turning for the sake of turning.

Today a bunch of teammates raced a mountain bike race in Mankato. It was fun. We did pretty well.

TC and Rookie went 1 and 2 in the something like 25-30 SS age group. Not sure of overall. Margaret WON the womens Sport race. No joke. She killed it. Won by 0.4 seconds. That translates into about 1/2 of a wheel. I took blurry pictures. That was the Sport race results.

LG and I did comp. I finished. He did too. He crashed too much. I just suck too much. I am NOT a comp rider. 4 laps was one to many. Too much sketchy downhill shit. I tried as best I could, but just COULD not make it work. I learned a few things today. Mountain biking would be easier on 29" wheels, with gears, and with more balls. My head messes me up. Maybe not. LG finished like 30th overall. I finished 39th overall. He got 6th in his age group (with two crashes in the first 1/2 lap). I finished 2nd in my category. (under 30 SS). out of two. 4/6 in the 19-24 age group. Not that fantastic, but good enough. Not sure of total field #'s.

Margaret certainly did most impressively. AND, She sets High Five Bicycles up with a WIN in it's first race contested. Not bad! I'm very proud of her and impressed. She's great. Apparently her new bike isn't too bad, either.

To everyone involved, thanks! This is shaping up to be the best summer ever!

Square

6/28

Square Lake road race in a few hours. Not worries about the prime. Let someone else have it. I got bigger fishes to fry. Working a corner the first wave. Racing second. Thanks Nate. Will report back later.

Also, the rest of my high five things are about to be here. Shipping monday. Be here in a week or so. Get excited. Some of it is pretty neat. Pictures soon.

Oh, and Margaret has her High Five built up. I should get a picture up on here later today. Maybe TC can take a good one. Who knows.

Moving, High Fives, and Bed Bugs.

In reverse order. Bed Bugs. We've got them. Not sure how that happened. Brought them back from New York MONTHS ago? From a different unit in our building? No idea. It kinda sucks. They're not dangerous, just annoying and creepy. Like ticks with no lime (lyme?) disease. Just annoying. Who knew!

High Fives. The bikes. I got one. Well, Margaret got one. ANOTHER new bike day for her. Aluminum hardtail mtb. Rigid carbon fork. 26"'s of fun. It's purple. She hasn't ridden it more than a couple feet yet, but we'll get her on it. Just finished (minus grips) last night. We'll see how it works! It may make it's race debut on Sunday in Mankato.

Also, a few guys got some wheels. Carbon ones. a 38mm set and a 50mm set. They look very nice. I think American Classic designs. Very light. Worth every penny, so far. We'll see how they hold up to being ridden soon.

Pictures to come, probably.

AND, moving. Margaret and I just signed a lease for a new place. August 1st. Just south of Lake on 11th. Half again as big as we have now. That means more bike storage, and a room to study in. Good deals. We need both of those things. And we get to choose the paint colors (within reason!)

That's about all. Officiating the track again tonight, racing Square Lake on Saturday. Debating racing MTBs in Mankato. Don't know if I can afford the two races in a weekend. Going for sure. Bringing the team tent. Come down and say HI!

Richmond Roller race.

Super Rookie, Little Guy, Spencer and I took the Mercedes to the middle of nowhere to race in the wind and hills. Half of us finished. LG and Spencer both had "issues". Not saying what variety. I did too much work early trying to make the lead group a smaller lead group. Didn't work, then sat on the back for the last lap while Mario killed himself. Good riding, dude. Didn't have it the last time up the hill. Finished 8th overall. Not sure of how I did in the 4's. Results are online yet. 3rd is the best I could have done in the 4's. I'll take it. Super Rookie mixed it up all race and sat in. Kept me out of the wind a bit, and kept me morally supported. I liked having him there a lot. Synergy Tim did too much work. Usually. He does that. I don't mind.

That's about all. Madonna cassettes on the way there, scary bike rack action, lots of getting waved at on the way home, $4.59 diesel fuels. Bachelor party plans, etc. Good trip. Worth it. Almost crashed out due to overlapping wheels, but I managed to not hit and just fly over the yellow line for a bit. Alls well that ends well. It was a long day.

Crits.

State Fair Affair #3. Last one. Gotta say I'm relieved. Those things weren't going well for me.

It's still fun. felt WAY better than the last one I did. Did a lot of moving up on the flats, but only because I lost so much in the turns. I REALLY don't trust other riders to stay on a line very much. Alone? I can make turns. Throw some people I don't know into it, and then it gets sketchy for me.

The ironic thing is, a turn is not where my race ended. It ended on a flat. Not, with a flat, though. I have no idea what lap it was, but I was riding along on the backside, not trying to do much but ride in a straight line, and then I hear a noise and my wheel locks up. Turns out the LSC rider (john? from Grafton, WI) had put something in my there. Not sure what. A pedal? A skewer? I'm not sure. Oh well. I skidded for a long way, but didn't fall. He must have done a couple sumersaults or something because he was all torn up. Not sure. He told me what happened. People got too close. Contact. Boom! That's about all.

SO yeah, crits...I knew they weren't my thing.

Road race this weekend.

Oh yeah. It's a good things wheels are easy to ressurect. That makes me happy!

Morning after.

Woke up sore. Sat around for a bit. Ate a bowl of Cocoa Blastems. Sat around some more.

Rode about 2 hours with Monty (from here on in referred to as "little donny". Easy recovery. A few times he had me going faster than I wanted, which is to say, any speed that required effort to maintain. At any rate, my legs still work. I'm alive. One more recovery day tomorrow after work (thinking Wayzata) and then the final State Fair crit on Tuesday. A good week, I'd say. Just have to keep it up.

About to leave Oshkosh for the not so flooded pastures of Minneapolis. I'm pretty excited. I don't want to get back too late, I gotta get up early.

I want coffee. Well, a latte.

HHH report.

Made it. 100k. 67 miles, actually. 3 hours, 37 minutes and 20 seconds. avg speed of 18.1. Lots of hills. 39-23 wasn't low enough. I should have used a different cassette.

All told, it was amazing. I didn't get passed by anyone. Literally. Lots of really fast speeds. Lots of REALLY slow speeds. Some single digit MPH climbing. Top speed of 49.5mph. Low speed in the 5mph range. I felt strong all day, well...most of the day. Monty made his 200k quite easily, at least thats how it looked.

Beautiful weather. Couldn't have asked for a better day. Had to be mid-70's with about 10mph wind or so. It was nice. Sunny, with just about no clouds. About 6 of the hills got me. I was able to carry most of them from either the flat or the downhill before the base of them. It was really fun. Helped some lady change a flat. It was pretty funny, she had the instructions for changing a tube out. She needed the help. I hope it got her to the rest stop for mechanical (official mechanical, anyhow) assistance.

Ate a lot of fruit, and a few gels. Nothing crazy. Got to every rest stop with two empty bottles, as planned. I felt good about my food/water consumption.

After I finished I backtracked the course looking for Margaret, who also did the 100k. She was about 5 miles back down the road I just went up. She looked great when I saw her. Not very fatigued looking at all. I was impressed. She made it up the last hill (3 miles, mostly up. one false flat, one short downhill into a turn. More uphill, false flat, and then the road got steep until the end.) She went up it. Slowly, but so did I. 5-7 mph. I'm ok with it. I was starting to cramp the second time up. We rode past tons of people going VERY slowly or walking(!) their bikes. I am VERY proud of her. I think she's very strong...and determined. I'm a lucky guy to have her.

Yeah, we all killed it. I'm very happy and proud of us. I hope we can get in next year.

morning of.

Made it to Madison. Got registered, or at least picked up packets. Margaret got a jersey on the honor system. Last year she got a Medium, it was too big and has sat in the package since. She told them that she'd like to trade for a small, and now she has one, along with the address of where to send the Medium one when we get back into town.

Got to the hotel. Checked in and unloaded. Got things set out for this morning. Went and ate some sweet Indian food. Good times. Tried to find a bagel place for food in the area. No dice. Went to the grocer and bought some supplies.

Slept ok. Monty slept very well, he says. Margaret is still asleep. I'm a bit jealous. dOh well, another hour and a half and we'll be on the road. on bikes.

That's about all I have. Feeling tenative about today. Will report back.

And TC, we're not back yet. You'll know when we are. We riding this week? Come do the Crit on tuesday. Gonna be fun times.

bike rides and caf-fiend.

Got to Oshkosh. Rained ALL DAY sunday. Flooded streets and basements. Spent some time cleaning up "dirty" water in the basement. Oshkosh water removal is a flawed system.

Rode around the lake (Lake Winnebago) Monday. Took a VERY long time. 100 miles. Well, 99.3. I made up the difference with two laps around the block. I don't know why it didn't feel good. We were one our bikes for a long time. almost 7 hours? Very long. We all made it. Monty felt freshest. I felt like crap. I couldn't figure out why. My legs still worked for the most part. Maybe it was just the saddle time. That could do it. Margaret started with the knee pains again. Not good.

Her bike had come while we were gone. I put it together that night. It's nice. It is a Kuota Kharma. It's blue. It's very pretty.

There it is. Mostly. You can't see the entire front end, but a good picture is nowhere in sight. Maybe Margaret can fill in the gap.

It's nice. A bit heavier than the Trek, but it's smaller. And that is what counts.


Tuesdays ride was less intense. A pretty easy 25 miles. I ramped it up once just to see if I really was crap, or if I just felt like it. I'm not entirely crap. Just a little.

Wednesday was the "tough guy ride" out of Wheel and Sprocket w/ Jay (one of Montys bike people). Ate dinner (baked potato and steamed broccoli) with family about 1/2 hour before ride. Not best idea. 30 or so people showed up. Ended with 4. I rode with some Cat 1 from Appleton and a Cat 3 from FDL. It was fun. It was hard. My legs worked, but barely. I got told to not pull so hard and just take it easy. A flaw of mine, admittedly. I finished the ride with them, and a TT guy just off the back (not drafting, I reckon). Everyone else got back within the next few minutes. It was great. And hard. I needed that.

Thursday we went to MKE. I rode with a former teammate (not that we ever raced together). An hour of hard efforts up what hills are on Lincoln Memorial Drive in MKE. It was fun again...Still hard, but not as hard. No one pushed us as hard. It was great to see him, and had a blast. Speaking of blasts, We rode through a Tornado Warning apparently. We got back to the coffee shop and the sky opened up for about 45 minutes. Rained SUPER hard. It was great. We stayed dry.

MKE got rained on all night. So did Oshkosh. They got flooded again. Big time. People tubing down the streets and whatnot.


We got back (to Oshkosh) today after a lot of hanging out and food in MKE. Little bit of water around still, but most of it seems to have soaked up. Quite a few reports of flooded basements, though.

I dunno. No ride today. Almost time to head out to the hotel in Madison. Big ride tomorrow. Hope my bike stays together.

(I was cleaning it and the wind blew the stand over. Bike fell on drive side and all but fucked my derailleur hanger. I hope it holds. Couldn't get a replacement on such short notice, But OC let me bring my bike in and TRY to straighten it out. It seems to work. I'll have to find the extra one back at the house in MPLS.)

(photo credit. First one to me. Second one to Monty. http://www.flickr.com/photos/montym/ )

racing and driving.

So. Today was fun. Drove to WI for the Woolly mtb race. It was amazing. Hard race. Lot of hills. Lot of really bumpy flats. Couple really scary stair things.

I got 4th in the competition class. LG would have beaten me, but he broke his damn pedal and screwed his whole race up. I chased some people, and rode away from some people, but it was fun. I really enjoyed it, and I suggest that everyone comes out for this next year. It's great, and close. Margaret got third lady in comp. NOT BAD. I'm impressed. She's tough. She finished. So did Fil. Couple minutes behind me. He looked strong when I was with him. Good spirits after the race, too. He looked like he was hurting less than me. I was jealous.

Singlespeed on this course? I did. You can too. Not the best course for a SS, but it was good. Worked out well. Never found myself wishing for gears, save for the flat pavement, but I bet I'd want that even in I had gears.

Then Margaret and I (and the dogs) finished our trip to Oshkosh. We're far away now. It's nice. Raining. Oshkosh Cyclery went and REALLY messed up Margarets dads bike. They installed a Red group, but they did a terrible job. I would not have let that happen at freewheel. Not really my responsibility, but it was really bad. Loose BB, loose headset. The left shifter was a solid inch below the right. The high limit screw on the rear derailleur was too tight, and both of the front ones were too loose, and therefore rubbing WAY too much when cross chaining. It kinda made me mad, just seeing it, as a mechanic. I have to wonder how these things happen. Rookies...

Yeah. Mountain bikes are amazing. I really like them. Driving isn't so fun. Good thing I didn't do any. Just sleeping in the passenger seat.

Gotta ride bikes this week. It'll be fun. I'm excited.

Getting Excited. mostly.

Two more days until we go on "vacation". I'd sooner call it a cycling holiday.

two weekends/one week in WI. Oshkosh mostly, to visit Margarets parents. I plan on doing quite a lot of riding. There are some good hills a bit east of there. 7 hills road is one stretch. That road got featured in Bicycling magazine a bit ago in a "Where are the hills" sort of article. That will be fun.

150 miles planned on Sunday. Down from 200. It's all flat. Shouldn'nt be too terribly hard. I just need to remember to go super slow and just do it. So different than what I'm used to and not exactly my style. Doing it just for the sake of doing it, though.

Decided on the 100k Horribly Hilly Hundreds. Short and fast. Better race prep. I just hope i can meet up with a couple fast guys with the same intentions. 60 miles? No sweat. It isn't the miles I'm worried about. It's the 11-23 cassette. Oh well. Master Blaster those hills!

Work should go by quickly today. Finish an Overhaul. Two tune ups. And my new pals are bringing in some bikes for a component swap! That'll be rad.

Two more things.

If you haven't gotten over to where I work yet, come check it out. Midtown Bike Center. Freewheel. On the greenway between elliot and 10th. It's amazing. Come look. I'll give you a granola bar.

and

I forgot. OH! Margaret just bought a new frameset. I'm jealous. A little. Ok, a lot.

It'll be together on monday. Getting it sent to where we're going and building it on the road! will take pictures!

Crits?

Well. It's settled. I'm nowhere near a Cat 3 in ability. Did the first State Fair Crit yesterday. It was fun. Nice course. 6 guys on our team in the 3/4 race. Jake got an amazing lead out by Little Guy and finish second. Everyone else dropped out or got pulled. I was the first to do so. I'm told crit racing isn't like cyclocross. Who knew?

Right at the start Two guys gunned it. I have no idea why, but I wanted to keep everything together, which meant me riding at the front of the main group at 30mph for the whole first lap. The guys never got too far away, but there was no reason to chase them...Oh well. I'm not too tore up about it. I blew up a little about middle second lap. Got towards the back, couldn't really keep it (myself) together. Ended up just dangling at the back, being ALMOST with the group, and then a bit off, for the next two laps. Super Rookie got shelled out the back (after doing the 1/2/3 race. I'll give it to him). I passed him and tried to catch on finally, but couldn't do it. I had some tightness in my ribs(?) happening and I could only take shallow breaths. Not conducive to good bike racing. I sat up and sat down after I finished that lap.

With the exception of giving up, I didn't see below 28 on my computer.

I think I'll be back in two weeks, but I'm not lining up front row.

Congradulations Jake. You're looking all but unstoppable.

I gotta say it was a positive day!

Went for a ride with the team, and a few new guys...It was fun. Planned easy day. Went west to excelsior. Friends of Dave Matthews band sponsor a stretch of road. Maybe that is where they flip their visors around and upside down and throw frisbees. Lord knows they do need to be quaranteened.

Looped back up to Wayzata (usual stop). This was where the dilemma happened. I was planning a long day. 100-125 miles. I didn't think anyone else would want anything to do with that. Would I have the motivation to do it alone? Shit...I know me. And if you've been paying attention, you should know how this is gonna go.

BUT, I impress not only myself, but apparently the bike gods, too. I think that I regained by "Beast" status. Or was it a Machine? I don't recall...

First loop w/ team was average 16.7 or so...Not super fast. I didn't reset the trip. I made a comment about going the rest of the way (few laps around Lake Independence...Not exactly flat) at about 18-22 mph, if anyone was interested. No one was, but Super Rookie had a smart comment about how I'd be going 16 on some of those climbs. He was correct, and that means that I went.

115 Miles on the ride. most around 18-22, but a lot of time spent in the high 20's (even on the flats...FUCK, I don't know if I ever knew how strong I apparently am until I put that computer back on. Most flats were pushing 25-28.) I got over 30 a time or two on the downhills. Never really pushed it, I was going for distance, with respectable speed. I was down to in the 13's on some of the climbs (mph, not cog)...I'm ok with that, and being honest about it.

All said and done, I did 3 long laps around the lake, one backwards, and never felt anything close to death. Although I am going to buy some insoles for my shoes. Damn my feet hurt. Lets felt strong most of the day. I realized that the difference between me surrendering up a hill and small ring/high cadencing it is about 6-8 mphs lower than me "attacking" it. I'm feeling pretty good about myself right now...

Most of the ride my avg was resting in the 17 mph range. I spend most of the day above it.

I'm happy to say that I pulled 115 mile moderately hilly route at 18 mph avg even. That makes me very glad. You'd have thought I was on a bus with Sandra Bullock and Bruce Willis the way I was trying to keep it above 18 through the city on the way back in...

Good times. I hope I can make it to TC's for the shindig tonight!I got chickens to pet.

Gotta go look at a few apartments now!