Since my last entry a whopping 10 days ago I wrapped up the San Dimas Stage Race, shipped teammates Brett & Alex back to Chicago, kissed Rosa goodbye for 6 weeks, shipped myself back to Chicago, spent a couple days catching up on ABD paperwork, putting in a couple days at Prairie Path Cycles’ Winfield & Batavia store, put on a fun Cycling College for ABD’ers with Presidente Farrell and managed to get 2nd @ Parkside on Sunday... phew.
I didn’t really wrap up the San Dimas Race as much as it wrapped me up in a body bag and kicked me repeatedly. The Crit was wicked fast as the first break of the day was the one that stuck, and you effectively had five or six riders who did the Tour of California pursuiting against the BMC team, who’d done the Tour of California - for over an hour. It was my first crit of the year and was probably just as fast or faster than Superweek Crit. I pulled the ripcord at the halfway point (45 minutes) and we were averaging 28mph on a course with a little grade in it. As much as I don’t like getting spanked it was good to see “Big Bird” in the break pounding away.
As for the Prairie Path Cycles’ stores, it’s an exciting time at the shops as everyone is stepping up their game to be the best all around bike stores in the area. I’m just sort of the “tech advisor” in charge of wiring up the computer and phone network and setting up the permanent Cycling Center in Batavia with ABD Junior/shop employee/wunderkid Alex Billingsley handling much of the nitty gritty software stuff.
Then this weekend in Kenosha. We had a lot of fun at the Cycling College as the group of riders engaged themselves in the material and asked all the right questions to make sure they could apply it to their own situations. Over the years, I’ve managed to glean nuggets of wisdom from various people and sources that I enjoy passing on if it can help riders get a little faster or even just enjoy the sport a little more. And of course, any conversations with my co-presenter Coach Farrell on training and tactics is like a glimpse into the National Archives — with a little humor, of course.
The Sunday race went well too. I had a solid two-hour tempo ride in the morning, a short nap in the Student Union, and a hard 60 minute + two lap effort. The PCW guys started sending riders from the gun and myself, Ken D and Scott Pearson ended up in a group with a strong PCW junior and the White brothers. We all worked hard, took turns attacking each other and in the end I finished 2nd. It was a solid training race with everybody just gunning it and not worrying how deep we buried ourselves.
Hillsboro on Saturday and the John Fraser on Sunday, It’s going to be great to get out with the team.f California pursuiting against the BMC team, who’d done the Tour of California - for over an hour. It was my first crit of the year and was probably just as fast or faster than Superweek Crit. I pulled the ripcord at the halfway point (45 minutes) and we were averaging 28mph on a course with a little grade in it. As much as I don’t like getting spanked it was good to see “Big Bird” in the break pounding away.
As for the Prairie Path Cycles’ stores, it’s an exciting time at the shops as everyone is stepping up their game to be the best all around bike stores in the area. I’m just sort of the “tech advisor” in charge of wiring up the computer and phone network and setting up the permanent Cycling Center in Batavia with ABD Junior/shop employee/wunderkid Alex Billingsley handling a lot of the nitty gritty software stuff.
And then this weekend in Kenosha. We had a lot of fun at the Cycling College as the group of riders engaged themselves in the material and asked all the right questions to make sure they could apply it to their own situations. Over the years I’ve managed to glean a lot of knowledge from various people and sources that I enjoy passing on if it can help riders get a little faster or even just enjoy the sport a little more. And of course, any conversations with my co-presenter Coach Farrell on training and tactics is like a glimpse into the National Archives — with a little humor, of course.
The Sunday race went well too. I was able to get a solid 2 hour Tempo ride in the morning, a short nap in the Student Union, and a hard 60 minute + 2 lap effort. The PCW guys started sending riders from the gun and myself, Ken D and Scott Pearson ended up in a group with a strong PCW junior and the White brothers. We all worked hard, took turns attacking each other and in the end I ended up 2nd. It was a solid training race with everybody just gunning it and not worrying how deep we buried ourselves.
Hillsboro on Saturday and the John Fraser on Sunday. it’s going to be great to get out with the team.
3.27.2007
3.18.2007
San Dimas Road Race: Crash Happens
Since I’m so heavily involved with ABD’s events, I can appreciate what promoters go through to hold races and close courses, and therefore I can understand some of the reasoning behind the San Dimas Stage Race promoters’ decision a few years back to reroute a section of the Road Race course to stay inside state park boundaries where fewer marshalls and local police are required. However, the section they use to do that includes about a 3/4 mile of one-lane service road along a dam that has a fence on one side, a precipitous 75-foot drop of jagged, football sized rocks to the other, and fierce crosswinds as the day heats up. In 2004, the Pro/1 Men’s field actually protested the circuit race stage that included nothing but park roads with the start/finish on this section, and several heated words were exchanged between riders, manager and the promoters.
Anyway, sure enough, with about 20 miles left in yesterday’s race there was a wreck on this section about 15 riders from the front. I was hanging out near the back just getting in my race miles, and watched as several riders aimed for the wreckage to avoid shooting off into the rocky drop. Quite the predicament: “I better hit the pavement so that I don’t break bones going the other way...” No riders went off the “wrong side”, but the carnage caused a massive pile-up and the 13 riders that made it through the wreck went on to finish 4 minutes up. That’s bike racing.
After clipping out and scooting through wreckage I was in about the third or fourth chase group and put in a two big pulls to get into the main field, but I made the fatal mistake of pulling off in the crosswind after those pulls and was forced all the way to the back. Then when guys started popping off the pace in front of me, I didn’t have enough gas to keep jumping around them and stay with the field - damn. I ended up with another group of four that kept picking up riders until we were about 12 strong and just rode tempo to the line, finishing about 35 seconds down on the 30-rider “field”.
Since I was really just looking for some race miles and inensity, I accomplished that goal, and as it turned out, I probably got a harder workout those last three laps than if I’d sat in the field the whole time. The first four laps of the race were super fast too, and we averaged 27mph on a 7-mile course with 500 feet of climbing per lap. Unfortunately, Brett had the worst luck on the day, flatting less than 2 miles into the race and then being misdirected by course marshalls to top it off! Alex had a good day in the Cat. 2 race though, finishing with the main field and sailing over the climbs with ease.
Today is crit-day. Now that the top six in the overall standings are a BMC rider, Navigators rider, BMC rider, Navigators rider, BMC rider, Navigators rider... the stage might be a bit boring -- but with a four-minute gap after 13th place, there’s always the possibility those teams could let a break go because even if it gets a lap their lead is still safe and then they wouldn’t have to worry about Jittery Joe’s sprinter Jeff Hopkins racking up Sprint Points to challenge Navigators rider Ben Brooks’ lead in that competition. Of course, after getting caught out yesterday, the coffee boys will certainly be looking for redemption.
As for me, opportunistic is the word of the day.
Anyway, sure enough, with about 20 miles left in yesterday’s race there was a wreck on this section about 15 riders from the front. I was hanging out near the back just getting in my race miles, and watched as several riders aimed for the wreckage to avoid shooting off into the rocky drop. Quite the predicament: “I better hit the pavement so that I don’t break bones going the other way...” No riders went off the “wrong side”, but the carnage caused a massive pile-up and the 13 riders that made it through the wreck went on to finish 4 minutes up. That’s bike racing.
After clipping out and scooting through wreckage I was in about the third or fourth chase group and put in a two big pulls to get into the main field, but I made the fatal mistake of pulling off in the crosswind after those pulls and was forced all the way to the back. Then when guys started popping off the pace in front of me, I didn’t have enough gas to keep jumping around them and stay with the field - damn. I ended up with another group of four that kept picking up riders until we were about 12 strong and just rode tempo to the line, finishing about 35 seconds down on the 30-rider “field”.
Since I was really just looking for some race miles and inensity, I accomplished that goal, and as it turned out, I probably got a harder workout those last three laps than if I’d sat in the field the whole time. The first four laps of the race were super fast too, and we averaged 27mph on a 7-mile course with 500 feet of climbing per lap. Unfortunately, Brett had the worst luck on the day, flatting less than 2 miles into the race and then being misdirected by course marshalls to top it off! Alex had a good day in the Cat. 2 race though, finishing with the main field and sailing over the climbs with ease.
Today is crit-day. Now that the top six in the overall standings are a BMC rider, Navigators rider, BMC rider, Navigators rider, BMC rider, Navigators rider... the stage might be a bit boring -- but with a four-minute gap after 13th place, there’s always the possibility those teams could let a break go because even if it gets a lap their lead is still safe and then they wouldn’t have to worry about Jittery Joe’s sprinter Jeff Hopkins racking up Sprint Points to challenge Navigators rider Ben Brooks’ lead in that competition. Of course, after getting caught out yesterday, the coffee boys will certainly be looking for redemption.
As for me, opportunistic is the word of the day.
3.17.2007
Mini Camp & San Dimas TT: 1st Race of '07
85 degrees, a thick SoCal Haze and 1500 feet of climbing in 3.8 miles. Thus were the conditions for the first race of the year yesterday at the San Dimas TT. It was hot, it was uphill, it was a TT. I can cope with the first two, I historically don't deal well with Time Trials.
As I mentioned in my last update, this past week Brett and Alex have been out here training with me, putting in a couple of 4.5 hour days in the Malibu mountains on Tuesday and Wednesday and prepping for some race miles at the San Dimas Stage Race. The rides were great, as pretty much any day you ride on the ocean is, and not even Alex's loss of 4 out of 5 chainring bolts could spoil it! Stealing one each from Brett and I got us to the closest bike shop and a straight shot up and over the mountains got us back down to the coast. A huge thanks goes out to my Aunt Laurie and Uncle Larry who let us use their home as a "ride base" this week.
A quick rest day on Thursday brings us back to yesterday's infernal TT. I actually felt great and took a whopping 20 seconds off last year's 45-degree, sleet and hypothermia-fest, but my time still leaves me a bit off where I'd like to be. I can't be too bummed considering I've had about four days of VO2 work all year and I wasn't running any super-special light aero wheels (just my trusty X-Lites and Seca Comp tires), but you always want to do better.
Today we have the Road Race: 5,000 feet of climbing in 72 miles. The race is 30 miles shorter than last year and the two leaders are separated by .63 seconds, so it's definitely going to be an interesting race. It could either be insanely-fast or nerve-wrackingly slow and tactical - I'm not too sure which I'm voting for. I'll let you know in about 7 hours.
-Ebert
As I mentioned in my last update, this past week Brett and Alex have been out here training with me, putting in a couple of 4.5 hour days in the Malibu mountains on Tuesday and Wednesday and prepping for some race miles at the San Dimas Stage Race. The rides were great, as pretty much any day you ride on the ocean is, and not even Alex's loss of 4 out of 5 chainring bolts could spoil it! Stealing one each from Brett and I got us to the closest bike shop and a straight shot up and over the mountains got us back down to the coast. A huge thanks goes out to my Aunt Laurie and Uncle Larry who let us use their home as a "ride base" this week.
A quick rest day on Thursday brings us back to yesterday's infernal TT. I actually felt great and took a whopping 20 seconds off last year's 45-degree, sleet and hypothermia-fest, but my time still leaves me a bit off where I'd like to be. I can't be too bummed considering I've had about four days of VO2 work all year and I wasn't running any super-special light aero wheels (just my trusty X-Lites and Seca Comp tires), but you always want to do better.Today we have the Road Race: 5,000 feet of climbing in 72 miles. The race is 30 miles shorter than last year and the two leaders are separated by .63 seconds, so it's definitely going to be an interesting race. It could either be insanely-fast or nerve-wrackingly slow and tactical - I'm not too sure which I'm voting for. I'll let you know in about 7 hours.
-Ebert
3.14.2007
Downtime
Last week was one of those training weeks where I felt as though I couldn’t get out of my own way. The hills out my front door that I usually looked forward to as a nice warm-up had become tortuous leg burners that told me to go home. So, at least a couple of times I did.
The “down” week is inevitable in the athlete’s fitness cycle. You can only build up so many weeks in a row before your body needs a few days rest. If you plan for it, then it seems completely natural and you’re prepared to just rest up and take it easy. However, if you’re training is unstructured and you don’t keep track of what you’re doing, a “down” week can leave you banging your head against a wall wondering, “why do I suck so bad?”
The past couple of months have been a “freeform base” period for me: I ride whenever I can and as good as I feel. For the last 8 weeks I’ve been on the bike 3 or 4 days a week for 2.5-5 hours with LOTS of climbing and/or tempo. But that also means I’m getting 3 or 4 days of rest every week with my Physical Therapy exercises mixed in, and all that rest has allowed me to prolong the “build” phase of my training for almost two months.
I had big plans last week for some monster rides that kept building on everything I’d been doing, but when I started “riding sh#@-house”, I thought about banging my head against the wall. Fortunately, a look back in my training log saved me the pain and revealed I’d ridden 10% more volume in January and February of ‘07 than ‘06, and the AVG Watts I was generating for given intervals and for each total ride were way up. And looking back in my log a little further, this past November and December I was hardly on my bike at all, whereas in those same months one year earlier I’d put in a surprising amount of pre-season base.
So, looking at all those numbers, it makes sense that last week I needed a little extra rest to let my body catch up. After three days of easy riding a quick call to Coach Farrell put me right back on track... sort of. Mike prescribed an indoor workout with lots of spinning followed by VO2 efforts followed by an hour of hard tempo.... indoor?!? Doesn't he know I'm in sunny SoCal where it's 75 degrees and if I'm on the trainer I have to look at sunshine and mountains out my window? Of course Mike knows that, and he also knows that if I'm fully recovered and ready to go I'll be focused enough to do a trainer workout. So, on the day he prescribed the workout I get the rollers out, fill up the bottles, and get dressed to ride. Then I lay on the couch in my riding kit for about 30 minutes and read a magazine instead. Yep, definitely needed one more day of rest. The next day I hit the trainer workout, put out great numbers and I'm raring to go. Thanks, Coach.
Next update: My teammates Brett and Alex are out here for the San Dimas Stage Race! And the reason I didn’t ride my bike in November and December is the same reason my watts are up this season (the PT saga).
The “down” week is inevitable in the athlete’s fitness cycle. You can only build up so many weeks in a row before your body needs a few days rest. If you plan for it, then it seems completely natural and you’re prepared to just rest up and take it easy. However, if you’re training is unstructured and you don’t keep track of what you’re doing, a “down” week can leave you banging your head against a wall wondering, “why do I suck so bad?”
The past couple of months have been a “freeform base” period for me: I ride whenever I can and as good as I feel. For the last 8 weeks I’ve been on the bike 3 or 4 days a week for 2.5-5 hours with LOTS of climbing and/or tempo. But that also means I’m getting 3 or 4 days of rest every week with my Physical Therapy exercises mixed in, and all that rest has allowed me to prolong the “build” phase of my training for almost two months.
I had big plans last week for some monster rides that kept building on everything I’d been doing, but when I started “riding sh#@-house”, I thought about banging my head against the wall. Fortunately, a look back in my training log saved me the pain and revealed I’d ridden 10% more volume in January and February of ‘07 than ‘06, and the AVG Watts I was generating for given intervals and for each total ride were way up. And looking back in my log a little further, this past November and December I was hardly on my bike at all, whereas in those same months one year earlier I’d put in a surprising amount of pre-season base.
So, looking at all those numbers, it makes sense that last week I needed a little extra rest to let my body catch up. After three days of easy riding a quick call to Coach Farrell put me right back on track... sort of. Mike prescribed an indoor workout with lots of spinning followed by VO2 efforts followed by an hour of hard tempo.... indoor?!? Doesn't he know I'm in sunny SoCal where it's 75 degrees and if I'm on the trainer I have to look at sunshine and mountains out my window? Of course Mike knows that, and he also knows that if I'm fully recovered and ready to go I'll be focused enough to do a trainer workout. So, on the day he prescribed the workout I get the rollers out, fill up the bottles, and get dressed to ride. Then I lay on the couch in my riding kit for about 30 minutes and read a magazine instead. Yep, definitely needed one more day of rest. The next day I hit the trainer workout, put out great numbers and I'm raring to go. Thanks, Coach.
Next update: My teammates Brett and Alex are out here for the San Dimas Stage Race! And the reason I didn’t ride my bike in November and December is the same reason my watts are up this season (the PT saga).
3.07.2007
Mmm... travel
There are less than two weeks until I'm back in the Midwest for the Weekend Cycling College, Hillsboro Roubaix, the ABD TT Series finale, and a whole slew of other events with the club and the team. I'm pretty excited as lots of good things are happening in 2007, and it's going to be the first few races the team gets to do together.
A friend recently e-mailed me to ask what my travel schedule looks like over the next few months, and even I was surprised by my answer:
-Back in the Western Suburbs for about a month starting March 20th, then to Virginia for a week-long race, to San Diego for two days of racing, back to LA for 48 hours, then a week in Germany & Austria for my best friend's wedding with a night in London on the tail end (a 27 hour layover!), 3 weeks in Winfield including the Winfield Crit Weekend, a week in LA that includes a play Rosa is producing/starring in, a week in Minneapolis for the Nature Valley Grand Prix... and then back to the Chicago area from late June at least through Downers Grove.
Thank the powers that be for mp3 players and noise-cancelling headphones. Last year I started taking 5 or 10 minutes before I fly to throw together a playlist named for the flight number I'm on, so this year I'll be on some of those same flights to give 'em a second listen. I've also found that for one reason or another I'm super-productive in airports and on planes -- maybe it's the outside stimuli. I'm a little old for the A.D.D. generation, but there was certainly plenty of cable TV and video games (up, up, down, down, left, right...) And then there was that 14 hour delay (8AM to 10PM) in SFO last year that was a constant cycle of working, phone calls, playing Freecell, standing in lines, searching for an outlet to recharge everything ... and a sourdough breadbowl with a different soup every 4 hours.
I love soup in sourdough bread bowls.
A friend recently e-mailed me to ask what my travel schedule looks like over the next few months, and even I was surprised by my answer:
-Back in the Western Suburbs for about a month starting March 20th, then to Virginia for a week-long race, to San Diego for two days of racing, back to LA for 48 hours, then a week in Germany & Austria for my best friend's wedding with a night in London on the tail end (a 27 hour layover!), 3 weeks in Winfield including the Winfield Crit Weekend, a week in LA that includes a play Rosa is producing/starring in, a week in Minneapolis for the Nature Valley Grand Prix... and then back to the Chicago area from late June at least through Downers Grove.
Thank the powers that be for mp3 players and noise-cancelling headphones. Last year I started taking 5 or 10 minutes before I fly to throw together a playlist named for the flight number I'm on, so this year I'll be on some of those same flights to give 'em a second listen. I've also found that for one reason or another I'm super-productive in airports and on planes -- maybe it's the outside stimuli. I'm a little old for the A.D.D. generation, but there was certainly plenty of cable TV and video games (up, up, down, down, left, right...) And then there was that 14 hour delay (8AM to 10PM) in SFO last year that was a constant cycle of working, phone calls, playing Freecell, standing in lines, searching for an outlet to recharge everything ... and a sourdough breadbowl with a different soup every 4 hours.
I love soup in sourdough bread bowls.
3.04.2007
A Triomphe Triumph - this one’s all about the bike
As some of you may remember, last April I had the serendipitous good fortune of sitting next to Steve Malchow, a director of engineering at Trek, on a flight from Denver to Burbank. We talked shop, I gave him feedback on all the Trek, LeMond and Bontrager products I’ve ridden over the years, and I mentioned (maybe 3 or 4 times) how stoked I was about the new LeMond triomphe framesets ... and that I ride a 51cm.
We exchanged a few e-mails over the summer and then in late August, voila - a gorgeous red & white Buenos Aires frameset appeared. The SKU sticker on the bike revealed it had been built two days prior -- now that’s service! Anyway, I built it up and started riding it in time to race it at the Gateway Cup and on some longer rides here in L.A this past fall.
In short, these bikes rock. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: nobody knows how to build carbon bikes as well as the folks in Waterloo, Wisconsin.
The Trek 5500 OCLV bike I rode in ‘03 was the best bike I’d ridden up until that point, and after I did a fitting and went to a smaller bike, I was really bummed the geometry didn’t work for me anymore. I rode some great bikes in the meantime, but nothing could quite match that ride. Then came the Triomphe.
It wasn’t completely love at first ride, but close. Three things were very noticeable:
1) The power transfer on the bike is amazing. When I stomped on the pedals at the Gateway Cup races I was accelerating so much faster.
2) Ohh myy lightness. I typically ride bikes around the 18lb weight range, because frankly, I prefer durability and I don’t really notice 1 or 2 lbs on the Midwest terrain. If I want to shave weight and feel faster, I’ll race a set of carbon wheels. But on this bike, the light weight combined with the great power transfer has a serious “WOW” factor. I'm pretty sure I had a big cheesy grin on my face the first few rides I did in the mountains around L.A.
3) Comfort. 4 or 5 hours later nothing hurts anymore than it should. It’s really tough to pull off a comfortable ride if you achieve numbers 1 & 2, but they did it.
There was one pretty significant issue for me though, the fit. I like to ride with my bars at least 10 or 11cm lower than my seat, and the head tubes on the Triomphe’s are pretty tall. I struggled to dial in that perfect fit and thus, after my initial 6-week run with the 51cm, I ended up swapping it out for a 49cm frameset. (You can check out fellow ABD’er Matt Wenc aboard the 51cm machine). Since the switch, I don’t even think about the bike, which is as I should it be - you just ride it. However, there are three significant customizations I’ve done that have helped attributed to a great ride:
Serfas Furano Saddle: Another product I know I’ve raved about before, but this really is a fantastic saddle. Right out of the box it feels perfect, and the long profile provides a lot of adjustability.
Bontrager FIT VR bars: I’m not ashamed to admit that I ride bars designed for Women. They make it really easy to shift and reach the brakes when you’re in the drops, and since I’m only so flexible, I like having a less drastic change from my tops to my hoods to my bars.
Bontrager X-Lite Fork (see pics above): I went with the lighter version of the Bontrager Fork that they spec on the Madones. It has the carbon crown and tracks really well at high speeds and railing through turns.
So, although due to my geometry issues I can't ride the same great looking Madone SL bikes as my teammates, at least now it feels the same!
3.01.2007
Los Angeles
For those of you who don’t know, I have a home in California with my girlfriend, Rosa, where I spend most of the winter and as much time as I can during the summer. We’ve got a little apartment in Glendale, a cozy little town of 200,000 people on the northeast border of the Los Angeles City Limits.
No really, it is cozy, I swear. It’s a common misconception that Los Angeles is an overpopulated, overpriced cesspool of softie, liberal, mega-consumers… oh wait, ummm. Anyway, when it comes to riding your bike around here, folks are understanding and respectful, which is greatly appreciated. Plus, there are lots of bike lanes and mountains just about everywhere, and it’s amazing how quickly you can literally climb out of the city’s grasp.
Today was a day when the rains had just came through, the temps stayed down around 50, and the winds were blowing. In the LA area that means gorgeous, clear skies. I felt like a low-stress ride with some climbing -- so naturally I headed towards downtown LA. No really, I swear!
“My little secret” ride here in LA is on the unmaintained roads in Griffith Park, the largest municipal park in the United States with over 53 miles of fire roads and hiking trails. You know when you see the “Hollywood” sign in pictures and movies? Yeah, that’s Griffith Park.
The roads up and around the sign have been blocked off to traffic but they don’t seem to mind riders and hikers on them. In 90 minutes I get 2,000 feet of climbing, a breathtaking view of downtown, the Pacific Ocean and snowcapped mountains all at once, and no traffic except for the occasional wild coyote crossing.
LA ain’t so bad.
No really, it is cozy, I swear. It’s a common misconception that Los Angeles is an overpopulated, overpriced cesspool of softie, liberal, mega-consumers… oh wait, ummm. Anyway, when it comes to riding your bike around here, folks are understanding and respectful, which is greatly appreciated. Plus, there are lots of bike lanes and mountains just about everywhere, and it’s amazing how quickly you can literally climb out of the city’s grasp.
Today was a day when the rains had just came through, the temps stayed down around 50, and the winds were blowing. In the LA area that means gorgeous, clear skies. I felt like a low-stress ride with some climbing -- so naturally I headed towards downtown LA. No really, I swear!
“My little secret” ride here in LA is on the unmaintained roads in Griffith Park, the largest municipal park in the United States with over 53 miles of fire roads and hiking trails. You know when you see the “Hollywood” sign in pictures and movies? Yeah, that’s Griffith Park.
The roads up and around the sign have been blocked off to traffic but they don’t seem to mind riders and hikers on them. In 90 minutes I get 2,000 feet of climbing, a breathtaking view of downtown, the Pacific Ocean and snowcapped mountains all at once, and no traffic except for the occasional wild coyote crossing.
LA ain’t so bad.
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