I'm Back, I Think

I think that I want to start writing to my blog again. This post is a test to see if it is still available to me.

New Saddle

I rode Spring Thaw a couple of weekends ago. Notice "I rode" not "I raced". I've decided I'm not a mountain bike racer. I just ride the Cat 3 course and enjoy myself. My stock answer when asked how my race went was "Uneventful". One high point of the day was that I won a new saddle in the raffle. Check out how good it looks on my cross bike. It's perfect. Thank you Amy, and whoever donated it.
Last weekend I rode a loosely organized ride in the Illinois Valley near Cave Junction. The people who own the local bike shop in Crescent City have a cabin near O'Brien and invite friends to come ride and have a barbecue afterward. We had a good time but my young Chinese friend crashed on a downhill about five miles into the ride. He was pretty banged up and got taken to the hospital in Grants Pass. He did a face plant into the gravel shoulder at about 45 mph. He's okay but his face is pretty scraped up.
Next weekend is Return on the Jedi. I'm taking my trailer again and spending the weekend. I'm racing short track on Saturday with my single speed and "riding" cross country on Sunday. I again opted not to race the Super D Saturday afternoon. I'll just kick back with a glass of wine to prepare for Sunday morning.

Pork BBQ

I cooked some pork barbecue yesterday, and took pictures.
I injected the meat with a mixture of apple juice, brown sugar and salt at about 6:00 a.m.






Started the coals at about 7:00 a.m.







Applied a mustard moisturizer,







a seasoning rub,







and placed into the cooker at about 8:00 a.m.







Initial temperatures, 248° in the cooker, 41° meat internal temp.







It's going to be a long day. I need to be comfortable. The coffee cup later became a bottle of beer and eventually, a glass of wine.






The final product at 7:00 p.m.







There were some intermediate steps that I didn't photograph. After about 3 hours, internal temp 130°, I sprayed the meat with apple juice and continued to cook. After about another 3 hours, internal temp 160° I double wrapped the meat in foil after pouring on a wrapping mixture of butter, honey, brown sugar, yellow mustard and water. Then back into the cooker for another 2 1/2 hours to internal temp 192°. Then wrapped in plastic wrap, insulated with beach towels and placed in a cooler to rest for about an hour. Then unwrapped, lightly coated with the seasoning rub and back into the cooker for about 30 minutes. Then drizzled with bbq sauce and into the cooker for another 20 minutes. This is from my favorite cookbook, Serious Barbecue by Adam Perry Lang.

Oh, it was delicious.

I'm Back

I decided that, since I get irritated when other people don't post to their blogs, I need to post to mine. I doubt that anybody cares. Does anybody read this?
My last post was after the nationals in December. Since then I raced a road race, Cherry Pie, and a TT series, three races in Medford. I got dropped about a third of the way through the road race, way better than last time, and Vern kicked my ass in the TT. Both were fun though.
The big news is that I built a new cross bike. Most of it is used stuff off ebay. The shifters and derailleurs are off my road bike. I upgraded it to 10 speed. I haven't ridden the new bike on any kind of cross terrain but it feels really good on the gravel roads I ride on. BB30 really feels solid. Old Blue will now become my B bike in the pits.






Dura Ace 7900 on the road bike.


















I'm having trouble getting motivated to race mountain bikes. I didn't do Horning's and I'm not doing Mudslinger this weekend. I signed up for Spring Thaw and I'm doing Return on the Jedi for sure. Those may be my only races until STXC starts.

Cyclocross National Championships 2009

I haven't posted anything for quite a while. I didn't have anything to post about until now. I raced the National Championships in Bend this week.








Here I am with Jeff Boyer before the race. I stayed with Jeff and Tracy at their house between Bend and Redmond.



As you can probably guess from the photos, it was cold. Actually it was warm...compared to what it had been. The night before I got to Bend it was 10 degrees below zero. When we got up the morning of my race it was 1 degree above zero and by my race time it was almost up to freezing.
This is what most of the course looked like. It was very slick. I started slowly and after the first lap gained some confidence and picked up my pace somewhat. I was moving up in the standings when I went down twice in the same lap and decided to revert to survival mode. I stayed upright for the rest of the race but didn't pass anybody else. On the last lap a guy in my age group caught me. We got to the run-up at the same time but he stumbled a little. I beat him to the big drop and didn't look back. I sprinted the last couple hundred yards on pavement and almost puked at the finish. When I looked back after the finish line he was nowhere to be seen. He must have fallen on the drop.

There was a set of stairs to negotiate.












I felt pretty good after the finish. Glad to be done.


















On day two I was a spectator, eating some frites.

It was a fun experience. I finished eighth in my age group and didn't get hurt. I'm looking forward to next year.

Outlaw Cross '09 #3

We raced again on Saturday for the third race of the Southern Oregon Outlaw Cyclocross Series. There was mud again. Only a couple of places on the course were muddy but it was a sticky mud that caused a derailleur carnage. The last count that I heard was 13 broken derailleurs out of about 60 racers. I saw two derailleurs broken during warm up laps. I decided I didn't want to ride the course until it was time to race. I was surveying the course and spoke to Thom Kneeland who is an experienced cyclocross racer. He said "work the edges and power through the sticky stuff as fast as you can go". I did that and I survived the race. I not only survived, I finished ahead of several people who always beat me. Steve Law was one of them. He broke his derailleur on about the fourth lap. I think that I might have been able to beat him even if he didn't break down. I was passing him at the end of the course on every lap. He would then catch me but always after the start/finish line.
Look at him. He knows I'm coming and he's hurting. Doesn't it look like he's having some kind of attack trying to stay ahead of me?
















There was a run up that was really muddy. That was the only section that I didn't ride. There were a couple of other muddy sections that I was able to ride without clogging up.
















This was Vern's bike after the race. I lapped him again. For some reason I didn't feel bad about lapping him this week. In fact I had to speed up right at the end to catch him before the finish line.













I feel pretty good about my racing. I think I'm still getting stronger and I'm continuing to learn how to race smarter. I'm think I might be on track to peak for the Nationals next month.

Photos by John Raedake

Outlaw Cyclocross #2

We raced yesterday in Grants Pass. We had mud. It was the Halloween costume race.














I started out going what I thought was pretty easy. I am still hurting from crashing last week and really didn't want to crash again. I was hanging right behind Vern and I quickly realized that he was setting a pretty fast pace. After a couple of laps I noticed 7 on the lap board and started to worry that I might not be able to keep up for that long. Vern started to fade after about three laps and I passed him . He told me his wheels were clogging up with mud. I was running my carbon wheels with the Dugast Rhino tires and they were working pretty well. I was still picking up a lot of mud and it got harder to ride as the race went on. About half way through the last lap I caught Vern. I decided I wouldn't lap him as that might be pouring salt into his wounds. He stopped to clear out the mud and, with a grin on his face, threw a handful at me. So I stomped on him while he was down (figuratively) and lapped him.
This was my bike after the race.













It's pretty amazing that it was even functioning.













The race really took it out of me. When I was walking back from picking up my pit wheels I felt like I might need to sit down a take a rest so I could make it back to my truck. Maybe I shouldn't have ridden 30 miles the day before. I usually don't ride the day before a race but the weather was so nice I just couldn't resist.
Next week we'll be at the Speedway in Medford.