End of Season?

I might just call it a season. I raced yesterday in Eugene and felt like I just barely survived. The course was almost all on grass. It was also very hilly, all up and down. It was cold but not raining. The course became muddy very quickly. Probably about one third of the course was off camber. The hilly course was not well suited to an old, out of shape guy like me. I suffered. It was so slick that I ran my tires as low as I felt comfortable with, 35 psi. I found out that I didn't do a very good job gluing the tires on. On one of the off camber sections my tire held well but the glue didn't. I rolled my rear tire off the rim. Not all the way off. I was able to push it back on and ride carefully to the pit. After changing the rear wheel I quickly learned that the Mud 2 tire at 40 psi was almost worthless. That did give me an excuse to walk the uphill sections though. I finished at the back of my age group but it was a small group so that was fourth place. The points will help me in the OBRA BAR rankings. I'm in third place in the Age Graded Masters Men 60-64 ranking. I don't think that I can overtake second place or be overtaken by fourth place. There's a race in Arcata next weekend and two more races in Eugene in December but I don't think I'll do them. I'm tired.

We spent Thanksgiving in Portland and had a good time. I rode my road bike on Friday. It's pretty hilly where I rode. Maybe I should have rested up for the race the next day. I took some pictures while I was out.

This was taken from high up on Terwilliger Blvd. in SW Portland. Condo construction in the foreground, Mt. Hood in the rear.












This is downtown on the river, The Tom McCall Waterfront Park.













The other side of the river, The Eastbank Esplanade.













I ended up in Susan's brother's studio in SE Portland.













View from his roof.















View in the other direction.














I need to start a blogs of shame list. Brooks hasn't posted to his blog in over a month. I have to read Brian's blog to know what's going on in Wisconsin and I don't even know Brian.

Final Outlaw Cross Race

It was the final race in the series yesterday at Emigrant Lake near Ashland, Oregon. It had been raining so I expected a miserable, muddy mess. Didn't happen. The rain held off and there wasn't much mud. I had decided to push harder this week. Big mistake. I hurt badly and wanted to quit a lap before the race was over, maybe two laps. I was hurting so bad that I slowed way down those last two laps instead of picking off a couple of racers. I crashed once. Well, not really crashed. I fell over after not being able to make it out of a ditch.

This is my friend, Richard Hogan entering the ditch in the A race. Everybody I watched went through the ditch easily, without even pedaling up the other side. I need to work on my technique.















Again, the SWAG for the raffle was the high point of the day for me. I won a shower caddie filled with bath goodies. You can't see it in this picture. It's behind the suitcase.










They had a separate raffle for a custom De Salvo frame. Not this frame. I think extra cash would be required to get it. What a sweet frame, though. Titanium with a carbon rear triangle. Check out the etching in the titanium. If you enlarge this picture you can see the shower caddie I won. I didn't win the frame.







Next weekend I'm going to race in Eugene, Oregon on my way home from Thanksgiving in Portland.

Cross Crusade. Holy Shit.

I raced Saturday at Emigrant Lake, near Ashland, Oregon and Sunday at the Cross Crusade race at Estacada near Portland. My actual racing was hardly worthy of mention. My bike worked, it didn't break, my body worked, I finished without a great deal of pain, and my Dugast Rhinos performed admirably. The course at Emigrant Lake was jungle cross almost more suited to a mountain bike than a cross bike. I survived. The course at Estacada was fun. Mostly grass, some single track, some off camber, some mud, two muddy downhills with runups that the accomplished racers rode up and a little bit of pavement. The course was long, 2.4 miles. I probably rode too conservatively. I started easy to pace myself and never really pushed it. I felt tired at the end but not spent. They start the beginners and 50+ masters at 9:00 a.m. so I was there early. I got a parking spot right in the middle of all the action. When I finished I was amazed at everything that had been set up while I was racing. Cross Crusade is not just a race. It's an event. There were vendors and bike shops and manufacturers there with booths. There was food and beer. I found the beer tent right after I finished. It was PBR but it was FREE. That's right FREE BEER. I had two PBRs before I spotted a guy with a dark colored liquid in his cup. I asked him where he got it and he took me to the Cross Crusade motorhome where they had Pyramid Snow Cap Ale. Much better and also FREE. Do they have free beer at the cross races in Wisconsin?

I couldn't get a good picture that showed everything. If you enlarge the picture you can see Vanilla Bicycles, White Industries and Retrotec Bicycles.











I took this picture of parts of the course from near the beer tent. Standing there made me realized that, during the race, I have absolutely no idea where I am other than on the course. In the top left of the picture is an off camber section that kind of bothered me. I had no idea it was so close to this downhill section and runup.







There were lots of interesting people there. It was a little crazy at times. It was lots of fun and I left before noon. I bet it got a lot more fun. I don't think I'm exaggerating to say there were thousands of people there. There was more racing for the rest of the day. As I was driving away about every third car on the highway had bikes on top.







It was supposed to rain all weekend but it didn't rain during either of the days I raced. We drove home from Portland on Monday and it rained hard. It was scary on the Interstate. It frightens me enough just passing the big trucks but when they're throwing up so much water that, for a couple of seconds you can't see anything, it absolutely terrifies me. We made it though.

Next Saturday is the final race of the Outlaw Cyclocross series, again, at Emigrant Lake. Sunday is the final Cross Crusade race in Portland but I don't think I'll go. We're going to Portland for Thanksgiving and driving there three weekends in a row is too much. I'm going to race in Eugene Saturday on the way home after Thanksgiving.

Flexus ride

I rode this afternoon at Cadra Ranch. The Tufo Flexus tire that I sealed with Stan's held up. I pumped it up to 50 psi and took off. I rode hard. I hit all the bumps. It held. Maybe I'll race with it again. Not this week though. It's going to be muddy at the Cross Crusade race on Sunday. I'll race the Dugasts. I ordered a pair of Michelin Mud 2s for my clincher rims. They will be my pit wheels.
This is the other side of the view from the picture I posted this morning. I don't know if you can see what I'm talking about from the pictures if you don't know what to look for. The picture looking west from the ridge shows the ocean and some water just before the ocean. This is the water, Lake Earl. This picture shows the mountains where the other picture was taken from. Right in the middle of the photo, at the very back.

If any of Brooks' and Mary's friends are reading these posts you might get an idea of why they stayed here as long as they did. It's really beautiful here.

Another Race and a Sunday Drive

I raced in Grants Pass again on Saturday. The only thing successful about the race was that I didn't flat. I rode the Dugast Rhinos. They performed well but were probably overkill for the course. There were about 40 riders in my race again this week. They started the race on a long paved section, about a half mile. The actual race course zig zagged along both sides of the road but they wanted to spread everybody out at the start. It worked. By the time I turned off the pavement onto the trail I was near the rear of the pack. I only passed three riders during the race and finished at the back of my age group. There were six in the B 50+ which is where I race. I felt good during the race though and my bike worked perfectly.

I'm going to train this week on the sealed up Flexus tires and see if they hold up. I really like those wheels if they just wouldn't flat. I'm racing at Emigrant Lake near Ashland, OR next Saturday and then I'm going to drive to Portland to race the Cross Crusade race on Sunday. Also that day in Portland they're having the Oregon Handmade Bike show.

Sunday we went for a drive with Frank and Sally into the hills of Del Norte County. It was a gorgeous day especially considering that it's now November. It must have been 75 degrees. We stopped on a ridge top for a picnic lunch. We could see the ocean including Lake Earl and Castle Rock. The view the other direction was into the Siskiyous.
This is the view to the west.













This is the view to the east into the mountains.













Our beagle, Buddy, wandered off while we were there and I thought we might have to send out a search party. I marked the lat, lon with my GPS. You can put it into Google Earth and see where we were. 41°47'53"N, 123°52'05"W, elev 4562 ft. He wandered back after about 45 minutes.