Well, it's actually three baskets. A suitcase for my bike, one piece of rolling luggage, and a small backpack. That's it. Last year I schlepped around the country with a car and enough stuff to open my own thrift store, but 2011 is the year of going light. Travel is already stressful, and removing a few pieces of luggage and packing-options from the equation is a blissful step toward simplicity and mobility. Packing my things in Santa Barbara yesterday was a simple affair, as it will be this week while I'm at home in Colorado and as I head off to North Carolina for team camp at the beginning of March. Sure it helps that Santa Claus will bring us all new equipment and clothing at camp, but my packing would be the same either way.
The downside to simplicity is vulnerability. I'm not bothered so much by leaving a few things behind, but rather that I'm in a bind if I lose a shoe or damage some clothing along the way. In other words, the concern is risk, not sacrifice. Fortunately, anyone who considers packing light a serious risk should have his head examined, and the solutions to minor problems like these are as quick and easy as a trip to the department store and a swipe of the credit card.
As any serious bike racer (or neglected significant other) will confess, you must orient your life around the sport to be successful. What's true for an athlete's wardrobe and toiletries is the same for lifestyle: you have to pack light and stay flexible. I don't have a second job. I'm not pursuing a graduate degree. My civic involvement and regular volunteer commitments are woefully lacking. Though I'm sad to miss out on all of this, I have a goal and the knowledge that with each foregone opportunity in one arena, I'm increasing my odds of success in another. These are all sacrifices that I'm happy to make.
But just as the real drawback to packing light is risk, a one-dimensional lifestyle entails similar vulnerability. The big difference, however, is that I can't address a major career setback with a trip to the store. Fulfilling, demanding life-pursuits are harder to pick up than a new pair of shoes.
I developed a minor knee aggravation near the end of my stay in Santa Barbara, and I have been forced to scale back my training a bit. I guess that happens sometimes when you put in 30-hour training weeks. As absurd as it sounds, an injury like this could turn into a minor crisis for me. I don't want to continue living like a monk if I can't do it 100%. Fortunately, I have a great athletic trainer in town, and the “aggravation” is just that—tolerable and treatable. So far I've only lost a few hours of training, and I'm optimistic that the only lasting effect of this little episode is a renewed commitment to regular stretching and, more importantly, some thoughtful reflection.
E-stemming the muscles above my knee. Mary Shelley would approve.
Keeping perspective always makes it easier to deal with a setback like this, and I'll do that by bragging about how awesome my trip to Santa Barbara was. The weather is perfect, the scenery is world-class, and I have a lot of non-cycling friends in town to keep me sane. On a typical day, I would wake up without an alarm (rest is training, training is work!), eat a delicious breakfast, pack enough sugary bike food to make any Trick-or-Treater jealous, go on a 5-6 hour adventure in the mountains behind Santa Barbara, eat, nap, eat some more, and then relax for the evening with either friends in town, a book in my hands, or the ever-distracting internet.
I showed up at the beginning of a rest week, so the first few days of my business trip was really more of a beach vacation.
My preferred mode of transportation. Salvaged from a friend's backyard, this beauty was covered with vines when I found it. I removed only half, and now the bike has lovely green streamers that shake in the breeze as I pedal along the beach.
Even during rest weeks, I still have to ride a little (10-15 hrs) and keep up with my stretching and core-exercise routine. This was my studio:
Though beachvacation was pleasant, I was eager to hit it the ground running. And that's exactly what I did. In terms of energy-expenditure and calorie-burn, the typical training day for me was equivalent to running 1.5 marathons. That's a lot of pasta.
[And while my body's energy consumption has been absurdly high, the environmentalist and bike-advocate in me has to chime in here. The calories required to sustain my body's workload over the span of this entire trip was less than the energy in only 2 gallons of gasoline, an amount less than the average car-commuter uses in a single day].
Despite this new knee issue, I am riding really well and am way ahead of where I was last year. Not that I'll peak sooner, but that I'm stronger. The oxygen-depleting pace I could sustain for only 30min last year (lactate treshold) is now an effort I can hold for 90minutes (tempo). That's a big deal.
If anything, I've got a lot to feel good about, but I'm still aware that I've got a long road ahead of me and a lot of work to do if I'm going to have a successful year. And though I might have all my eggs in one basket, I'm not going to count my chickens until they hatch.
Gaviota beach. 2hrs up the coast from Santa Barbara.
East Camino Cielo, 4000ft above town. The road straddles a ridge, with the ocean one side and wine country on the other.
Highway 33, way above the town of Ojai and 3hrs from SB. I only got to ride this on the really long days. You can see the road snaking through the valley on the right side of the picture.
Lake Casitas. Making a loop around the reservoir is a standard 4-hr ride.
A recent interview of Floyd Landis by Paul Kimmage has created quite a stir since its release yesterday. If you have some time on your hands and would like to gain insight into the world of pro cycling, as well as Floyd Landis’ struggle to find his place in it and cope with his fall from grace, I highly recommending reading the full-text of the interview (available here). (For some context, Floyd Landis is the disgraced winner of the 2006 Tour de France, stripped of his title for doping and now publicly accusing former teammate Lance Armstrong of using performance enhancing drugs; Paul Kimmage is an Irish cycling journalist and vocal opponent of doping in the sport, also considered an adversary to Armstrong).
There is no shortage of writers eager to share their opinion on the Floyd/Lance feud and speculate on who’s telling the truth, what the response should be, and what this means for the future of the sport. Rather than weigh in on the debate, here are a couple of observations on less-discussed aspects of the story that might not strike at the heart of the issue but are still truthful and inspiring, regardless of your stance on the controversy.
Kimmage: So from your first contact with [Lance] at that training camp in Austin, you are pretty quickly a member of the inner circle. And seven months later, during a pre-Tour training camp with Lance at St. Moritz, you dope for the first time?
Landis: Yes.
Floyd Landis admits to doping but didn’t start until he had already been hired by the US Postal team. That means he made it onto a ProTour team, the highest level of the sport, as a clean athlete during an era when doping is widely acknowledged to have occurred far more frequently than now. This gives me hope for my sport, and for myself.
But I couldn’t think. I couldn’t process what was going on. I could barely process the magnitude of winning the Tour in the first place, and that was on a positive note, and this was the opposite. This was something so unbelievable to me but on the other extreme. And it happened so quickly that I was just overwhelmed.
The days of immediately following Floyd’s monumental achievement and subsequent downfall were the darkest of his life. Even the greatest success is fleeting and meaningless if built on fraud and deception. We see this born out in every arena: Wall Street, athletics, politics, etc. It just isn’t worth it.
Yeah, but I never had any money. I never had any crazy security like that but I knew how good I was at racing on the road and the one thing I did have was a goal and a dream.
...Who cares about money? Who cares?...No, man, I didn’t have money before and I don’t have money now and I’m the same guy.
Floyd raced “professionally” for a few years on a ridiculously low salary, for only a few thousand dollars a year. People see highly-paid celebrities like him and often resent their success, assuming the pros have it easy and are in it for the money. They tell themselves “I could do that if only someone gave me the opportunity.” But a man like Floyd Landis had to pay his dues first, and he did it on pure guts. There was a time when Floyd was broke and struggling to get by just so he could have a shot at chasing a dream. It's tempting to assume the pros will be the first to quit if the glamour and sponsors leave. On the contrary, the true “pros” would be the last ones standing, eager to carry on merely because we love our sport.
Where does the time go?! With a hectic but productive month at home in Denver behind me, I’ve made my out to sunny Santa Barbara for a...um...business trip. I’m here for a full 5 weeks and I’m loving it! Now that I’m settled under a palm tree and catching my breath, I have time to update you (or posterity) on the rest of 2010.
July
I ended June with a series of great performances, which made me hesitant to embark on a prescribed week-long break from the bike at the beginning of July. I made my back to Colorado, sat around indoors for a couple days, twiddled my thumbs, and finally cracked around day 5. So I headed to the mountains and put in a few long days at the office.
While curtailing my break means I didn’t lose much fitness and rode well for the rest of July, the consequence was cracking in August when the fatigue and summer heat finally caught up with me. Maybe for this year’s mid-season break I’ll lock up my bike and mail the key to myself via something slow like UPS ground or a fleet of doves.
I emerged from my pseudo-break to compete in the Iron Hill Twilight Criterium in Pennsylvania, which was my first opportunity to repeat a big race that I had competed in the season before. What a difference a year can make! In 2009 the race was just too much for me -- I didn’t know how to ride effectively and was struggling just to keep up, reacting to the events around me rather than strategizing as the drama unfolded. But this year I anticipated how the race would play out, put myself in the right position to save energy, make the break, and lapped the field with a group of 12. I finished 9th after working for a better result my teammate Mark (who also lapped but then crashed) and put myself onto the USA Crits Podium with Isaac.
July rolled on with the Capital Criterium in DC, staged on picturesque Pennsylvania Ave immediately between the Capitol Building and White House, and then a trip to Boise, ID, which was probably the most fun excursion of the season. My abbreviated break caught with me later that month at a stage race in Georgia, an optional event that entailed 5-days of racing in midday July heat in the south. Bad decision! I raced only so-so, crashed once, and was clearly starting to crack. I carried my fatigue into the prestigious Tour of Elk Grove at Chicago, where I could still keep up and finish with the big guns but wasn’t fresh enough to do anything noteworthy.
August
The jet-setting continued as I flew to Portland to be the best-man in my friend Mark’s wedding, drove back to Boise for a few days of training, and flew directly to Chicago (again) for the US Professional Criterium Championships. By this time I was starting to feel fresh again, which is good because the race was brutal. Unlike past years, 2010’s course was narrow, winding, and undulating, which weeded out more than half of the pro-only field. I made the selections, had the legs to race actively at the end (chasing a long-gone breakaway in vain, for exposure more than anything). I placed 28th, which isn’t much to speak of, but I consider it one my finest performances.
August rolled on with a visit to NYC and then the Chris Thater memorial in Binghampton, NY, where we performed well as a team working for our sprinter Isaac and he inched closer to taking the overall lead in the USA Crits Series.
September
September was great. We started with bang at the Tour de la France in South Carolina (no, not the Tour de France, but close enough right?) and US 100k in Georgia in the same weekend. My teammate Joey won both days! He followed that up by winning the Sprinter’s Jersey at the Univest Gran Prix, which was another rare opportunity for me to repeat a big race from 2009. Again, improvement was the theme: last year I got dropped, vowed revenge, and place 14th this year against a pretty stacked international field. It’s not a win, but I’ll take it for now. Next year I’m going for blood...
After the crit (day 2) at Univest. It was cold, wet, and slick
We carried our momentum into the Texas Tough, the last event in the USA Crits Series. It classic Texan style, the city of Dallas pulled out all the stops and the fans came out in droves. It was an impressive event, made all the more exciting for us as we achieved of 2 season long goals: Isaac winning the USA Crits overall and Team Mountain Khakis winning the team classification.
Isaac on the podium at the USA Crits final
At this point I packed up and drove myself from NC to NJ, where a planned 2 week visit turned into a 3 month adventure! It started with a drive up to New England with a few college friends for the final race of the season, the Mayors Cup in Boston. The air was crisp, the foliage was bursting with red and orange fall colors, and we ended the season in high spirits.
October
Long before I started racing, I always used to joke that I’d make it out to Europe when my sponsors decide to send me there. Lo and behold, I made it out to Italy in mid-October for the Red Hook Criterium Milano, thanks to the generosity event sponsor NYC Fixed Gear Forum. My former roommate in Brooklyn and race organizer extraordinaire has hosted this race in NYC (a nice Q&A by Cycling Reporter here) for a few years, and this fall he was invited by the Bicycle Film Festival’s crew in Milan to host the race overseas. Events sponsors flew out the “who’s who” from NYC, and as a former Red Hook winner and NYC bike messenger, I was one of the lucky ones to go. We got local treatment for a week in Milan, I got second in the race, and then I toured around Tuscany, Florence, Rome, and Cinque Terra. For the last two weeks in Italy, I was moving about with nothing but a small backpack, my bicycle and me. Pure bliss.
One of the event sponsors, Cinelli, put me in their kit and on one of their bikes. The founder Antonio Colombo also took Dave and me out to a fancy dinner in Milan!
Hanging out with the local Bicycle Film Festival crew in Milan. Photo by David Lucas McCandless
Our accommodations in Tuscany were lovely, to say the least! Olives for oil and grapes for wine are grown on the premises.
Dave posing in front of the machinery at the local olive oil plant in Tuscany. Tables are set up for an annual white truffle dinner, which we attended later that evening to savor to local delicacy and culture. We ate like kings the whole time!
On our way to Tuscany, my companions Dave and JT and I stopped in Brescia to hang out with Legor Cicli and check out this mad scientist's labratory. He's one of the only young frame builders in Italy carrying on the legacy of steel craftmanship, and my pals Dave and JT made arrangements to start importing his bikes to the US. Photo by David August Trimble
Wearing jeans and on borrowed/ill-fitting bikes, Dave and I rode 11 miles through a rain storm to the top of a mountain pass to catch a glimpse of the Giro di Lombardia, one of the 5 monuments of cycling. It was amazing to be there, but I don't like to watch bike races where I'd rather be competing myself
My bike, my backpack, and me -- all I was carrying for 2 weeks! Fortunately the weather was nice. After two weeks of grinding up and down hills in rural Italy, I've resolved to return some day with a proper road bike. Photo by David August Trimble
November
Just when I expected things to finally calm down for me, another adventure came my way on the first day of November. My plane from Italy was still taxiing on the runway in NYC, and I was finally thinking seriously about what to do with myself until Christmas, when I received a surprise email from my former bike messenger company. My pals at Breakaway Courier Systems informed me that they’d become the subject of a eality television show, filming for the next 6 weeks and due to air on the Travel Channel sometime this spring, and that I should stick around and get involved. Perfect! I worked a bike messenger for the next month with cameras rolling. It was fascinating to see the inner workings, logistics, and concept development of a major network TV show, and I really enjoyed resuming my old job as a bike courier. Unlike my first stint as a bike messenger, this fall I had the reassurance that demanding job was only short-term, along with substantially greater familiarity and comfort with the city.
My beautiful messenger bike, which I'm slightly surprised didn't get stolen. The wheels were a prize from the race in Italy. Look mom, no brakes!
In addition to the television show, Breakaway is working on a project to create a video catalog of every single street in Manhattan. They post these videos on their website one at a time, which helps increase the site's prominence in internet search results. Figuring that a fast-forwarded video would be more entertaining, they hired a bike racer (yours truly) for a few days to race around Manhattan with a camera. The full catalog is on their website (www.breakawaycourier.com).
Something must have been wrong with the camera's color adjustment. Those traffic lights were all green, I swear!
I also re-signed with Team Mountain Khakis for 2011. I had a few other offers but am certain this is the best place for me next year, and I’m really optimistic about the upcoming season. I’ve got a lot to say here, and this topic deserves its own post.
November 2010 marked my 7th consecutive Thanksgiving away from home. While I’m sad to have such poor attendace at the family dinner table for this important holiday, I’ve been taken care of every year and have always missed the holiday for good reasons. I’ve enjoyed my multi-year odyssey and had a great time this year with my extended family in NJ.
December
I finished up as a messenger and enjoyed some of NYC’s famed Christmas festivities. Socially speaking, it’s a great time to be in the area, and I’m still trying to decided if NYC is the place I’ll someday call home. Even so, I packed up, completed the dreaded drive back to Colorado in 2 days, and was relieved to finally settle in at home for the Christmas holiday. I unpacked my toiletries from the travel case for the first time in almost an entire year, and finally breathed a heavy sigh of relief.
2010 was quite a year. Here's what happened in the first half:
January
This was the low-point of 2010. What should have been a liberating adventure turned into a stressful debacle: I started in Denver, bought a car, crashed it 48hrs later on my way to southern California, and took a nasty spill on my bike that same weekend. Compounded by uncertainty and anxiety about my upcoming rookie season, this series of events took a serious psychological toll. Further, I've since concluded that I didn't even need a car in the first place, so the entire episode was completely unnecessary. (I look forward to being rid of that infernal contraption in 2011. I'd rather not own a car, and that topic deserves it's own blog post.)
I also devoted much of my post-season downtime to perfecting the art of eBay. Cyclist don't make too much money but get all sorts of awesome schwag from sponsors, which becomes fair game for an after-market income boost as soon the season is over.
February
I bounced back in February with a restored sense of optimism and confidence. I travelled back to Colorado from Santa Barbara, packed up, and made my way out to Winston-Salem, NC, team headquarters and my personal homebase for most of the cycling season. My roommate and teammate Isaac turned out to be a great ally and accomplished grilled pizza chef. Isaac went on to have a killer 2010 season and scored a contract with Kenda Pro Cycling for 2011. Next year he'll be one of my main rivals.
If cycling doesn't pan out, opening a pizzeria is my Plan B
March
Team training camp was the highlight of March. "Training" isn't very accurate. The week is really a combination of orientation (since we all get to know each other) and Christmas morning (because we get set up on all of our fancy new equipment). After team camp I did a few local races with the team veteran and captain, Adam. I raced like a total rookie, made silly mistakes, and am pleased to have those learning experiences behind me.
A few colleagues and I also travelled to the exercise physiology lab at Eastern Carolina University to undergo a series of stress tests, where a group of scientists quantified of our freakish abilities, chuckling as they compared our results to those of their typical clientele of sedentary, hungover college students. It was a mutually beneficial exercise; the staff gets to conduct tests on a series highly-trained athletes, and we learn a lot of useful information about ourselves that informs our training and general health. For example, I learned the precise conditions in which my body produces lactate acid and also when it processes the most of oxygen. I also found out that I have healthy bone-density (many cyclists don't), and that the ideal body composition for endurance athletes is 4.5% body fat, which in my case means I'm aiming for 152lbs. Right now I'm a hefty 156. Ouch.
April
April marked the beginning of the primary racing season and what you might call my "accelerated learning curve" (i.e. getting my head kicked in by superior competition). I got off to a bumpy start Battenkill, where a flat tire and slow wheels change ended my day at mile 45 of 128. Upstate NY is a long way to travel end up doing only 1/3 of a race, and I was understandably discouraged. Two weeks later, the Athens Twilight Criterium proved to be a similarly challenging and selective race, but I put in a good performance for the team and was one of only a few finishers in the rain. Both races are summarized in old posts.
May
My view from a training ride at home in May
May was a turning point in the season. After an intense 7 days of racing at Speedweek, I took advantage of 3 week break in the schedule and flew to Colorado, where I had ample time to rest up and resume training at altitude. I returned to racing later in the month in tip-top shape.
May was also when team management experienced a major snafu -- one of our main sponsors didn't honor its financial commitment to the team and left us with a major budget shortfall. (To be clear, it was not Mountain Khakis; they're great and will remain our title sponsor for 2011). Facing the decision between suspending either salaries or racing, we decided to press-on without pay. I consider this one of the finest moments of the year. You might expect the professionals to be the first ones to quit when the money and glamour disappears. On the contrary, we should be the most committed and the last ones standing when challenges arise.
With the team's future in question, the pressure I felt to perform evaporated. Rather than showing up to races because it was my job, I showed up simply because I wanted to be there.
The rest of May was a blast. We raced like champs at the Wilmington Gran Prix, a National Race Calendar (NRC) event in Delaware. I suffered my first race-crash of the season, along with a couple teammates, late in the race. It was at a critical moment when we had brilliant position with 4 riders in the front 10 and were looking to have a strong finish. Rain had just begun to fall and the 5 of us near the front slid out all at once, spooking the riders behind us and creating a gap for first 2 riders to pedal on to victory. No one was hurt, but the crash cost of us a significant amount of prize money. Despite the poor outcome, we knew that we raced well and the performance set the stage for future success.
The trip to Delaware was my first venture to the northern half of the east coast in 2010. I was looking forward to visiting New York City, which I hadn't returned to since moving out 6 months earlier. Pulling me in the other direction was Adam, who was eager to delay to the trip north by a day to do a local race in Pennsylvania. Despite my eagerness to get back to NYC, I decided to put work (cycling) before recreation (visiting New York). My commitment paid off and I won the race! Adam and I made the break (a small lead group that rides ahead of the main field) and alternated attacks until I was clear of the group. I lapped the main field, which I had never done before, and crossed the line solo with my hands up. Adam won the bunch sprint for second.
I carried my momentum into the following week with 11th place at the International Basecamp International Criterium and was psyched to finish just one place out of top 10 in a prestigious NRC race. Isaac took 4th, inches away from the podium, and continued our team's post-financial-debacle rally.
I netted my best result of the season the following weekend, at the Tour of Somerville. This is the oldest bike race the country, and an especially meaningful to me because of its proximity to NYC and familiar crowd. And not only was I born in Somerville, NJ, my life begain in the hospital that sits next to the first turn on the course, which racers pass dozens of times throughout the 50-mile race.
The best thing about Somerville was my utterly disastrous preparation. I had discovered a crack in my race bike's frame and, due to my independent travel schedule, I met up with the team mechanic only minutes before the race to get set up on one of our spare bikes. While other racers were warming up and preparing for the race, we were in the parking lot scrambling to make adjustments on the new bike. We suffered a minor set back when one of the parts that had to be switched, the fork, wouldn't slide out of my frame. Instead of reaching for a rubber mallot to gently pound out the stubborn part, we panicked and grabbed the first blunt object available, a plastic container of powdered drink mix. Looking over our shoulders to ensure no fans or -- even worse, photographers -- were in the vicinity, we started pounding away with the plastic canister. Welcome to professional cycling.
The cracked frame that forced a hasty pre-race bike swap
Not surprisingly, the canister exploded, showering my bike and me with sugary powdered drink mix. Also keep in mind that it was 95 degrees out and we were working feverishly in the midday sun. My hands and handlebars were a sticky mess, something I couldn't properly address until after the race. At this point, with the start only minutes away, I admitted defeat and wheeled my bike over to the Mavic neutral support mechanic station, where the amused staff calmly finished the job with proper tools and a professional demeanor. Still panicked, I hopped onto my sticky, maladjusted bike and raced to the start line, where all 150 of my competitors were lined up for the commencement of the race. As the National Anthem was underway and I caught my breath, Isaac pointed out that my rear tire had a significant slit and was unsafe to use for the race. I hurried back to the Mavic support pit, and they replaced my wheel while also telling race organizers via radio to delay the start of the race for a few seconds until I arrived at the start with new wheel.
50-miles later my sticky bicycle and I crossed the finish line in 4th place, the best result of my season.
Spectators often hand us beers after we race. After a stressful morning in Somerville, I needed it!
June
May's momentum carried me through June. It started with one of the funnest trips of the season to the Tulsa Tough. With most of the team racing that weekend in Philadelphia, two teammates and I hijacked the team van and made the drive out to Oklahoma. Highlights include missing an exit and driving a few hours out of the way (twice), and stopping for go-kart racing and live country music in Nashville on the trip home. Tulsa itself was cool too; the racing was awesome, my parents came out to visit, and we made some money. This artsy YouTube video captures the spirit of the event:
Following Tulsa we embarked on a three week journey to race in Washington DC, Wisconsin, and Ohio. These races were a priority for the team and I was really disappointed to miss one of my favorite races, the Harlem Skyscraper Criterium in NYC on Father's Day, due to a conflict with a USA Crits race in Wisconsin the evening before. I had great legs had been riding well for the entire trip, which made it all the more agonizing to miss Harlem.
Me, Matt, and Isaac lined up in Arlington, VA
Isaac and Adam on the podium after racing in Wisconsin, the day before my rushed departure to Harlem
Encouraged by my good form, I made a last-minute decision to rectify the situation: I would that race that evening (Saturday) with the team in Wisconsin, pack my bike in a teammate's bike-concealing boogie board bag, sleep a couple hours, fly to NYC on my own at 6am on Sunday, take the public bus straight to the race course in Harlem, assemble my bike, do the race, fly back to Wisconsin on Monday, and resume racing and travelling with the team on Tuesday. Given the hefty prize list, I was confident that I could win enough money to pay for the trip and then some.
This is the, um, boogie board I took with me to Harlem
Everything went accordingly to plan and things were looking good for me until the last mile of the race, when I was thrown to the pavement in a road-wide pile-up. So much for my grand trip to Harlem! I travelled there seeking glory and prize money; I left with bruised wrists, gashed shins, and a scraped bicycle. The trip was clearly a gamble that didn't pay off this time, but I would do it again. Going into it, I knew this was a likely outcome and was ok with it. On average, I would come out ahead on a trip like this, so I'll stick by my decision.
June concluded with a few more races in Ohio and a trip back to Colorado with my dad, who made the drive out to the Midwest to watch a few events. At this point I had been going non-stop since mid-May, and was due for a rest before resuming another hectic block of racing in July. So far, so good.
Ok ok...so I got a little bit behind on the blog, and it was just as things were getting good. While I'd like to pretend I was distracted by a series of Hanes Underwear endorsements and GQ photo shoots, the truth isn't as glamorous. My computer's hard-drive crashed in May, effectively severing my communications umbilical cord and putting me a few weeks behind. Couple this temporary setback with a debilitating type-A mentality and you have a recipe for blog abandonment; if perfectionism leads you to adopt an unrealistic standard of blog timeliness, thoroughness and originality, it's easier just to ignore the damn thing. Lesson learned. Still, a number of people who I consider true friends have continued to remind me about my abandoned project. Hence, in the wake of New Year's, I've resolved to resume posting on a regular basis.
So what's happened since the onset of my journalistic delinquency? I've been going in circles, mostly. Sometimes on a bicycle, but just as often in a team vehicle or on an airplane. One thing I've had to adjust this year is constant travel. Though one of my career goals is to have a permanent address (quite ambitious, no?), I've had to accept the fact that Bike Gypsy is an accurate job title for now. This is what 2010 looked like: Overall, 2010 exceeded my expectations, both personally and professionally. I stayed healthy, raced well, re-signed with Team Mountain Khakis for 2011, and kept myself busy this fall with a number of post-season cycling gigs. Highlights include team victories in the USA Crits Series, a trip to Europe, and even reality TV. Full of highs and lows, the story has a happy ending and sets the stage for a sequel.
My next few posts will be a month-to-month summary of the year, partly to make amends for falling behind and to gain a sense of completion before resuming with current events. I understand that real-time delivery would have been more relevant and compelling, and I apologize to those who have a limited attention span and no interest in retrospective blogging. However, the year deserves a recap, and I'm satisfied writing for myself and posterity, if nobody else. Stay tuned.
Speedweek has come and gone, but I'm still processing. After finishing 7 criteriums, steering around at least a couple dozen crashes, and barreling through over 2000 corners, I have a lot to digest. Socrates' famous saying sums it up best: "I know only that I know nothing." If the key to wisdom is recognizing the vast inadequacy of our knowledge, as Socrates claims, then my experience at Speedweek was a crucial step toward cycling enlightenment.
On the one hand, the week was mildly successful for me. I managed to stay healthy and finished each race unscathed, and Team Mountain Khakis fueled by Jittery Joe's earned 2nd place in the team classification against some of the best crit squads in the country. I placed 17th out of over 200 in the general classification (each race had 100-150 starters), despite spending a lot of painful but instructive time at the front of the race--attacking, chasing down breaks, attracting crowd/announcer attention for our sponsors, and even winning a couple of cash primes (prime is french for "prize," awarded to the first rider to cross the line at various times throughout the race). And I felt stronger as the week went on, which means my body responds well to stress and indicates potential for further growth.
On the other hand, we didn't show up to get 2nd in the team classification, and we certainly weren't happy to walk away without a "W" in any of the races. To be satisfied and say the week was a smashing success wouldn't be fair. I also wasn't racing for my own results, and despite being aggressive and team-minded all week, I felt a bit like a loose canon.
Racing at this level is whole new ballgame. The degree of precision in team tactics and positioning is overwhelming, and I'm afraid my neophyte skills were (for now) a limiting factor for the team. For example, I've gone from being a field sprinter to breakaway rider, not because I don't have the speed to sprint, but because I simply don't (yet) have the skills to negotiate the front of the race in the final few laps without wasting energy or putting myself and others at risk. Still, I'm a prime candidate for instruction: I have the legs to keep up and a fierce determination to pay attention and learn as much as I can. Dubbed "Crit Camp" by our team captain and de facto camp counselor Adam Myerson, Speedweek turned into a Socratic reminder of the complexity of bike racing: the better you get, the less you know.
Bike racing is hard.
The series began with the Athens Terrapin Twilight Criterium. Widely considered the best criterium in the country, the race report deserves its own blog post. In my last post I mentioned how Athens Twilight had been described to me as racing through a "dark, screaming, beer-smelling tunnel." That description is mostly accurate, except the words "wet" and "cold" and "no visibility" and "crash fest" were omitted from the original phrasing.
Bike racing is scary.
As expected, the race started out brutally fast, and by the end of lap 1 of 80, riders were stretched out halfway around the dark course. On tight, winding streets like this, it's crucial to stay as close to the front as possible. Not only is the front of pack where the tactical racing happens, but it is significantly safer and easier than riding at the back. Here's why: riders at the front have the space to take the fastest line through the corners and can conserve momentum, while riders bunched up behind them are forced to slow down, elbow for position, and then sprint back up to full speed through every single corner. With 4 corners per lap, and 80 laps in the race, being stuck at the back of the Athens Twilight is a 320-step path to exhaustion.
I was in the front third of pack as we completed lap one, already feeling pressure from the fast pace but pleased not to be one of the suckers fighting at the back. Unfortunately, I hit a pothole on lap 2 and flatted, which sent me to the Mavic support pit for a new wheel. Taking a free lap may sound like a helpful rest, but it really just disrupts a racer's rhythm and requires a massive acceleration from 0 to 30mph to rejoin the field. More significantly, it killed my position and I soon found myself on the very back of the race. After spending the next 8 laps sprinting out of corners and accelerating into the wind around riders who were already getting dropped, I was gassed but had barely gained any position. Then I flatted again.
The Mavic Support pit. Not a good place to find yourself.
That was the low-point of the week, and the race had barely begun. Once again I found myself struggling just to keep up with the back of the race--sliding through turns, dodging crashes, and wiping fog out of my glasses on the backstretch of the every lap. The spray from riders' wheels makes racing in the rain similar to taking a cold, 360-degree, gritty shower. Only you're hyperventilating, competitors are screaming at you, and you could get seriously injured at any moment. For most of the race, I couldn't really see the ground or corners and I just had to approximate my position based on the riders around me and gleaming metal barricades on the sides of the road. This was only my second big race since my similarly jarring and disappointing start at Battenkill, and for a few laps I was sincerely wondering why I had ever signed up for this or if I even have what it takes to keep up.
But as usual, my battered ego refused to cave in and I kept pedaling. Eventually I got on top of my breathing, learned to relax through the corners, and made my way to the front of the race. By this time a 6-man, "dream team" breakaway had already gained nearly a minute on the field, and Team Mountain Khakis had missed the move. It was our duty to chase, and all 8 of our riders team assembled on the front of the peloton to drive up the pace. We rotated at the front for 40 leg-searing laps, and, though we whittled the gap down to 30 seconds, it became clear that ours was a futile effort. Still, we pressed on, and Adam yelled, "We're going down swinging!" By the end of the race, the field was cut down to one fifth of it's original size and only about 30 of us finished with the main group. I was psyched to be one of the few remaining and my doubts about bike racing had disappeared.
Team Mountain Khakis fueled by Jittery Joe's in full pursuit. We didn't reel in the break, but fans came up to us for the rest of the week to congratulate us on our 40-lap chase. I'm third wheel, hiding behind foggy glasses.
Bad luck struck again as I flatted with 9 laps to go and stopped for my third wheel change. By this point it was too late in the race for me to get back to the front, and I had to accept my position near the back of what remained of the field. On the last lap, I dodged two crashes in front of me and rolled across the line in 22nd. Our race-favorites Mark Hekman and Adam Myerson were both caught up in the crashes, and though we were the only team with a respectable 7 finishers, the best we could salvage was Adam's 13th after literally bunny-hopping a downed rider.
In terms of results, the rest of the week was a similar uphill battle. But my confidence grew with each race. After finishing Athens and being part of the chase, I know that I have the mental and physical stamina to compete. Being a factor in the all of the other races during Speedweek is further proof. But becoming a successful bike racer, especially in criteriums, is like a putting together a big puzzle. I'm finding a piece or two in each race, whether it's getting yelled at for being in the wrong place during a lead-out or successfully timing an attack so I can ride off the front by myself after expending as little energy as possible. And like a puzzle, sometimes the picture doesn't become clear until late in the game, when it all snaps together at once. It's going to happen one of these days.
For some cool video coverage of all the races, click here.
Racing in the dark at Spartanburg. I had great legs for the finish but couldn't hold position to lead out my teammates when things got dicey. That's what Crit Camp is for.
On my way to winning two primes at the Dilworth Criterium. Probably my best race of the week.
Our trusty Jack Kane frames and speedy Reynolds wheels kept us rolling all week.
With Battenkill behind me, I've made my down to Athens, GA to rest up for the next challenge. And for good reason: From last Friday to this Wednesday, my travels have taken me through 9 states and demanded more than 5 hours of travel on as many days. I also suffered a crash, but fortunately to it was to my computer's hard-drive and not my bicycle. (Sorry, but that means no pictures this time).
Now I'm set to begin Speedweek, a series of 7 high-speed criteriums over the next 9 days. A criterium is a short, 1-2 hr race on fast, closed course, usually held in the center of a town or city (as I've said before, criteriums resemble race car driving more than running a marathon). The series kicks off with the Athens Twilight Criterium, which is one of the most prestigious races in the country. Apparently it's also one of the craziest. The race takes place at 10pm on a Saturday night, right in the heart of downtown Athens surrounded the college town's thriving nightlife district. I've never done the race, but it's been described to me as "racing full speed through a dark, winding, screaming, beer-smelling tunnel."
So what happened at Battenkill, you wonder? I raced absurdly hard for the first part of the event, covered the early moves to do my job for the team, and then flatted out after 45 miles. Bummer. That's a lot of travel and carbo-loading for less than 2 hours of racing.
Here's how most long road races work: the pace starts out absurdly high (for illustration purposes, let's say 30mph) as individuals try to accelerate ahead of the main group and others chase him down or accelerate away from the main field. This means the beginning is often the hardest part of a race, and it's tempting to get discouraged when your legs are searing only 5 miles into a 125 mile race. But after a few miles, the right combination of riders gets up the road so that each of the strongest teams has a someone in the move and has no incentive to chase. At this point, the main field sits up and rolls along at a leisurely 20mph for the majority of the race as the breakaway speeds ahead at a demanding but reasonable 25mph. Late in the race, the strongest guys in the main field who do not have teammates in the breakaway get nervous that a few riders are so far ahead, so they turn on the gas and the pace returns to a very difficult 30mph. At this point, only the strongest riders from the main field can keep up and the breakaway riders are joined by whatever remains of the main field.
We all expected Battenkill to follow this standard format, so our strategy was to save our two strongest riders (Mark Hekman and Adam Myerson) for the final chase while the other 4 of us would try to get into the early breakaway or, if we missed the breakaway, assist Adam and Mark by sheltering them from the wind and fetching food and water bottles from the team car following behind.
But Battenkill was different for two reasons: 1) to everyone's surprise, last year's breakaway was not caught by the main field before the finish, and 2) race radios, worn by each rider and used to communicate crucial race information, are banned this year. Radios make it easier to keep track of who's in a breakaway and how far ahead they are of the main field. For these two reasons, everyone was very nervous about letting a breakaway get ahead without being a part of it. The main field wouldn't allow an early breakaway just to roll away because teams were far more concerned about being left out.
So unlike Battenkill 2009, where the break got away a few miles into the race and everyone else just rolled along for the next hundred, the 2010 race had us ripping each other's legs off from the start with no letting up. At the mid-point, half of the riders had pulled out of the race. About 1/4 finished with the main group. Afterward, riders were complaining about how the pace was so high that they were forced to go 50 miles or more without eating any food (normally racers try to ingest something about every 10 miles). Add 40 degrees and rain to the mix and it made for a tough day at the office. My teammate Adam Myerson's account is here.
Despite the fast start, I was comfortable riding at the front on the flat sections and felt capable of attacking/chasing as my role demanded. The climbs were tougher, but I made a point of pacing myself in the hills and starting each with good position. And then I felt my rear wheel go soft right as we approached a rolling dirt section. I got a quick wheel change from our team car, accelerated up to speed, and drafted 6-inches behind the car at 40mph (yes this is allowed and a lot of fun) in order to rejoin the back of the caravan of cars that follows the bike race. At this point I knew I could no longer rely on the team car and would have to navigate through the caravan of cars on my own to rejoin the other cyclists. This was my first time negotiating the race caravan, and while weaving through traffic certainly isn't foreign to me, I let all of the aggressive driving and honking get into my head. I made the rookie mistake of panicking and not taking my time. Instead of drafting off of one vehicle and catching my breath before accelerating up to the next, I spent too much time out in the wind and couldn't keep pace once the road started to pitch up hill. The caravan passed me by and my day was over.
Flatting early on was disappointing, and I'm not going to pretend that my mechanical mishap stymied what would otherwise have been an impressive performance or result. The race was really hard and didn't suit my strengths. And while I did feel like I was in over my head, I wasn't out of my league either. Even my teammates were complimentary and noted that I did my job at the beginning of the race and that I shouldn't be to dissatisfied with my performance. But on the other hand, I'm here to win bike races. Battenkill was an ok start, and as long as I stay hungry and focused, the only way to go is up.
E-stemming the muscles above my knee. Mary Shelley would approve.
My preferred mode of transportation. Salvaged from a friend's backyard, this beauty was covered with vines when I found it. I removed only half, and now the bike has lovely green streamers that shake in the breeze as I pedal along the beach.
Gaviota beach. 2hrs up the coast from Santa Barbara.
East Camino Cielo, 4000ft above town. The road straddles a ridge, with the ocean one side and wine country on the other.
Highway 33, way above the town of Ojai and 3hrs from SB. I only got to ride this on the really long days. You can see the road snaking through the valley on the right side of the picture.
Lake Casitas. Making a loop around the reservoir is a standard 4-hr ride.
