Well, I finally was able to meet up with the main interested buyer for my bike and now I am down by one bike… I know it was the right thing to do …to let it go, but it was time to move on. Who needs 5 bikes anyway… ;-P
This is what I moved from my for sale page… and the nice photos Andrea took of it when I decided to list it.
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Trek 5200 bicycle
- 2001 Trek 5200 (size: 62 cm)
- Crank: SRAM Rival (like new, <1000 miles)
- Drivetrain: Shimano Ultegra 10 speed (53-39 x 11-23). About 1.5 seasons of use.
- Brakeset: Shimano Ult 9 (not really different than the 10 speed)
- Wheels: Shimano Ult hubs, 32 spoke, Mavic Open Pro CD rims
Geometry
- Head angle: 74 degrees
- Seat angle: 72.5 degrees
- Top tube length: 23.3″ (592 mm)
- Chain stay: 16.2″ (412 mm)
- Bottom bracket height off ground: 10.6″ (269 mm)
- Offset: 1.8″ (45mm)
- Wheel base: 39.7″ (1008 mm)
- Trail: 2″ (50 mm)
- Standover height: 33.2″ (844 mm)
Photos:
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Here is my bike only a few month old….30 minutes after taking the 2001 Cat 4 Maryland state road race.
To the last race, the 2007 Racoon Mtn RR in Chattanooga last April.
Here are some photos from my 3 hour walkabout in Amsterdam last weekend….
I wasn’t so bold as to use one of these open-air urinals. I guess these are more popular in the evening.
Today I finished out the omnium for the BMW Omnium. I was pretty tired after the double climb road race on Saturday, but still managed to hang on okay. Unfortunately, there was a crash in the middle of the field that split the Masters 30+ race apart. I was towards the back and by the time I dodged the flying bikes, there was a good gap to the leaders. I remember thinking it odd, but the racers put out by the wreck were just riding and not chasing hard at first… we could never close the gap and we were racing for 20th+ place… Because of the various teams represented in the lead pack, we never got closer than 10 seconds and generally were not going that fast. I worked pretty hard a couple of laps (along with some others), but they were gone. In the end, the chase group sprinted and my legs were junk…40th place (yuk!). I ended up 15th in the omnium due to omnium points in the road race and the crit. It was a disappointing weekend, but I sort of expected it given my recent work trip putting me off the bike for over a week.
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Andrea put in a great effort to solo lap the field in wet conditions (it started to rain again in her crit, it was basically dry for the M30+)..
Day 1-BMW Omnium (Chattanooga)
The long course was a tough, tough course. In the Masters 30+ race, a break of about 6-7 rolled off the front in the first 10 miles… somewhere in there part of it came back… I was near the front on the transition from first pitches. Crossing I-24 the first time, I was in a group of 4 off the front 5-10 seconds. We were pulled back on the minor climb of Ladd Mtn…. I slid back as we came over Ladd and was near the back as dropped down the other side. On Sand Mtn, i was able to move up near the front in early part of the climb, but couldn’t stay with the main group as the road continued upward. So the rest of my race was all about chase groups… we collected to about 8 or so starting on US41. Up the stair step and across the valley road, we got down to 5. On the final climb, all 4 ended up climbing better that me. I ended up 24th overall (of 38 finishers). 11th 30+ racer (TBRA) and got 3 omnium points (13th ominium rider).
For context, the race was 59.3 miles and featured 4715′ ascent / 3652′ descent. I averaged 19.0 mph and climbed Raccoon Mtn in 22 minutes (which is 3 minutes worse than I did last year in the short course as a Cat 4 last year). I was in pretty bad shape going up Raccoon Mtn!
As for the TT, I did a lot better than my 9:30 last year and rolled a time of 8:55 (26.3 mph). That was good enough for 13th place in M30+. The course is a short 3.9 miles that is actually mostly downhill. The uphill section (about 0.5 mile @ 6%) is a bit rough after this morning, but at least it is followed by nice high speed downhill.
TT: 3.9 miles, 144′ ascent / 312′ descent.
Tomorrow, I need to get some omnium points to get into the money (top 10) for M30+. I think I am right at 9th-10th right now.
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Andrea continues her march towards winning the TBAR jersey. With her RR result today (6th) and her TT win today, she moved to within 1 point of 1st place. The TBAR system is best of 5 RR’s, 5 TT’s, and 6 crits–this is a pretty good system in that it does not reward someone who just races everywhere and helps to reduce the east Tennessee bias of TBRA to some degree in that us West Tennessee riders can skip races up in the Tri-Cities and still be competitive in the series. (Or also in Andrea’s case, skip TBRA races to do big races out of district.)
If it is the fall, it is time to climb…in Chattanooga. My original plan was to race P123 this weekend at the BMW Omnium put on my old team Scenic City Velo. My week off the bike and general lack of feeling really awesome has led me to race the omnium in the 30+ category. Don’t get me wrong, it expect the race (and the competition) will be plenty hard… but maybe I can be competitive in the group. Last year I raced a couple Masters 30+ criterium after my category 4 race, but this year the Masters race has generally been on the schedule before the Cat 3 crit, so I have opted out. So this will be my first master’s crit since last year.
But the feature event is not the crit or the time trial….it is the road course:
I really wish I felt up to racing with the big boys this weekend, but really, I don’t. So I won’t.
It probably was crazy to think I would be alright racing a fast criterium (Elite cat 3 crit at Downers Grove) with 7 days off the bike and a 18 hour journey with jet lag. Things started out okay and I was moving up but the hill took its toll after 15 minutes. I started to move back and was gapped up the finish grade and had to cover a few times. A few laps of this and I couldn’t do it anymore. Dropped. I am pretty disappointed despite all the reasons why I shouldn’t be. I was hoping that I could at least hold on.
Andrea had a better day on Saturday, taking 25th in the non champ race (P/1/2 women). The big event was a lot longer and faster and she wasn’t able to hang with the group. All-in-all, it was an exercise in humility, for me it is that you cannot race a big race with the wrong leadup and for her, a reminder of the gap between her and the top level pros. Not an unmanageable gap, but something that will take some time.
I took a bunch of photos of the women’s elite race and cut it down to 120 or so… here is the album.
As previous mentioned, I am out in Estonia this week (in the cold rain, as it were) for a work trip. I am flying back to Memphis this Saturday… So far, so good. Just a normal trip (I have made over 30 of them in the last several years).
Go back a few days, Andrea gets a message from her team manager that he wants her to do Downers Grove / US Crit championship. This is a huge deal, this is the race that Tina Pic has won 7 of the last 8 years or something like that. Now Andrea doesn’t expect to win, but a top 20 placing (or even a field finish) would be a victory for her.
Now, I usually fly back from Estonia via Chicago (on Scandinavian Airlines) which would have been perfect, but this time I am flying back on Northwest right to Memphis. I did some fare shopping and came up with a good price to fly up there to watch. She is racing both Saturday and Sunday, but I can get up there Saturday night to see the race big event on Sunday.
Then, I get to thinking… she is driving up… and she could bring my bike. And there is a cat 3 race at 10am on Sunday. So in the end I made the maybe foolish choice to race the next morning after flying back from Europe. The good news it that it is in the morning… in the late afternoon will be the problem.
So to recap.
Saturday:
7am (eastern european time) to 4:50 pm (Memphis time) fly via Amsterdam to Memphis
drop off back at my car in the parking lot… or put it in left luggage if time is short.
6:35 pm (Memphis) to 8:20 pm (Chicago).
Sunday:
10am, race the Cat 3 crit championship in Downers Grove
noon, watch Andrea tough it out against the best crit women in the country
after that…watch the pro men?
oh, and drive back at some point… not sure on those details yet. So this whole thing will cap off a pretty crazy week.
Did I mention that I have been off my bike since last Saturday (the morning before I left)….? Although I have been running some…
I have been out to Estonia and specifically Ida-Virumaa (Kohtla-Jarve) at least 30 trips most of which are several weeks in length.
IdaVirumaa
From this experience and because I haven’t been in over a year, I have some loose fun goals to fit in during this trip out side of the work week. These are not necessarily in order.
- Drink on bottle of Saku Originaal and one bottle of A Le Coq premium. [done]
- Eat shashlok, marinated pork chunks cooked over a wood fire [done]
- Prepare shashlok [planned]
- Take saunas at Toila Spa hotel [done].
- Drink a Bar Alex, take bus to Nightlife (or as I mostly knew it Joy), stay way too late…. [not going to do this one, not there on the weekend anyway. Also don't have all the friends that made those sort of nights fun.]
- Take a mining tour at Kohtla-Nomme [again, no time. but you haven’t really done a tour of mine without immenent danger. Witness powerful rock moving equipment operating inches from you,… also bare 3-phase overhead lines within easy reach.
That was really short and not nearly 10 items, but again I am tired. Time to publish…
I will just post photos with captions…
Steepest stairs…nearly a ladder.
Saka Mois (Manor House). A bit rough around the edges…
copper wire anyone…?
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Old marker… from the CCCP days….
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Barbed wire on top of this pill box looking thing…. I don’t know if this is a set-up or something crafted by the Soviet army.
Random trench
Random shelter….
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That’s it for now…
After work today, I ended up running some errands (I had to buy a swimsuit. Part of it is that I needed to get a Euro-style one, but I don’t even have one at all in the U.S. to bring). I will need it for my morning swim/sauna at the hotel.
After coming back, I went ahead and checked out the grounds at the Saka Cliff hotel.
They have a large tower / bldg that is accessed via a spiral stair.
The view from the top is okay looking out on the Baltic Sea / Bay of Finland.
After looking out that overlook, I descended the stairs to the shoreline.
to the shore…where a bunch of four-wheeler drove by…
And then saw the “blue” clay.
The trail continued on up a steep stair and by both an old manor house and some Soviet Guardpost leftovers, but I am too tired to blog it all now…. you will have to wait to tomorrow..
