A bad night in the shop...?

I made an oopsie. Maybe more than one.

3 years ago my race bike, while new to me, was very very worn out. In a matter of about 2 months I ended up replacing most of the moving parts, and since I was tearing it all apart I decided to replace the cheap-o BB adapter with a nice ceramic conversion job. I spent money on it, and I've never regretted that choice.

But after about a year, water intrusion became an issue and it started sounding like a cheap Walmart bike. I tore the whole bike down to a pile of nothing and used some exotic automotive racing grease to repack the bearings, and it spun better than when they were new. It was so good, in fact, that I got into a 6-month routine of tearing down and repacking the bearings with Redline CV-2. That stuff is amazing, but it doesn't last forever, and I put a LOT of miles on that bike.

A couple weeks ago I started feeling a little notchiness in the drivetrain. I'd been cautioned that ceramic bearings do have a lifespan, so I was hopeful it was just time for another repack, but concerned that they might be at the end of their life. I tore down, cleaned, and repacked the drive-side bearing and it rolled smooth as butter. But the non-drive-side bearing, well, I didn't make it very far into the tear-down before things went sideways.

If you're not familiar with bearing construction, or you've never torn one down, a ceramic 2437 angular contact bearing is built thus:

Deconstruction usually begins with removing the seals, which is tricky because they're very thin and fragile, and basically will be damaged by the process. NBD if you keep them dry for the rest of forever.

Disassembly then moves to removing the retainer, which is wedged in place by the ceramic balls. It's not a load-bearing part: its whole job is to keep the balls evenly spaced. In mine, the gaps between the balls have little castellated crowns that hold and distribute additional grease. It's the center object in this pic:

These castellated crowns make a great engagement point for pushing the retainer out the back side (black seal) of the bearing. And that's where things went bad. These bearings had just about 11,000 miles on them, and even with grease they go through a lot of heat cycles. The tool pushed out the first one without incident, but the 2nd retainer snapped. Uh oh.

What broke off resembled the circled part below: enough retainer to carry one bearing, with backing over 2 others. The rest came out intact.

But the way it broke, I took a chance that my non-load-bearing component could be salvaged! Also I had no other real options available, and ordering new bearings--even non-ceramic options--was going to take a couple of weeks.

My thought was that, since the broken piece could firmly hold one ball and extend "wings" to cover two adjacent balls, it would not twist inside the bearing and destroy the whole thing. The larger intact portion would simply butt up against those two outer balls and its overall structure would prevent it doing damage.

So I cleaned everything up as best I could, put it all back together very carefully, and took the bike inside.

There's still a touch of notchiness that you can feel under load on the trainer, but it's undetectable on the road.

I've put about 250 miles on the bike since doing this bodge repair, but so far the whole thing seems pretty solid. There's no question the bearing has no future. It's ruined. But for now, and maybe for a couple of cold trainer months, it seems my "fix" will hold. Or at least I hope so. Fingers crossed!

Taking care of future me

I get on my son about it pretty regularly, but one of the few lessons I've successfully drilled into my own head is to take care of my future self. We'll save the discussion of finances for a later date, but I have developed a very stable routine of replenishing my supplies long before they are exhausted.

Usually this is as simple as making sure I have changes of clothes at my desk for when I ride my bike to work. About once a week I take the dirties home and bring in 3 or 4 fresh shirts, underpants, socks, and whatever else the weather dictates. That way I don't have to carry all that stuff both ways on my daily commute. I do the same with snacks for exactly the same reason.

Back over the summer, I bought a set of Reynolds tubeless wheels from a big box retailer, and they just didn't work. Couldn't get them to set up on the bead for anything. They'd hold 40psi in the rim bed. I tried tubes. I tried clincher tires. I tried near-detonation levels of pressure: nothing worked. The rim bed was just barely too large. So I took 'em back. But I kept the tires I'd ordered for them, because they'd get used some day.

Maybe a week later I blew a rear tire on my existing tubeless wheels. NBD: sealant to the rescue! Except apparently not, because the cut was slightly larger than what the sealant would handle. After every ride, I'd be covered in sealant and I'd have to wash the bike.

I gave up and put on one of those fresh new tires and completely forgot about the other one.

Then 2 weeks ago I got a chance to do a fast outdoor ride. I took my trusty race bike and generally had an amazing time with no issues other than glorious speed. Put the bike back on the trainer afterward and thought nothing of it.

But on the next ride--a 50 miler--I heard a lot of tire-slippage whenever I put down power. I didn't realize it until the next day, but the tire was flat, and apparently had been for about 40 miles of the ride. Pumped it back up and rotated the cranks and found it: a 1/2 inch vertical gash on the sidewall of the same wheel that had flatted before. 1150 miles on the expensive tubeless tire. Frustrated, I tossed the TT bike on the trainer and banged out a less-than-pleasant 40 mile ride.

And then it hit me at 1 am: I had another tubeless tire! After 20 minutes of searching for it, I found it hanging right in front of my face, and without having to spend a single extra dollar or wait 2 days for shipping, I had my race bike back in top form for the next day's ride.

Taking care of future me. Thanks former me!

Peer pressure is just the worst

My boss runs. It's kinda her fault that, when I wanted to lose weight 4 years ago, running was my go-to. I had soccer at the time, too, and used running to regain my speed, but truly it was her fault. While I wouldn't say she explicitly goaded me or even coached me, she helped me understand some of the barriers to my success, and I was able to work down to a pretty decent competitive pace, and even win a couple of local 5K races.

But when I went to bikes, I went whole hog, and basically stopped running altogether, revisiting the sport for brief forays into a half marathon in 2015, and then a full in 2016. Since that marathon, though, nothing significant at all. Maybe 2 or 3 runs a year, always when traveling to places too inconvenient to bring a bike.

The bike adds a level of mysticism and complexity that just isn't there with running. To run fast, one must simply train, wear decent shoes, and suffer. To ride fast requires training and suffering, but also infinite variability in equipment. That's my sweet spot for a sport: training must not be enough, but it must be possible get up to speed with "adequate" equipment while allowing me to endlessly tinker.

The bike also adds the critical ability to be used as legitimate transportation. I ride to work. Then I work, and then I ride home. I do not run to work. I do not run to anywhere except the place from which I started. Running is, therefore, pointless.

Swimming was just never on my radar at all. I hate being wet, unless it's sweat. I do not like the temperature of pool water, which is simultaneously too cold to get in, but too hot to swim in. Oh and swimming itself is just an inconvenient way to risk death while, again, going nowhere. Honestly, why would you even bother?

Except that my boss is now doing tri's. And one of our VP's is also doing tri's. And they're huddled over there, every day, right behind me, chatting about tri things. Sickening.

But also intriguing.

I have a TT bike, and only 3 or 4 events a year in which to use it. I *had* great running shoes, and if I'm going to get in the water, I'm already more comfortable in skimpy euro trunks than baggy American grocery sack shorts. And, weirdly, I actually already have a tri suit that fits.

So Friday I went and bought new running shoes. Saucony Ride ISO's. I've had great luck with the Ride series in the past, and so far I LOVE THESE SHOES. I ran a 5K that night at a 7:30 pace and felt great, then ran again today after riding to work and backed the pace down to save room for a swim later, doing just a tick over 5 miles at 8:14 average. There's pain, but it's normal adaptation pain.

Saturday morning I rode the TT bike to the gym (in the tri suit) and got in the water (NOT in the tri suit). Boy do I suck at swimming. I've watched a bunch of educational swimming videos, so I'm approaching it very much as a scientific enterprise rather than a sport, because I'd be right back out of that water in a heartbeat otherwise.

I made it 7 laps of the pool, about half freestyle and half side-stroke (my fallback stroke of choice). I was able to breathe for one full lap before it all went sideways, but I had to start somewhere.

I'll be back there again this afternoon, this time with goggles, to put in a bit more time working on breathing and getting more comfortable moving back and forth across the pool.

I'm not saying I'm a tri guy now--that would be a gross over-sell--but I am succumbing to peer pressure (again), spending just a few dollars, and exploring a new element to my sporting preferences. Whether or not it sticks will depend entirely on my relationship with water.

BP: 7th in the Big Dog Race? Whoa...

Last week, just 2 days after a full weekend of racing, I lined up with the other local hot-shoes for another shot at Tuesday Night Glory. I was still hurting pretty bad from Sunday's TT, and had to put down some slightly stronger efforts than I'd wanted to get to work on time.

Knowing I didn't have it in the tank to just mix up with the bulldozers, we had a quick team strategy session before the race and decided to do things differently. We're not a big threat in that race, so nobody's really watching for us to make power moves. In fact, the two principal teams are so consumed with each other, they'd probably not notice much of anything we might try. And even better for our efforts, there's another team that brings big numbers and tries every week to make something happen, so we're even less likely to be noticed.

As the race got started, it was gloriously languid enough for conversations to take place through the group. I sat back and relaxed at the back, feeling that I might have one big effort, maybe, somewhere in the race. I sure as HELL wasn't going to waste it on a prime this time.

So I waited, and I watched, and I learned a lot. Sure enough, the two principal teams were so focused on marking each other that they were throwing out efforts left & right. Back to front, roll off, repeat. Team #3 was trying to make breaks happen, but nobody was biting, and amazingly, the group stuck together.

When the final prime rang, and the dust settled, I jumped, bringing a pair of unattached riders with me to the front and throwing them into the wind. They rolled out to a 10-meter lead, but I had no interest in trying to power off the front of the group, so I let their efforts expire...just in time to be set out into the wind myself for a full lap. With 3 to go. Yikes. Had I fired the cannon too soon?

I paced down like crazy, and the group settled with me. I dragged them through the kudzu on the edge of the course, and still they followed. With 2 to go, they jumped, and I had just enough gas left to jump with them.

Going into the bottom turn on the last lap, the group strung way out, and we hit 43 mph making a gap. I barely got across that gap as we rolled up to the final turn, and then I came through it like an idiot. Just like last year, when I didn't feel I'd "earned the right" to be there at the finish, I second-guessed myself coming out of the turn and allowed the others to dictate my placement. I rolled on power, but only 50%, hunting for a way through, and by the time I'd found one, the leaders were up the road. I picked up 2 spots and nearly grabbed one more at the line, but I'd finished in a points-paying position in the A race for the first time ever.

My legs are dead'r 'n dead

Another back-to-back championship event weekend in VA Cycling. I probably shouldn't complain, though, because it was a pair of events that managed to not get canceled this year. That's a pretty sad achievement, and perhaps an indictment of the state of the sport in our region, but grumblings aside, we at least got to race.

Things got rolling Saturday with the Chesapeake Crit, which is the state championship crit for categorized racers (i.e., Cats 1 - 5, not juniors or masters). I'd done pretty well last year, with a 4th place finish and a prime in the Cat 4 event, but last week's Bryan Park training race had been my first crit in over 2 months, and I was racing at a higher level than last year. I didn't feel very hopeful, but at least I wouldn't be in a mixed category race.

It started, as they almost all do, with a feverish first lap. Speeds well into the 30's on the back half of the course, and a mad dash to the finish line for no evident reason at all. But whereas most races settle into something of a rhythm that allows for rests and preservation of momentum, this one never quite found its stride. Cheerbacks brought a small army with the intention of launching their top riders to an uncontested victory. The rest of us were just struggling to make that tough for them to execute.

They got an early break going at about 7 laps in. It was too early to really worry about it, but their freight-train rider came and sat on the front while they rode clear. I watched them get out to about 15 seconds and sit there for about 2 laps before I got tired of it and launched a counter-attack. I brought the group back to them and ended up getting stuck near the front for the next 2 laps.

Sensing another Page Valley disaster, where I had been completely unable to get off the front for several miles, I took the turn before the front straight fast and as tight as possible, eliciting jeers and admonishment from Mr. Freight Train...and absolutely nobody else. But it got me off the front, and put him in the wind. I rolled back through the group to wait for their next attack.

One of the nice things about a smaller race group is that there's more room to move around. Though I'd moved back, I found plenty of avenues and opportunities to move forward. Unfortunately, one of the challenges of a small group is not knowing exactly where the back of the group is, and I found myself at risk of dropping off several times through the middle of the race.

So I moved up again, and again they launched an attack. And again they plopped their freight train rider on the front. This time the group wasn't having it, and started complaining. He let out a tirade of profanities, so I jumped off the front and started another charge, allowing the group to do about half the work this time.

But as soon as they were caught, another attack went. One rider got away solo, and a few laps later another bridged up to him, and together they rode clear of the whole group to the end.

Two more tried to move up but were caught in the last lap, but back to that whole rhythm thing? The whole race was just rolling around the back and laying down huge sprints to the line. Over and over again, with absolutely no point.

I did have a chance to go after the lone prime, but the rider on the front got a great launch going into the turn, and the rider in front of me decided to take a languid approach to the turn, so while I was running him down, it was never really close.

And that was my only real match to burn. The constant sprinting wore me out, and when it came time for the last lap charge, I got pinched in the first turn and had to brake to stay upright, had to work back from the absolute back of the group to the last turn, and just had nothing for the sprint itself. I picked up 1, maybe 2 positions on the way to a 17th place finish.

We managed to put a teammate into the final sprint, and he got 2nd in the bunch, but with those 2 riders clear, he was 4th overall.

---

Sunday's PGT TT was just pain. I was really disappointed by my finish at the USO TT back in June, and had bought both a speedsuit and a pointy hat in the interim. Sunday was the first time I'd ever worn either. The speedsuit felt great, but oh my goodness the heat in that pointy hat! To be fair, it ventilated *pretty* well, but sweat just ran down my nose the whole race like I was on an indoor trainer.

But they made a big difference. Though June's race had minor elevation changes and this one was dead flat, my average heart-rate was only 1 bpm different between the two. My average speed, however, was up 1.2 mph. That's pretty substantial. I don't have a power meter on that bike, but I feel pretty comfortable asserting that I put out comparable power between the two events.

Unfortunately my age puts me in a category of titans, and even with all that extra speed, I could only manage 3rd of 4, and caught a lucky break in that the guy in 4th was just having an off day. But whereas in June I was *minutes* off the pace, this time I was only about 40 seconds off.

That is a number that is still surmountable with equipment. As this was the last TT of the season, though, there's no rush to go out and buy anything right now, but the 1X conversion isn't complete: I still have a front derailleur hanging out in the wind. I've read that can impose up to 8W penalty, and I'm still running a pretty shallow front wheel. If I can find a deeper wheel, finish up the 1X change with a proper narrow-wide chainring, and remember to pack the shoe covers next time, maybe (just maybe) I'll get to move up a step on a podium next year.

Not doing it the day after a really tough crit might help, too.

---

That's it for the 2018 VA Cycling calendar. There are a few more Bryan Park races, and possibly the Carolina Cup in September, but the season is over. It was more memorable for being a season that wasn't. Between 6 events getting canceled, Whole30 stupidity, and a crash that took me out of racing for 6 weeks, this will be remembered as one of substantial disappointment for me.

The Boy, though? Wow: what a season for him! His crit on Saturday saw his highest average speed to date, with a searing 19.1 mph solo TT effort that saw him lap one competitor and nearly lap another (and in so doing, almost lap the first one AGAIN) in 6 laps. That effort put the 2018 VA Cycling BAR Champ jersey firmly in his grasp, and Sunday's TT was much the same (exactly 1 minute faster than his closest rival, with a time that wasn't far off the winning 13-14 year-old ride), allowing him to also secure the 2018 Omnium.

BP - first race in 2 months

There's something terrifying about returning to racing. It's something of a combination of a fear of crashing mixed with a fear of being caught out of form, but as I warmed up for last night's race, I could taste blood and feel that muted thwack of my face hitting the pavement just 40 days ago. Those completely mental sensations did nothing to allay my fears, and I was concerned that I'd be shuffled off the back within a few laps for being timid.

No reason for worry, though, as the race started casually enough for conversations at the back. In fact, it took almost 5 laps before I started seeing exotic heart-rate data, and several more before I started losing feeling in my hands.

Having watched the B race get ripped to shreds by a breakaway of 5 riders, I was not eager to see that repeated in the A race, and charged forward at about lap 7 from the back. Somehow I made it all the way to the front, and stayed right in the top group for about the next 6 laps or so. I chased every attack like an idiot, at one point jumping on 3 in rapid succession and nearly getting dropped off the back of the group.

With the lap-board winding down, I figured I'd see if I could either make it to the end or challenge for the final prime. When the bell rang with 5 laps to go, the group largely didn't respond. I sat in for half the lap, then sensing that nobody was running off after the prime, goosed it to the lead group, where N. Etheridge was sitting just clear of the front. Since I'd been able to eke out sprints against him last year, I went for it, but didn't have enough energy for a proper sprint.

We rounded the turn, he got out of the saddle, and I did my hardest seated sprint. I was gaining on him by inches, but rapidly running out of room, when out of nowhere a dude comes by on the right like we're both tied to a tree. From my perspective, he got us both well before the line, but the judges awarded them both the prime. Either way, my goose was COOKED. I sank like a stone and had to claw back on again.

With 3 laps to go, I'd regained just a touch of feeling in my fingers and moved forward again. I got to the front just in time for the pace to pick up for the final 2 laps, and by the time I came around to see "1" on the board, I had nothing. I'd made it 19 laps with the group, but was not going to be contending for the win, so I let it go. I wasn't sure if there was a chase, so I gave the last lap everything I had, but it was a sad solo roll to the end.

I'll get back in the game one day, but for now I'm just glad to have knocked some of the rust off, kept the bike upright, and stayed in it to the end.

USAC Amateur Road Nationals!!

What an amazing weekend.

All year, this has felt like some far-off dot on an unseen horizon. Nationals are coming! Late July! Hagerstown, MD: so close you can't NOT go. And as the current state champion, Alastair had a right and a duty to represent VA Cycling on a national stage.

But it never really felt like it was actually coming until it was almost right on top of us, and the 3 weeks leading up to it were a fury of planning, training, and building a new bike (more on that later). Then suddenly, amazingly, terrifyingly, it was time to pack and go.

We'd gotten his speed up from a consistent 16 mph to just a tick over 18 on road rides just this year, including a 35-miler at 18.4 just a few days prior to leaving. That's a lot of work for anybody, but a kid pushing A- paces felt pretty amazing, and all the recovery models projected he'd be in pretty much top form for the weekend. We were excited and confident in his ability, but I was secretly terrified of what might happen in a group.

Prior to this weekend, he'd never raced in a peloton. He'd never raced a group larger than 17, and that group split apart within the first 2 minutes of that race. This would be chaos of a whole new level for him, and I really wanted to bring home a whole boy and a whole bike. Would he be skittish in a group? Would he grab a handful of confidence-brake in the middle of a descent? Would he pick a too tight or too loose line through a turn and hook bars/wheels/elbows with an adjacent rider? Having just recently broken a hand and a face, and with last year's broken ribs fresh in my memory, I shuddered to think what might happen.

Fortunately, the first event was a TT. Whew. Nothing to worry about there except just laying down consistent power...something he's never actually trained for specifically. Every time he'd tried on Zwift, his heart rate would max out at about 190, a full 15 bpm off what it should be. Maybe it was race nerves, maybe it was just ferocity, but he jumped out of that start house at 190 bpm, ran his heart straight to 205, and held it there. For the entire 6.9 mile ride, his heart never dipped below 199, and as he made his way back to the finish line he touched 214, crossing the line at 21:04 with an average speed of 19.4 mph.

Roll-out done and passed! I like that they do it before the start, so kids don't destroy themselves with effort only to be DQ'd

Anticipation and focus

Up in the start-house, cross-chained and ready to roll

While it was briefly good enough for 4th place, we then started seeing and hearing some of the other finishers' performances, and soon heard a staggering 17:28 for the eventual winner. A 12 year old boy rode 23 mph on a road bicycle for almost 7 miles. Then he got off the bike...and he was as tall as I am. In fact most of the podium was towering giants. Other parents suggested--only half in jest--that some genetic testing might be in order.

Either way, I was incredibly proud and blown away by his performance. He excelled at a type of riding that he's never trained for. TT's require incredible concentration. If you get bored and let your mind wander, the pace drops almost immediately. But he didn't: he held super strong, and may actually have a real future in this very specific racing format. His final position was 16th of 24, so rounding out the middle 3rd of the group. Amazing, especially when you consider that he'd drawn the unfortunate position of first-rider. He had nobody ahead of him to try to catch, and was the bunny for the rest of the group.


Friday was a rest day, and we were just 12 miles from Antietam, so we took in some of the battleground and drove over to scout the road race course. Friday also marked the end of sleep for Alastair, as the nerves and caffeine caught up to him.

We got up Saturday and made our way lazily to the road course. He got straight to work warming up while I got set up to spectate. Another local VA boy showed up, but with his dad's fancy carbon fiber wheels, a move I'd considered but ultimately abandoned because of braking performance.

Right out of the gate the group split in two, with Thursday's titans driving a hard pace up the climb. Both groups were similarly sized, and the field of 32 quickly became 2 groups of 12 with the rest stuck in no-man's land.


Both groups withered throughout the race, and inexplicably on the last lap Alastair decided to participate in the feed zone, taking a bottle and giving up time on his group. Though he clawed back on and actually pulled for a bit, he lost touch on the descent and ended up coming in alone. By the end, the chase group was down to 4, and he finished 23rd of 32.

Heart rate data showed he'd given 100% to the effort, but cadence data suggested he could have raced far more efficiently, and having watched the call-up process, we know he gave up positions before the race ever started.

All in all, it was a great performance for his first real mass-start large-field race.

Sunday would see the final event of the weekend: the crit. And I have to say, I was really nervous. Course recon and advice from friends suggested the first turn would provide some fireworks for the day, as the road narrows dramatically just past the turn. And in fact we got there early enough to watch a girl from the morning's first race crash hard in that exact spot.

But after a couple of miles of warm-up, he headed to roll-out and again failed to fight for position in the call-up sprint. Straight off the line, the big kids laid down huge power and split the group. This time the split was a bit less even, with about 15 in the front group, 10 in Alastair's chase group, and about 4 riders on their own.

The fast group was almost fast enough to lap the chase group, but they stayed just out of reach to finish on the lead lap, 1:45 behind the leaders. There were no wrecks that we saw, though we did later see a boy from his race getting medical attention, and Alastair again finished 23rd (of 29), 1 position behind the other VA Cycling representative.

Though none of his performances were at the level he'd expected going in, he had a great time in every race, and has some specific things he wants to work on for next year. Because yes: he really wants to go back and do it again. He wants to be a US Road Champion.

Broke my face

It's been a while since I reported on a race, but honestly there hasn't been much to report. The VA Cycling calendar has been a disaster of cancellations, and, well, I broke my face. But that happened later, so let's dial back to June...

My wife and I decided to try Whole30 for the month of June. We figured it would give us a great opportunity to dial out the junk grazing and focus on lean proteins. And it did, but it very quickly became evident that the diet was not appropriate for endurance athletics. And I mean VERY quickly.

In the first few days, the pooping was insane. I felt like I was pooping half my body weight, which wasn't much to begin with, and really struggling to consume enough calories to keep my base metabolism satisfied. Whole heaping bowls of food, consumed twice, for each meal, with enormous protein-bomb smoothies in the evening. I know you're not supposed to weigh yourself with Whole30, or even really track your intake, but I also knew, from YEARS of monitoring myself, that I had to get at least 200g of protein (yep, not even kidding) daily with my riding to avoid serious challenges with equilibrium. If I'm low on protein, I'm woozy all day. And that's not even addressing carbs, which are the body's fuel during endurance activities. Whole30 does not like carbs.

On just the 3rd day of the month, I was scheduled to do a crit in VA Beach. Alastair and I got a hotel room nearby and figured we'd hit Starbucks in the morning, grab a protein box, and go race. Only the Starbucks on the way to the circuit is apparently the only free-standing Sbux in the world that doesn't serve food. So...no food. I fed Alastair some snacks we'd packed and sent him off to race, then figured we would have enough time between races to track down some grub. He raced, we searched, and we found what we needed. Problem solved, right? Except there was the pooping.

We got back to the venue and my body said it was time for a wholesale cleanse. In a porta-potty, in direct sunshine. Oh and it was already 90 degrees. So I got to sit there, pooping my brains out for 30 minutes, dying in the heat, BEFORE my race.

When the race started, though, I felt pretty good. The course was pretty technical, with a lot of turns at one end and some barriers close to the course. A couple of turns had loose debris, one had a concrete drain-cover, and there was one turn complex that had a narrow entry, 2 holes, a couple of big jolts, then a really tricky sweeper with a very specific entry that would send you off into the grass if you over-cooked it.

And for the first 8 or 9 laps, I was on. I stayed near or at the front, covered moves, and was really in the groove. But then my fingers started to go numb. Then my toes. Then my whole hands and feet, and my shoulders wouldn't make the finesse-y moves necessary to navigate the tricky turns. I went off into the grass, but kept myself in the group. Then my lips went numb, and I was unable to turn the bike. I was spending more time looking at my hands to see if they were actually squeezing the brakes and shifters than at my competitors, and I mis-judged the sweeper turn. Now it was time to decide whether to chase back on or choose the safe option: get dropped. So, hot on the heels of my first ever "quitting a race", I let myself get dropped.

Feeling came back to my hands and feet, and after 5 minutes of pedaling around by myself (others had already been dropped and were still 100m+ behind me), my energy came back. My pace jumped back up, and I spent the whole 2nd half of the race chasing down and passing other riders as they popped off the lead group. It was a VERY weird experience, and one I wasn't eager to repeat.

The next day was a TT, and the first on my fancy new TT bike. I hadn't pre-scouted the course, but it was supposed to be pretty flat. The poop gods smiled slightly more favorably upon me, and I was able to actually get food in my belly. I rolled off the line hard and put my heart-rate just about where I wanted it, but at about exactly the same time as in the crit, I just went flat again. My heart rate fell, my concentration fell, and my hands started to get numb. And just like the day before, about 5 minutes later I came back on.

It took a few days before I realized what had happened: without CARBS, my body ran on the morning's protein, which is not a good fuel source, until it was exhausted. Then it tried to switch to fat-burning, but there's not a whole lot of that on my 140-lb frame. I might actually have done better to skip breakfast entirely for the TT and started on a fat burn, but at only 4 days into Whole30, I hadn't yet figured out how to fuel my body for a day's exertion.

I ended up 5th of 7 in my first TT on proper equipment, and promptly ordered a speedsuit. I've since also removed the front mech and inner ring, and hope to find a few other little optimizations on the bike before campaigning it again next month. Can't wait to see how that will go, especially now that I'm eating proper foods again.

But with the numbness and mental fatigue, I decided to lay off the racing for a bit and just focus on keeping my mileage up.

I tried a metric on a business trip 3 days after the TT. I knew to keep my heart-rate out of the red, so I figured I'd do it Z2/3 and just have fun. I carried about 1200 calories of Whole30 approved snacks, and ended up running out of food by mile 50, with no good dining options available. The bonk hit hard a few miles later, and it was all I could do to get back to the hotel at ~15mph. By the time I got there, all the local restaurants were closed, and I was operating on a calorie deficit of about 2800 on the day. Whole30 can suck it: I ordered a supreme pizza, which is my usual post-ride go-to. Only this time I was shaking so hard I was almost convulsing. By the time the pizza came I had all the symptoms of severe shock. I gobbled down as much as I could stomach, and it tasted awful. If Whole30 had done one thing good by that point, it was to have rid me of the desire to eat cheap cheese and salty meats.

I got back on the program and set my sights on July. I would race, and I would race hard. I kept up steady training, and while my sprint went away over the month, my ability to hold power came up. My rides became more like consistent high-Z3 TT efforts, and I logged miles on the TT bike just to get more familiar with it.

And then I wrecked.

Coming home from work on June 25, I figured I'd be the polite cyclist and use park roads instead of public roads, where possible. As I was entering the park, though, there was a semi-solid pipe (the kind they use for fire-hydrant flushing) laid out across the road. I lifted my front wheel over it, but didn't clear the back wheel, and flipped right over onto my face. I credit the Giro Air Attack Shield helmet with saving my right eye and preventing a concussion, but I had to get stitches in my chin, and I suffered a boxer's fracture in my right hand. I apparently did exactly as I'd trained myself and rode the bike to the ground, keeping my hands on the bars the whole time. I spent most of the evening in the ER, and I've been in a removable hand brace ever since.

It should come off one week from today, but my racing season is officially over. I've lost a lot of strength in my right hand, and while I can still ride (and have logged ~150 miles / week since), I can't do much with the rear brake, and I'm slow to shift. I can ride the TT bike, though, so I'm going to do one last TT to finish the year.

I may try to hit some fondos, too. Just 4 days off Whole30 (and 9 days after the wreck), I did another metric charity ride in North Carolina. I missed the start by 10 minutes and had to chase the whole time, but ended up catching most of the riders, and finished at 21.4 mph, feeling pretty great.

I'm hopeful to be fully capable again by the time cyclocross season starts, but honestly I'm not very optimistic. This may be a regrouping year, and a chance to focus on maximizing Alastair's opportunities to compete. That should, in turn, help keep costs down, because you don't break what you don't race.

Bryan Park Training Series -- I quit a race

Only happened once before, 2.5 years ago in a gravel race for which I was woefully unprepared and on the wrong equipment. Maybe there are some parallels to last night.

On that day in early 2016, I didn't have a proper gravel bike at all. Just a road bike with disc wheels and clearance for CX tires. I made it 1 lap (granted, that lap was 25 miles long), flatted, crashed, and decided that discretion was the better part of valor. Within 15 minutes of leaving the park, the sky opened up and the temperature dropped almost 30 degrees. I felt vindicated in my decision to abandon. But I've never forgotten it.

Last night I had a flurry of racer's excuses at my side: my openers routine was awful, I'd partied too hard over the weekend, I rode too hard (or even at all) yesterday morning, I was hungry, I was on the B bike (chance of rain, and the A bike does not like water). Ultimately my goal shifted from "do well" to "survive", mixed with a dash of hope for a slightly lower pace than the opening week's 26.4 mph.

And honestly, as the race started, I felt pretty good. There was a decent ebb & flow: I could move up to the top 10 or back to the rear with relative ease, which was a first for me in an A race. At the halfway point, I didn't feel like I was at death's door. But when the cracks start to form, the collapse swift and thorough.

At 6 to go (of 16 laps), I was hurting and moving backward quickly. When the final prime bell rang, I noticed that nobody was really moving forward, so I decided to just go for it and call it a day. I jumped up the outside line after the hairpin and had great pace to get to the front. One guy had run off but only had about 8 lengths on the leaders, who were looking over their shoulders for the counter-attack. But because of their searching, I pulled up and camped 4th wheel, figuring they'd remount the chase for the one guy. Entering the final turn, they did, but it was too late, and we rolled on power fruitlessly, the 4 of us running 3 or 4 lengths apart in front of a rested peloton. When they caught us, I sank like a stone and just barely managed to hook on to the rear.

After a lap of gasping for breath, I noticed one of the local favorites was sitting there with me, and he's not one to let a race go unchallenged, so when he moved up, I used up everything I had to follow him. Made it all the way to the top 10 again, but I couldn't stay there, and when the board said 2 laps left, I was right back at the back again. I finished the next lap and, realizing I wouldn't be contesting the sprint at all, I ran out of give-a-damn and decided to abandon with 1 to go.

At the time the decision seemed highly logical: I was off the pace and would very likely be dropped in the final lap--there's no merit racing hard for 25th in a training race; I needed to stay focused on this coming weekend's 2 back-to-back BAR races; and I'd managed to meet my primary goal for the day, to survive the 26.6 mph pace (yup, faster than the first week!). But in the cold light of day, the only fact that stands out is: I quit a race.

Wintergreen Mk. II

I did a little better this year in the state hill-climb championship event. It helped that all my data-bits were working correctly, though the heart-rate monitor was acting a bit dicey in the weeks leading up to the event.

Last year I made it up the first half of the climb on power data only, and I now know my power meter was mis-calibrated at that time. That mis-calibration resulted in me blowing up at the mid-way point and having to take 3 minutes trying not to puke over the side of the bike.

This year I managed to PR every single segment, stay on the bike, and complete the event 5:59 faster, taking 2nd in the Men 40 - 44 and 3rd in Masters 35+.

There are, I believe, two other significant factors that played into that improvement: super lightweight climbing wheels (I picked up a set of Giant SLR0's back in October, and they are a tubeless dream at ~1300g) and a willingness to give up gears. One of my greatest climbing weaknesses is a determination to keep at least one gear off the bottom of the cassette, just in case the climb gets REALLY nasty, or if I need to rest a bit. I convinced myself this year to abandon that strategy and just use the gears that let me turn the pedals. With my deepest gear being a 39/28, that's still not a very friendly combination, but it's a hell of a lot friendlier than forcing myself to grind out 39/25.

My cadence still fell well into the 50's for a significant portion of the ride, and my heart glued itself to the low 180's, but I settled into a rhythm (of hate and regret) and just rode it out. And honestly, though it hurt to grind that slowly, the climb wasn't that bad until the 3 back-to-back kickers at the top.

Next year I'll change the crankset for one with smaller rings. I think there might be more time up there, but I won't find it turning a standard chainring.

Mountain bikes are dumb, and the numbers prove it

There are some fascinating things you can do with meticulous records-keeping. One of them is driving yourself crazy looking at numbers, or realizing exactly where your retirement is going. But those aren't fun things.

When I started building the race car waaaay back in '06, I kept a spreadsheet of every cost, every part, every source, everything pertaining to how I put that car together. It revealed absolutely staggering costs over time, and all of my racing buddies thought I was crazy to ever look at that kind of data. Ultimately that sheet was a big part in my decision to walk away from the sport, even as it taught me how to maximize resource-utilization and focus spending on key areas.

But I do like analytics, so when I bought my race bike in 2015, I started a new spreadsheet. This one logs every component on every bike, serial numbers, costs, sources, dates installed (to roughly calculate service intervals), services performed, has 3 whole sections for gearing calculations (one for road, one for mountain, and one for maximizing junior gearing options), and enables me to keep track of spare parts.

Of course, that spreadsheet also reveals a fairly absurd amount of moneys spent over the past 3 years, but it also enabled me to discover some rather fascinating metrics. Yesterday I jumped on Strava and pulled total mileage for every bike, then updated my Veloviewer data to get total time for every bike, then enter those data against total costs invested in each bike, to reveal a cost per mile and cost per hour for each.

Some things popped immediately. For one, road bikes, no matter the cost or category, deliver lower cost across both metrics than CX or mountain bikes. Conversely, the mountain bikes cost a literal order of magnitude more across both time and distance metrics.

The biggest surprise was that Alastair's road bike has hands-down the lowest TCO of anything in our fleet, at $.41 per mile and $5.98 per hour. His mountain bike, though? $8.47 per mile and $60.26 per hour. And those numbers represent an aggregate of both his time and my time on that bike. And we bought it USED. With no major upgrades and just a 3x9 to 1x10 conversion, that's a terrible return on investment. It will come down with use, but there's the rub: he's not terribly interested in it, so those numbers aren't likely to go down any time soon.

Overall, the road bikes generally cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $.50 / mile and ~$9 / hour. The 'cross bikes, weirdly, have almost identical numbers for both, even though I've used mine on big gravel grinders: about $2.20 / mile and $26 / hour. The mountain bikes, as mentioned, incur outrageous cost. Mine runs $5.57 / mile and $47.47 / hour.

Another interesting element to the cost of mountain biking is that, for the most part, there are secondary costs involved in even starting the ride. I cannot, for instance, easily ride the mountain bike from my house or office to any decent trail system. That means taking the truck, and its 16 mpg mid-grade fuel requirements, along with any ancillary parking costs, plus time of travel, which on the road bikes is just part of the ride. To put that into perspective, a 3-hour ride at Pocahontas State Park involves 2 hours of driving (~5 gallons of gas) and $6 of parking. If I take Alastair with me, that works out to:

5 x $2.89 (gas) = $14.45
$6 (parking)
3 x $47.47 (my mtb) = $142.41
3 x $60.26 (his mtb) = $180.78
-------------------------------------
Total: $343.64

That's ONE DAY of mountain bike riding, which is insane. By comparison, rolling 3 hours on road bikes from the house:

no gas, no parking
3 x $8.96 (my commuter/beater) = $26.88
3 x $5.98 (his road bike) = $17.94
-------------------------------------
Total: $44.82

For those of you playing the home game, that's a $300 difference for a day on the bikes. Now granted, the bike costs are largely sunk, but if I were doing a costing analysis prior to getting into cycling, there's no way I would run those numbers and decide to buy a mountain bike.

And the nuttiest thing of all is that I basically DIDN'T buy a mountain bike. I won a shopping spree and got my 2017 Giant Anthem 2 for about $400 NEW. Aside from my dumpster bike, it had the lowest buy-in of anything I own, but the running cost is no less absurd.

Back to Bike Racing: Carl Dolan 3/4

Carl Dolan 3/4

Too. Many. People.

I have new respect for the pro peloton. Either that or I just raced in the worst roller-derby-on-bikes ever. 98 riders were pre-registered, and at least 87 started. That's a lot of people for an amateur event with mixed-caliber riders, and it's forcing me to consider changing my focus to Masters races, where everybody realizes the critical importance of getting to work on Monday after the race.

It was fast at 26.2 mph average over 13 2-mile laps. The layout is glorious, with no real turns and enough space that centerline shouldn't really matter. The only real "elements" on the course are a downhill wide open turn that can easily be handled at 30 mph, and a 3/10 mile long 5% grade that levels out 300m before the finish. Oh and a bunch of choppy pavement marked with a ton of spraypaint.

That pavement ate some wheels. Almost every lap we were treated to the sound of crunching carbon & pinging spokes, but I only saw one flat during the race.

But the real issue was the group itself. A mass of riders that large produces enough draft that anybody could sit in all race long. And sitting in meant rolling around somewhere between 60th and 80th, making it hard to move around in the clump, and really hard to move forward significantly when the group stretched out. Basically the race was setting up very similarly to RIR last year, and I had no interest in repeating my exit from that one.

Lap by lap I worked my way to the outside and forward, and by the end of the 5th lap I was in the lead. For 3 laps I stayed in the top 5, working with the District Taco and NCVC guys to hold a decent pace. I figured if an attack were going to happen, it would be one of those teams at about the halfway point. But when I backed off just a hair to see if they would go, they did too. Nobody wanted to make anything happen, and I needed to cool my heart down a bit, so I rolled back into the group.

Though it worked from an energy-management perspective (heart-rate dropped from 180 to 155 almost instantly), I'd forgotten how sketchy the group was. I spent 2 laps pinned to the inside, then slowly worked my way backward and across to the outside again.

Almost as soon as I got there, I got wrecked. Some jackass who'd been cheating the centerline rule kept making moves on my outside, trying to move up into a space that didn't exist. When we got to a physical barrier to his progress, he jumped up and slammed his ass into my bars, pushing me over onto the guy on my right. Fortunately for me and EVERYONE ELSE IN THE DAMNED PELOTON, the guy to my right was much bigger and was able to support me while I got the bike back under me. Frankly it was absolutely amazing that I didn't hit the deck and wipe out the whole group, and then it was hard on the brakes for a turn that should never require brakes.

I lost a lot of positions through that maneuver, and it took until the penultimate lap to get back near the front. As we came through start/finish and down through a really wide relaxed bend, suddenly there's a dude track-left rolling easily 10 mph slower than the group. I got around him on the left as a turn-lane opened, but about 30 seconds later I heard a big ripping crunch sound behind me. I understand about 10 riders went down. No idea if it was because of the slower rider, but I imagine it was a factor.

Coming into the final downhill turn, the group got super dense. We exited the turn and I was out of gears. 53/11 and spinning over 110rpm. HOLY CRAP FAST: 42 mph. The group was onto the hill and riders were flinging themselves at it, but I'd been told to watch carefully for guys blowing up before the ground leveled out, so I worked a steady pace up, found a line, and rolled on power. The sprint was compromised with traffic, but sure enough: dudes were moving backwards en masse.

I kept it steady @ 400W until I saw a gap, then goosed it to 560 in a seated effort to keep a clean line between 2 other riders. The guy on the right, with less than 50' to the line, jumped out of the saddle and yawed into me as I passed between them, ripping my rear derailleur apart and shredding his wheel. We both stayed up to finish right around the 25% mark of finishers, but obviously it wasn't the kind of finish either of us wanted.

Looking back at data, the 3 laps that I sat on the front were among the fastest of the race. I need to either figure out how to make a break happen (tough to do without team support) or get more aggressive about getting back to the front for the final sprint. I think I was too patient going around the back side of the course on the final lap. There seems to be a general consensus that centerline rules go out the window at the end.

So I bought a motorcycle...

My main vehicle is a truck. Specifically a 2009 Dodge RAM 1500 5.7L V8 with the big cab and the puny bed. I got it back in July 2010 when my old truck revealed it wasn't really up to the task of pulling a 24' enclosed trailer to the track 10+ times / year. She's a thirsty girl, with an average fuel economy of about 16 - 17 mpg. And she drinks mid-grade, 'cause she's classy like that.

3 months after I bought the truck, I went through a bit of a crisis about that fuel economy. I'd just started dating a girl who lived across state lines, and while the truck is exceptionally comfortable, the thought of burning up all that fuel was killing me. So I bought another Miata, and kept that until it got rear-ended last year. We won't talk about the period where I owned a 3rd car, because that was just foolishness.

But the Miata served a very specific purpose: keeping miles off the truck. Because while the truck is thirsty, it's also pretty expensive to maintain. Dodge fitted this 5.7L V8 with cylinder deactivation, so a spark-plug job isn't 8 plugs: it's 16. And with coil-on-plug design, that means 16 coils with the same service interval. The rear-most 2 plugs are almost impossible to reach, so I have the work done by pros, to the tune of ~$1300. Ouch. Then there are the tires. Truck tires aren't cheap, and they seem to only last about as long as the plugs & coils. So every 30K miles or so, I have about $2000 worth of service that has to be done, along with the routine 6Q of oil per change.

But the truck is also the only vehicle that can make dump runs. It's fully paid off. It's the only vehicle we own that can comfortably seat all 5 of us for vacations. It's not 4WD, but it can pull the tractor out of a hole or lug it to the shop. The truck is necessary. And while I could certainly do with *less* truck, finding an ideal trade (4WD, V6, huge cab, low miles, well-appointed) at an ideal price (just swap for my truck) is...well, it's pretty well impossible. Dodge trucks don't hold value. NBD: I own it; it's mine; it serves many many purposes in my life. Gotta have the truck.

The truck just crossed 70K miles a month ago. It's 4 years out from the last coil/plug service, and tires are about done. I have no Miatas (woot!), no secondary vehicles. I ride my bike. A lot. Like, a lot a lot. 18.5K miles over the past 2.7 years, including at least one to two days per week of commuting.

I'm used to life on two wheels. I know the busy streets, the quiet country roads, how to kit for cold and warm weather, and I even still had a bunch of safety gear from my car racing days (helmets, etc).

So I did some math and realized that while another Miata would not save me a penny, a motorcycle could shave $2000 from my annual budget. Mostly in fuel and insurance. A $2K drop is bigger than dropping cable, cutting out beer, whatever ideas we sometimes float to save a few bucks, so I figured I'd try it out.

A bit of research (actually just about 60 hours) narrowed the search down to either a Honda Rebel 250 or a Yamaha Virago XV250. I found one of the latter on Craigslist for $1200, bought it, took the Motorcycle Safety Foundation class for $170, insured the bike for a year at $215, picked up a used touring 2-piece armor suit for $100, and I've been enjoying 60+ mpg ever since.

Well... "enjoying" might be too strong a word. I don't love it yet. I'm not sure I really even like it. On the bicycle, you dress for the weather and regulate your core temperature with effort. It's pretty easy, and even when you get it wrong, it's usually not so desperately wrong that you just want to have a wreck to justify a ride in a warm ambulance.

On the motorcycle, I've found myself buying clothes on the way to complete the journey. That is an abject failure of the intent of buying the thing.

So far I've put 700 miles on the bike, and to be fair: the weather hasn't been great. But the biggest inconvenience is all the effort it takes to get on and off the bike. The safety gear takes so long to put on and take off I actually have to leave almost as early as if I ride my bicycle. I realize it's all important, but dammit it's inconvenient as all get-out. I find myself wanting to take short-cuts, and that's usually my sign that I'm just not enjoying something. Boots, armor pants, sweater, ear plugs, balaclava, armor jacket, helmet, gloves. Lots of zippers, buttons, snaps, and velcro to deal with at both ends of the journey, twice a day. And most of the time I'm already melting inside just trying to get it all on.

I'm going to give it more time. I have better gloves now, and summer is fast approaching. If I can find a way to be happy with lighter kit (jeans & leather jacket) that I can take into the office, then I'll stick with it--sacrifice a bit of safety for vastly-improved comfort. That $2K is tough to ignore, but I have to enjoy my life, too.

2018 early racing season

I finished last year by submitting and being approved for a Cat 3 racing upgrade. I spent the winter commuting and racing on Zwift, mixing up formats and going after short- to medium- distance races. I felt pretty good about my efforts, my training, and my equipment.

But Zwift racing isn't quite the same animal as outdoor racing. Zwift rewards a crushing effort at the start and the ability to suffer at FTP for the duration, with a sprint at the end. It's really tough, but it's stable. Jumps are infrequent, but you can't coast. You can't hear the guy next to you gasping like a fish out of water, and there's never any risk of touching wheels.

Nonetheless, I went into the first race of 2018 in late January with very high hopes. The Snowcone crit is a 1-hour training race that's maybe just a hair too long to really call a crit, with just two divisions that roughly break down to 1/2/3/4 and 4/5. I had no teammates and would be facing some stiff competition, including the guy who rode off to a solo win in last year's 4/5 race. Oh and a 15 - 20 mph wind.

The race was my first real exposure to serious team strategy, as 4 Nissan RVA guys worked together like a well-oiled machine. One guy glued himself to the front of the pack and reeled back any breakaway efforts for the entire race, while their hot-shoe waited until half-way to launch a crushing attack that put him well clear of the pack. When all was said & done, their guy had over a minute on the group. In the closing laps I watched all the rest of their guys get towed to the front as others launched spurious ill-fated attacks.

Coming into the last turn-complex, my legs were about done, and I started to get consumed by the group. But entering the final straight, one of the lead riders had a devastating crash just as the sprinters were jumping, and half of them sat up, unwilling to risk the season in January. It might have been a dick move, but once I realized the crashing bike wasn't going to hit me, I jumped and clawed my way up to 6th place right at the line. It was a good result, but it didn't feel like an honest one.

---

Fast-forward to the Tidewater Winter Classic, my first Cat 3 road race. This one was a combined field of Pro/1/2/3 over 60 miles of mostly rolling terrain, with a single climb that's just a quick punch followed by a false-flat. Since Snowcone, I'd gone back to Zwift and actually won a couple of races, so I still felt like I had legs for something big.

This time, though, I felt like I was in trouble from the end of the roll-out. I never get used to that surge, but I managed to hold on to the pack, working my way around and getting up near the front of the group after a couple of laps.

We'd been cautioned that there had been a wreck in every single race of the day, all in roughly the same spot: the downhill run to the base of the climb. Sure enough, in the 4th lap came the familiar and horrible sound of crunching carbon fiber. Unlike in my previous Cat 4 & 5 races, though, the pack worked seamlessly to find the safe way around, leaving just a few of us hard on the brakes. Also unlike those other races, the group chose not to attack in the next mile, allowing us to catch back on. I like racing with the elite riders!

Somehow I managed to always time my efforts to coincide with other riders' attacks, so I stayed pretty close to the front until the end. Once we made the final turn, though, all bets were off. We were now racing 1.5 miles at a slightly downhill to a sharp uphill finish with a slight jig to the right.

I was chasing the wheel of one of the favorites when he told his lead-out to move left into a thick clot of other riders. Seeing a gap, I moved left onto a short line with lots of space. At the base of the final little climb, the leader of that line sat up, the guy behind him hit the brakes, and I hit his wheel. I managed to keep it upright, gathered it up, and restarted my sprint. As we came through the jig, I looked up to see 2 cars sitting on the finish line. Not moving. What. The. Fuck.

Once more onto the brakes, once more into an abortive sprint. I lost at least 5 positions each time I had to give up my sprint, and ended up 19th overall. Once again I got a result I just couldn't feel proud of, even though I'd been there right up until the end.

---

Saturday Alastair and I drove down to Virginia Beach for our 2nd foray into the Shamrock crit. He was facing a field of 3, which he utterly destroyed (no surprise--he's been winning races on Zwift, too!). I had signed up for 2 races: Masters and 3/4. It was a mistake, and one I knew I'd make. I can't not chase a bunny, and there were plenty of bunnies to chase.

My goal had been to give about 80% to the Masters race and save for the later 3/4 race. That plan met with utter failure, as the Masters had a hugely successful breakaway that nearly caught & lapped us. I ended up finishing 10th in that race, 4th in the bunch sprint, but knew I'd over-spent for the 3/4.

In the 2nd race, I actually held on pretty well, pulled the group for a bit, and worked harder than I should have, but there was no breakaway. I felt pretty good--I even won the first prime. I glued myself to the wheel of a teammate to ensure he'd have room to work the corners. But with 1.5 laps to go, my calves and thighs seized, and I went from 4th to 21st. Coming through the last turn, it was all I could do to turn the pedals.

Apparently I cannot do 80 minutes of crit intensity, and I did not properly manage my pedaling time.

And that's what's been missing from my training regimen. I hate hate hate doing intervals, and power drop-outs on Zwift do nothing to improve my opinion on the matter. But while Zwift racing allows me to just basically hold 285W for an hour and throw a sprint at the end, crits are bursts of 500 - 750W at almost every turn, every lap. Shamrock had 4 turns and 27 laps. That's a lot of 5-second bursts, and I hadn't trained for it.

Now there's a great big hole on the schedule, with no crits in the area until May. I'd built my racing plans for the year around crits, and so far the only halfway decent results I've managed have been capitalizing on others' mistakes. So it's not all roses and sunshine for me right now. Alastair's off to a perfect start to defending his state champ jersey, but my start has been crap. Gotta find something affirming and crush it.

Quick Guide to Trek's Road Bike Naming Standards

I have a lot of trouble keeping up with people talking about Trek's road bikes. Maybe it's because I'm just the teensiest bit dyslexic, but to be fair, picking all your product names out of the same 6-letter hat is kind of a dick move. So with a fantastic suggestion from a teammate, I'm going to make a cheat-sheet with some potential future model names just to keep track of it all.

Current line:
Madone - the racing bike
Emonda - the climbing bike
Domane - the endurance bike

Potential future models:
Nomade - the touring bike (h/t D. Riddle)
Meando - the hybrid touring bike
Demona - the bike that looks very fast but isn't, and is always in the shop for go-fast parts
Endoma - the indoor trainer (Esperanto joke)
Odamne - the sexy as hell bike that you can't afford
Odeman - the only bike you're able to ride by the time you can afford the Odamne