this morning, pre-breakfast at 171#. That tells me I must have lost a bunch of water weight during the race.

On my team, I know that Andrea Creasy solo’ed away to take the Women’s cat 4 race, Ben Stone won the Cat 3 race this morning, and David Bell took his race (60+).

As I write this, there is thunder and lightning in Cordova (east of Memphis). The TT is this evening (I go off just after 6p, 2 hours from now) down in Germantown (south-east Memphis). We’ll see how that goes. I should have plenty of warmup time and I feel much better than I did last weekend for the TT.

I saw this on my old team’s forum.  It is sort of stupid, but I like it.

Random Fact Generator 

Here is what I came up with.

• Every time someone uses the word “intense”, Ryan always replies “you know what else is intense?” followed by a roundhouse kick to the face.
• Ryan doesn’t say “who’s your daddy”, because he knows the answer.
• Ryan killed for your sins.
• Ryan once ordered a steak in a restaurant. The steak did what it was told.
• Ryan can kick through all 6 degrees of separation, hitting anyone, anywhere, in the face, at any time.
• Give a man a fish, and you will feed him for a day. Give a man anything that is better than a fish, and Ryan will beat his ass and take it.
• and so on….

Go ahead try it.   Tell me something about yourself.

Not a great weekend of racing… My bike was ready, but I wasn’t. Andrea and I traveled down to Covington, Louisiana to race the NOBC Tour de Louisiane a 3-part stage race (3 mi TT, 64 mi RR, 50 minute crit for me, Andrea had the same TT, 32 mi RR, 35 minute crit).

Things did not start out well for me in the prologue. I had left my trainer in Memphis, so my warm-up was inadequate and my legs never opened up on the short 3-mile TT. I also think I haven’t managed to recover from my training volume the last few weeks. Anyway, I only managed to average 22.5 mph for the flat 3 miles posting a time of 7:58 for 38th/40 place. This immediately put me well out of contention at +1:21. Andrea showed me up and easily beat my time posting a 7:28 putting her 3rd out of 20 women. She has been riding strong after a few rest weeks, I probably need the same.

After bricking the TT, I was only left with the prospect of racing out the remaining stages for training. The road race was in the afternoon (1pm), so the 64 miles seemed daunting in the 90F+ heat. I packed up 4 water bottles for the 3 hours of racing. The RR course was rolling, but none of the hills were much more than 50 feet of climbing so it wasn’t too hard to cover the distance after advancing towards the front. At the end of the first lap, there was a tangle that sent a few into the ditch and pilled up 4-5 more in front of me. I managed to slow (and not crash) and drove over some wheels a bit. I quickly backed up and starting chasing through the start / finish (crash was a < 1k to go on the 1st lap) and caught on after a 1/2 mile or so after the S/F. I moved up and worked in the front, but mostly sat in about 5-10 back over the rollers on the narrow course. The worst part of the crash is that I dropped one of my extra bottles when I stood up to accelerate out of the feed zone. I did manage to grab a neutral bottle after the 3rd lap, so I had enough. On the last lap, I moved up towards the front, but only managed 15th in the field sprint (24 in the field). My G.C. place moved up, but I was still far from contention at +1:31.

Andrea also finished with her field and managed to snag a sprint bonus at the end of her 1st lap. Overnight on Saturday, she sat in 3rd place, +0:14.

On Sunday morning, we had our crits in downtown Covington. The course was flat, but about 1/3 of the course was pretty rough. Andrea raced first at 7:30a, taking out the first two primes in her race. Her field was down to about 10 by the end, and she managed a 4th place. Unfortunately, due to finish and sprint bonuses… she end up sliding down to 6th place G.C. [results]

A bit later on Sunday morning (~10:30am), I had my crit (Cat 4). I managed to get a pretty good warm-up riding around Covington. However, my legs still were not as good as I wanted, and the start proved that out. At the start, I was gapped by a couple of riders and the 1st lap prime did not make that any better. I chased the field around the course at 23 mph for about 10 laps picking off people falling off the field. At about 20-22 minutes, I was picked up by the field. I tucked at the back of the pack and rode the remaining time out to 50 minutes in the field. End result: 26th crit, 22nd G.C. +3:39. 31 finishers. [results]

It ended up being a disappointing weekend of racing for both of us. Andrea finished just outside the money (5 deep) by only 1 second. I had trouble getting my legs going and ended up much further back than I should have been. After next weekend (our race weekend in Memphis), I will have to try to have a true recovery week. I looks like my post Soto funk has hit like it did in 2006, just delayed a bit.

Andrea and I took photos of each other racing at the time trial [photos] and the criterium [photos].

I decided just to replace the front rings from the SuperLight 9/10 rings to SRAM Rival rings. It ended up being reasonable to buy a SRAM Rival crank @ $130, so I did that. I put the rings on and problem (of the chain skating between the rings) is gone….as a bonus upshifting from the 39 to the 53 is much much easier. I plan to use the Rival crank to upgrade from my Ultegra crank / b.b. on my old Trek.

After my ride on Sunday, I decided to take another look at my headset to fix that clunk. That problem was I must have been bottoming out the pre-tension bolt without realizing it (there was a gap before, but I guess it was not enough). Increasing the spacer above from 2.5mm to 5.0mm, then pre-loading the headset, and tightening up the stem fixed that issue. No more clunking. It was becoming difficult to stand on hills with all that noise, especially since I couldn’t be sure I wasn’t destroying my bike.
Ready to race!

Looking at the schedule, here is is what is next for me:

• 6/23 - 6/24: Tour de Louisiane (Covington, LA)
• 6/30 - 7/01: Marx & Bendorf / Smith & Nephew Grand Prix (Memphis, TN)
• 7/14 - 7/15: Tour le Fleur (Jackson, MS) This might be canceled since it disappeared off the LAMBRA site. CANCELLED
  
• 7/21 - 7/22: Rocket City Race Weekend (Huntsville, AL)

I mapped out some routes on the Map My Ride website: [profile] This is a really slick website. My only complaint is that it does not track the roads well, so I turn that option off. It tends to do crazy things when clicking near boulevards.

With increasing coverage of doping admissions and non-admissions, etc. It is becoming difficult to get too excited about Pro racing. I still watch all that Versus has to offer. I would much rather be out there competing even at my low level (Cat 4) than waiting for another press conference / mea culpa.

As I write this, I am watching the coverage of the Dauphiné Libéré. Vino won the final stage with probably the loosest helmet straps I have ever seen on someone not riding a city bike. There must be about 2″ of slack flapping the breeze. What good is a helmet in that case?

Gaining or re-gaining form has always been a struggle for me. I started riding again seriously in 2000 and raced up in the mid-Atlantic (MD, Del, Pa, D.C., etc) a lot in 2001. Starting in 2002, I moved to Chattanooga and began another job that involved about 50% travel. Over the summer of 2002, I watched my fitness evaporate with the schedule of ride 3 weeks, go overseas (sans bike) for 3 weeks…repeat. When I moved to Chattanooga in April of 2002, I was coming off a solid base and managed to ride okay that summer. I lined for a bunch of Cat 4 races but the results were bad compared to what I used to (although the bigger hills/mountains probably also had something to do with it.) Due to this heavy international travel (to Estonia) 2002 and 2003 were shot riding-wise. I think at some point there I almost thought my riding days were done with long (think 3-4 months) with little or no riding.
By 2004, my travel destination had mostly changed to Memphis. This was fortunate since I drove the 300 miles and could take my bike with me. Long hours at work didn’t always allow me to get out as much as I wanted, but at least I rode some.

2005 was sort of an attempt to return to some form, but travel schedule seemed to prevent me from being where I needed to be. Or probably more accurately, I had slipped so far from where I was in early 2002 that I need 2005 to get back somewhere.

The winter of 2005-2006 saw me on temporary assignment in Memphis and therefore *not* traveling. I managed to keep my weight down to 185# max which is much better than my usual 195-200# winter maximum (my fighting weight is around 170#). I started 2006 feeling great and raced a lot of races early with some o.k. results.
Then I moved back to Chattanooga in August 2006 and started to travel again to Estonia (June, August, November, and January). I was around, but in short less-than-month-long stretches that don’t allow coming into form and giving enough time to enjoy it.

So we come to late January 2007. I came back to Memphis from Estonia (I moved to Memphis permanently in December, as well) with no riding of note for 3 months and carrying 195#. So once again starting from nearly zero. I broke out the trainer again and tried to get some good riding in. DST came early, so that helped as well. I decided that just needed to pile the miles on. By late April, I got up to 220 miles or so in a week. Then I went to Estonia/France for two weeks for work and vacation (no bike). I came back with a heavier mileage week (230mile, I think) and then layed off into the Soto stage race.

The race went pretty well, but I didn’t have much reserved and had trouble when the heat got turned up. After the race, I rode though a little funk, but I think I can see that things are turning around. This week, I feel pretty good and am posting up some high mileage numbers for this week (should be ~260+ miles this week of all good miles). Going back to the original idea, where is my form? Not where I would like it be, remembering past lives, but I should be great shape for July / August racing. Or at least I hope so. And I am at 175#, still five to go.

I am wiped out. Coming off the Soto S.R. last weekend, I hit the ground running. The last stage was Monday morning (Memorial Day), I rode the RB’s Tuesday right and the Hightailer’s BPAC Thursday ride both of which put me at 50+ miles. So with today’s team ride of almost 50, I have had enough. I think I will rest tomorrow to take a true recovery day. How much recovery do I get on a work day…almost none. So I will take it off, maybe take a short 20 miler in the afternoon since the weather is nice (and hot).

I think my next race will be our team’s race here in Memphis. It isn’t until the end of the month which seems like a long way away. I am temped by the MS/LA championships next weekend down in Nachez or Avery Trace in a few weeks. I probably will just stay home and recover from all the travel in May.

As for the aftermath of the Tuesday night wreck. Dennis is apparently okay after a couple day stay in the hospital. The driver was ticketed for the violation. Between hospital bills and some other bike damage, there are some significant costs associated with this incident.

On the ride today, I hit a piece of metal on N. Watkins. Not really shocking, but it took a neat dime sized chunk out my tire… this chunk of rubber made a nice little flap that hits on the bike frame on every revolution. Unfortunately this was a fairly new tire, but at least it wasn’t too expensive (Hutchinson Fusion Comps). The strange thing is that it cut the chunk out of the rubber leaving the cord and tube below intact….

At this point I have had my bike for about 4 weeks (Kuota Kebel). I like it and like the fact it is a about 1 - 1.5 lbs lighter than my Trek 5200. The white paint on the frame is a hassle keeping it clean, but it looks good when it is clean. The only problem I have is with the front derailleur / chain ring. Occasionally, when shifting the chain will ride up on the small chain ring….between gears. It has happened only about 10 times or so. I didn’t know what it was until Thursday night when I stopped to check things out. When it happens, pedaling doesn’t work since the chain is not engaged. I have heard that it is an issue with the 9/10 combination rings (I have StrongLight 9/10 rings) with the 10 speed chain (Ult. chain). Since it doesn’t happen that often, I am not going to do much with this for now.