The Waiting Game

And then there was more waiting . . . I headed out for a ride with Mike Carter yesterday while the sun was shining. The forecast for Saturday was looking grim, so might as well get while the getting was good. As predicted, today is cold and wet, motivation to get out for a ride is pretty low, but we'll get out eventually just to spin the legs out a bit.

St. Johann is full right now, but after the race on Sunday, town will be absolutely dead when everybody splits. Mike and Dave are staying until Tuesday, they will have the run of the town! I just started planning my "vacation" in Munich. I am going to try to head down to Garmisch on Monday and then hit the zoo in Munich on Tuesday since I have seen a good chunk of the city already on my vast walking tours of last year. It will be a nice change of pace to see some new things.

As the trip (and the entire season for that matter) winds down, I am starting to plot and scheme for what comes next. When I get home, I will have to start on thinking about actually finishing some projects started prior to the season. I am looking forward to a couple of days where I don't even look at my bike, pretty easy to do when it is boxed up and out of sight . . .

Day After

Last night's awards ceremony took forever! We watched Mike Carter get his award for winning the Weltpokal race and then got dinner. When we got back a couple hours later, we still had a few groups in front of us. We took turns running to the main square for to go beers and finally at 10:15, we got out trophies and went back to the hotel.

Today we decided to go on a cruiser of a ride, heading north to Kossen and then down to Kufstein to take a look at the fortress overlooking the river. We also rode past the Riedel factory before riding back to town om shme busy roads. We got in about 4 hours on the day and had a lovely coffee stop on one of the lakes. I took a few moments to pack up the TT bike, it had a nice vacation. The rest of the day was spent relaxing, doing laundry and hanging out in general. We all got together for cocktail hour followed by a traditional meal at the Hotel Post. The Kasespatzle was very good and everybody else enjoyed their Wienerschnitzel. One more day of laying low before the last race day of the season.

Worlds TT

The question of "special circumstances" has come from a couple after my brief post just after the TT. I could dig up the link for the UCI rules as to what a bicycle is, but it is as clear as mud and ever changing. The long and short of it in my case (pun intended) is that there is a legal limit for the length of the extensions on aero bars. The limit is 75 cm from the center of the bottom bracket to the end of the extensions, with a morphological exemption allowing up to 80 cm. Mine were 85 cm and I made the decision after getting passed without question last year not to cut them down. They were being strict about it this year. . .

I went through the normal routine for warming up out here with a morning effort to open up, heading up towards Hochfilsen. After that, I had hours of sitting and waiting until my start time at 3:56.30. At 2:30 I headed out to the venue with Mike Carter to roll to the start area for official measurement and getting the nod that although my bars were long they didn't really care. Yeah, this year they cared and weren't letting people start for a variety of violations. I went back and forth with the French UCI official, he asked me to get on the bike and although my position wasn't to any extreme, I wouldn't be able to ride my bike unless the bars were shortened. Unfortunately, my bars are not adjustable and have to be cut (cables included) to shorten them.

I went back to the car and put on my skinsuit while pondering the options for plan B. I rolled back to where Mike was waiting and told him they weren't going to let me ride my bike. Paul Humiston is about my size and he was still hanging out after finishing 6th in his age group. Without much delay, we switched pedals and adjusted his saddle to the correct height and off I went to warm up on a 56 cm Cervelo P3 instead of my 58 cm Felt. The position was ok, but a bit cramped up top. If I brought my hands back at all, I could hit my elbows on my knees. Paul also had a 56T chainring whereas I was used to a 55T. I completed my warm up and went back to the start house. They measured Paul's bike and almost made an issue of the seat post violating the 3:1 rule, but sent me on my way.

I did what I do in TTs, tried to maintain focus, keep passing people what started in front of me, and ramp the effort to max, leaving nothing on the road. I did a little gear hunting because of the 56T but tried to stay comfortable. I went slower than last year and finished 7th. It could have been worse by far. I am not one to freak out simply because something isn't going as planned and expected. I knew there was a chance that something like this might happen because of my decision not to cut my bars. At least I got to ride something and put in a decent effort. Mike Olheiser continued his winning ways, beating last year's winner by .93s. Now we have some time to kick back, relax and get ready to race again in a few days.

Real Quick

They enforced rules, thank you to Paul Humiston for the bike and Andy Grabowski for the quick pedal change and adjustments. I rode Paul's bike to a 25:11, a little slower than last year and probably top 10. My only regret is that it wasn't a real test of my best effort, rather my best effort given the circumstances. It happens . . . more to follow.

TT Prep

Getting ready for the time trial takes a life of its own in a way which seems odd for an event that really doesn't last more than a small fraction of the time here. Hours of thought go into a 23 minute effort. It is kind of cool sharing a place with Mike Olheiser because we both have expectations of strong performances in TT and seeing somebody else's approach is always interesting.

We headed out for the course recon, knowing exactly what we'd see. The course hasn't changed at all except for maybe a few additional bumps in the road. Much will depend on the conditions of the moment for the race. Winds were swirling and conditions at the top of the course were different from the middle which were different from the start area. My approach remains the same as it has been all year and as they say, the hay is in the barn.

There was much discussion and conjecture about which rules and with what degree of strictness the UCI officials would enforce this year. Technically, my bike isn't legal in a few regards. The extensions on the aero bars are too long, beyond what is allowed even with the morphological exception. The UCI also added a much debated rule which puts a 3:1 width/depth to thickness ratio limit on components meaning that wing shaped bars, airfoil shaped seatposts, sculpted tubing on the frame all has to fall within that envelope. Mike went as far as selling his handlebar setup to something that complies. My response to any objections will be, "Uhn I have long arms" and "I don't have enough money to buy new gear with every arbitrary rule change(s) the UCI comes out with each year." If they want to keep me from racing, so be it.

We spent the rest of the day just kicking back and essentially killing time. Mike Carter raced his actual category and tricked them all proper, soloing in for the win, about 15 seconds off the front of what was the lead group. It was a hard earned win and unfortunately the sky opened during the awards ceremony, two groups before his awards. They postponed the rest of the awards until the next day as everybody scurried for shelter from the downpour and 1/4" hail.

Ridin Around

Nothing like waking up in the middle of the night multiple times. I managed a few hours of decent sleep and woke up shortly after 9:00 in time to make some coffee and get ready for the day. There really wasn't much on the agenda but to get out for a ride and eat at some point.

Mike, Dave and I decided to ride towards Kitzbuhel and beyond as we saw fit. We headed straight for Pass Thurn to get in some climbing and after a moments pondering, decided to go over the other side of the pass to see what was there. Mostly, we found that we'd have a pretty steady climb back up to get back to St. Johann. Mike and I had enough for the day and continued towards home while Dave mistakenly headed up to the top of the Kitzbuheler Horn.

Once everybody was safely back at the apartment, we did some grocery shopping and ended up with a free case of beer some how. I had some leftovers still and happily did nothing in the kitchen while Mike cooked. Post dinner, we wandered around a little, I had my gelato portion for the day and got ready to do it all again, only the next day involved a little more serious approach/prep for the TT on Wednesday.

Rad Weltpokal

Day one of racing has come and gone. I went throught the routine of getting my number and making sure all was ready to go before kicking back until race time. About an hour and change before start time, there was a knocking at my door, Mike Olheiser and his brother Dave had arrived.

Mike didn't think he was racing, but I told him he was registered and so he might as well. In under an hour, we got everything up to the room, slammed Mike's bike together, sweet talked the race official into giving us his number even though "Nummerausgabe" was already closed, pinned his numbers on and got to the line with a few minutes to spare.

The race was pretty aggressive from the start as usual and a group of three rolled away on the first lap. As all three were Italians as we'd later find out, the chase never got all that organized. I rolled off with a couple small groups, but nothing worked well enough to stick, even the group of 14 or so that got clear. With conditions being fairly windy, the field shattered completely and a lot of riders dropped out. I started cramping on the third time up the climb and knew I would be doing much of anything after that but riding it in at what ever pace I could manage. I lost contact with the 2nd chase group (Mike was in the first) and noodled in alone.

I didn't think the second group was as big as the results showed, but in any case, I exploded after sticking my nose in the wind early and often. There were only 50 some odd finisher and we started with 100 or so. The purpose of the first race has always been to have some fun, shake off the cobwebs from the day of travel, and open up the legs a bit before the time trial on Wednesday . . . done, done, and done.

After the race we got cleaned up and headed out for some food. It being Sunday and all, none of the grocery stores were open so it was a good opportunity to hit one of the local spots for some traditional Austrian grub. I had a lovely Wienerschnitzel plate and a mixed salad. A beer of two also sounded like a good idea to help flush the legs or something. We wandered around until it was time for awards, Mike collected his trophy for 6th, and the day was done.

In St. Johann

The first night of sleep with jet lag is always interesting, you never know how many times you are going to wake up. I managed to sleep from about 8:00 PM until about 3:00 when I tossed and turned for an hour or so, but then slept until 8:00 AM.


I looked out the window knowing it was going to be chilly and grey out with a good chance that it would be raining, yup, grey, but no rain yet. I am glad that I packed every piece of cycling clothing I own. While it was warm and windy for the ride yesterday, today was damp and cold. It did not take very long to hook up with Mike Carter, I ran into him on the first night and planned on riding with him today to open up for tomorrow's race. We rode the first part of the course before turning off towards Kirchdorf to avoid the rain higher up. We turned around again just past St. Jakob as the rain again starting to fall. There really wasn't much to do for the rest of the day with the rain coming down all day. I wandered around town a bit, but didn't get too far. At least the forecast for the rest of the week is decent.

Travel Day Continued . . .

I was not able to get bumped off the Munich flight for another ticket, but getting to where you are going is also worth something. The flight was packed and I had a good seat for the purpose of legroom, but I never really got all that comfortable and only slept a little. There was some excitement towards the end of the flight when the flight attendant got on the PA and asked if there was a medical professional on the plane. I never found out what was going on. We landed in Munich on time despite slight delay in DC and my bags showed up before too long.

As I was heading to the DB ticket counter, a guy wearing an official's shirt asked if I was going to St. Johann. I said yes and he asked if I was part of Tracy's group to which I responded , "no" but he only had two others to take, so I got a free ride, direct to St. Johann with no transfers.

I was dead tired when I got to town, but I checked into the hotel and got the bikes put together and headed out for a ride before giving into the jetlag. The hotel put me straight into the apartment instead of the single room I had for the first few days which is fine by me as long as they don't charge me for it. I headed out for a ride to clear the cobwebs from a full day of travel and was greeted by wind like I have not seen in years past in St. Johann. I did a lap of the course and headed back to the room to clean up before venturing out to buy food. Shortly after getting back from the store the wind picked up more and then the sky opened. I managed to stay up long enough to make some dinner, but now it is starting to get dark, I'm going to bed!

Departures

Let the mobile blogging begin. I made through check in and security
without too much issue. Apparently they have change the baggage rules
so many times that nobody really knows what's what. I got charged the
outrageous fee for a bicycle, $200, but it could have been way worse
since they could have tacked on an additional $150 for the bag being
over weight. I am not sure how I pulled that one, might have been my
diversionary tactic of asking if the limit for business class was
still 70 pounds or simply my charming good looks. In any case, the
bike bag never touched the scale.

I walked with the baggage handler and my bike down to the TSA peeps to
make sure they didn't destroy things in the repacking process. They
were very gentle and my bag moved on to the real threat, the DIA
luggage system. Security was very curious about my shoes and pedals
and x-rayed them about four times to make sure they were ok to carry
on the plane. As soon as I got to my gate, the agent announced that
they were looking for five volunteers to get bumped. Given that I was
looking at a five hour layover in Dulles, I figured I could torch a
few hours and sit in Denver for the sake of a free ticket. Too bad
Sarah was well on her way, otherwise we could have enjoyed a leisurely
breakfast in the vicinity of the airport.

So here I sit, the checked bags are on their way to Dulles. The
airport is going through its ebb and flow cycles as planes come and
go. The maintenance crew is bringing people carrier golf
carts...through the window, on the second story. I have pictures, but
can't post from here. Other than that, so far this trip feels like
any other. I hate the waiting game!

Pictures

Today is supposed to be my last attempt at motor pacing before getting out of town for Masters Worlds. I'll be riding behind Brian on his "scooter" for about 40 minutes or so. He will have to sit up as much as possible, even with me riding in position on the time trial bike. All good intentions might be cast aside yet again, thanks to the weather.


This was about 1:15 in Denver today. If anything remotely close to this blows back in this afternoon, I'll be riding the TT bike in the basement on the trainer, again. If we are lucky we'll be able to get out during the brief window between early afternoon thunderstorms and late-mid afternoon thunderstorms. It's all about timing, speaking of timing, Steve's timing was just a hair off for him to be able to go home with his brand new, used espresso grinder.


I picked up this Rancilio grinder after spotting in during some casual craigslist browsing. Steve had just started getting used to the fact that after a month of having a commercial set up at his disposal, going back to drinking drip coffee wasn't going to cut it. The price was right on the grinder, at about 1/10th of its original cost.


I started into the tear down/clean up process, hoping that disassembly would be pretty straight forward with the aid of parts diagrams. No such luck . . . I do know it needs a good cleaning and might as well throw a new set of burrs in there for $40. If you are going to be grinding beans for pulling shots in a busy coffee shop, this is the machine for you. It is an automatic grinder, meaning you hit start and it runs until it trips the switches in the doser saying it is full. If you are just grinding for a couple shots, you have to pay attention that you don't go through the beans at the advertised pace of 20 lbs/hr.


The hopper and doser have a nice tint to them so they don't show the build up of coffee oils very quickly. I was a bit surprised to see that the burrs were worn as much as they were since as you can see from the label, this grinder was used for decaf. espresso, whatever that might be.

End of the Local Season

This weekend marked the end of the local racing season for me. I headed up to the CSP course for the Raisin Hope Foundation Classic for lack of anything better to do. I wasn't sure how the legs would feel and also didn't really know how strong a showing there would be at this race with Niwot being State Crit Championships the next day. Brian and I were representing for the team and a medium sized field with some decent talent. Brian covered the first move, following Dan Porter up the road. They stayed in sight, but you can almost see the entire course from one spot anyways. Eventually they came back so I took it upon myself to put in a little dig to see what a counter would do . . . evidently not much.

Just beyond the halfway mark, things started to get exciting. A couple riders got up to road with and I tried to bridge the gap. I got halfway there and found I wasn't going to make it across alone. I sat up and got back in the group and recovered for a lap. When Sean Sullivan decided he was going to go across, I was in the right position to get on his wheel and take the mostly free ride. We ended up with about 15 of us in the front group, not really working all that well together, but the gap was big enough that we didn't get caught, but a few more were able to bridge. I tried to follow some moves, hoping to get in the one that resulted in our group splitting, but that didn't happen. In trying to follow Dan Porter towards the end of the race, I realized that my legs still felt a bit crispy. I didn't do a very good job of sticking with the wheels I needed to at the end and ended up 14th, but I was happy with the fact that I got in some good leg speed work and found my way to the business end of the race.

Sunday, I headed up to the hills to help Joey take down some trees on his property since it was the last slash collection day of the season. We took down a sizable pine at the front of his property which was amusing because we had to drop it towards the street, not knowing exactly how far it might go into the traffic lane. I manned the rope, he had the chainsaw, and Sarah ran traffic control. We pulled off a textbook operation for felling medium sized trees with a desired direction/landing spot. There wasn't too much to get out of the street, but a few cyclists shot us dirty looks as they had to avoid the pine needles in the road. Once the tree was chopped up and loaded, it was off to the slash collection. The volunteer at the lot got a kick out of the truck's musical horn, further reinforcing that it was a $60 well spent.

Tired

After days of procrastination, there has been some actual work completed, not the kind I do in the office during the day, but the real stuff at home. Steve and I managed to wrestle a couple pieces of drywall into place the other night and the ceiling for the espresso room is mostly covered. I still need to move the door out of the corner by a stud's width and rehang it so it actually swings and latches properly. Until I do that, I really can't finish up the drywall so well.

I also put some new tires on the TT wheels last night. I forgot what a pain in the ass it is to glue up a disc, but it's done and I shouldn't need new shoes on those wheels for another couple years. Hopefully the combination of the 19mm tire up front and the 22mm on the disc will be the right one for going fast. I have a few more efforts on the TT bike before it gets packed away in the travel case. Thanks to Brian and Cheryl, I have a hard case for travel this year. We'll see how it compares to the BikePro case I have used in the past. The airlines always managed to do something to the bikes, no matter how much padding I tried to put in place in years past. Good thing they will be charging me at least $200 each way to travel with bikes . . . if I am unlucky, they could whack me for as much as $550 each way.

Today is Steve's last day of working at the UCHSC Dental School and I don't think he'll be sad about it. Sounds like the program here kind of honked a bit and he spent a fair amount of time on his rotation doing absolutely nothing. To celebrate, he's taking a half day and heading out to Golden to hit the last couple brewery tours before taking off tomorrow morning. The plan is to meet at the Golden City Brewery, the second largest brewer in Golden, post work/post ride for a couple pints. I'd love to say my weekend will be quiet, but between racing tomorrow and packing, I don't think I will have too much time to kick back.

I Like Tacos

I made the return to training after a much needed day of recovery on Monday. I hit Meridian last night with the notion that I'd get some leg speed work in, but I didn't plan on spending much of the hour off the front alone . . . it just happened. Maybe my legs were feeling a little better after the ride to Vail than I thought. We'll see how tonight's effort goes, uphill and in TT position. Post Meridian, we headed to Lime to take advantage of $1 taco Tuesday . . . I like tacos, they are good for recovery. Even though the place was packed, we found a seat at the bar and got to eating and drinking. Our food bill was only $9 . . . which was quite respectable for three of us . . . had there not been a beverage bill to go along with it.

Given that it was a warm summer evening, we had nothing better to do than to pick up some ice cream and hit the park. It is shocking how many foxes there are in Alamo Placita Park in the early evening hours. Even more shocking was the number of people passing through the park. Some seemed to be hiding from their families to smoke a cigarette, some were migrating off of the bike path to find a place to sleep for the night. The end of summer is rapidly approaching as the nights are coming quicker and it is dark in morning when I get up for Dempsey's morning walk. Even though I am in the seasonal time warp of the working world, no longer defining freedom by summer vacation, I feel like I need to try and stuff as much fun in as possible before the summer ends and fall takes over. Having Steve in town for the last month has been good for getting out and about and exploring some of the places I have had on the list or revisiting some old haunts. The last month has flown by and I will soon again be roommate-less . . .

Tonight, we're finally getting around to putting up a couple sheets of drywall on the ceiling of the espresso room. I have to take advantage of having some labor in the house before Steve skips town this weekend. There is a small chance that I will finish up projects in the near future, but I'm not making any promises.

Riding to Vail

You can read the summary from last time. Subtract the rain, substitute a constant headwind, and that was just about that. I don't remember it being so dark at 5:45 last year when I got ready to leave. I delayed my start a few minutes to let it get a little lighter out and to eat a biscuit that just came out of the oven. Pretty much as soon as I got across Santa Fe and onto Florida, the wind was in my face. It stayed there up the I-70 frontage road past lookout, took a brief break on parts of Squaw Pass, but didn't let up all the way to the Vail Plaza Hotel. The adventure was again about eight hours of ride time and the scenery was lovely as ever.

I headed out Sunday morning for a quick spin up Battle Mountain, just to shake up the legs a little more before getting a massage and jumping in the car to come home. My legs were trashed! I have no doubt that the effort was harder than last year, hopefully the extra effort pays off in a couple weeks time. One of the coolest sights as you climb from Minturn towards Leadville, is the abandoned town of Gilman, CO. It was a mining town until the late 1970s when the mine was shut down and soon after that it was all (mine, town, pile of tailings, etc.) declared a Superfund site by the EPA. I didn't do any exploring of my own, but the linked pictures are pretty cool. The weekend was pretty quiet other than that . . .

Denied by the Weather

It was dumping yesterday afternoon, right around the time I started to begin to think about heading down to Chatfield for some motor pacing. I got to ride the trainer instead . . . weeeeeeeee. It was alright I guess, I got to sweat and making adjustments to the TT bike post new seat post install was easier than if I were out riding in the world. I can only hope that the weather is a little better going over the passes tomorrow. After a year or so of having the same music on the music playin' device, I finally put together a new, 9-hour mix to bring tomorrow.

I forgot about the fact that I ran into a mass of runners last year on the ride to Vail and it will happen again since tomorrow is also the Georgetown-Idaho Springs half marathon. Fortunately it is only 1/10th of the trip for tomorrow and I won't be fighting the flow of runners, nor will I be climbing or descending in that section. Just for kicks, I took a quick look for alternate routes . . . there really aren't any unless I want to ride US285 to Guanella Pass to Georgetown, but that gets a bit crazy. I wouldn't mind riding the old Red Zinger/Saturn Classic route sometime, but I'll save that for another day.

It is hard to believe that I am less than two weeks away from my departure for Austria. So far as I know, I am ready and I think I know where my passport is. Vacation and not having to think at all, except to remember some German will be a welcome change, I just hope I remember to come back when the trip is over.

Fresh Paint

The after picture of the house doesn't really show dramatic change after the fresh coat of paint. Crazy, when you go from one white to another, the difference isn't all that noticeable until you get close up and see that the cracks are no longer exposed to the weather. The house should be good to go for another 10 years or so before it need a new coat of paint.


On Monday evening, Matt, Steve and I got in some cross training, hitting a bunch of golf balls at the new and improved, now city owned, Aquagolf. Nothing like whacking a bunch of floaty range balls into a pond to help forget about the beginning of the work week woes. I got out to ride Tuesday evening, a quick jaunt out to Lookout and up. I have gotten to the point where no matter which direction I go, my house to the top is approx. 1:15 ride time. Mid-way up the hill, I was wondering why my hip and shoulder were so sore and it finally dawned on me that hitting 100 golf balls might not be the best idea when it comes to recovery since the awkward motion that is my swing, isn't something my body is accustomed to.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow evening's ride which will involve a motorpacing session with Mike. The hay is in the barn as they say, but there is still some ramping up to be done prior to Worlds. The annual ride to Vail is coming up this weekend and it looks like I might be flying solo again this year. As long as the phone/mp3 player/gps/camera keeps a charge for all 9 hours, I should be a-ok.

Oh Salida

Getting out of town always seems much harder than it should be on a Friday afternoon. I was lucky to have a 5:25ish (plus or minus 8-10 minutes depending on who you ask) start time for the TT down in Salida, but it still felt like we were pushing it to get down there. After driving through some rain and lots of recreational vehicle traffic, we got to sunny Salida with enough time to register and head over to Sarah's team's rental house which was about a mile from the TT start. She made it out the door and got enough of a warm up in to win her category, not a bad start to the weekend.

I got ready and got myself freaked out about the fact that the base tape was separating on my front tire and I could push the tire around to the point that I started questioning if I would be riding on it. Our start times were delayed ten minutes, then we were back on time, then we had an eight minute delay, then they started sending guys off. Fortunately, I was standing around to see what was what, knowing my effort would suffer less from "ill timed warm up" than it would from missing my start time. I tried to pace myself and keep my cadence up going out to the turn around and then hit it as hard as I could on the way back. I should have saved a little more on the way out because I started loading up just before the finish and probably lost some time in and area where I should have been able to keep motoring. I finished third and took about 35 seconds off my time from last year which I'll take as a good sign going in to my prep for Worlds.

It never hurt to have access to a kitchen while out of town racing. We avoided the downtown restaurant crunch and cooked the usual pasta dinner over at the house (I really should have taken pictures of this unique faux-deco gem) and dined with the bulk of the Pro Design/Porsche team. We had our last laughs about the impending doom of the road race. Leonard and I were the only ones who had done it in the past and knew what to expect.

I heard a rumor from theprosstuff.com that Jon Tarkington was looking to get into an early move for the road race, but I didn't expect him to initiate one mile into our 84 mile race, but I also didn't hesitate to follow. Any advantage I can get going into a climb is welcome and if I can tack myself onto a smaller group after the race has broken up, my chance at getting a good result increases significantly. Jon and I were joined, but abandoned early by Brett Kirby so we went it alone for five glorious laps, building up a gap as large as 3:30. Unfortunately I got caught in the steeper section of the climb and had no real chance of latching on to the group as it passed. There were more than 20 in the group so i called it a day at that point and watched the race unfold from the sidelines.

There was a crit yesterday. It was not a stellar outing for me and I hope to never speak of it again. The drive back was quiet to start, with two grumpy cyclists in the car, but we made it back to Denver with enough time to pick up Dempsey and hit Cherry Creek for some people watching and ice cream. The local racing season is pretty much done for me, crazy to think how quickly it has gone by. Only three races for the 2009 season to go . . . I hope to make them good ones.