Inauspicious Beginnings

It turns out I did manage to pre-register for Koppenberg which means I owe the postal service $.02 for still delivering the envelope. I planned on racing anyways since it was the first BAR/BAT race of the season and it seemed like a decent thing to do despite all dread prior.

I knew what to expect from having ridden the course a couple weeks back. The bit of moisture we had between the first attempt at holding the race and yesterday did little to the road except make it slightly more choppy in places. The upper section after the climb was still really loose and gravelly, of course towards the gutter, the only place you could get a decent draft off of anybody in front of you.

The start was mellower than I remember it being as a cat 3 and I managed not only to get into my pedals, but also avoided those who almost crashed in the process. I was sitting reasonably well mid pack when we hit the dirt, but wanted to move up before the hill for fear of having to run it if anybody came to a standstill. As the pack slowed prior to the hill, I managed to make it pretty much to the front, giving me the ability to pick a decent line and make it up the hill with minimal effort. At the top I tried to catch onto a wheel as quickly as possible and get a decent draft across the top, the first mistake of many.

I followed wheels on the back side of the course and found myself a few meters off the front with Phil Zajicek, but nothing doing. As we hit the dirt for the second lap I was looking to drift back a bit and get out of the wind when Ivan Stevic rolled away from everybody. Of the many courses of action possible at that point, I picked the worst, the one that involved me thinking to myself, "Hmmm, there goes the race."

From that point forward I didn't do a very good job of following wheels that should have been followed. I picked some bad lines going up the hill, wasted efforts trying to ride in the gutter as opposed to just taking a decent line at the top in the wind, and then worst of all, just gave up. I let a gap open up, in whatever group I was in at that point, at the top of the hill on lap 5, chased for a lap and a half before calling it quits as I turned into the wind on the dirt going into lap 7.

I could have had a better effort for the first race of the season, but plenty more racing to be come.

Unreal

Usually people accuse Dick Vitale of being biased towards Duke, but at least he calls a halfway decent game while being as annoying as he is. I have never heard a commentating crew show more favoritism towards one team than Billy Packer and Jim Nantz did towards Kansas in Saturday's game. Mr. Packer and Mr. Nantz went to an interesting extreme given their geographic backgrounds (check out their bios linked above). Kansas took it to Carolina early and hard, they deserve credit for playing a great game despite almost blowing it. Oh well, there's always next year as long as the entire team doesn't enter the NBA draft.

Today marked the beginning of the racing season for me with the Lookout Mountain Hill Climb (click the link to see the map and elevation gain). I haven't seen the results yet but since it was an individual time trial, the race against the clock, I'm going to say I beat the clock, it quit before I did.

My rough guess on my time is approximately 19:17 which is somewhere around my personal best, bettering my time of 19:28 from last year's mass start event, which I also treated somewhat like a time trial, drilling it on the early part and then letting Kevin do his thing. Speaking of, Kevin showed good form today, posting a 17:20 or so. I think I want to "retire" too!

Koppenberg is on the slate for tomorrow unless it randomly starts raining in which case I will go back to Golden and race the circuit race around the School of Mimes campus.

Quittin' Time

It was quitting time a while back, mentally at least. Here's something for the weekend:

Rooster

Over the last couple of week, I could have sworn that I heard the distinctive sound of a rooster somewhere on the 1600 south block of Pearl Street. The little red rooster was not too lazy to crow the day, contrary to the old blues song covered by the Grateful Dead, the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, Eric Clapton, and many others. Who has a rooster in the middle of a neighborhood? The video below probably more accurately reflects the sentiment of the neighbors when it comes to their unwanted, natural alarm clock.

I had the pleasure of doing my monthly fitness test down at the Echelon Sports Performance labs yesterday afternoon. My power output at threshold is now at a level where I have decided to stop racing. Instead of registering and getting out there, I am going to calculate my "results" based on topography, environmental conditions, and my test numbers. I should be able to let you know how my season "went" by the end of the day.

Tomorrow is the first race day of the rest of my life. I am registered for the Lookout Mountain Hillclimb, the individual time trial edition. I get to race against the clock and then compare results with some guys who go really fast uphill. The glue job on the light wheels is curing and should be ready for the test spin this afternoon.

If You Say So

I want to take my hat off to the promoter of the Koppenberg race for putting in efforts required to get his race rescheduled. Then I want beat him about the head and face with said hat for putting in the effort knowing full well that the forecast for the second half of this week called for rain and/or snow. The race was postponed originally because of wet roads turning to impassable muck (see the 3/30/08 post) created by a light dusting of snow, not a full day of precipitation.

I will have to do some day of race decision making (it would help if I knew if my pre-registration made it in) on Sunday. Sloppenberg or School of Mimes? What I was really hoping for was that Koppenberg would be rescheduled for 4/20 when I will be out of town anyways. Having a valid excuse not to do the race would be ideal!

There was more action this morning across the street, but I didn't get pictures for fear of freaking out the excavator prepping to dig for the water service lateral, most likely without a street closure permit. Many contractors will simply put the signs out there without paying the city closure fees. Given that the city inspectors are so busy all over town, I can't say I blame them for trying to save a few bucks here or there.

Nice day we're having here . . . I wonder what Dempsey is doing.

April Fools

What a bust yesterday was. There weren't any really good gags going on out there. Google's "Custom Time" was so dumb, I clicked the link, registered that it was a "gag" and "meant to be funny" but lost interest after about the second line of text.

Probably the best one was what Woot with the fake woot-off where each new item was the same Black and Decker Battery Backup with different pictures and different descriptions. Scroll through the Woot Blog and check it out, good work on their part.

Even better is the fact that they had Bags of Crap interspersed and I was lucky enough to get my hands on some. I can't wait to see what kind of crap I get. Random Bags of Crap you say? Yes and usually in some sort of bag, picture as soon as the crap shows up.


Somebody hurry! Add some excitement to my life, please!

Glue

I got the gluing operation fired up again last night to get a start on the remaining wheels just lying around. The living room has resumed its bike shop status with multiple bikes and wheels providing the dust bunnies and Dempsey hair drifts with safe harbor and shelter from the vacuum cleaner.

This gluing session went much more quickly than the last as I decided to just don the rubber gloves and use a purple, nitrile coated index finger to spread the glue along the tires and rims.


In other news, the duplex across the street from me is progressing slowly. I think by the time they finish construction the housing market slump will be over. They rolled out the floor and should be dropping some stairs into the basement. By my schedule they are weeks behind now! I'd provide some pictures, but all there is to see right now are some sheets of plywood on top of floor joists.

I continue to ponder and explore my next building project, a garage at the back alley so I will no longer have to subject my car the the whims of drivers on the street. The front runner for design these days is something like this:


Of course at my house, you'd never have such a vantage point and the tree is more like a utility pole in the alley. I'd also go to one 16' garage door to keep costs down. Anybody want to finance this project?