Maiden Voyage

After spending a few hours cutting down the steerer tube on the fork, installing the computer, adjusting the seatpost/saddle, etc., I finally got out for the maiden voyage of the new bike tonight. I ended up being able to get out on the road at 3:30 for what I planned on being a 30 minute shakedown ride around the neighborhood. Just to check out the gears, position, wheels, etc. WOW, all I could think of was ‘ridiculous!’. As in ridiculously light, fast, smooth, did I mention FAST?!?! Well, after about an hour and a half of riding I found myself pretty far from the ‘hood. I was having a blast, but was nearly frozen to death. It was around 35 degrees and blowing/raining/snowing/sleeting. Quite the break-in ride…

Good thing I had some cash on me, I stopped at a convenience store and bought fig newtons, Gatorade, and a Clif bar. Yummy. I was able to sit at a table inside and wolf that stuff down. I started shivering something fierce, though. Dang, I’m soooo ready for WARM WEATHER!!!! Especially after the time trial experience last night. Been a long cold winter of riding and training.

Anyway, it was pushing 7:00 by the time I made it home in a blizzard with big flakes blowing sideways and about a 1/2 inch of snow piled up on my outstretched arms. Good times!

The bike was ahhhhhsum!

RACE REPORT #6 Cherry Creek TT series - week 3 CAT 4

Eewwww. What’s that smell?!? Oh, sorry, that’s just me. I STINK!!

Man, I’m starting to get the impression that I really suck at this time trial stuff. This was supposed to be my day to shine. I’m finally over the cold I had for 2 weeks, this is my rest week so my legs should be fresh, and I have my TT bike all put together (I rebuilt my old Bianchi frame with new bars, shifters, etc.). Well, the weather was atrocious and I ended up posting my worst time yet (28:01). Dang.

I rode what I thought was a fairly conservative pace to the turnaround, thinking I would crank it up a notch on the way back. HA. I couldn’t go any faster. I actually had to drop into my little chainring on flat ground because of the headwind.

Hats off to Tim. He actually matched his time from the previous weeks while most of the rest of us lost significant amounts. He was using his brand new shoe covers, though…

When I got back to my car I sat inside and screamed in agony for a good 10 minutes while the feeling returned to the frozen chunks of meat that used to be my hands. Boy, what fun!

Oh, well. 3 down, 4 to go…

New Baby

Thanks to a last-year model still sitting on the showroom floor at the bike shop, and a sponsorship arrangement our team has with Orbea, I am now the proud new owner of a 15.5 pound race-rocket. Full Dura-Ace 10 speed components and Mavic Ksyruim SSC SL wheels. Doesn’t get any better than that.

It was love at first sight.

This frame is a little bit smaller than my LOOK, and has semi-compact geometry. I was really looking for a more aggressive riding position and this fits the bill. Not to mention it is LIGHT!! Good-looking, too. I hope I can do it justice.

Leige-Bastogne-Liege

What a cool race! One of my favorite riders (Jens Voight) got 2nd. He is a crazy-tough hard riding dude. I really admire how he puts it all on the line and busts his butt to get results. Today he instigated the winning break 50k out and did the lion’s share of the work to keep it away - never by much more than a minute with all the heavy hitters trying to bring them back.

Now this is European road racing…

Flying up High Grade

I’ve been working on this day for a year now. There is a hugely popular climb that starts about 7 miles from my house (perfect warm-up distance). It goes up Deer Creek canyon and then heads up High Grade road. It’s about 12 miles long and my goal since I started riding again last year has been to make it to the top in under an hour. As you can see, I made a few attempts last year…

2004
6/12 - 1:20:00 9.6mph
6/19 - 1:17:02 9.3mph
6/26 - 1:09:14 10.4mph
7/11 - 1:12:42 9.9mph
7/17 - 1:09:42 10.3mph
7/24 - 1:10:53 10.1mph
8/14 - 1:04:34 11.1mph
9/04 - 1:04:03 11.2mph
9/11 - 1:15:11 9.6mph
9/11 - 1:05:53 10.9mph
9/18 - 1:03:30 11.3mph

Last Sept. was my fastest time out of the bunch. I was very dedicated with my training and diet all winter and felt a little anxious about the ride today - more than six long, cold months had passed since my last try. Did all that work do any good?? There would be nothing worse than going through all of that and not seeing the improvement. Well, my fears were unfounded:

2005
4/23 - 55:08 12.9mph

I beat the tar out of that climb!

RACE REPORT #5 Cherry Creek TT series - week 2 CAT 4

Weather conditions were quite a bit worse today than the first week. Cold, some rain, and of course wind. I decided to ride Belgian-style without any cold weather gear on. I actually felt decent and ended up passing a few people. I expected to hit the line and see a bit of improvement on my time by how much better I felt, but actually lost 15 seconds or so. Chalk it up to the weather I guess. My placing was dead center in the field, just like the week before.

What a bunch of FREAKS.

One more and I’m out!

Big announcement today. Lance Armstrong will retire after racing for a final time in the Tour this summer. Wow - kind of saw it coming, but it’ll be hard to imagine the Tour de France without him. Makes me want to head over to France like Brandon did last year just to be a part of the history. Set your Tivo’s, this is it!

Lance at the Tour of Georgia this year. Doesn’t look like any retiree that I’ve ever seen…

The Grinding Wheel

Big ride today. It was going to be nice weather and there were no races on the schedule, so Tim and I hooked up for a multi-hour ride through the mountains. We started up Deer Creek and Tim set a mean pace. I was hanging on, but a bit out of my comfort zone. We made it up to the turnoff faster than I’ve ever done it - no sense pacing ourselves…! We continued on straight and went up and over into Turkey Creek. From there I took Tim up the back way to the High Grade road, over some really steep sections that I don’t think he was too keen on. We hung a right and went over to Conifer, took 285 back to the top of Turkey Creek, then followed it all the way down back out onto 285 again. After crossing the highway we started climbing over Indian Hills and dropped down Bear Creek to Morrison. I wanted to continue on to Lookout, but Tim’s legs weren’t feeling the love and he decided to head for home. Plus the fact that it was now about 1:00 in the afternoon.

I was still feeling pretty good and decided (with the much appreciated approval on the home-front) to continue. I’ve been learning that in order to cause a training effect, you have to over-extend yourself and force your body to adapt to that level of effort. Over time, that effort should become easier - which is cool, but it also means you have to push that much harder to continue to reap the training benefits. That can hurt…

By the time I got to the bottom of Lookout Mountain, I had been riding for over 4 hours (60+ miles) and climbed around 6,000 feet. Those 4 hours forged the steel, but pushing up a climb like this after all of that effort is what really sharpens it to a razor’s edge. That’s why I call it the grinding wheel.

I decided to just push my heart rate to 175 and hold it there, then see what time I made it in. I rode a 24:12, which was a bit faster than I raced it in at the end of last year. That was very encouraging to be able to pull that off with my legs as smoked as they were. Not to mention producing a good amount of that training effect I was after.

I headed for home and hit my driveway at 6 hours, 9,000 feet of climbing, and 99.9 miles - so I made another trip around the block…

RACE REPORT #4 Cherry Creek TT series - week 1 CAT 4

Tonight was the first of seven weekly Wednesday time trials held at the Cherry Creek State Park, which is just a couple of miles from my office. This thing is nuts! I’m blown away by how many people do it. There are 440 riders going off at 20 second intervals. Quite the popular event - I think there were another 150 or so on the waiting list. Our team signed up way back in January.

The course is an out-and-back road through the park. It ends up being around 10.5 miles. Always windy…

I woke up this morning with a sore throat, first one of the whole winter. Anyway, my TT performance ended up being less than stellar. Just felt pretty nuetral the whole time, didn’t even dig all that deep. My time of 27:11 put me in 26th place out of 50 or so CAT 4’s. I was too lazy to set up my bike with aero-bars, so I just rode in a standard position. I felt like a WWII jeep next to the Ferrarri’s that most people had. There were a LOT of fast bikes there. I got passed by 4 or 5 of them… I gotta get me one of those disk wheels - if only for the sound they make! Way cool - sounds like a tie fighter leaving the Death Star when they go by. That would definitely make me go faster…

Hell of the North

Did you catch Paris - Roubaix on OLN? What a race! George Hincapie got 2nd which was really cool, best ever finish for an American. Unfortunately, he was up against Boonen in the sprint. Lights out.