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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.)

I occurred to me that I need to start keeping track of (road bike) rideable dirt roads in / around Shelby County.

Here is the short list to get started, that will be added to as I think of more. Comment to help build this list. I may even get motivated to link the rest of these on map my ride.

1. Fletcher Dr near Collierville. 1.5 miles between: (E) TN196/Chulahoma Rd and (W) Crestover Dr. Hard pack, some light gravel. Lightly potholled. Great connector from TN196 to TN205 (avoiding Poplar)
2. Old Soloman Mill / Lambert Rd. North of Somerville/Oakland. ~2.5 miles between: (SE) Old Soloman / Stafford Dr to intersection of Old Soloman / Lambert west to (NW) Lambert Dr/McNabb Rd. Only ridden it once, it was hard pack with some slimy stuff due to recent rain. Not much problem gravel.
3. Braden Road. ~2.5 miles. (N) Braden Road, south of I-40 to about 2.5 miles south of that (north of the start of housing developments). Nice fast section of well graded hardpack. Some gravel but easy to avoid, if that is your plan.
4. another one out east somewhere. Andrea needs to help me out…

Yesterday, Andrea went on a long ride as a pair. She plotted out a long 95 mile route on BikeRouteToaster. We ended up adding a few miles along the way to get an even 100 miles. The route was a good one, although the long northward march (we did the route counter-clockwise) wasn’t super fun with the 10-12 mph cold NNW wind yesterday. The route also included two stretches of dirt roads of about 2-3 miles each: Old Solomon Mill to Lambert Dr (north of Somerville) and Braden Road south of I-40. I don’t think I have actually ridden 100 miles in one go since a 3-state, 3-mountain probably in 2003 or so. Since then, I have plenty of rides/races in the 75-90 mile range, just usually haven’t bothered to go the extra distance.

Staying on the subject of route mapping, I put together a short email for a friend that just got / is getting a Garmin 705 to use with his SRM.

• First thing out of the box, update the firmware to 2.6 (or whatever the newest is). There is a Garmin updater utility for both Mac and Windows.
• The default maps suck, get the $100 upgrade maps chip (if you haven’t already).
• The Garmin desktop software is pretty useless in my opinion, except for maybe the Garmin updater.
• You can download Garmin TCX files from MapMyRide or better yet BikeRouteToaster.com. BRT is a bit clunker, but at least you can put turn warnings in. You can move the files using the Garmin plugin or just drag the saved file into the Courses folder on your Garmin’s drive.
• Mounting, I used the stem mount, the little plastic tab broke off after three months. I rigged up something using hair bands (hair bands).
• Stopping will now create a break in the file (it didn’t use to). The time line will continue, so you will see 2:11:01, then 2:30:01 on the graph view in WKO+ if you stopped it for 20 minutes at 2:11 ride time, for example.
• Downloading to WKO+. Just plug it with a mini-USB cable (included). The device will mount as two drives (if you have the maps). The Garmin one is the one you want. Under history, drag and drop files onto an open WKO+ window. It will ask which athlete you want to put it for. Couldn’t be easier. (There is no way as far as I know to pull the files from the 705 like you can from a PT or a SRM PC, but it is easy this way, so it is no big deal).
• I have the Garmin sensor GSC10 for speed / cadence. The GPS alone does a pretty good job for measuring speed / distance, although their will be speed / spikes dropouts. Even with the GSC10, you get some of these occasionally. I am not sure if you can get cadence out of the SRM crank directy (although it is measuring it obviously… power = [force] x [lever arm] x [angular velocity/cadence])
• To pair, you need to wake up your SRM. I don’t remember how it went the first time, but it was pretty easy, as I remember. You will need to do a zero offset each time conditions change. As of now, there is no auto-zero capability (the current Firmware for SRM/PCVI has this capability as I understand).
• From WKO+, you can right click on a workout in calender view, to export to Google Earth (you will need to install this). You can also do the same with a selection (either a manual selection, lap selection, or best 20 minute power, etc).

I don’t have any regrets about the 705. I have been using it since mid-October 2008.

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.

I finally got my correct wheels in today after getting the wrong ones first. They are not much deeper than the Zero 038’s I have been racing on since July 2007, but they will be a bit more rugged for CX next year. In the meantime, I am going to practice my gluing technique with these wheels and a pair of Continental Competition tires.

Here pictured with my tried and true Zero 038’s. I will have to make some decisions about what to do with these, probably will race them some this year also.

These will be my first wheels to glue. I have always used Tufo Extreme Tape on the Zero’s. I have never had anything even come close to rolling off these. In fact, this tape is so strong that is a real hassle to pull the tires off even with a break in the tape at 180 degrees from the valve stem. I pretty much use a pocket knife blade or a screwdriver to carefully cut the adhesive tape… it is worth noting that it almost always trashes the base tape since it is bonded so strongly that the tape comes apart first, which has been okay since I am normally removing a skinned or punctured tire.

I basically used these tires for only racing, so it is pretty easy to estimate the life. Installed a pair of Tufo S33’s in July 2007. I ended up going to Hi-Composite Carbon for both front and back (I started in the back) after several of the tires died a early death. I over many races, I had two S33’s rear tire get punctured with a few blocks of each other on the streets of Chattanooga (2007 River Gorge and 2008 Georgia Cup race). The other one I took down to the cords during the 2008 MSGP due to pack accordion-effect braking in the large 123 field. I ended up putting a HiComposite Tufo on the front.

For my new wheels, I decided to get Continental Sprinters… They shipped Conti Competitions. I guess I got the upgrade. I plan to glue them on using Conti glue.

I woke up this morning and really didn’t feel like ride to/from the Outdoors ride starting at 8am. It was a bit cold and the ride yesterday took out most of my spirit. I needed to a long tempo ride. So I waited for the sun to start shining while cleaning up the house some.

I plotted a nice route from Cordova to Eads to outskirts of Oakland. The route then took TN194 through Macon and by the S&N/M&B Gran Prix race course to Raleigh-LaGrange. I was then to close the loop from TN196 to Fletcher Road, my favortie little local gravel road. From there, a few turns would put me on Wolf River on the way back home.

My ride plan was set (with remote suggestion from Andrea before her V.o.t.S. criterium today): I would ride most of the ride at Tempo. Meaning 76%-90% (Coggan limits in WKO+) of FTP. I set a mental range of 86%-91% (I used the real numbers, but I can’t give away my whole deck of cards) and set off on the 60 mile loop.

I plotted the loop using BikeRouteToaster and pushed it into my Garmin 705. Now I pretty much know the route I planned, but on rides like this, I like the distraction of watching the road on the Garmin’s display on the long stretches of isolated roads.

Speaking of the Garmin. The mount for my 705 broke back at the end of December. The small tab that holds the 705 in the slots broke off in my hands in the parking lot. This happened after only about 2.5 months, and judging by a quick Google search, I am not not alone (2-4 months seems to be “normal”).

I do have another mount (it comes with two), but I figured what is the point if it doesn’t last until March. So I had secured my Garmin into the tracks by using a large rubber band. Knowing that it out eventually get brittle and break and that it looked a little ghetto. Zip ties or duck tape where not good solution since I take it off my bike nearly every ride (to upload data). Andrea knew I was looking for something better, so she dropped a pack of pony-tail holders on my desk at home one day last week. My first thought, was hell yeah, I should grow my hair out like Laurent Fignon. I would have to quadruple my shampoo budget! But then I realized what she had in mind.

Here is the improved Garmin mount… (note the spare one in case one breaks)

So now back to the ride… I rode Tempo all the way to Fletcher Drive. My plan was drill the gravel road. Give what I had been doing the previous 2 hours, it wasn’t so impressive. The gravel part of the road is probably only a 1 – 1.5 miles and finishes on the west end with a short uphill… I was hitting it hard and trying to ride through the gravel instead of the hard-pack dirt tracts… Then I flatted. I was so close to pavement, I rode it out to the neighborhood. I had just started to change the flat when a small yipper dog (don’t know the breed) came out from his house and started to act tough. He never got close, he just provided a nice annoying soundtrack.

Since my reason for riding Fletcher Drive (other than I just like that road as a route connector) was to test out my new Conti 4-seasons. So I did a slow diagnostic flat repair. Tread okay, no tears. No side wall tears. Lever the tire off and pull the tube out. After inspecting it for a few minutes, I found it…two small snake bites. Pinch flat. Right where I levered the tire on. I don’t usually like to lever a tire on, but Friday evening when I mounted these tires, I was in hurry. So no verdict here. Nothing proven….Kenda super light tubes are probably a bad choice… Still might consider Armadillos after several people’s advice for Rouge Roubaix. My seat pack had the usual summer time load of one tube, no patch kit (only because I hadn’t a second one like I normally take with me in the off-season or at least a patch kit).

As I was preparing the new tube to install, I took off the cap and noticed something I had never seen happen before. The small nut on the valve core shaft was missing. I know that is not strickly needed, but doesn’t give you a good feeling when 10 miles from home and your girlfriend is out of town. Pressing on anyway, I decided to see if the valve core was any good and inflated the tire using the CO2 cart. It held! I decided to put the red plastic cap back on, knowing it wouldn’t hold air, but why not, right? For some reason, I decided to take the cap back off a minute later…and guess what, the safety nut was there! Like a magacian it threaded off into the cap and end stayed with it when I dropped the cap to the ground at first. Weird.

Near the end of my ride, the road goes up generally from the Wolf River crossing of Germantown Parkway. So I was looking at my power numbers to make sure I wasn’t going significantly over my FTP going up the hills. At about 1/2 mile to go… I got a notication. “Your Virtual Partner has finished.” When I put the route into Bike Route Toaster, I set a virtual partner at 20 mph not knowing what would be done with that info. Now I know… inside my Garmin’s brain is a ghost rider. I didn’t even know that I was chasing a ghost. He must have passed me when he blew through the red lights on Wolf RIver Blvd at 20 mph. That bastard!

Well, these photos are a few weeks old from back when Memphis got our annual snowfall. These photos turned out pretty well (I think), so I posted them up!

Another random photo of Indy on my new grill. I assembled it in the house since it was dark outside. It was my 10 year anniversary gift from work (which I chose).

Andrea is in Phoenix at the Valley of the Sun race. So I am spending this weekend trying to get some things done around the house.

The Trinity ride this morning was a tough ride in the wind… I really felt off the whole ride and had trouble staying with the group as we echeloned accross the road. I put on my new Conti 4-season tires to try them out ahead of Rouge Roubaix. They don’t look much bigger, but they don’t seem to roll as well. As a part of the Trinity ride, we rode the 5 mile Long Rd course to remind ourselves of the course for the upcoming Marx&Bendsdorf team training race (2/28). The loop has some open areas (to get hit with the wind) and a 1 mile uphill grade. I will probably be a tought race after 10 laps. Between the A & the B races, their will be bodies all over the plant I am sure.

Well, it is that time of the year again…. time to start planning the year out and trying to figure out how to get it done. Here is what I forecast racing this year (italics are penciled in more than the rest)….

• 3/9: Rouge Roubaix (St. Francisville, LA) [LAMBRA]
• 3/15: Hell’s Kitchen (Fayetteville, AR)
• 3/28-3/29: Tour de Tuscaloosa (Tuscaloosa, AL).
• 4/11: Ride to Live (Leeds, AL)
• 4/18-4/19: Mississippi Gran Prix (Brookhaven, MS) [LAMBRA]
• 5/2: Sunny King Criterium (Anniston, AL)
• 5/9-5/10: Joe Martin Stage Race (Fayetteville, AR)
• 5/30-5/31: Tulsa Tough (Tulsa, OK)
• 6/13-6/14: Tour de Louisiane (Covington, LA) [LAMBRA]
• 6/27-6/28: Smith & Nephew Gran Prix (Memphis, TN) [TBRA]
• 7/4: Forth of July Crit (Oxford, MS)
• 7/18-7/19: Spring City Cycling Classic (Huntsville, AL)
• 7/25: Tennessee State TT & Nashville Cyclist crit (Lebanon & Nashville, TN) [TBRA]
• 8/1-8/2: Allanti Classic (Springdale / Nashville, TN) [TBRA]
• 8/22-8/23: Oak Ridge Velo Fall Classic (Oak Ridge, TN) [TBRA]
• 8/29-8/30: BMW River Gorge Omnium (Chattanooga, TN) [TBRA]
• 9/12: Pepper Place Criterium (Birmingham, AL)

I have updated my 2009 road season calender (seperate page) and will fill that in with updates as I go through the year. I have 14 weekends above in regular type and another 3 in italic type. I ended up with 18 seperate race weekends in 2008. On the subject of stats, in 2008:

• 11 Road Races
• 2 Circuit Races
• 17 Criteriums
• 11 Time Trials
• 7 Omniums
• 3 Stage Races

With several races approaching in March, all with different needs, I am focusing on threshold power and will likely get a little bit in sharper efforts as the time changes (it is a long season, after all).

• Rouge Roubaix (never raced before): Suspect it is all about power through wind and gravel + short steep gravel hills.

• Hell’s Kitchen (never raced before): Seems like it will require good 5-10 minute power to punch over the 1 mile climb 3x with the leaders.

• Tour de Tuscaloosa: Crit should a power course with an uphill grade. RR course is rolling / moderate hills. RR will just wear you out.

TdT crit course 2009. Less nasty, but only marginally.

TdT road course (2007, 2008, 2009?)

Well, I got my news wheels yesterday. Scored a set of Reynolds DV46T’s off BonkTown. and that is what the sales receipt said… in the box, however:

…those wheels are not DV46T, but instead are the MV32T. Nice wheels, but not what I was wanting for racing on the road and ‘cross next year. Wrote customer service, hope they have some of the correct wheels in stock and we can get this resolved.

Update @ 5pm…called customer service. They are going to ship out the correct wheels and pay for return shipping. Bonktown does not even sell this type of wheel, must have been a factory problem @ Richey.

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When I downloaded the photo of the wheels, I found a good photo of Indy (he hates photography).

Since my last post, we worked out some of the early season race plans as a team. I won’t list them all, but here is are some racing that I plan to do in the first month (March):

• 3/8: Rouge Roubaix (St. Francisville, LA)
• 3/15: Hell’s Kitchen (NW Arkansas)
• 3/28-29: Tour de Tuscaloosa (Tuscaloosa, AL)

And there appears to be a practice race at the end of February (28th) put on by the Marx & Bensdorf team in Shelby County.

As for training, I am continuing 1x/week weight training, trying to ride long on the weekend and doing several days a week on the trainer. The trainer work looks mostly like aerobic or aerobic + sub-threshold/threshold intervals (10-30 minutes a go). I cannot compare year-over-year power, since my data only goes back 4 months, but I can say that I feel in better shape than last year. And I haven’t really picked it up yet (for the most part).