Cherry Pie

Since Brooks commented "Nice work at Cherry Pie", I guess I'd better describe the race.

It was a learning experience. This picture isn't my race but it's representative of what I saw.

The race had a neutral start. We staged in a parking lot at a little town and followed a lead car to the start. There were about seventy riders in my race. It was a long way to the start. A couple of miles. With some hills. As a beginner, I was riding at the rear of the pack. I knew approximately where the start would be, but not exactly where. Gradually the lead car started going faster until all of a sudden we were racing. Up a hill and the pack left me. Shit! I had been worried about racing in a pack but I shouldn't have been. It didn't happen.

So I was on my own. I screwed up the race right at the start. To make things worse there was even a noticeable headwind. There was another guy who got dropped and, after a couple of miles I caught up to him and suggested that we work together. So we took turns leading. He seemed to be a fairly strong rider. At one point I was leading up a hill and sensed that he was falling back. He sounded like he was in distress so I slowed and waited for him. He thanked me later and said that his heart rate at that point was 198. We rode fairly hard but about 3/4 of the way through the race he faded. I waited for him a couple of times and then left him as he couldn't keep up. I felt pretty strong at the end or, at least until just before the end which was up a steep hill.

All in all it was okay. I think my aerobic fitness is coming along nicely but I need to do some speed work and ride some hills. All I've been doing is base building. I had a cold for the week before the race and I'm still recovering. I'm not racing anywhere this weekend but then I'm racing three weekends in a row in the Southern Oregon Time Trial Series. That should give me some speed work.

There's a time trial near Portland this weekend that I'm not going to. I checked the list of pre-registered racers and there are 13 male 60+ racers. I keep looking for events with not many in my age group, but I guess this isn't it.

Race Picture

I don't know if it's cool to post pictures of myself but I really like this one. It's from a race I did in Eugene in December. I posted a different photo of the same climb but this one is better. Shawn wanted pictures of the members of his club to put up in his studio. I guess I'm still a member. I haven't paid dues since they started the club. You can see in the picture that I'm really bundled up. It was about 30 degrees. You can also notice that there's nobody else in the picture. I guess I was either way ahead or way behind.


In an earlier post I wondered if my new road bike had too much red on it. Well, I ordered some new bar tape, chrome. It came today. It really looks like chrome. I don't think I'll use it on the Cannondale. I think I'll save it for my next project. Honey. I need to buy a new bike to go with this bar tape. My next project is going to be a fixie. A track bike although I don't think I will actually race track.

I don't have anything new to report. I rode about 30 miles today. Real easy. I have a cold. I hope it's gone by next weekend. I'm racing on Sunday. Cherry Pie Road Race.

Ride Report

Well, I've ridden the new bike a couple of times between rain storms. I rode about 16 miles on Friday and about 30 miles yesterday with Susan Roberts. It's nice. I liked the flat black funky look of the old frame (see below) but this new frame is much better. When I get up out of the saddle and jump on it, it responds. It goes. I haven't done any real climbs or descents yet but I expect it will be much nicer than the old frame.

I'm doing a road race up north of Corvalis on the 17th. I'm a little nervous about it. I'm not in very good shape yet and I've never done a road race. I've never raced in a pack. I racing with the Cat 4/5 group so everybody else will probably be somewhat of a beginner too. I don't know if that's good or bad.

I look at the analysis of my blog every once in a while to see if anybody is reading it. Not many are. I noticed that 62% of my visits were referrals from Brooks' blog and that 2 were referrals from Christine Vardaros' blog. She's a professional cyclocross racer who's blog I read all the time. She's been living and racing in Europe and it's interesting to read about her life. I couldn't figure out how I got referrals from her until I looked at her blog closer. She has me included in her list of blogs. Isn't that cool.