Pedalling Squares

Tyrone Time Trial - Part II

Ouch! Another tough stage. The wind was howling. I started off slow, trying to ease into it. The initial climb just went on and on and on. I was in my 53x21 for most of it and stayed in the aero bars - not sure if that really helped that much at 18 mph. I was catching people all over the place, so that was good. At the top of the hill, I tried to recover some, and eventually put it into the meat gear (53x11) to try to build up some speed. I did the turn at about 24 minutes. A time of 40 minutes total is a usually a top 5 time in the Cat 3's - today that time would win.

I was making up more time on the guy who started 90 seconds ahead of me. I had almost caught him at the top of the first hill, but then he made back some time on me on the rollers. I was sure I could catch him before the top of the last climb. Then something happened to me that hasn't happened in . . . well at least many months if not a year. I was switching down to the small chainring for the 1 mile, Category 3 climb, when I dropped my chain. Damnit! I wasn't Euro enough to keep riding and get it back on so I had to get off the bike, and put it back on with my hands. Luckily, I didn't break a nail.

Then I passed 90 second boy and crested the top. 4+ miles of downhill pleasure awaited me (no, not that kind, Patrick). I blazed down, doing anywhere from 32 to 48 mph. I finished in about 42 minutes.

They had the results up real quick - I got 14th. I'm a little disappointed with that - I really wanted to crack the top 10. But, I'm only 15 seconds out of 10th place and I did have to stop and fix my chain. So I guess that's about right. I'm 1:50 behind the leader. No bother, things will shake up again tomorrow. Check it out. The race bible shows gradients of up to 14% for the last 3 miles, with an average of about 10%.

Time to rest . . .

Tyrone Time Trial

*drool*

*slobber*

*more drool*

OK, the last rest day before the Tour of the Gila. Today we woke up early to fix a little mishap that Vaughn had. Luckily for him, it was a very successful adventure.

We found out we made cyclingnews.com. If you look closely in the background you'll see me in my Sharp's jersey on the right, and Vaughn's reflection in the window on the left. We're rock stars!!!

We had our 3rd meal in as many days at our favorite restaurant down the street. I was really craving some French toast (err, is that Freedom Toast?). Anyway, it was quite tasty. Pretty soon our breakfasts will consist of Gu gel, Powerbars, Accelerade, fruit - no more Huevos Rancheros for us! We also found the location of our final meal in Silver City after the race is done.

After we got back from breakfast, we couldn't find our bag of treats. We had a paper bag with 6 water bottles, a box of GU gel, half a dozen powerbars, and some of Vaughn's EPO syringes. Well, I guess we left it too close to the trash can and the maid threw it out!!! Can you believe it? And they left the empty pizza box that we purposely place in close proximity to the trash can!!! We let the manager know, and he's going to reimburse us. Meanwhile, Vaughn suggested I move my bike a little further away from the trashcan to avoid any further confusion.

Then we decided to scout out the TT course today. The Cat III's go at 1 pm tomorrow, so we decided to check it out at that same time to get a good feel for the temperature and wind. The Time Trial course is a 15.7 mile, out and back, hilly course. It starts with a 4+ mile gentle (supposedly Cat 4) climb, then some rollers, and then back. On the way back, the climb is a little steeper (Cat 3) climb. The last 4+ miles is just a screaming descent.

The wind was howling up to 25 mph hour as we rode up the iinitial climb. It makes it really tough to control the aero bars. The wind was coming across us for most of the way which should make it fun! Then there are a few evil rollers and one section where Vaughn and I almost lost control.

On the way back, the other side of the climb is short and steep, but I'm not sure if that's a good thing. Then . . . ahhhh yes, 4+ miles and 600 feet of negative vertical wind-aided payback. I had my 11 tooth on and used every bit of it. I spun it up to 49 mph - and I was not coasting!!! Oh man. The road is wide open and all, but it's still a little strange to pedal a bike to those obnoxious speeds. So it's a difficult 11 mile effort, with 4+ miles of speed tacked on at the end. Ain't no thang. . .


We also loaded up on food supplies.

Today (Monday) we took it easy. We slept way late - at least until housekeeping decided to wake us up. Apparently when you shout "Can you come back later" that translates to "Please unlock the door and come in quickly" in Silver City. So we got up a little earlier than we wanted, but I am starting to catch up on my sleep.

My allergies are still bothering me and I'm hoping that was just a Bisbee thing. Neither of us was ready for the dry climate here. And both Bisbee and Silver City are a little hotter than we're used to - I think it's only the third or fourth time my pasty legs have seen the sun this year. So we'll come back with some cool Euro cycling tans.

Vaughn got a cable to hook up his computer to the TV, so now we can watch DVD's on our hotel TV - which by the way is a really nice 27 inch TV (in a Super 8?). And, we discovered that we've got OLN (Outdoor Life Network - cycling/outdoorsy channel). Score! And with shows like "Bouldering Smackdown" and "RV Today", we might not do any racing at all!!!

We've had our second meal in about 18 hours at this little restaurant across the street. It's the same one that Amy and I ate at when I was here in 1996. They have top notch New Mexican food. Chicken enchiladas, blue corn tortillas, red sauce and an egg. Yummmm! We were just missing the soapapillas with honey afterward. And - they've got pasta too!!!

Vaughn and I decided to scope out the courses for the 3rd and 5th stages. They both use the some of the same roads, but in different directions. I feel better after seeing them. There are some nasty descents. Some of the turns are all gravel, so hopefully they'll sweep them, but if not, I'll be on the lookout.

Oh yeah, and I know that last post of mine rivalled War and Peace so I'll be trying to be less verbose and go with some more pics. We'll be adding those sporadically, so check back.

Tombstone Road Race

My allergies are still really bothering me. My nose was like a faucet last night just leaking snot. I haven't had a good night's sleep either. But, the good news is, the allergies don't seem to bother me much during a race. Hmmmmm.

I thought I had a good TT ride yesterday until I saw Loveday's time: he put 1+ minutes into me yesterday. Doug's mentor, the legendary Paul Wolfe, is 50 years and he also put some time into me. Shania Twain's got nothing on me - I feel like a woman. Anyway, I'm sitting in 8th place, which is in the money, but things will shake up again today for sure.

The course is another bathtub with an evil finish - at the end, we climb up Mule Pass (5 miles), do a quick descent through the tunnel, and around a slightly off-camber right-hander. This short little descent allows just enough time for lactic joy to pool in the quads. Then, we get to crawl up the last 2K of the prologue course. Isn't that special? Who thought up this course, hmmmm? Could it be . . . Satan?

The race started up the prologue course with a neutral roll-out. Then we began roughly 16 miles of descending bliss. We're descending at about 40-50 mph when out of the corner of my eye, I saw a guy move left fighting a nasty shimmy. I've seen jackhammers with less action than that guys front end. Not what you want at 40+mph. I guess he recovered ok because Vaughn saw him later.

Once we turned onto 90 things settled down some, but we're still mostly descending. Then I guess the homies up front got out the gutterball and shouted "Game On!". I was having to close gaps all over the place. Guys were getting shelled left and right. I knew Vaughn was behind me, and was hoping he was faring ok. Finally I caught onto the main group and quickly went to the front near the leader. I didn't want to deal with that action again. (Oh yeah, gutterball refers to a situation where there's a crosswind, let's say coming from the left. Now if I want to draft off of the rider in front of me, I need to be behind him and slightly to his right, depending on the angle and severity of the crosswind. This will cause the riders to form a diagonal line across the road from the left to the right. Eventually, there is no more road on the right and you're forced to ride in the gutter, where there isn't much draft, and you have to work really hard. Game on, anyone?)

We made a right hand turn and now it was mostly a tailwind, but we were going fast. Somewhere in this section a breakaway of 4 riders got away. No worries, it's early, it's windy, and Mule Pass will suck the life out of your quads quickly if you've been working in a break for 30 miles. Ain't no thang . . .

As we approach Tombstone, Denny Vaughn, another Tucson rider I used to know, attempts to bridge up to the breakaway which is dangling at about 40 seconds ahead. I thought for a second of joining him, but the wind just spooked me - that's a long way to go in the wind. So off he went and he did eventually catch them. So now there were 5 riders in the break.

We had now basically bottomed out and were going to be climbing for the remainder although it wouldn't get steep until Mule Pass. Things were uneventful, but the break was staying away. 1 guy had come back, so they were down to 4. I was still pretty sure they would come back or that we would see some explosions and hear some giant sucking sounds on Mule Pass as they blew up. On we went.

The approach to Mule Pass was pretty straight and there was a slight crosswind from the right. So I was fighting for wheels right on the yellow line for a long time. I eventually moved up to the front, near Doug and the leader. I knew that things would "hot up" soon (in the immortal words of Phil Liggett) and I wanted a front row seat.

Meanwhile, the leader wasn't getting much help from his team. There was a break up the road and the leader was doing the majority of the work. His teammates would occasionally make an appearance at the front, but from what I saw, he was doing 2/3 of the work and he had at least 3 teammates there. Ouch.

Mule Pass began without incident, the leader's jersey still doing most all of the work. I was riding comfortably in no worse than 4th wheel now. Doug was there as well. I talked to him before the ride and he was hoping to make it happen on Mule Pass. He had a lot of time to make up - about 1 minute. No surprise really, since Doug has always been a great climber.

Doug says to me "Dude, what's in your water bottle?" Doug's a bit of a . . . well he's kind of goofy sometimes.

"Huh?"

"What's in your bottle, dude?"

"Accelerade"

"Can I have some?"

I brought an extra bottle of Accelerade in my jersey pocket because I was worried about not having enough to drink and now he wanted to bum some off of me? If it was anyone other than Doug or Vaughn, I probably would have said . . . well, no. . .

"Sure", and I handed him the bottle. He took a long pull and gave it back. He was very thankful, so I told him he owed me. Maybe a leadout?

I guess Vaughn grew tired of our little girl's pace at this point and launched a monster effort. He quickly got about 20 seconds. We didn't plan it, but I was pretty sure he was trying to put a little more pressure on the rest of the group. It gave me more incentive to sit on and not do any work. I think he was singing some Aretha Franklin, though, because the group wasn't giving him any respect - there was no reaction in the pack.

Eventually Vaughn came back and we found out that the break was 2:47 up. Wow, so much for my windy, tired legs theory. Those guys were busting it. Doug called for his faithful teammate, the legendary Paul Wolfe (you can't say Paul's name without the "legendary" in front of it, it just doesn't sound right). Paul immediately comes to the front and launches a vicious effort. Tap the keg, fire up the BBQ, put on Jungle Boogie and get ready to get down, because the party has now officially started.

Doug and company follow the acceleration. He pulls off and Doug continues the vicious pace. I stay on Doug's wheel - he'll be the man to beat today, no question. He pulls off and I come around him trying to maintain said vicious pace. Now it's just the two of us, but there's still probably 2-3 miles of climbing left. We've got a gap, and I know things are absolutely exploding behind us. Doug came around me. Ouch. I whimpered a little, grovelled a little and then the best I could do was a digital projection of my virtual self on Doug's wheel (anyone know the reference there?) as he rode away.

Doug was riding away and no one was going to catch him. He had 3 minutes to the break and he had to put 1 minute into the leader if he wanted to win the overall. He was up to the task.

A few more guys came around me. I was all over my gears, trying to spin my 25 and then standing on my 19. I was going backwards. Eventually, after about 7 people passed me, I was riding alone. There was a group of about 3 and then another group of 4 ahead of me. I was by myself, but not that far back, just trying to maintain a good pace and singing songs like James Brown's Get Up or the Chili's Get on Top for inspiration. There were other groups not too far behind me. I knew of at least 2 guys that were now behind me but were ahead of me on GC. So if I could make up some time on those guys, that would be good. We approached the top near the tunnel and I tried as hard as I could to accelerate over the top.

Oh that little descent through the tunnel was delightful. I tried to spin the legs a little, knowing that when the last 2k started, it would really hurt if I didn't. When we turned up the last bit of climbing the legendary Paul Wolfe came out of nowhere and rode past me. Damn - where the hell did he come from? I settled into a good rhythm, hoping to fight off the lactic acid joy for a little while. I was actually feeling better than on Mule Pass. I caught and passed the race leader and gave him a pat on the back: "Tough day, dude". Then I eventually caught and passed the legendary Paul Wolfe, but some guy who was with him caught my wheel. He stayed there as we approached the 200m sign and just beat me at the line. Guess what place I got? Yep, for the 4th stage in a row, 10th place! Call me Mr. Consistency.

This is getting way too long, so I'll wrap it up. Doug ended up catching the break at the finish line but got second place on the stage. He won on GC. We took a few pics of the awards ceremony, including the Bubbalicious Podium Chick(Patrick, she's dying to meet you) and one of Doug and me. Doug gave me the bottle of wine he won. He said the Accelerade helped him "accelerate" up the hill. He's so corny.

I ended up in 9th overall, 10 seconds from 8th place and being in the money. Oh well. If they gave an award for consistency, surely I would win, with my 4 10th places.

I reversed the order to chronological instead of the reverse. We'll add some pics and stage 3 summary soon . . .

Stage 2 - Warren TT

How it went down:

This was another difficult TT. The first part is easy and then it gets harder after the first turn, and then harder again after the 2nd turn. Since we had the downhill start, I opted for a 11 tooth on the back. If you haven't tried one, it's monster gear to push even downhill!

I got a pretty good warmup with a few anaerobic efforts, and also dialed in my new aero bars pretty good. We started in reverse GC order (so the leader gets to go last). Oh yeah, GC stands for "General Classification" and refers to the overall time of each rider. I cheered Vaughn on for his start, took another few hits on my water bottle, made one more effort to get the blood pumping and lined up for the start.

For the starting section, we had a pretty good crosswind coming from the right, which sucked. But it meant that we'd have a nice tailwind for the first climb section and then another crosswind for the last climbing section. I had a good start in my 53x19 gear and quickly chunked it down to the 11 for some serious speed. I ramped it up to 36 or 37 for a few minutes, but eventually had to jump up gear: my scrawny little legs just couldn't push that monster Mario Cipo' gear. I took the left hander onto Purdy Lane real easy since the road narrows considerably after the turn.

The tailwind was divine. I was pushing 29-30 mph for most of that section and it's slightly uphill. Giddy up!!! We started in 30 second intervals and I didn't seem to be making up much time on my 30 second man. Oh well. After 3 miles of tailwind bliss, the road turns again so now it's a crosswind again and a little bit steeper. It was a painful sight - long, straight, uphill, and never-ending.

Vaughn and I drove the course earlier, so I knew that when it did finally end, there was a little downhill rest, another roller, and then another downhill. The final 200m was extremely rough - probably not a section to be in the aero bars.I passed one guy who had just exploded and came over the last roller. I sat up a little for the rough section - I already trashed my wheels once a few months ago so I didn't want to do it again. I rolled in for a ~22:30, which was good enough for - guess what - 10th place!!!

Sulphur Springs Road Race - Stage 1

Distance: 46 miles
Terrain: mixed
Conditions: nice, mid 60's to start
Description:

This course has a bathtub profile: you start at the top, descend for 10 miles, then it's flat, then you climb up to where you started, although on a different road.

How it went down:

This was a fun race. Vaughn and I agreed to take it easy today and try to conserve for the TT tonight. So we tried to keep our noses out of the wind. Vaughn also kindly agreed to sacrifice himself for me and pull me if we got into some ugly crosswind situations. Everything went pretty smoothly for most of the race - it was a very safe race.

Doug lost his leader's jersey (at least temporarily) at the bonus sprint at the 16 mile marker. So we easily and comfortably descend the bathtub and through the flat part without incident. Then we turned back onto Highway 80 where there were a few rollers and then a 1k climb back into Bisbee for the finish. There were a few guys up the road at this point - but since I was in 10th, it didn't really make sense for Vaughn and I to do any work to bring 'em back. Besides Doug had 2 strong teammates with him.

I'm gradually trying to work my way up through the pack to the front for the uphill finish, which suits my abilities. The main group is still mostly together as we catch the breakaways on the rollers leading up to the climb. Doug is doing a little work, but his teammates are never far from the front and they're making sure he doesn't have to do too much. His faithful teammate, the legendary Paul Wolfe takes the pull at the 1K sign and through the roundabout (roundabouts: so Euro!). Some skinny dude takes a long pull up the hill - I'm not sure why, because he was cooked when he was done.

This is a big ring climb and I'd say we were doing around 20 mph all the way up. There are a few other mousey efforts which amount to nothing. I'm perfectly positioned in the top 5 at this point, and vigilant. The legs feel good and I've decided expending a little energy for the finish shouldn't hurt me too much for the TT later tonight.

Doug jumps at about 800m and I'm all over him like a bad suit. He's out of the saddle clearly trying to get a gap opened up. He pulls for a long time, but eventually pulls off and I take over. I pull to the 200m marker and well, put a fork in me, 'cause I'm done. Well done. I manage hang on for 7th in the sprint, but the group had caught us, so we all got the same time, which was a bummer since there were about 15 seconds separating 4th-15th place. We found out after the finish that there were 3 guys up the road - so I actually got 10th!!! Yeah, I don't know how we missed that either, but Doug's team needs to be watching that *shrug* Oh well.

After the ride I approached Doug (aka "Lovedog", "Lovejuice") and reintroduced myself. It took him awhile but he remembered me. I gave him an earful about being a sandbagger and then he pointed out that he actually lost the leader's jersey today. Anyway, we had a good time catching up - talking about racing, wives, kids, etc. As I mentioned, I learned a lot about bike racing from him so it's weird to be racing against him.

They posted the results and I slipped one spot to 11th overall. Ain't no thang - the TT will shake things up later today, and the road race tomorrow, with a gnarly uphill finish, will shake things up again.

A Mutha

Sorry about no postings - we didn't have phone service in our hotel, errr, I mean house, in Bisbee. So let's get started . . .



Vuelta de Bisbee
The Vuelta de Bisbee is a 3 day, 4 stage race in Southern Arizona. It consists of an uphill prologue time trial on Friday, a 46 mile road race, and a flat 10 mile time trial on Saturday and then another 60 mile road race on Sunday. Vaughn and I will be racing the 30+/Cat 1-4 race.

Catching up
We got into Phoenix ok, scored the upgrade on the car rental - so now we're in a boss Suzuki XL7. I don't think we could have managed with anything smaller. Stayed over at my parents house in Scottsdale. We didn't get in until midnight, but I think we both slept well.

We goofed around in the morning a little but got some good food and left around 10. We made a bit of a long stop at SuperGo in Chandler to drool some and then load up on food. Got into Tucson around 12:30, picked up some spare wheels at Chris's house (thanks, dude) and were on our way for food. We scored some lunch and were on our way to Bisbee.

We rolled into Bisbee around 3 pm and got registered. Then we went up to our hotel, the Jonquil. I guess they screwed up our reservation *sigh* so she was giving us options. "Well we could put you both in separate rooms tonight and then you could have the same room Saturday". That would have worked, but we have a lot of stuff between the two of us and moving it after doing 2 races on Saturday, would have sucked. But it appeared we had no options. So then she says, "Or you could stay in our little 2 bedroom house". Gee, that's a touch decision. So aside from some steps we had to climb (if you're not aware, Bisbee is like San Francisco, except hilly), and no phone service, we got a nice deal. It's a 2 bedroom, with a sitting room, bathroom, patio, and nicely furnished. We hurriedly put our bikes together and went to check the start times for the prologue.

Prologue

The Course
Distance: 2.7 miles
Vertical: 840 feet up
Conditions: sunny, 70's

Description:
It starts in downtown Bisbee on a gentle climb. Then at about the halfway point it gets a little steeper. So if you treat it like a flat TT at the start, you'll be cooked when the going really gets tough. Then you leave Bisbee and climb up above town and finish "on top of the divide". 2.7 miles? How hard could it be?!?!?!

How it went down
I got a pretty good warm up and got to drive the course once and ride it once. The start went well, I chose a 53x21 starting gear to get things rolling. I quickly chunked it into the 14 and was feeling good. I heard my HR monitor start beeping which meant I was just over 170bpm - just about where I wanted to be.

I was 1 minute behind my old buddy Doug Loveday. Doug used to be a pro rider in the early 90's but never quite made it. Nevertheless, I learned quite a bit from him about bike racing. Hopefully we'll have some time to catch up.

Despite the cool Euro setting - a prologue through the middle of the city - there weren't many fans there. Oh well, I still felt Euro. Then the steep stuff started. I dropped it to the small chainring and really started to feel the climb in my legs now - I had to back off some. I found a nice gear I could spin to help the legs recover some. Now it was starting to hurt. My heart rate must have been right around 170 (I didn't look) because it kept beeping and then stopping, beeping and then stopping. I could see my 30 second man (the guy who started 30 secs ahead of me) and from my count he was only about 15 up on me now - so that was good.

I came up to the 1K sign (the coolest 1K sign ever) and was just trying to spin my gear - not much longer now, just keep turning it. I passed a few guys who were obviously gassed so that made me feel better.

When I got to the 200 meter sign, I dropped it into the 14 or 15 and went as hard as I could to the line.
I finished in about 11:30. Not a bad time, good enough for 10th place. Loveday finished in 10:37. The best time overall in the Pro category was another old acquaintance from UofA, Andrew Miller with a 9:47 or something. Un-farking-real!!! But Doug's time would have put him in about 15th in the Pro category.

So I'm happy with that. I don't think I could have gone too much harder so that's really all you can ask for in a TT effort. I've got a serious allergy attack I'm dealing with, so hopefully that'll go away for tomorrow. Tomorrow will be a tough stressful day since we're doing 2 races. Could be windy, too!!! Alright, that's all for now . . .