Summary

April 28th through May 4th, 2008. Coming off a relatively successful Wente race weekend.

Monday

Commute.

Tuesday

Commute – missed the park ride because of work.

Wednesday

Commute, then short spin before Sprints. Best turnout at Sprints yet – Nole led a great workout.

Thursday

No commute, feeling out of whack today. Presidio ride.

Friday

Commute.

Saturday

No ride, slept in, visited family.

Sunday

Planned a 30-40 mile China Camp ride, turned into a 1hr ride after passing a car-fire en-route and then getting a sidewall cut in Ashley’s front tire. Patched it, returned home kind of bummed.

The Course

Start on a long, exposed straightaway – no wind though. Long sweeping right into a wide right. Long shaded straightaway. Right turn, sweeping left then right chicane. Right turn back to the long finish.

The Race

Stayed midpack, or top 30 until the second prime. Attacked to keep the race strung out a little and avoid some cornerswarm – and to put some hurt on the Third Pillar guys who tried for every prime. Dragged the pack around for a lap and then sat back in fifth wheel for a while. Lost some ground when the lap cards went up and spent a lap midpack to rest a bit. Started moving up and looked for Seth. He jumped up the inside of the first corner with three to go and I followed.

Photo courtesy of pmalaiyandi on Flickr

Sat top 15 until the bell when three guys went off the front. Two gave chase. I jumped up inside corner one with Seth and the rest of the pack in tow. I caught the break and passed two of them before the final corner, coming around fourth wheel, totally gassed. Seth and the pack started passing me at 200-300m to go. So, not much of a leadout for Seth but definitely a factor in the outcome. I like to think my effort at the end contributed a little to his 6th place finish.

The Goals

• Strong pack finish, check
• Contribute to the team effort, check
• Spent a lap or two up front, check
• Dictate the outcome of the race to some extent, check

The Result

Got 36th out of 81, not a good personal result but a good teamwork for not really having a plan going in.

The Course, The Heat

Loved the course, especially last week during the pre-ride when it was at least ten degrees cooler. We started just after 11:45 and it was at least 80-85 degrees and getting hotter. The heat was pretty rough, especially without much wind to speak of and absolutely no shade.

The Race

Felt okay until the very top of Altamont Pass Road, then I started running out of pack to drift back through after starting near the front with DP. Hung on until just before the top of S. Flynn. Got gapped. Spent the lap in no man’s land. Caught up to some stragglers on lap two and spent that lap in a five-man paceline. Coming up on next lap three of them pulled out and one flatted leaving me all alone for the final lap. Finished next to last.

Goal: finish, check

Tacos

I was crunchy like my tacos. That is all.

Summary

April 21st through April 27th, 2008. Coming off a hard weekend. Two races at the end of the week (Wente weekend), but I’ve got homework and a midterm in between.

Monday

Day off, commute.

Tuesday

Commute. No park ride, studied after getting home from work.

Wednesday

Commute. Took a break from studying to do Sprints. Good turnout: Ben, Ryan, Seth, Daniela, Sam. Did three spinups and some free-for-all sprints into the wind and with a tailwind. I took a few of them, felt good.

Thursday

No commute – had to drive to get to my midterm on time. Presidio ride.

Friday

Commute.

Saturday

Wente Road Race.

Sunday

Wente Criterium.

Full disclosure: I don’t ride dirt. Wish I did, but I don’t have the funds or time to do it now. Come ‘cross season though expect to see some mud on these puppies. I see a budget single speed MTB in my near future as well, if I can somehow convince Ashley that having a road, commuter, track, cross, and mountain bike, along with her bikes, is realistic in our one bedroom apartment. Maybe when I graduate and get salary we can get a two-bedroom place and have a bike room.

I use MTB shoes for commuting on my trackmuter IRO, but not for racing it when it is in track mode (I swap pedals, track racing on SPDs, phbbbbpptt! Wackos!). So my MTB shoes see minimal, but daily use (on average 5-10 hours a week). Any brand-name shoe should be able to stand up to that for at least a year in any conditions. My Shimanos are still running strong, though they show some signs of potential failure at the Velcro straps and some coming undone at the seams – they got good use for well over a year of daily use including being crashed, dragged along curbsides and the street while sneaking past MUNI on Market, rain, lightning strikes, blending, etc…MTB shoes are pretty damn tough.

Upon receiving my pair of MX230s I didn’t expect anything less than a sturdy shoe. Even before riding them my modest expectations were well exceeded. These are tanks, yet light, comfortable, and red. Very red. I thought my silver Sidis were flashy, but these win by a few bike lengths.

The top and sides are a super supple (even more so than my Sidi road shoes) yet substantial layer of full-grain leather – these things are comfortable. Read: no break-in period. Two hook-and-loop closures and one micro-buckle. The same as my Shimanos and Sidis, so a plus, but not out of the ordinary. Paule said that one of his minor complaints was that the short tongue could dig into your ankle – the leather is soft enough not to bother me yet though, but then again I don’t do eight hour mountain bike races.

The full carbon fiber sole, visible through some spots of the beefy rubber tread and the Mud Stud ports, is very stiff. Not stiff like your new bike that climbs like a rocket and descends on rails. These are stiff like trying to break two-by-fours with a wiffle-ball bat. My Shimano shoes were stiffer than your average walking shoe, but these are almost hard to walk in. They make my pedaling more efficient, I feel a little more powerful on the road, but jogging up and down stairs at school and BART has taken some getting used to.

Lakes are somewhat notorious for needing sole repair after some use. Time will tell, but mine will receive light use compared to what these were designed for so I don’t anticipate any quality issues anytime soon.

Verdict: wow. And they are red. Red!

Summary

April 14th through April 20th, 2008. First week back on the bike after being totally out sick. Still coughing at night, but I can ride.

Monday

Still out sick.

Tuesday

First day back, did a Headlands ride with Ashley instead of the Park Ride. Felt awesome. It was beautiful out. We went to the top of Conzelman, back down to McCullough, down, up, and back home. Followed by beer and pizza (team meeting).

Wednesday

Commute, then sprints at the polo fields with Ben, Chris Phipps, and Ashley. We did a few spin-ups and a few couple sprints. Ben was pretty worked from Tuesday (but not Madera?), so it was a pretty mellow ride but still a decent workout.

Thursday

Not feeling so great today (up all night coughing) – bus to school, no ride.

Friday

Commute.

Saturday

Planned to race the track, woke up feeling like high intensity would not be a good idea. Instead Ashley and I headed up to Four Corners via Montford, then went up to the East Peak and back down home via Panoramic. This was the first time Ashley had been to the top of Mt. Tam. She did awesome, she’s climbing really well. She ate some gravel in a sharp corner. Sore wrist, some road rash, but nothing critical.

Sunday

Wente recon. Ashley, Jessica, and I met Emily in Livermore and we did two laps of the Wente RR course. It’s an awesome course. Starts out on a brief flat and then turns into a false flat for another mile or so before hitting a relatively steep but short climb that leads just lets off at the finish line (4 miles from the start on Greenville). Crosses 580 then heads uphill another 100-200 feet for another mile before a fun descent. A little windy on the descent so hard to pick up a ton of speed, but I doubt anyone will attack on the descent anyway. A sharp left puts us on a false flat then a slight rise before a right turn into a short steep kicker (good attack point) and another descent (less turns, more wind). Two more rights and flats before a gradual but straight and short climb (very short) and a straight fast descent back toward the start on some buttery smooth pavement.

Pavement is great all around, some areas better than others, virtually no potholes, and just a little gravel in the corners and spilling over from driveways. Wind was not an issue, which is surprising given the windmills, but we started about an hour and a half before our race time. The wind did pick up toward 1:00 but not very much, even by 2:00 it was very mild. I hope the same is true next weekend.

Summary

April 7th through April 12th, 2008. Got married over the weekend. However, also got a cold. Out sick, means I couldn’t race Madera on the 12th and 13th.

My first Tuesday night track race and my first longer track race. Thought I’d race Cs, but since they lumped the women and juniors with a few other C riders I ended up racing Bs with Ben and Nole.

Scratch race, 70 laps. The start was fairly mild, hardly any faster than the warm up we did behind the Cs. I hung on and even pulled the front a few times for the first fifteen laps no problem until the attacks started coming. Hesitant to cover any moves for fear of blowing up I ended up drifting toward the back and eventually being blown off when the rider in front of my got gapped during an attack.

This continued in similar fashion about every fifteen laps, where I’d sit one out and then hop back on and do some work. I worked on smoothly pulling through and hopping back on using the bank to minimize energy use. If you do it just right you don’t have to do any work at all.

Lesson learned: I need to commit to covering attacks and closing gaps. Any time spent pussyfooting around in between an attack and the pack is energy wasted in the wind.