Mothballs Crit in Pictures

Certainly there are a thousand little stories from all the different events and competitors out at the Mothballs Crit this last weekend. In this post, we'll use a bunch of pictures to tell the stories from a few of the races. We were very fortunate to have some extremely good photographers out there. Steve Weixel has a huge set of pictures from every race. Get yourself a cup of coffee, sit back, and enjoy Steve's galleries. We also had teammate Mark Shimahara out taking pictures too. His typical subjects are TdF racers (see his site), but Sunday he shot our races because he was too sick to race. Michael "CroyKey" also took some nice shots and compiled them on a CD that we should pass around.

OK, let's get down to it. Below are a few of the races described with pictures from Steve, Mark, and Michael. Click on the pictures to enlarge them.

Men's 4/5 -- What a way to start the year TnA!!

A full field...

Dano working hard like always...
Geoff and Jason controlling the front...
Textbook...keeping it fast on the last lap...
Which allows TnA to open up a sprint with a clear lane to the line...
And the bike-throw seals the deal!
Congratulations, first race of the year and your first vee!!

Women's 1/2/3 -- Strong individuals can overcome a strong team

The group that broke away. Trish Bell (soon to be Trish Black) leads a group of Velo Bellas, aka Hernando's Harem of Honeys...
The race animators... the woman in front was very strong and no amount of teamwork would deny her on this day!
Good job Girlfriend!!

Masters 45+ Your reporter mixed in with the big crit monsters!


It was great to have Paul Thorsen back out in a bike race.

Chris Black lurking.

Carissa looking good!

Kim pulling yours truly.

Mark y Mark

Malcolm Hill trying to escape

Kim and Malcolm.

Chasing something.

On bell lap, the VOS team was rolling a
nice train, and guess who had the perfect seat!

Followed by Robert Neary and Steve Strickler, each of whom stand at a good 6' 5" so I'm thinking they're not getting much draft from me.

So I jumped first at the last corner and went right by the VOS train, but was then mowed down by Gibby Hatton and Butch Stinton. Gibby went so fast he was already out of the picture when we approached the line. Stricky is coming up along side of me...

But somehow I was able to hold him off. Like I told him later, since he is the 45+ national crit champ, and I smoked him in this sprint, well, you do the math...
My sweetie cheered...
So a 3rd place is ok for me in a flat crit, not exactly my specialty. Then I forgot all about it and began to get ready for the next races. When I finally got around to checking the results, long after the 15-minute protest time expired, they had #317 listed and the person who went with that number in 3rd spot. Woah!! It's not every day that I beat Strickler in a sprint... please don't deny me this simple pleasure! A couple people vouch for me, including Stricky himself, and the nice Echelon folks decide to change it. Then, out of nowhere, the head official comes charging over all red-faced and fuming, begins to yell at the volunteers that they usurped his authority and he threatens to suspend me if I ever pull a stunt like that again (his words). Now I understand that bike racing needs rules, and of course I know about the 15-minute window between when results are posted and when they become official, but jeez, when there is absolutely no doubt and no contention, why be such a jerk about it. I think he wanted to teach me a lesson so the published results on the web probably won't list me. Gee, I'm crushed.


Men's 35+ 3/4

This year's SB smackdown would occur in the 35+ 3/4 race with a large contingent of the Chicken Ranch Army...

...e.g., Coach Doyle..
...and a strong group of TGI/Hazardous Waste boys, e.g., Jason the Hammer...
On the bell lap, the VOS team again had the group lined up behind them, and once again our heroes are in the best seat in the house...
...which leads to a repeat victory for Blingerman against his good buddy Chicken Ranch. Sorry Matt, you gotta get bitter and meaner...

Men's 35+ 1/2/3 -- It's hard to race when you're not paying attention!

This race had some genuine motors and would likely be a good show. Too bad I was snoozing in the back at the critical times!

We roll out...
On the second or third lap, Rich Cimadoro, Jerry Jayne (both Amgen), Olaf Vanderhoot, and Michael Johnson are off the front and motivated...
And then it gets worse as Craig Nunes, Dennis King, and Dirk Copeland take off in pursuit...
And soon both groups are together and rolling. Note the lack of any TGI/Hazard's boys...
OK, so now there are seven strong guys OTF. You'd think we'd be highly motivated to chase, right? Well your doofus reporter (that would be me) didn't know exactly who was in the break, and worse, I thought one of us had made it. That confusion lasted for 4 or 5 laps until I took inventory and saw we were all present and accounted for. Ooops. But still it gets worse, because I looked around and saw Turbo was still with us and I've done enough races with him to know that when he wants to, he can get across to a move like this at will. So I try to stay alert for takeoff. Only problem is, his teammate MJ is in the move (unbeknownst to me) so why should Turbo drag up any goofballs?!? So, the rest of the race consists of a few half-hearted chase attempts, always marked by smarter guys with teammates up the road...

CW tries to escape.

Cookie marked by

OV's teammate.

Choo-choo and Turbo.

Me hoping for

company.

Cookie tries again.







Meanwhile, up the road where the real race is happening, MJ attacks the break with a few laps to go...
BTW, for those interested in learning more, borrow or buy "The Hard Road" in which Michael Johnson is prominently featured as he tries to make a go of professional bike racing on the Net Zero team a few years back. The guy is a motor.

The burden is on Amgen to bring him back as they have two guys...
But MJ stays away for the win...

Dirk rolls in 2nd.

And Dennis snags 3rd.

Disappointed OV
takes 4th.

Craig 5th and Jerry 6th.

And you can always count on Mark Scott to express his feelings clearly!!

P/1/2/3 -- Crit racing at its best!

So we're standing there waiting to start and the conversation goes something like this...

Ben (in Webcor colors still): "Yea, I'm kinda tired and can't race the full 90 minutes so I think I'll sit in the first 30 or so."

Me: "Yeah, I'm still sick so I probably won't even finish as it's my third race today." [ed: what a baby!]

Well, it turns out only one of us was telling the truth because, just past the very first corner on the very first lap, one Aaron Musicant shoots out of the field on a full-gas flier just screwing around. Anyone who's lived here for any length of time knows Aaron is just goofing around. But not Ben. So he sprints off in hot pursuit with a cling-on attached and by the end of lap one he's disposed of Aaron and he's not looking back...
A couple laps later, my old teammate Arjuna Flenner is off in pursuit along with Aram Dellalian and Uthman Ray...
And soon they've all coagulated and are off to the races. Undoubtedly Ben was doing lots of work, as he's known to do. [Note: He's not even trained yet. He rides a couple days a week. On the Solvang loop Wednesday, he had me and Matt groveling on his wheel all the way back to town on the 101. If/when he gets serious, he will be crushing it!]

Soon a second group is off in hot pursuit and this one has some marquee names (Copeland, MJ, Rigo Meza)...

The chase.

Turbo following.
He quickly shed
these guys.

And joins up.

Now the chase is

really stacked.

Soon the front break makes it around and rejoins the field, up a lap. Now their teammates go to work to bring back the second group on the road. Here is a focused and coordinated Time Factory Team...
And Cookie and Choo-choo work in support of Ben (even though he's not in uniform)...
But as per usual, it's CW who really does the most, and soon the threatening group is brought back!
No real moves for the rest of the way except...
CW and Turbo gobbling up
$25, $50, $75 laddered
primes.

Dirk and CW

sneak off to snag the

last "unlapped"

places.

The break's sprint was mixed in with the field and Aram Dellalian pulls out the win!
A fun day with excellent organization and race promotion from Echelon. Thanks!

Race Reportage -- Better Late than Never

[Had a bidness meetin' today -- needed to prepare -- had to refrain from the post-race-weekend-Monday-banter-celebratin'-exaggeratin'-excuse-makin' fest, which typically consumes 4-6 hours minimum. In the couple of days that passed, I may have forgotten some details. But don't worry, where there are memory gaps I'll simply make stuff up.]

Bully-Very-Hard, AKA Boulevard RR

Friday night Ron, Jason, Cookie, and I point the vehicles South and press the go pedal. Three hours later we pull off the 805 in North SD and blow past the Toyota-United team truck in a race to the hotel. They were slummin at the Holiday Inn while we were next door in a 3-star I snagged on Priceline for $60/night, normally $140.

So we get to bed by midnight which is no problem for three of us as our races don't start until afternoon. But not for Jason--his race starts early. But we don't care because he's the new guy, kind of like the Freshman who has to carry the Senior's bags and make their coffee. Something tells me the roles may be reversed soon!

In the morning Cookie goes for java and sees the Toyota-United mechanic cleaning bikes and figures, what the hell, and asks him to clean his bike too. The mechanic spits on it and says "there ya go!" Cookie put's his tail between his cheeks (right where he likes it) and slinks back to the room.

On to the race venue... Boulevard is way out east of San Diego, somewhere south of the last immigration check but north of Mexico. There's not much green around. It's so dry that when you spit, you see a scorpion, a rattler, and a desert rat go for the loogie like a jump ball in an NBA finals overtime. Then they fight to the death for the precious water molecules.

And it was windy. Choose-your-pee-vector-with-the-utmost-care windy. I nearly crashed riding to the start because of the wind.

Now 'round about this time is when I decided that I'd only do one lap of the 4-lap, 90-mile p/1/2 race. Yes I know, very wussy. But there was method to this wussiness, and it goes like this: I was sick with a cold and sinus clogginess and was shooting green gelatinous bullets from my nostrils which are as slippery as a lubed up banana slug. Now this race had around 50 top US pros riding, and I'll be damned if I was going to be the guy who caused a crash by one of them slipping on one of my snot splats. Therefore I took some sudafed. Now I really had a dilemma. What if I won the race? [hey, shut up, it could happen!!!] And what if they had doping controls?!? That would be embarrassing. So I decided, one lap would be it. [ed: this seemed more interesting than my real excuse, which was it hurt to breath and I didn't want to get worse.]

After sitting at the start line for 15 minutes absorbing the mandatory abuse from Doc about number placement, number folding, center lines, and the price of cheetos, we began. As soon as we hit the downhill stretch, I'm spinning out my 11, and because of this I'm quite confused how a bunch of Pro'ish guys pinched off a break with representation of nearly all the teams. Hmmm... talent? But that was very good news because it meant a relaxed pace for the rest of us.

So relaxed that most of the Pro'ish guys decided to pee. A few pee off the bike--very Pro--but most just pull off to the side of the road and firehose out a pint or so, and then quickly rejoin the pack.

Sigh... Oh the sorry state of an older racer. Were I to try that, it'd be like:

pull over....dig it out from the chamois.....squirt an ounce or two........squirt another.....squirt...squirt.....dribble, dribble, dribble....tuck it away, clamber back on bike, chase like a mofo, but never catch back up. Like I said, sigh...

Can you spot the dork who's about to bail, even though he is still comfortably in the group?

(picture lifted from Aram Dellalian's blog.)


As a final gesture to justify my presence in the field, I gave Cookie my bottle, bid him adieu, and hopped off in the feed zone.

I cleaned up and sat with Lea Adams and the other nice ladies who were feeding my arch enemies on the Sonance team (just kiddin). I had a full bag of bottles and would help any friendly who needed support. Soon enough Cookie comes pedalin up, still with the big boys, and we have a clean bottle hand-off. Only he yelps out that he wants another one...oh sh!t...I scramble and snag one and take off running up the hill like OJ Simpson in the airport, 'cept I'm leaping over bottles and coolers and chairs and bodies and I almost make it up to the parched Cookie when... crash, I snagged a foot and tumbled across Toyota-United's feed camp. Damn, they got us again! Sorry Cookie. But I did manage to feed a few desperate guys who rode through the feed zone begging for sustenance. I tried to offer a bottle to Walker, but he refused it. Turns out he used only two small bottles with nothing but water. Crazy.

Anyway, the race would explode early on lap 3 and most of the original field of 100 would DNF and the others were spread all over the desert in about twenty different little packlets.

Here's the sprint for the win:


Here's CW finishing a strong 14th as the highest placed amateur. BTW, Mr. Toyota-United back there, welcome to our world!


Here's Ken Hanson of SLO making the top 20.

And here's our hero Cookie, lookin' like a Morton salt factory after finishing the last lap solo.

Some other categories and stuff...

Teammate Jason rode the 4's and was a good bet to win. He battled a 100-man field with no teammates and had to do some serious chasin' and such but still had the legs to sprint from the front. I caught the sequence coming up to the finish:

Looking good here...

Guys coming up on both sides...

...but Coats Cyclery pulls it out for the win. Jason gets a nice 2nd.

45+ race

Was there ever a doubt? Not in my mind. I should have headed over to that nearby casino and plonked down $100K on Lindsay for the win. I mean, how could he lose? His daughter hung in the feed zone for three hours to feed him...


So naturally he didn't disappoint. Digging deep for the win, even though he's multiple minutes clear of the next guy. That's the way Lindsay, don't look back!

A nice sprint for 2nd between Larry Shannon and Malcolm Hill. Larry takes it as Malcolm cramps.


Teammate Ron was having a nice race until his heart's electrical system went crazy on the last lap. Once that happens, he has to pop it into the 23 and soft-pedal. When he pulled up to me at the end, I saw his HRM read 198. After riding at 5 mph for the last 30 minutes. Dang!

I caught this sprint for 2nd in the Collegiate Men's A race. I don't know the guys, but can't we all relate to that effort of a side-by-side sprint up a hill. Love the facial expressions!


And here's Nick from UCSB finishing strong. Gauchos! Gauchos! Gauchos!

That's about it from Boulevard. The drive back to SB was uneventful, except for a little incident in Camarillo. Cookie had a few too many lemonades at dinner and he couldn't hold it so we pulled off and found a dark corner of a seemingly deserted parking lot. He promptly relieved himself and, as we began to pull away, a projectile flew from the bushes and hit the car. WTF? It seems that Cookie inadvertently peed on a homeless dude's camp, pissing him off (so to speak) in the process.

Well, this got too long so I'll report on Mothballs (with tons of pictures) another day.

Training - Week 18

One step forward, three steps back. Rained and then when it cleared up, I got sick. But hey, racing is here and that's great for tangible motivation!

Number of rides: 7
Riding time: 8 hrs
Time in mid/high aerobic zone: 2 hrs
Best ride of the week: Lap 1 of Blvd on Saturday
Other: No

Tired, Sick, and No Time

Fun weekend, despite being sick. Boulevard on Saturday; Mothballs today. Lots of pictures and lots of stories to tell when I've got more time--probably Tuesday.

For now, just a few pictures...

A crazy number of pros at Boulevard. Here's their sprint, with Aaron Olson, Heath Blackgrove, and winner Russell Downing.




And here's what they did to Cookie (who most definitely finished the race despite what the published results say)...




TGI/Hazards dominated the 35+ 3/4 race today at Mothballs. Blinger won, edging out Chicken Ranch (AGAIN!!!), Ron was 3rd and Jason-the-Hammer and TnA are right there too. (TnA had already won his earlier race!) Thanks to CroyKey for the picture below.

The p/1/2/3 race today was really cool with a break lapping the field. I got a bit of the sprint in the pic below...

Aram realizing he's beaten his break-mates in the sprint...

What the **** am I Thinking?!?

Nathan O'Neil, Chris Wherry, Henk Vogels, Aaron Olson, Karl Menzies, Pat McCarty, Ivan Dominguez, ...

What do all these people have in common? Well, for one they are all serious, bad-ass pro bike racers, as in, they race internationally and they make a living at it. Any one of them could ride my weak self right off his wheel, probably while talking on his cell phone and eating a hamburger at the same time.

I have no business being in a race with guys like this.

Which brings me to the next thing they all have in common... they're all signed up for the p/1/2 Boulevard Road Race on Saturday! Along with another 50 or so domestic pros.

Huh!!?!

That's not what I bargained for when forsaking masters racing for the elite categories this year. I was thinking I'd just be getting throttled by regional uber studs, like Karl Bordine, Thurlow Rogers, and Rigo Meza (along with 30 or 40 other SoCal brutes), but Saturday's race will be a new level of abuse.

And to top it off, I haven't trained for a week and am fighting a cold. As if it would make any difference!

But at least I'll be wearing new clothes. Look at the cool design by Chris Choo-Choo Brown...

Unfortunately, the early delivery didn't have any small jerseys so mine will be flapping in the wind as I struggle to hold on to the back of the pro-infested Boulevard field...

++++++++++++++++++++

In case you haven't heard, Cody won the CBR Dominguez Hills crit last Sunday. That's a nice way to start off his first year as a pro. You can read about the race on Aram Dellalian's blog. He got 2nd in that race, which is also a great result considering how many fast guys were there. Here's a picture taken by Dave Haag (lifted from Aram's blog)...

Backyard Harvest ...in January!

I wish I was a farmer. Not a big industrial farmer with thousands of acres, but a small-scale farmer with a few acres and a wide variety of crops.

For now though, my backyard will have to do. The pictures below are from yesterday's pickings. I can get enough greens for us to have spinach, chard, and/or lettuce every day. Same with the oranges. The broccoli is a more rare treat. Not that there isn't a lot of it, but rather, I rarely get it before the aphids move in. The strawberries were a nice surprise.

Hello....My Name is Mark....and I Am a Packrat

Best I can recall, it began when I was 9 or 10 and I started collecting baseball cards. Every week or so, I'd ride my bike to the 7-Eleven and buy a couple of packs. For a dime each, I got ten cards and that hard flat delicious stick of bubble gum.

My favorite team was the Oakland A's and one of my first memories of sports on TV is of the A's in the playoffs and world series. Sal Bando was my favorite player. He was their 3rd baseman, and I thought he was very cool.

[momentary pause while looking through saved baseball cards, finding Sal Bando, scanning into jpeg, and lo and behold, uploding to blogger]

I have a shoebox stuffed full of baseball cards from the 70's. I once gave them to my little brother, but then took them back a year later. Since leaving home, they've come with me to each place I've lived, which must be near ten different places. I really don't feel too bad about that because they don't take much space, the box stacks nicely, and who knows, they might actually be worth something someday.

That reasoning doesn't work as well for another collection of things that has followed me around through the years. Levi's jeans. 501s, 550s, 505s...straight leg, boot cut, relaxed fit...blue, gray, tan, black. You name it, I still got it. Seriously, there's a stack of 50 pairs of Levi's in my closet. Some date back to my late teenage years, perhaps even to the 70's. Gina begs me to get rid of them, but I can't do it. Maybe someday I'll try to sell them on Ebay.

Where am I going with this...?

It rained all weekend long so I didn't ride outside. I would have hopped on the rollers on Saturday, but my bike room in the garage was a disaster. No room for roller riding. Here's what it looked like:

There are piles of stuff that I dumped out of the car after getting back from Mt. Hood seven months ago, and haven't touched since. But honestly, those items are like archeological yesterday compared to some of the other stuff in the garage. In other words, once I started digging down below the surface of the piles, I started finding older and older stuff, eventually reaching strata with some relics from... you guessed it... the 70's.

Take a look at some of what I found. Some of these things have never been used. Why would I save glasses won in primes for 10 or 15 years? They were probably out of style then, which is why some bike shop(s) donated them to a race! There are various items I was given by teams but never used. It seemed tacky to turn around and sell them. If you look closely, you'll see a pair of Adidas Eddy Merckx shoes with hard leather soles on which you would nail cleats. Someday I may become a retro grouch, so I cannot get rid of those shoes.

I uncovered a collection of parts that show a nice continuous history of the progression from 5-speed clusters through today's 10-speed cassettes. Below you will also see 10 Time pedals and 9 speedplay pedals. BTW, an hour after I took this picture, I found another box of parts with a few more pairs of pedals, brake calipers, and cranks.


Even I am puzzled at times as to why I save so many inner-tubes and tires. I do occasionally patch tubes, but usually I just throw them onto the pile. And most of these tires have plenty of tread left. I'm proud to say that there is nothing from last century in the picture below. That's because a couple of years ago, I tossed a massive quantity of tires I had saved for decades, including some Clement Criterium Seta Extras (green label) that I used as a junior in the, errr, 70's.

But to my mind, the collection of wheels takes the cake for pack-rattieness. And this *does* include some vintage relics, such as my Campy Record hi-flange 36-hole tubular wheels from the 70's. But you know what? Some semi-chrome polish would spiff those things right up and no doubt some collector would be interested in them. I can't throw them away.

Training - Week 17

A good week up until the rain came Saturday.

Number of rides: 6
Riding time: 14 hrs
Time in mid/high aerobic zone: 4 hrs
Best ride of the week: Wed, Refugio climb + OSM + Hope Ranch
Other: none
Notes:
- Thursday rode 4.5 hours in the morning and then climbed OSM in 15:19 at lunch.
- Rode rollers for 45 minutes on the weekend.

Yowza!!!

So I'm 45 now and after much procrastination and excuse-making, I finally picked a doctor and today had my first physical.

Upon realizing that there were no hottie 25-year-old female physicians without fingernails, or at least none that would take me on as a patient, I chose a doc who I know socially. He's a good guy who's in a similar position in life as me--same age, young'ish family, does some bike racing.

I gave him every opportunity to decline, not knowing whether it would be awkward for him, but I really hoped he would take me on. I've had some funky heart behavior recently and I wanted a doctor who understands the reality of hard training and such. We've got some blood work and treadmill tests scheduled for next week to see what's up.

But back to the physical...

Doc apologized profusely, although I think I'm the one who was most sorry (for him, that is). In an amazing coincidence, Lindsay forwarded the video below just this morning!

And So It Begins...

Some teammates are heading down to Dominguez Hills for the CBR crit this weekend, but not I. As per tradition, I'll begin my year at Boulevard.

I recently stumbled across the picture below which was from the final sprint of an early-season crit last year (Ontario?)



A couple of my new teammates can be seen near the front of the group but, and this is very important, they are NOT at the VERY front of the group. The person who is at the very front is the person who wins the race, and in this case that person was Mark-Paul Gosselaar. He is an actor. He's been in shows like The West Wing and Saved By the Bell. He is pretty; I don't know if he is Gritty. Right behind him, in the blue and orange, are Brewer and Flood. They are most definitely NOT pretty. As you can tell by the expressions on their faces, they are trying to look gritty. Those guys sprawled out on the pavement behind also get some gritty points. (Don't you just love crash pictures where the bike is up in the air?!? ...assuming nobody got serious hurt of course.)

Mark-Paul is looking back at them which is a bit insulting in a sprint, but also very understandable... I mean, nobody wants Brewer and especially Flood sneaking up behind them!

Some Updates

Coupla follow ups to some older topics...

The previous post described a few "issues" with our Goleta Tuesday lunch-time ride. Specifically, some folks were none too happy with the aggressive style of riding by a couple of the participants. Whether or not it's a problem is debatable. Personally, I thought yesterday was really fun (That is, as fun as riding full-gas balls-out can be, which is kind of enjoyable in a sick and twisted way!) In my not-so-humble opinion, the accelerations by those that wanted to pull hard (read: Matt, Ben, and Jason) were within reason.

Yeah, some guys got dropped. My comment? They over extended themselves when they pulled. If you are ever going to succeed in a break, you absolutely need to know how hard you can pull and still get back on, even if the pace elevates a bit. Yesterday some guys found out the hard way that they pulled too fast or too long.

Reminds me of a story--probably a stupid story, but hey, it's my blog... I was pretty fit and confident ten years ago (my first 35+ year) when the Masters Nationals were up by Santa Rosa. The RR course had one hill of ~1 km but was otherwise pretty flat. Thurlow Rogers was in the race and I followed him around the pack for the first 25-mile lap. Then, unable to contain himself any longer, he bolted full throttle up the the hill the second lap. I was the only guy who stayed on his wheel. By the top, his effort had separated us cleanly from the group, with probably a 15-20 second gap. Awesome. We caught a guy who had been hanging otf, and the three of us settled into a smooth rotation. It doesn't get any better than this folks. My pulls were pretty tentative, and within ten minutes I was instructed by Thurlow that I would "have to pull a tad bit harder". I immediately obliged and thus unknowingly signed my own death warrant. It took awhile--each pull put me a bit further in debt--but eventually I cracked, unable to get back on. There was no attack, not even an acceleration or a hill, I simply had reached the end of the rope and couldn't hold on after my pull. Naturally, he went on to win the race solo by a margin of several minutes. BTW, our own Tony Vincente (Vinny the Hack) won the 100-man field sprint for 2nd.

Sorry for that digression... where were we? Oh yeah, Tuesday rides... Figure out how hard you can pull and still get back on. That's what the ride is good for.

++++++++++++++++++++

I posted recently about the cost of bike racing and how it was bumming me out. Well, given that this silly hobby can't go on too many more years, I've decided to go ahead with some more purchases (e.g., wheels, bike, etc.) ...and I'm fine with that. More importantly, Gina seems ok with it too!

I hope you don't think this is too tacky, but I'll share with you some detailed records of my bike-racing expenses from a few years ago. I spent 2002-2004 tracking all expenses we incurred as a family--every coffee, every donation, every tank of gas, ...every single thing. It was an incredibly enlightening exercise, and I would encourage anyone to give it a try. Once you get a system set up, and assuming you're on the computer every day, it really isn't a burden.

Anyway, the table below shows the data for bike racing (sorry for the ugly format; I'm in HTML kindergarten):

Bike Racing Expenses:

Year:	Equipment:	Clothing:	Entry Fees:	Travel:	Dues:	Misc.:	Total:
2002	$1,462	$365	$516	$417	$145	$226	$3,131
2003	$980	$152	$534	$564	$140	$501	$2,871
2004	$7,050	$90	$692	$419	$265	$70	$8,586

Obviously some big purchases in 2004, like a bike, some gucci wheels, and a boat-load of tires. Also, very relevant to these expenses is that I did around 20-25 races each of these years, and none were out of state. This year should blow the doors off of 2004 since I'm hoping to do nearly twice that many races, with potentially a few out-of-state trips. One last hurrah so to speak.

++++++++++++++++++++

Got a comment from Gene on my Blood-Doping in Reverse post from a few months back. That topic was about the interesting observations I had after donating blood, which removes around 10%-15% of the body's red blood cells. There was a very obvious drop in threshold power as evidenced by climbing speed on OSM.

Anyway, Gene pointed out this thread on cyclingforums.com where a guy admits doping when he was trying to make a career out of bike racing. If you don't want to spend an hour reading it all (I did), I'll give you the Cliff Notes version... Not only does he (anonymously) detail his own usage of testosterone, epo, and blood doping, he also claims that all good cat 1 and domestic pro riders do it too. Of course, he has no proof. He said he doped for a year when he was an Arizona cat 1 trying to land a pro contract. When he didn't get picked up, he quit the sport (and quit doping). There were lots of responses--some appreciative, others derisive.

Personally, I found the guy a bit less than credible. For one thing, he claimed his doping brought his sustainable power up to 6.7 W/kg. Jeezus H, that's TdF contender power!!

Further, and maybe I'm totally naive, I really don't think he is right about the rest of the elite-amateur and domestic-pro racers. Being in Santa Barbara, we are fortunate to see a lot of very good regional and national talent. We see how hard they train. We see a steady progression that comes from putting in 20-30 hours a week, year after year. I trust that these guys are not doping.

On the other hand, some do. Take the Adam Bergman case for example. Just the other day I was told by a former pro who raced with him that his performance escalated so dramatically that many people in the domestic peloton knew something was up.

So yeah, there are some bad apples. But all of them? Or even most of the domestic guys? No way!

Can't We All Just Get Along??

Every Tuesday 'round about noontime, you can see 10-15 lycra-clad dudes pedaling hard on the North side of Goleta. Hard, as in 15 miles in ~35 minutes hard. And that's with stop signs, turn-arounds, and other such obstacles to speed.

We're a diverse group. We've got guys in their 20's, 30's, 40's, and 50's. If we survive a few more years, eventually we'll have some in their 60's. We've got professional engineers, ex-professional bike racers, professional Professors, and professional slackers. Blue collar, white collar, no collar, and dirty collar ...we got 'em all.

And everyone wants to work hard.

Which brings me to the issue at hand, namely, how can we conduct this ride so that everyone gets some good, efficient training? Or is it even possible? The fitness and experience spectrum is huge: at one end is a guy who spent 100 miles Off the Front of a Tour of Georgia stage, and at the other are guys who have never done a real bike race.

And all is not harmonious in Goleta on Tuesdays around noon. Some choice words have been tossed about recently.

You see, a couple of the lads in their 20's are playful, and they like to jump hard, accelerate up the side, and basically try to bury each other. (Sometimes literally...but more on that later.) Their attacking antics pretty much mess up any semblance of a smooth paceline. But the reason they ride that way is because it takes too long--and is generally too slow--for them when they are in the line. If they can pull at 28 mph, what good is it to sit in at 23 mph? Alternatively, for those who are not quite as fit, what good is it to get dropped because everyone else is jumping repeatedly after these attacks?

So I have some suggestions.

First, let's treat the ride as "break-away training", where we try to cover the first 12 miles or so as quickly as possible. That means no abrupt jumps attempting to shed people--ideally we maintain as hard of a steady collective effort as we can. Now this doesn't mean the strong guys don't ride hard, in fact, they certainly will do the bulk of the fast pulling. It also means that the less-fit riders need to know their limits and either take very short pulls, or stay in the back and don't pull at all. For argument sake, suppose we try to maintain 28 mph average, which I believe is quite doable with our group. If you can't pull through that fast, then stay out of the rotation and let the others get in front of you after their pulls. I hope that doesn't sound too harsh, and it isn't meant to be. A ride like I'm describing is a great way to determine what you're capable of. I think that anyone out there can sit on at 28 mph average, and most can pull through too, albeit just a couple pedal strokes for some.

So that's the first 12 miles. The final 3 miles? Anything goes. Ride for the sprint if you want. Try to jump away if you want. Lead out somebody. Whatever. Make it fun.

And since I have the stage, and I guess I always have the stage since it's my blog... Please pull off into the wind. Please. There are more reasons for this than I can possibly list here. Just do it. And moreover, if the wind is from the right, stay near the edge of the pavement so people echeloned off to your left aren't way out in the traffic lane. Alternatively, if the wind is from your left, try to stay out toward the left side of the bike lane so everyone else isn't groveling in the gutter behind you. It's the right thing to do.

Now, about those 20-something guys playing around. If you've ever spent much time with good young riders (like full-time bike racers) you've certainly seen a lot of on-the-bike goofing. Stuff like bumping and pushing each other, hip slinging, hooking, etc. It's all in fun, and these guys know what they are doing. I remember doing a ride with Hilton Clarke and Keith around Casitas where they were bumping each other going downhill at 40 mph! On purpose of course.

You know what a good analogy is? Lion cubs wrestling and fighting. It's all play when they are cubs, but it's life or death when they're grown up. OK, that's a bit of an exaggerated analogy, but you get the point. If you're comfortable slicing and dicing when playing around on training rides, you can handle it in a real field sprint when guys don't have smiles on any more.

Training - Week 16

A decent week with some hard efforts of 10-20 minutes, but it's difficult to imagine racing 90 miles in just two weeks time.

Number of rides: 6
Riding time: 14 hrs
Time in mid/high aerobic zone: 4 hrs
Best ride of the week: Wednesday early-morning Gibraltar climb w/ Ben and Dubberley; not from a training standpoint, but because we got to ride through snow.
Other: Nope, getting pretty one-dimensional now.

Some Got In and Some Didn't

I'm sure you've seen that the Amgen Tour of California (ATOC) announced the final team selections the other day. Sadly for local heroes Cody O'Reilly and Daniel Ramsey, neither Kodak-SierraNevada nor SuccessfulLiving.com were selected. I'm quite curious about the selection process, and I wonder how much back-room negotiating goes on for this. Getting into this race must be a huge deal for the smaller North American teams, and I wonder to what extent the promoter exploits that fact.

And then there are some strange selections... Remember that last year the ATOC chose the Mexican National Team to ride, and excluded Symmetrics. That seemed like a bizarre choice, and no offense the the Mexican team, but they were otb in nearly every stage and all but three of them DNF'ed. Let's see if this year's no-hope selection--the US Development Team--does better, or at least gets into some of the action.

Anyway, talking to Cody today, he expressed mixed feelings about not getting in. On the one hand, what an incredible experience to race such a high-profile event, particularly since it comes through home-town Santa Barbara again this year. On the other hand, it would be freakin hard, and the kid is just 18 years old. Could he really recover in time for the NRC races starting just a week later? Or more significantly, what would a race like ATOC do to his track speed?

BTW, Cody and his USA National Team partner Austin Carroll raced to a very successful 3rd place in the recent Burnaby six-day race in Canada. The picture below shows Cody throwing his partner into the action in the madison.

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One team that did get into the ATOC is Northern California based BMC Racing. We may not have heard much about this relatively new US domestic pro team, but given the quality of their roster, I'm sure soon we will. Top riders include Swiss Alexandre Moos, US veterans Mike Sayers and Scott Moninger, and rising star Jackson Stewart.

Gavin Chilcott started the team last year as a young-rider development program. This year marks a huge escalation with backing from Andy Rihs, the former owner of the Phonak Pro Tour team. On paper, they look like the team to beat in the domestic stage races.

Of local interest, the BMC Tour of California squad will be training in the Santa Ynez Valley for the next ten days. Gavin emailed me yesterday soliciting suggestions for ride routes. I've known Gavin since we raced together as juniors a long time ago, and he knows that I know the area. Naturally, I told him about all the great rides--the canyons loop, Fig loop, Jalama, and down to SB for Gib and OSM/Painted Cave. Of course, since they are looking for six-hour epic adventures, they'll need to hook together two or three of those options!

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More Chilcott... You may not have heard of him, but Gavin was once a very successful bike racer and was one of the early American professionals in Europe. In the mid 1980's, he raced a bunch of the spring classics (Paris-Roubaix, etc.) and I think he also represented the US at the Pro worlds once or twice. When back in the US, he could hold his own against the top domestic teams. Interestingly, some time in the 80's, there was a very high-level crit held downtown on State St. in SB and all the top US riders came to race. This included 7-Eleven, Levi's-Raleigh, etc., and old Gavin showed up solo. He got into a four-man break that included Andy Hampsten among others, and they lapped the field. Gavin then beat his break partners in the sprint and won the race. Pretty remarkable considering he was racing solo against complete teams of the best American crit riders. The picture below is from that race. Gavin is closest to the camera and that is Andy Hampsten to his left.


Anyway, by the late 80's he decided it was time to move on, so he quit bike racing and returned to school and eventually completed a PhD in some science field. Then, around 2002 or so, I ran across my old friend Ben Standish at a race in Reno and he mentioned that he and Gavin were neighbors and starting to ride again. Lo and behold the next year, Gavin started doing some Masters races. Within a year he was easily crushing the field and even winning some p/1/2 races. But I guess he's been there and done that, so he made the jump to running a team.

And that's your history lesson for today.

Little Mrs. Consistency

3:20:44 .......... Top of Utah (Logan)
3:21:24 .......... San Diego
3:21:30 .......... Portland
3:21:44 .......... Long Beach
3:21:03 .......... Rock-and-Roll Arizona (Phoenix)

These are five of the marathons Mrs. Fanelli has run since 2001.

All times within a one-minute range...

for 26.2 miles...

Incredible!

Training - Week 15

I guess I'll call this a rest week. Not much riding because of sick and travel.

Number of rides: 5
Riding time: 7 hrs
Time in mid/high aerobic zone: 1 hr
Best ride of week: Can't think of any.
Other: 15 minutes on cardio machines

The Cost of Being Fred

Here we go again.

Every year about this time I get paralyzed by spending decisions. Buy a new bike; don't buy a new bike... Are my wheels too old, or can they go another year? And what about the ultimate toy of all, an SRM power meter???

Even with "pro-deal" pricing, we're talking thousands of dollars.

How can I justify dropping that kind of coin when there are people working six months a year in strawberry fields for the same amount just to feed their family? Or more selfishly, what about my kids' college fund? All the bike-racing expenses could equal the difference between Stanford and, say, Cal State Bakersfield!

Off to Phoenix now, but when I get back I'll have decided about this year's purchases.

In the meantime, here's what I posted on RBR a year ago when going through the same struggles:

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As I contemplate purchasing a TT bike, the high cost (literally) of this silly sport is getting me down. Let's consider Fred, who is basically anyone that doesn't race for a living. Now if USCF demographics are correct, Fred is a 30-something high-tech professional living in Northern California and races at the Cat 3.5 level. And he's hooked, which means he trains 15 hours a week and he races at least 25 weekends a year.

Let's do the financial math for Fred...

Equipment: Got to keep up with the other Freds so Fred buys a new bike every two years at a annualized cost of $2,000. Plus new $1,500 race wheels every two years because, well, he's Fred and so he crashes sometimes. Add in regular replacements of training and racing tires, chains, and cassettes for another $750 a year. (Note: Fred wins bar tape, tubes, and patch kits in primes, so we don't need to include those costs.)

Annual equipment cost: $3,500

Team Kit: Let's figure on 3 bibs, 2 jerseys, skinsuit, arm & leg warmers, socks, undershirts, gloves, helmet, and glasses. Plus new shoes every two years, carbon-soled of course. Now Fred's sweat is pretty caustic (and he crashes) so let's add an extra 3 bibs and another skinsuit.

Annual kit cost: $1,000

Food: Training as much as he does, Fred has to eat more at home and on the bike. Now, Fred doesn't just eat bananas and drink water, he needs individually packaged gu's and powerbars, and bottles filled with cytomax. Plus pre- and post-ride high-tech drink concoctions.

Annual cycling-food cost: $500

Racing: Big-time Fred races 50 days a year (2 per weekend average) at a typical race-day entry fee of $30 accounting for individual and stage races. On average, race weekends require 200 miles of driving and let's say half also require an over-night stay. Fred drives an SUV and stays in nice hotels, but he's sensible so he shares these costs with his teammate named Fred. Because he's cool, Fred also wants to race once a year in a different part of the country, requiring an airplane trip.

Annual race cost: $2,500

Miscellaneous: Naturally Fred needs to buy a racing license (international of course, just in case) and pay club dues. He also has to subscribe to a variety of cycling publications for reading material when evacuating his gu and cytomax. Plus satellite TV to get Euro race coverage. Plus stuff I can't think of right now...

Annual misc. cost: $500

So far we have Fred spending $8,000 per annum to race his bike. But it can get worse...

Fred gets his ass kicked in TTs, so he NEEDS a TT bike with dimpled aero wheels and airplane-wing front end, which ought to last at least four years or so before he has to buy something better.

Annual TT-arms-race cost: $1,000

Also, since Fred lives in Northern California and thinks the Velo Bella ladies are hot, he needs to buy a cyclocross bike and do some CX races in the winter.

Annual CX cost: $1,000

Alright, Fred is now into bike racing at $10,000 per year just accounting for the easy-to-calculate costs. It would be much worse if we added in opportunity costs, such as being productive with the 15 hrs per week training time, and not being so tired at work. Fred's not married (obviously) so we don't need to consider the relationship and family costs.

Now I'm depressed so I'm going for a ride...

Mark
(not exactly Fred, but probably within 50%)

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Here's the original thread on RBR.

Randomonium

Communication Breakdown out of the Corridor -- I'm still ruminating about last Saturday's ride in the Santa Ynez Valley. Why? Maybe because I was on the receiving end of an F-bomb filled voice mail, a couple of disparaging emails, and a few not-too-subtle glares. Just because I sent out the original email initiating the ride, does that make me the de facto ride leader? OK, so we accidentally left when a guy was still in the porta-potty and another was in his car. I admit that was a mistake, even though it was already past our agreed-upon start time. Once we realized it, we went slow for a good half hour to let them catch up ...except they were going the opposite direction! Then some guys turned back to find them, others got antsy and started motoring, some got dropped by being too cautious on a descent... and from there on out I'm not sure we were ever all together again. I think the lesson is that when you've got 25 or more people on a new and different ride, you need to be on the same page at the start.

Saturday's problems aside, the Foxen-Cat-Drum-Ballard Canyon loop is great for a group ride. It's ~60 miles so everyone should be able to do it on two bottles and the food you carry. We regroup twice--at the top of the only two significant hills--and everywhere else the stronger riders can pull and those that are concerned about surviving can sit in.


Here's a picture of some of the group at the top of Drum Canyon.


Coupla other things from the ride...

It took reformed tri-guy Cookie to point out that we were riding with an old-time celebrity, Chuck Veylupek, or Chuckie V as he's better known. In the late 80's and early 90's, Chuck was a damn good bike racer--if I remember correctly, he was on the National Team for a while. My brother did some training with him when he was in the San Joaquin valley and told stories of epic 8-hour rides in the foothills. But Chuckie V really hit the big time when he started doing triathlons. In a dry sport without a lot of wild characters, Chuckie V stood out with his big Mohawk hair and nomadic lifestyle. Plus he was a really good triathlete. He seems like a really cool guy, and he's obviously quite modest...no wonder he didn't make it as a bike racer!

At the end of the Canyon Loop, we rode the reverse direction on the Amgen Tour of California time trial course. The tt route goes up Alamo Pintado from Solvang to Los Olivos and then returns down Ballard Canyon. Rumor is that they will repave Ballard in time for the race but there is no sign of any work yet. Either way, that return stretch is going to be really fast. It has some bends in it that might be tricky at 35 mph in the tt bars. I know those guys are not spazzes, but I predict there will be at least one crash by someone trying to eek out every last second. Hopefully I'm wrong.

One last tidbit about the valley ride... when you finish up in Los Olivos, or take a break before climbing Fig, you can refuel at the little grocery store on Main St. and most Saturdays you'll see a guy out front bbq'ing some awesome looking tri-tips. That guy owns the place and his name is Steve Dennell. Why am I telling you this? Well, for one thing because he's a really nice guy and he deserves your business, but also because he used to be a very good bike racer. He was a Cat 1 when he was 19 or 20 years old and had a wickedly fast sprint. He and I were teammates for a year on the old Diamondback/GNC team. Here's a picture of him back then.

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It seems like I've seen this guy in the RHVilla clothes on nearly every ride I've done over the last month or so. He's out riding solo on the bike path, and sometimes he hooks up with the group rides but never gets caught up in the competitive nonsense. I've even seen him doing some solo Casitas loops. He's a quiet guy and not many people know who he is, so I'm telling you now. His name is Uthman Ray and he's from Goleta but now lives most of the year in NorCal. Doug Knox touts him as a good rider and he certainly looks like he's got the discipline to train hard. He went to Dos Pueblos High School where he played varsity basketball and also got into downhilling and mountain cross racing before turning to the road. I think he's gone back up north, but perhaps we'll see him at some races up there.

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Out on the bike path on Tuesday I ran into Robert Neary of the Amgen team as he was doing a big ride from Ventura around Goleta and back, so we rode together for 30-40 minutes. Robert's a nice guy, a Dad, a firefighter, and most importantly, a great draft because he's like 6' 6" or something! Anyway, he updated me about their racing team which is going to be focused on Masters for 2007, and is now led by Keith Ketterer (or KK as he's known to just about everyone). I had known that KK was thinking about leaving Sonance partly because he's a bigwig Giant bike rep and Sonance is sponsored by Specialized bikes. Even though he's just a hack amateur like the rest of us, his bosses weren't particularly pleased about that bike brand mismatch. So he quit Sonance and joined Amgen, bringing along Giant as a co-sponsor. Anyway, I guess his leadership style is a bit more intense and active compared to Jerry Jayne (who is the president of the entire Amgen cycling club). They've got a good group of guys, and with KK's experience and knowledge, look for them to be in the results a lot this year.

More... even though the Amgen Thousand Oaks crit is not currently on the SoCal calendar, Jerry Jayne says they are working hard on putting it on again. Let's hope they succeed.

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I've seen some internet debate about the recent USCF rule change that again imposes gear limits on junior racers. The reasons are varied but it seems the primary issues are (1) using big gears can harm a growing kid's knees, and (2) international racing enforces gear limits, and so our Jrs should race with lower gears if they want to be competitive. I guess those are valid concerns. To be honest, I was only vaguely aware that juniors hadn't been under gear-restriction rules in recent times. We had gear limits back when I was a junior, with a 93" rollout which was a 53X15. The new rule allows for a 52X14. I can see that might be a handicap in certain elite races (I still can't get used to calling it "elites"--to me it will always be: juniors, seniors, and masters) but anyone who has been waxed by Cody O'Reilly will know that it is possible to turn that gear over pretty fast!

On the NorCal email list, Les Ernest provides his views and metions the "Greg LeMond rule" that he pushed through the USCF. That rule allowed Juniors to use unrestricted gearing in Senior (uhh, I mean "Elite") races. It came about because of a very exciting race in Pacific Grove in 1978 that 16-year-old Greg won against an all-star field, only to be DQ'ed because he wasn't using Junior gears. I was there, having done the Junior race earlier in the day. We were all outraged at the DQ. Who was the beneficiary of the DQ? Santa Barbara's own Larry Shields was given the win!

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Motivation for Blingerman, or just coincidental graffiti? I'm not sure what to think about this. Our beloved teammate--let's call him Blingerman--had an unfortunate crash a couple of months ago and some people in town found it very humorous. You see, he rode through some horse poop and slid out and hit the deck pretty hard and suffered a big bump on his noggin. Being the caring teammates that we all are, we only threw up a few mild jokes about it. So check out the picture on the right. That is a sign along the bike path in the exact neighborhool where Blinger dumped it in the horse dump. Look at the graffiti... it says "Kona" ...what team did Blinger ride for? That's right, Kona. Hmmm.

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More seriously, and just a block away from the above, I noticed that there is now a plaque memorializing Doug McFadden in the bridge next to Vieja Valley School. Doug was a great guy who succumbed to brain cancer in the fall of 2005. Doug was a cyclist, but it seemed I'd see him more often at the soccer fields by UCSB where he coached his daughters. Next time you ride by there, take a minute to see the plaque and remember Doug.