Bad Ass Bike

I love my new Cannondale but I've never liked the way it looked. Even though bikers in the know would realize that this is a serious racing machine, it looks too much like something you'd see next to the Schwinns at your local bike shop. Well I've changed the look. I mounted some road tires on the carbon wheels I bought for my cross bike. I think that they make it into a bad ass bike. I'm going to race it in the time trial this weekend.

Crescent City, CA

I was out on my single speed one afternoon last week and took some photos along the coast. I wasn't very happy with the way they turned out but decided to post them so that Mary and Brooks can remember what they left.

If you make this one full screen size you can see the Pt. Saint George Lighthouse.






You can see the snow capped peaks in this one. This is as close as I get to snow except when I'm driving over these mountains to get to Oregon.











Castle Rock Island, taken from my bike on Pebble Beach Drive, Crescent City, not Monterey.

















Pebble Beach.














The coastline.













The coastline with the lighthouse in the background.












The lighthouse.













Just think, Brooks, if you still lived here you could be racing with me in Oregon instead of peddling inside on your trainer looking out at the snow.

TT #2

I did the second race of the Southern Oregon Time Trial series today. Brooks liked the charts last week and, since I think he's the only person reading my blog, I'm posting charts again. The race was short, 8 miles, but all climb and descent. I don't know why the elevation chart looks different between up and down. It was an out and back. Maybe because I was going 9.9 mph up and 26.8mph down. The down could have been a lot faster but my TT bike is pretty squirrelly in fast curves and I'm pretty chicken in my old age. I'm thinking of racing my road bike next week. The course is even hillier. My road bike is lighter, 18.5 lbs vs. 19.8 lbs for the TT bike, and the CAAD 9 frame should be a lot more solid on descents.

Here's speed and heart rate. I'm too fat for hills. I should lose weight but that would take cutting out wine. That seems a little drastic just to be faster on a bike.










Here's the profile of next week's course. It doesn't look like and out and back. I think I'll try the road bike.

TT

Susan Roberts and I did the Southern Oregon Time Trial yesterday. It was the first in a series of three races. Again, the race showed that I need to do some more hill work. Susan beat me by about 1 minute. I dropped my chain and had to stop to fix it. I thought that would be my excuse but she said she stopped once too when she thought she had dropped her chain.

I have figured out how to capture the screens from my Garmin Forerunner program. Isn't it interesting to plot heart rate against elevation?

Here's speed and heart rate. I felt pretty strong at the end. I figure I averaged13.4 mph going out and 21.1 mph coming in. I should be able to improve on that. I think I finished last in the masters group. It was fun though. I'm going to do the rest of the series. Next week is shorter but more climb.







I took my TT bike out for a ride on Thursday to make sure that everything was working properly and I flatted the front tire. I put some Stan's sealant in it and it held. I was a little worried racing on it but I really wanted to use the Cosmic Carbone wheels. It worked. The tire continued to hold air for the entire race and is still holding. I ordered some new tires though, with yellow sidewalls. Should look cool on the wheels.

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.