roadcx.net

Sunday was a new day. Still felt a bit off in the morning, but by race time, I felt pretty good. I decided (somewhat reluctantly) to double up and race both Masters 35+ and CX3 back-to-back. It was almost a great day because of it.

Before the Masters race, I had some shifting problems that were pretty intermittent at warmup pace… I didn’t pay it much mind since I had a pit bike, I could always change. The Sunday course was much faster with some pavement (started and finished on pavement) and drier ground in general helping to keep the pace high. Kevin (the promoter) limited the barriers to 2 and put a sand hill in for a natural barrier. I dare say the Sunday course would have met UCI norms (with the exception of the pit).

I started out with the group and almost instantly knew that I had to get off my A-bike (Ridley X-Fire). I couldn’t push on the pedals in the mid-cassette gears (which were pretty much required for this race). The pit was at the end of the lap and I tried to limit the damage until that point and move up as much as I could. By mid-lap, we I was chasing the 2 leaders with the shifting seeming to get worse. As I rode by the parking lot, I yelled for Andrea to get my bike up and help me do a change.

We did a pretty good change considering we haven’t practiced it (other than double change she did for me at Natz last year). The pit being on the left side, made it a bit awkward, but we got it done. Now I could actually ride hard… Aboard my CrossBow, I got into a good rhytm and pulled back in the two leaders by middle of the next lap. One of them had dropped off (later found out he too had shifting issues). When I passed the remaining leader on the course, I kept going. Once I was on my own, it was much easier to dictate my lines. With 2 to go, I was able to slack off a bit (considering I was to race CX3 next). So I got my first win of the year. Not a big field, but I will take it.

Since my X-Fire was sort of messed up and time was short, I decided to continue to ride the B-bike. I hosed off the big pieces of mud (functional cleaning), changed jerseys (w/ other number pinned on it) and lined up with 10 CX3′s and 2 women. The women were the same from yesterday (Andrea was one), but several of the CX3′s were different than Saturday. Right from the start, I had one advantage in that I knew the course lines cold from 5 or 6 laps of the M35+ race just prior. I used the knowledge to good effect and quickly it was down to Tanner, Brent, and myself. We were feeding off each other pretty well and quickly made a gap to the rest.

On the start of the third(?) lap, we took a sharp, albeit banked right turn around a barrel at speed. Almost instantly, I knew something was up…. I looked down and I had rolled off my rear tire. For a moment, I tried to push it back on and considered riding the rim, but after 2-3 people past me, I started to run/trot the course. The pit was pretty far on this long loop. About half-way through, the course looped to near the start/finish line and ducked off the course and declared myself out (I was to be scored last / 10th place). Maybe I should have ran the rest of the loop, but I was thinking about my half-functional X-Fire in the pit (and sort of forgot about the wheel set Andrea and I had in the pits). I watched the race play out. With about a 1.5 laps to go, Brent’s tire blew out and it was only Tanner remaining for the win. Andrea raced well and ended up finishing behind Tanner to win the women’s field, but also beating 9/10 CX3′s.

A photo I poached off Facebook

The tire was not glued on by me… It was an old Tufo tape job. I bought the wheels used and the tape seemed secure, so I didn’t redo it. I am really glad that it didn’t let loose on a pavement turn. I didn’t even crash, the way this one rolled off. The tape completely detached from the base tape. The tape itself was easy to peel off the rim (which I did while waiting for the hose at the bike wash).

The weekend ended up being a good one to shake off the cobwebs, check out equipment (yikes!), and get into ‘cross.

As a post-script, my re-glued rear tubular tire (I redid it on Thursday to straighten it up), didn’t not pass the post race inspection. I deflated both front and rear, whereas the front was secure to the edges all the way around on both sides, the rear one practically fell off. The glue on the base tape and the rim were completely coated with dirt, etc. I cleaned up both tonight (used mineral spirits to remove the dirty glue on the rim and plastic brush and water to clean up the tire base tape). I will let them dry overnight and then try to judge if the tire can be remounted.

Next weekend is the first weekend of Cross the Way in Nashville, but I likely will be on a 3 person team for 12-hour of Stank in Bartlett. Hmmm….. 3+ hours each way of driving, hotel, two days of cross racing…. or 20 minute drive and numerous trees to tag between the hours of 9a-9p. How many ways can I crash a mountain bike?

Andrea and I got up early (well, actually the usual time) and drove east 4 hours to Fayetteville, Tennessee for the first weekend of the 2009 Beat the Freak Cyclocross series. Kevin puts on some good races not least of which that the course designs seem to improve with each go around.

As we drove down US64, we quickly came upon the rain that was strung of strong rain storms coming up from the south. By the time we got to Fayetteville’s Lions Park, the rain was coming down hard and quickly flooding the saturated ground (they, like Memphis, have been getting lots of rain of late). On the drive, I didn’t feel so great, sort of a lingering headache with some dizziness (I am thinking some sort of allergy). I am not sure what the deal is with that (last Sunday at Clear Creek, I felt similar). Anyway, I decided to race anyway and we got ready in the rain…

There was a descent sized field for the CX3 race (10) with 2 women 1/2/3 racing with us (Andrea was one of the 2). The course was mostly out in the field with the nearly trademarked death spiral and several 1′ deep ponds on course (that quickly formed in the rains). Part of the course featured a bit of single-track through the woods which got really slick in the rain. My start was fair, but not great (poor warmup).

I was probably in 4th or 5th place into the woods. I ended up sliding around a right hand turn and snagging my bars on the snow fence losing several places instantly (Andrea and 2-3 others passed me there). Unfortunately, I didn’t ride the woods that well and spent most of the race trying to make up places on the soggy ground and then losing time in the woods. I ended up finishing in 6th place of the CX3′s…with Andrea a minute ahead of me in between the 4th and 5th CX3 for her win. All-in-all, I was a good race, but it just didn’t work out well for me.

That afternoon, I managed to get some sleep (napping) before and after dinner and I think that helped me a lot for Sunday. Kevin had us over to his house were several of the racers were staying. He shot a lot of video and his wife took a million (actually 2000) photos. I burned a disc of nearly 800 of the CX3/ WCX123 race. All of the photos turned out really well and I cropped a few of them for this blog….

Sunday’s racing ended up working out better…. will be in the next post…

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We parked in a puddle (or a puddle formed under the car…) so we need to move it and had nothing to lean our cleaned bikes against…..

Well, I survived and didn’t have any real serious crashes. The Clear Creek trails (near Oxford, Mississippi) were pretty saturated from what seems like weeks of rain and that was compounded by the rain that steadily fell during the first lap.

Since I am pretty green at this mountain bike riding thing and I have never raced, I planned to race MTB category 3 (30-39) a.k.a. beginner class. Somewhere after registering, I decided to race MTB cat 2. Of course, it wasn’t raining when I made that call.

I could tell the trails would be fast and fun in the dry….. in the wet, I never really felt comfortable and took the turns and descent pretty conservatively trying not to endo or slide out down the many embankments. The start had me probably 8th or so into the woods with a handful behind. I opted to not wear glasses given the rain and humidity and had to stop after a mile or so because I got some sand in my eye. That put me at the back of the group. After a while several 40+ racers and passed me. And then Andrea passed me about 15 minutes in. I generally wasn’t feeling smooth out there, so of clumsy and uncoordinated. Not really a good situation given the slick conditions.

At the end of the first lap, I considered calling it, but decided to go ahead and tackle the second lap figuring I could learn something about riding in those conditions. The rain stopped, so the rail was drying out in parts, but most of it was still pretty wet. I did ride the second lap a little better, but the hills started to wear me out, so I think it took me a bit longer (self timed about 1:20 and then 1:30, official time was closer to 3 hrs).

Along the way, I got some good scratches on my right calf from a run in with a tree and some thorny vines (seperate events)… I also tried to check a tree with my right shoulder. I probably fell over about 6 times from stalling out…always, as it seemed, downhill.

In all, I learned a lot and I feel pretty beat up right now. Maybe I should have raced beginner, but the longer race was better training. They didn’t have the results tabulated fully, but I think I ended up 8th in the 30-39 group. I probably only “beat” 1-2 others, since several withdrew due to mechanicals or the conditions. Andrea ended up winning Cat 2 women.

Well, I did some quick research on what to do w.r.t. gluing up tubular tires for cyclocross (on the internets, of course…where else?). There is some school of thought on using tape (alone or with glue). I have decided to use glue using the technique that I have worked with on the road (and yeah, I did roll a tubie…but that was before I switched the can of glue …with tubes it takes too many of them, etc.).

Anyway, I cleaned off the rims with IPA after a light sanding (they were new rims) and started my process which is 3 coats to dry on the rims, 2 coat to dry on the base tape and then a final wet coat on the rim for the assembly. I did the first coats on the rims and the 3 tires (2 + 1 spare). My fingers have a little glue on them, but other than that we are in good shape. For the record, these are Mavic Reflex rims (aluminum), Vittoria Cross EVO XG (34mm), and Continental rim cement. I should get these done early n the week so I can ride them before heading east to Fayetteville.

The other set of tubular wheels I have are Tufo tires taped on with Tufo tape. I will leave those alone for now.

Next post will probably show my single speed conversion installation. I am upgrading my Forte (Performance store brand) tensioner with a much better one from Surley.

Since the last race of the year a few weeks back, I have been resetting the training cycle by mixing it up and generally riding a lot less. In fact, I pretty much have been just playing around during the week and only riding hard on Saturday at the Trinity ride.

Part of the playing around has been on a mountain bike. I have never really owned a mountain bike (just borrowed one for one winter back in 2001-2002). Matt from RB’s is similar body type to me (tall and skinny) and he was looking to sell his Titus. I rode it a handful of times and then bought it from him. So now I am the owner of Titus 29′er (Racer X) full suspension kitted out with Deore XT.

Also, I am gearing up for the upcoming cyclocross season. I decided to buy another set of aluminum tubular wheels. Since it was sort of last minute decision, I opted to have Excel Sports build me up a set of tank wheels (heavy bombproof wheels). I also purchased a trio of Vittoria Cross Evo tires to put on these. I decided to get these after continuing to have problems with my cyclocross tubeless setup. I am not sure it is the tire (likely) or the rim, but for now, I put a tube in and will have to run ~40# on the rear wheel of my formerly tubeless Kenda Kommander tires on some basic Velomax wheels (heavy). So far, I have just stretched on the tires and will start the gluing process this afternoon.

Today has me home alone waiting for Andrea to come back from Little Rock (area?). She is racing a long 8-12 hour adventure race with a team. Last night she found out that the race started at 5:30am. I’ll get all the details when she gets home tonight (and she will undoubtedly blog it). The plan is to get up early tomorrow and daytrip the Clear Creek MTB race down in Oxford. If we go (and I do say “if” since this long race may very well break her physically or her bike or something….), it will be my first mountain bike race. As a unlicensed racer, I will be a beginner (cat 3 in the new system), but I want to try racing off road once or twice before the end of the year to be able to make the call at USAC license renewal time if I want to pick up a MTB license for an extra $20 (and if I want to go ahead an upgrade to MTB-2 straight away).

My plan is to straighten up the house (especially the bike repair area) and do some wrenching this afternoon (tubular gluing, installing new SS chain tensioner). I need to put together a mountain bike seat back and recommission my Camelback (it looks like it will be pretty muddy down at Oxford due to all the rain we have been getting lately). Next weekend is the first race of the TBRA CX schedule: Beat the Freak #1 and #2. I booked a room and at this point plan on going with Andrea. This year I could potentially triple up (35+, CX3, and S/S). Probably won’t do that, but will probably at least double up (CX3 and SS).

Here are some good shots I took of our cat hanging out in my paper basket (with my new NightRider HID light in the foreground)… Enjoy.

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I really love how Gmail chooses to let this one slide (2nd in a week) past the normally perfect spam filters.

In the morning, we drove a few miles from the campground and hiked up to an overlook to look at the mountains / valleys at sunrise. We missed it by a few minutes, but the view was still good. My iPhone photos don’t do it justice….

After my final road race of the year (Chattanooga), I have been taking it pretty easy. In fact, I took off three days off the bike this week (Monday, Tuesday, and Friday)! Wednesday, I hit the trails with Andrea on a borrowed MTB (that I might buy from him) and Thursday I participated in the hell on wheels that is the AM Peddlar ride. (Which was made even more sketchy as I arrived late and watched the field roll by as I was finishing getting ready… nothing like starting 1/2 mile back and then working my way up from the back.)

Saturday morning, I took my fresh legs to the Trinity ride. The group was a mixed bag, but there was handful of people in there to make it interesting (although a few of them turned off for some reason after 10-15 miles). Did some fun attacks that pretty much left it down to Bryant, Jeff, and I… Sit up and repeat… At the store (BP in Gallaway), a RV pulled up and asked direction to the Collierville antique shop or something like that. After explaining to the gentleman it was about 20 miles south and that he shouldn’t have gotten off the expressway way at Arlington… the group was long gone and Bryant, Dale and I rolled off in pursuit. We started off easy and then did some solid turns, but we only were able to get the group in sight by the end of the ride (Lenow Rd) after picking off a few that fell off the pace of the group. Oh well, the group was super sketchy anyway.

At the end of the ride, I started to think about what I would do later in the day since Andrea went west to the Ouachita mountains to do some mountain biking at the Womble and later at Camp Robinson. She left on Friday afternoon and set up camp at Lake Sylvia. I got it in my head to pack up some gear and our two dogs and surprise her by heading over. I got on the road at 11:30a, grabbed some Subway and started driving the 170 miles to the campground. I made good time despite a especially annoying run of I-40 traffic (i.e. Truck #1 is going 71 mph, Truck #2 is going 72 mph, clearly Truck #2 HAS to pass truck one and then bog down going over a hill… and line up 20 cars behind … and then have a few cars try to zip up the right lane and squeeze in…)

On the way, I tried to call to make sure that she didn’t pull up camp and ended up leaving her a text asking about the ride. I didn’t hear anything (figured she was still riding?) and went to the campground, getting there around 2:30pm. I easily found her campsite (the campground was a ghost town) and waited a minute hoping that the occasional moments of phone coverage would let me know she was done (by text message, probably). I let the dogs run around and then decided that I should run to town and get something to eat (and be in better cell coverage for a while). And the mosquitoes were eating me up at the campsite (I didn’t bring repellent thinking that Andrea took it with her). So I went to Perryville (about 10 miles away) and got a chicken sandwich at Sonic and waited. After a while, I tried to find some repellent, but couldn’t manage to find it at the grocery store or the gas station. I went back to the campsite and planned to lay down in the tent and wait.

By this time it was getting late (around 5 pm) and I still hadn’t heard from her. So I ended laying down in the tent with the dogs…. I was drifting off when I heard my phone ringing- Andrea’s ring. I picked it up and we talked for a few seconds before the call dropped. I tried to get over to where the phone seemed worked better earlier (up on a hill near the campsite entrance) and she called back. I found that she was close and planning to come back and pick up the tent and stay in Conway.

A few text messages played out like this… (I usually had to resend each of these at least twice since the cell coverage down in the valley where the campground is bad.)

A: “Service is spotty. I will call you in a couple of hours once I am at Lance’s in conway”
R: “Conway is lame.”
A: “Yeah, I know”
R: “Lake slyvia [sic] is a better place.”
R: “Much more private.”
A: “?”
R: “Probably pretty quiet out there I bet”
(after a minute….)
A: “Be there in a minute”

30 seconds later, I saw the Element coming up the drive. I brought her sleeping bag that she had forgotten, but that was not why she was happy. Surprise visit FTW.