Being Eastwardly Challenged

Your internal compass functions equally in all directions.  Mine?  Not so much.  Maybe you lived your whole life in Indianapolis, the Circle City.  Columbus and Cincinnati are like Indianapolis, you can travel in all directions for miles and miles.  Count your blessings native buckeyes.  Same goes for those growing up with a baby bottle of Bourbon in Louisville.  Others, like me, grew up in a world devoid of easterly travel by land.  

A Milwaukeean by birth, while I have a wine aficionado type appreciation for the variety of cheese curds, I am forever directionally disabled.  So is the guy from Miami I met via email this week.

Aside from the Browns, I can relate with people in Cleveland, northwardly challenged.  Being from Milwaukee, like those who grew up in Chicago, I have no concept of east.  I’d assume riders in LA have a hard time with west.  West is ocean.  I was born with east meaning Great Lakes.  Joe go no east.

East is brow furrowing confounding to me.  When I give directions to someplace east of Cincinnati, I lack the typically manly confidence.  I slur out the word east with a slow point to the right.  “It’s about 8 miles eeeeaaaast of here.  Yep.  East.  That way.  That’s east, right?” 

Being eastwardly challenged has its rewards.  Anytime I’m east of town, I feel like I’m only a few minutes away, even if it’s 20 miles.  Being east of home has always meant close to home.  I could never stray too far without getting my feet wet.  My brain is lopsided.  If I were to create a graph, it’s nearly a 2 to one ratio.  2 miles west = 1 mile east in terms of feeling far from home.  This can be dangerous.  What feels like 14 miles, can easily be 30 miles.  Due to my condition, I’m more likely to bonk on a ride east of home.

I got an email from a guy living in Miami last week who asked for advice on the best area to live in Cincinnati and be close to good riding and far away from busy roads.  It was obvious he suffered my disability as well.  Logically, appearing a short drive to the city and an easy escape into rural riding on a map, he was considering Mason.  Mason!  I had to save him from the six-lane freeway as a main street hell-hole.

Mason is a suburban heaven, surrounded by a purgatory moat of traffic jams.  The only saving grace is the right hooks and middle finger throwing come from pretty women driving Lexus SUV’s.  I had to open his eyes to the circle city concept, where living more central to the city affords more pleasant riding in all directions, and consequently, living on the fringes, limits your options.  I live 5 miles from downtown Cincinnati.  I do most of my riding out my front door in all directions, even east.  In 13 years, I’ve never ridden my bike through Mason.  In fact, it’s avoided.  Conversely, the amount of riders passing the end of my urban street on any given week is probably in the hundreds.

When a city offers travel by road in all directions, people and traffic are more spread out.  Imagine how the dynamic of understanding a city would change if you took all the people on the Eastside of Cincinnati or Indianapolis or Louisville, and moved them all west from a centerline through downtown.  Welcome to Chicago, Miami and Milwaukee.  The size of the suburbs is double.

You can’t blame Miami guy.  In Miami, there’s a whole lot of life crammed in that little corner of Florida, let alone King James’ and Pitbull’s entourages.  It was obvious he has no concept of east as well, and occasionally wrestles with south.  There is definitely no east and only a little fart of outlet store highway leading south of Miami to the keys.  Every day, he has to navigate a dense suburban choking hell to lay wheels to peaceful asphalt somewhere north and/or west of the city.  I must have blown his mind when I told him the best places to live and ride in Cincinnati are actually closer to the city. 

The beauty of the circle city is on any given day, I can ride south in to the hills of Northern Kentucky, past the riverboats west along the Ohio River, north on the bike path to Loveland, Xenia and Dayton and yes, east.  Glorious east past the riches of Indian Hill, I can pedal through a covered bridge, down miles of one lane farm roads which eventually turn into switchbacks up the Appalachian Mountains and back down for hundreds of miles before east ever comes to an end with soaking wet feet.

Making Your and #CXWorlds Work Together

I Would Sob 10 Seconds Later courtesy CX Magazine

I broke down after the finish line.  I remember the low winter sunshine.  Hiding my face under my arms and between the hoods of my handlebars so I wouldn’t freak out the daughters congratulating their father and fellow racer next to me, I cried for a moment, big soppy man tears.  My chest shook.  Uh huh huh.  Uh huh huh.  I could see my breath in the heat reflecting off the blacktop below me.  I smiled as I wiped my eyes.  I did it.  I raced the World Championships.

A guy 29 places ahead of me would pull on the rainbow stripes.  Crossing the line were a Belgian, a pair of Englishmen, a few Canadians and a couple guys from Coloradostan.  Sure it wasn’t the most representative international field, but the Belgian guy did take 2nd.  II was incredibly happy, 30^th in the world.  I had reached the top of my sport, or as close as this black balloon birthday aged rider could get.  I raced fast, clean and finished on the lead lap with the best 45-49 year old cyclocross racers the world could deliver, provided they had enough vacation time and discretionary income for plane tickets to Louisville last January.  You gotta pay to play.  Still more than two months away, I’m struggling to muster a second summit bid.  Maybe you are too.

Masters World Seeding Race 2012

The problem is the road to Worlds can feel like a Pisgah National Forest fire road: twisty, steep, life sucking and potholed.  The other problem is last year was pretty stellar.  There’s a stained wooden shelf high in my mind with all the memories of a great push to the World Championships carefully arranged on it: trading icy caution tape crashes with my teammate Mike at Nationals, New Years Eve intervals in my dark and cold garage, the luck of a good call-up for the seeding race, my wife and I chuckling while I dirtied the floor cleaning my bikes in the Madison hotel room, a friend lending me his pink Specialized Crux pit bike when Worlds starting flinging mud, the stern call of the UCI officials, working the Worlds pit for friends racing and of course the bib number and finishers medal.  It makes me happy to close my eyes and look at it.  While I felt different earlier in the year, I find myself struggling to find room on the shelf for more.

Go out on a high note.  It’s a quote I use when practicing cyclocross or touching my monkey.  I’m kidding!  Whether its barriers or starts, get the work in, but make sure your last effort is good so you go home feeling confident.  That’s sort of how I am now.  For the first time ever, I notched series points for an 18^th and 20^th at USGP this past weekend on the Worlds Course in Louisville.  Nine of the top 25 ranked riders in the US were in the field, five of the top 10, including 2^ndand 3^rd place.  Four of the top 20 guys from Worlds last year were in the field, including 4^th and 9^th place.  The competition doesn’t get much stronger than that.  I’m feeling pretty good about my season.  I could hang it up right now, be satisfied and turn my attention to other Masters pursuits, like getting the yard ready for winter.

One Footer at Masters CXWorlds 2012

Having never climbed but having read a library full of mountaineering books on the toilet, I look for a correlation.  If you already summited at Everest, I don’t think you have the same drive the second time around.  I think pure adventure takes a backseat.  You’re more calculated and realistic about the pursuit.  Not achieving is no longer a failure.  It’s easier to let go.  After you’re acclimated, the camp 2 tent can feel pretty cozy.  You see others on their way down and consider how nice it might be to join ‘em for the hike back to basecamp, taking a few photos and sharing conversation along the way.  However, maybe I didn’t quite get to the summit the first time.  Maybe I haven’t seen the full 360 view.  Maybe 30^th isn’t my top.  That’s what has me strapping on the crampons this year.  That and I can see the mountain from my living room.

CX Masters Seeding Rce Start Line

It’s more of a second in a lifetime opportunity.  Still, if I pass, I’ll likely never race a World Championship again unless I travel internationally.  This year again, Worlds is 24 songs on the iPod away in Louisville, an hour and a half from Cincinnati.  It’s low hanging cowbells, but between here and there is a daunting 8 weeks of hard work on the bike, holidays, expenses and arrangements: the last four OVCX Series races, a new license, Thanksgiving with friends, a new crank arm for the pit bike, Christmas in Wisconsin, New Years in Ohio, more garage intervals, another couple car washes, more derailleur cables, hotels to book, more bike cleaning, gas to pump, the Chicago Cup, Nationals, more intervals and a Worlds warm-up at KingsCX in Cincinnati.  Entering a credit card number on the registration page is more of a commitment than you think.

Friend & Colleague Amy Tobin

A conversation I had with culinary expert Amy Tobin gave me food for thought.  She’s probably one or two degrees from Guy Fieri, Gordon Ramsey and Rachael Ray.  She’s done some Food Channel and TLC.  Her cookbook is at Barnes and Noble.  She develops recipes and endorses products for food companies like Dole Salads and Jif Peanut Butter.  She runs a cooking school and has a radio show.  That’s how I know her.  She records her show segments with me at the radio station I work at.  Immediately you wouldn’t grasp the similarities, but between guests we’ll talk shop on common ground.  I’ll show her something I wrote for CX Magazine.  She’ll confide that she may have a new book brewing. 

Last week between guests she mentioned she’s not doing the little things this coming year.  She’s going to focus on the big.  I raised an eyebrow.  That’s pretty philosophical and a mite pretentious.  She explained it’s her way of keeping focus and shedding her life of the time and energy sucking endeavors with meager payoffs.  At the time, I sort of brushed it off.  My life isn’t that busy.  For goodness sakes, I don’t even have kids mucking up my work, writing and bike pursuits.  In the light of Worlds however, maybe it’s time to focus on the big things.  More importantly, maybe it’s time to let go of the little things along the way.  After all, having been there once, I know what they are.

My wife’s been on a business trip for the past week.  Frankly, I miss her.  The house is missing a spark and our cats seem preoccupied with kitty agenda rather than focusing on their job description of keeping me company.  More than racing again at Worlds, I look forward to this Saturday’s long ride with her, close friends and teammates.  We’ve got tickets for a night out and a party to attend.  I’ve already made up my mind, I’m casting off one little thing and forgoing Sunday’s OVCX race in Lexington.  This weekend, my Worlds are at home.

Should Your Worlds Road Go Through Wisconsin 

There’s more than one road to Masters CXWorlds.  Choose the one fits your life.  Having done it once before, I advise to take inventory of what is really necessary to the pursuit and what little things make the journey more difficult than it needs to be.  For me, with a Christmas trip back to see family in Wisconsin on the horizon, I think a second trip America’s Dairyland to race Nationals is unnecessary.  Despite Madison being an awesome town and the incredible CX scene up there, for me the stress and expense of a 2^nd long trip outweigh the benefits of racing.  While I think it’s important to keep racing up to Worlds, the Chicago Cup is a more logical choice to keep the legs fresh and skills sharp in the weeks leading to worlds.  However, I think two days at the Chicago Cup can be cut back to a single day trip, especially with the Cincinnati Worlds warm-up date the weekend prior to Worlds.  You see where I’m going.  Take a look at your schedule, your life, your commitments and make your worlds work together.

Masters Cyclocross: What’s Your Chore Score?

I have trouble figuring out whether a $2.57 12oz jar of pickles is a better deal than a $3.27 16oz jar let alone figuring out which time I race on the BikeReg.com page without my blue tortoise shell Ray Ban reading glasses.  Don’t ask me what category you should race.  However, if pressed to give you an educated answer based on your performance, this Masters 45+ racer who writes juvenile comedy pieces for top-40 radio morning shows will pull out his 1983 Texas Instruments scientific calculator and show you that on the screen, if you type in 5318008, it spells BOOBIES when held upside down. 

Obviously, if you do the math, the $3.27 jar is the better buy.  But, all cucumbers are not equal.  Other factors come into play.  So, when a fellow Masters racer asked me, during a dark and serious beard scratching conversation in my paid-in-full Toyota 4-Runner, whether he should enter the OVCX Masters 2/3 category or the traditional elite category, I asked him how he likes his pickles. 

Are you okay with store brand or can your distinguished Masters taste buds discern the superior crunch of the famous Milwaukee Polski Wyrob pickle?  Do you like sweet or sour?  Are you that guy in polyester suspender pants arguing with the clerk fishing pickles out of a barrel at a Jewish deli in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park, or you more of a metro-sexual mini-pickle man?  For Sven Nys’ sake, you’ve got a mortgage but are acting like a kid scrutinizing tater tots in a school lunch line when it comes to clicking a box on BikeReg.com.  

What kind of man are you?

Let me tell you.  We discuss the types of Masters Men below.  Each is accompanied by a Masters Chore Score or the amount of household chores a Masters rider can reasonably accomplish between training rides, work, calling his mother Sunday morning on the way to races, cleaning both your bikes, comparing hill repeat times on Training Peaks, ice baths in your en-suite Jacuzzi tub, being a head case to your coach via smartphone email and running up to the bike shop to have wheels reglued because you have the money but not the time. 

Who's the Fridge Cleaning Champ?  This guy!

A Masters Chore Score of “0” means you’ll be training so much you’ll end up with a filthy black ring around the toilet and be eating off paper plates as you watch passers by slip on your unsalted icy sidewalk in January.  “10” means you’ll remember your wife’s December birthday, figure out a way to get the deck stained before winter, and kill enough dust bunnies to change the bag on the vacuum once or twice. 

The “I Just Want To Have Fun Man” Man

If you’re the hippie dippie type of Master that wants to have fun and feel the competition, by all means enter the 2/3 Masters.  If you crack the top 3 before your left hip, you’ll win some great prizes.  If not, you’ll be trading wheels with fellow grey beards for 40 minutes straight. 

Masters Chore Score: 8 (Yes Honey, I’ll clean the fridge this weekend)

The “Bowling with the Champs” Man

95% of my readers under 35 and from outside Wisconsin just tuned out.  Growing up in Milwaukee in the late 70’s, when real men, not hipsters, with chunks of meat and blood on their work boots drank Pabst Blue Ribbon, there was a local live TV show called Bowling with the Champs.  Yeah, think Dancing with the Stars, only with bowling.  Equate Milwaukee to Belgium, South Side to Brussels and Bowling to Cyclocross and you get the picture.  The premise was, if you practiced hard enough, you, a cigarette smoking pitcher of beer drinking meat cutter from Wisconsin like my Dad, could share the South Side lanes at the Red Carpet Bolero with your bowling heroes. 

If this is you and your orthopedic insoles are putting a spring in your step over the barriers, race the 2/3 category but consider the occasional elite level Masters event where you can race with your cycling heroes like Katie Compton’s husband, but it’ll be, as my father used to say in his 40’s, for shits and grins.

Masters Chore Score: 6 (Oh crap, it’s garbage day!)

Elite Masters in Natural Habitat

The “Skunk Rubbin’ Man

At the top of the USA Cycling Ranks page the paragraph states, “Our revamped rankings program aims to provide increasingly accurate rankings using an innovative new algorithm emphasizing quality over quantity.”  Ganarf.  I don’t know what kind of NASA rocket scientists they have working on this project but its accuracy is worthy of a Nobel Prize, especially for me.

In college I took a course nicknamed “Math for Creatives.”  Consequently, I develop a turrets syndrome type tick when I read the word “algorithm.”  Ganarf.  While I can’t explain the buttons on a scientific calculator, my real world experience is that if you race against faster guys, such as in the combined Elite/Masters Elite field of OVCX, your USA cycling rank number will improve.  More or less, if you rub a skunk, the stink’s going to wear off on you. 

The hitch is that this number is basically useless, aside from one important fact.  Call-ups on the grid at Nationals are based on this number.  The lower the number goes, the higher your place on the grid, in January, in Madison, with 100 guys on the line.  Consequently, your chore score decreases dramatically the more you use the word “tabatas” to describe your training rides.  If you aspire to be competitive at Nationals and Worlds, consider springing for a coach, like Chris Mayhew at JBV, and rubbing skunks with Elite riders on Sunday.

Masters Chore Score: 2 (Honey Do Blues)

Choosing Cycling Socks: Win with Pearl Izumi

Win Pearl Izumi Socks Below

Admit it.  When you ride past a store window you look at your reflection, your flat-backed position, your dandy color coordinatedness.  In your best Dave Chappelle voice you shake your head and say, “Mmm.  Damn.  I’m one fine looking two-wheeled specimen.”  Like fly-fishing, cycling is half fashion show.  Rolling past Cincinnati’s Verdin bell and clock factory on Riverside Drive, I checked myself out in the reflection of the blacked out windows.  Holy hell!  My socks were as hideous as rubber waders.  Tall white socks with light blue stripes stuck out of the top of my red accented jet black Pearl Izumi shoes like aero bars on a group ride.  It was a triple-snap-clash sista. 

My Team Jersey

Getting ready for a work meeting, my wife stands in front of the full length mirror.  She kicks off one pair of shoes for another, keeps the bag, but ditches the belt.  She asks if the shirt looks better tucked in a little or a lot.  “A little tucked in,” I answer.  There’d be a lot less dorky looking male cyclists if they took a tip from a primping business woman and wheeled their entire ensemble (bike, shorts, jersey, helmet, shoes, sunglasses and all) in front of a full length mirror. 

Drunk Artist Rendering of Perfect Sock

Instead of learning from my wife, my fashion feeble man brain thought I needed tall blue cycling socks…you know, to match my blue and white BioWheels team kit.  I typed the exact phrase into the image search of Yahoo.  Magically 300 pictures of tall blue socks appeared in every shade, length and color combination imaginable.  Row by row, page by page, I dismissed every last one of them as too aqua, too tall for UCI, not enough style.  I went so far as to drink 3 beers and design the perfect sock with Microsoft Crayon 2.0.

I was Mister Pitt, Elaine’s incessantly picky boss in a sock buying episode of TV’s Seinfeld.  He screams, “I want a decent sock that’s comfortable THAT WILL STAY ON MY FOOT!”  Mister Pitt proves what has eluded scientists for centuries.  The fashion part of the male brain can only decipher two variables, in his case, comfort and tightness.  Shorts match jersey.  Bar tape matches bike.  Socks match team kit.  Throw in patterns, design, helmets, shoes, gloves and glasses and the male fashion brain drops to its knees like Elaine, covers its head and screams away the impending frustration induced aneurism.  Hence, most men end up with two pair of work shoes, black and brown. 

Socks Bridge Jersey & Shorts to Shoes & Bike

Two pair of shoes!  That was the key right there.  I have two pairs of cycling shoes.  My road shoes are black with red accents (at left).  My MTB shoes are white with green accents.  My shoes match my bikes.  I needed socks that bridge the gap between team kit and my bike and shoes.  Like my wife’s belts, shoes and bags, cycling socks tie the ensemble together.  I virtually rolled each look in front of the full length mirror.  I ended up choosing three pair of socks, one for each look …road, cyclocross and mountain. 

WIN THREE PAIR OF SOCKS FROM PEARL IZUMI:

1-Consider your three favorite cycling looks: road, mountain, cyclocross.

2-Click here and choose 3 pair of Pearl Izumi socks to complete your outfits.

3-Post a comment with your 3 choices (style/color/size) by 11:59p 7/25/12.

RULES OF THE ROAD: Winner will be chosen randomly from all entries.  “Anonymous” comment entries will not be considered.  Please be aware that we’ll need to get in touch with you, so include an email in your profile and/or “like” us on Facebook so we can get in touch with you if need be.  Winner will be announced on 7/26/12.  Good luck and thanks for reading!

Hydrapak Morro: One World - One Pack

"Groceries"

Paper or plastic?  “I’m good.  I think I can get it all in my pack,” I answered at the checkout at the state liquor store in Park City Utah after our four hour ride.  As she swiped my credit card, I pulled the micro brew bottles out of the six pack holder and stuffed them into my new Hydrapak Morro.  While the people behind me in line waited patiently for me to bag my “groceries,” I wrapped one beer in my vest, two in each of my arm warmers, set all six above the first aid kit, slid my map and the cardboard six-pack holster along side of the pump, tucked in my full-fingered gloves, zipped and cinched it up and swung it on my shoulders.  They were astonished.  I rode off.

2012 Morro

It was probably a four mile ride back to our condo at the Canyons Resort.  Sure it felt a little heavy, because now I had a six pack and a good 30ml of water in that thing with tools and Band-Aids and clothes and a puppy and my wallet and phone and energy bars and a 29er tube and a bottle of ibuprofen, but everything balanced out.  It wasn’t a chore to ride.  Did I say puppy?  For the record, I did not stuff a puppy in my backpack, but if I had to, there was room to lash one to the outside if need be, probably two.

Mid Mountain Trail Above Park City

I’m the last guy on Planet Mountain Bike to actually like a big pack.  A Hydration backpack to me was the equivalent of straight jacket made from hot wet monkeys.  The crazy thing is I have one of the smallest possible, an older Camelback Rocket with a 50oz reservoir.  I can’t tell you how many times I’d swear, “I’m never riding with this thing again!”  And, I didn’t.  I used to pride myself on minimalism, even on epic rides in Pisgah and Tsali.  I’d take bottles, use a seat pack and my jersey pockets, tape a 2^nd tube to my stem, and tuck food under my short and sleeve hems.  If necessary, I’d reduce first aid and tools to the most extreme basics: a chain pin, a tri-allen wrench, a tiny chain tool CO2, 3 big band aids and a 3oz tube of Neosporin…anything to avoid the hot wet monkey straight jacket.

I used to think Camelback was the only option with their specialized bite valve and oversized filling hole.  The Hydrapak is just as innovative, albeit different.  For one, the Hydrapak reservoir is a zip-lock bag of sorts.  On our Utah trip my wife used her Camelback.  I think my Morro was easier to fill.  She had to sort of let the camel drink, while I poured 2 32oz Gatorades down the Hydrapak’s neck with a quick ker-sploosh, added a tray of ice cubes and zipped it closed.  With Camelback’s we’ve always had to awkwardly hang them upside down on a hanger with a paper towel stuffed inside so air could circulate and dry out the reservoir.  To clean and dry, the Hydrapak reservoir folds inside-out and the plug and play drinking tube simply unclicks from the bag.  On the bike, the neat-o magnet on the drinking tube allows the tube to magically return itself to its stored position after you drink.  No more getting slapped in the knee or baffed in the chin with an unwieldy tube. 

Hydrapak Avila

If you haven’t had a new pack in a while, The HydrapakMorro is nothing like the bulky pack you had even 5 or 6 years ago.  While a larger pack, at a stout 1lb 13oz, the Morro is extremely versatile.  (Wienies may want to check out the Avila pictured left weighing a scant 7 ounces while still having a pocket and a 70oz bladder) The man-sized Morro even makes a nice gear bag.  Pre or post ride, it’ll easily fit your kit, shoes, tools, tube and helmet.  Whether packed light or full, the Morro feels surprisingly light thanks to the vented back padding and secure cinching straps.  I can’t believe I’m saying this, but if there were a rather unsupported 5+ hour ultra endurance event, I’d be tempted to race with it.  Maybe.

Morro's Magnet in use at Stewart Falls - Sundance, Utah

Packed full, on a 5 ½ hour navigation of Park City’s famous Mid-Mountain trail I never felt bothered by having a ton of stuff on my back.  I even scored extra hubby points by carrying my wife’s tools and tube.  I still climbed awkward switchbacks and zipped through rock gardens as easily as if I wasn't wearing a pack.  Off the bike, I used it on a quick day hike to Stewart Falls in Sundance with nothing more than a first aid kit, a long sleeve shirt, an energy bar and 50oz of water inside.  With a smaller payload, you simply cinch up the Hydrapak Morro and it feels like a smaller lighter pack.  So, if you come across an orphaned puppy on the trail, no problem, he can ride shotgun. 


Check out the video below for more on the Morro.