#Juniors: Riding Through Butterflies

Four years ago when I nudged my daughter Mackenzie into bike racing we had one consistent concern from week to week - butterflies. Not the kind of butterflies that flutter around your backyard and make little girls run with a net squealing with excitement, but the deep down nervousness that makes the stomach tighten and questions of doubt arise at the dinner table.

My kids were so tight, their stomachs so consumed with butterflies, they were afraid of being sick on the start line or on the bike.  I explained.  We all get nervous, especially when it matters.  Many adult racers go through the same thing.  My friends from BioWheels Gerry and Joe are known for it.  While making last minute equipment tweaks, I've heard them coughing at the team tent.  It happens, even to mom and dad.  It's a reflection that you care about what you're doing.  They'll fly away at the sound of the starter's pistol.  After several minutes of coaxing they'd typically loosen up a bit, at least enough to get them to start line.

Today, probably a few hundred races later, the butterflies before a normal Ohio Valley race have dulled to a mere blip on the radar screen. It's a local race, no big deal.  Occasionally something will rear its head, a misplaced glove or a rubbing wheel, and the wings of nervousness will flutter momentarily, but never long enough to escape the net of reason.  Lately, I thought they had migrated away. 

Not so.  There was nervousness tonight in Rimouski.  They were back, big red maple leaf winged Canadian butterflies. It wasn't unexpected.  It wasn't so much that this is a UCI level international stage race.  On top of that, it is their first time team time trial in a foreign country with hundreds of teens watching, kids their own age, peers.  At Mackenzie's side a French speaking Canadian counted down.  "Trois!  Deux!  Un!  Allez!"

Nothing was familiar tonight in Canada, except for one thing...the butterflies.  Now, after four years of racing, hundreds of start lines, the butterflies were back, but this time they were telling my kids everything would be okay.  This is normal.  This is how it is.  Now it feels familiar.  They were where they needed to be.  Like their colorful pretty fluttering cousins, this time the nervous butterflies we're comforting.  Without uttering a word every kid knew the butterflies would take them to the start and see them to the finish.

A Cyclist’s Time is Fluid

Pictograph of Hands in Red Rock Canyon, NV

This blog has always been about the trailside tree with the tumor; Mike the grey haired commuter on the maroon Miata, lining up the 80 water bottles from my pantry end-to-end and performing dare devil stunts over them.  They’re slices of bike bread.  I’m sure you have a fave like the Sink Shower, Ault Park Mary, or the Competitive Couple.  Sadly my creative bottle has been a bit empty since February when I puked in my hat at Worlds.  Perhaps I peaked.

When Gumbo boy occasionally writes a guest blog I always remind him to look for the unusual, the details that raise an eyebrow, something that makes you smile.  A week or so ago Corey explained the relationship between a lazy eyed llama and motivating junior cyclists.  It was a good example and reminder of the reason you read, like us on Facebook, and follow on Twitter and Strava.  Cycling is just as much of who we are as our relationships, our professions, and our homes.

If your racing, doing a charity ride or planning a bike vacation this summer chances are your car is painted in bird crap, the cats are licking the dirty dishes in your sink, and you have a family of baby bunnies in the tall grass that used to be your backyard.  I completely understand.

I’ve been doing the opposite.  For the past four months, since racing Masters Worlds I’ve put my focus on some things that took a back seat to training.  My buddy Frank calls them “domestics.”  I planted daisies and an Azalea bush, had great conversations on neighborhood walks with my wife,  and used a toothbrush to get the last bit of Louisville mud out of the shifter box in my 4-Runner.  I ran the beach in the Dominican Republic, hiked down the White Rock Trail to the Colorado River in Arizona and visited Booger Hollow in Georgia.  As a result, I haven’t really had an interest in writing for a while. 

It’s not that I don’t love writing or racing anymore.  I do.  I also like pulling weeds out of the garden.  I like reading good books like “The Art of Racing in the Rain.”  Producing radio commercials for a living, I also like freelance money.

The beauty of cycling is that our lives aren’t on schedule.  We don’t eat dinner at six o’clock every night, get the oil changed every 5000 miles or put the trash on the curb the night before pickup.  A cyclist’s time is fluid.  What a shame to arrange your life’s activities by minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years. 

We save laundry for rainy days; cut coupons on the couch at night, only make the bed when company is coming over and hide unopened mail in the pantry.  You discover how to live among a thriving population of dust bunnies, how to romanticize a drippy faucet, and smile at peeling paint. 

I was going to apologize for not writing a whole lot in the four months since cyclocross worlds.  However, I know you get it.  To do so would be apologizing for living the wonderful life we share with bicycles.  

Wet, Stanky #quadcitiescrit Lazy Eyed Llama

Sitting in the front seat of the Toyota Sequoia on I-74 somewhere east of Moline, IL the process of collecting thoughts from a weekend of racing begins. These trips always bring new revelations to light, but none as poignant, or is that pungent (?) as how bad Sue the Llama smells after three days in non-stop rain.

After two days of continual rain, lightning, thunder, and wet socks the inside of Sue the Llama smells exactly how you would suspect a wet llama to smell. As first you can't really place that smell when you step inside, but after a few minutes you start to place the smells - wet socks stuck to the floor, damp wooden floor boards combined with wet food and coffee spills, and to top it all off, the smell of gasoline from refueling the generator to keep the lights and coffee pot going during the cold, damp days. Stepping in you aren't sure if you should clean it up or turn around and hurl out the door.

Why do we do this? Why do we continue to trudge around the race course with spares wheels in hand and sopping wet socks squishing heavily inside even wetter sneakers?

In the heat of the moment it is easy to miss the scores of other adults running around sporting a similar three day growth on their chin, mom's standing in the crosshairs at Quad Cities taking pictures of their young juniors carving a corner, and the dozens of kids asking what tire pressure they should run. If you don't take a moment to step back and watch exactly what is occurring around you the moment will be lost.

In the heat of the moment of cheering for Ian, Spencer, Gavin, Mackenzie, Rachel, Katherine, and the scores of other Red Zone and Lionheart racers from our region you will miss that IS Corp had scores of youth at these races - too many to count. You would miss that of the eight lead riders in the Juniors 15-18 at Snake Alley, seven of them were highly ranked CX juniors. You would miss the top six of the combined 15-18 group each day included two juniors that aren't old enough to get their driver's license.

Most of all you would miss the spirit of why these races are important. From juniors meeting the other members of their Rimouski international team to 10 year olds playing with sticks in puddles of water, you would miss seeing long distance cycling relationships blossoming. Cycling for kids is still a very rare choice, rare enough that the support network for the kids is often several states away. 

Snake Alley weekend is more than cycling, it serves a higher purpose. Bringing kids together, motivating kids to reach higher, and providing a support network wider than just mom and dad. Results you won't read about on the USA Cycling website.

#snakealley Slip'N'Slide

Every road racer knows how to check the weather report. Admit it, 99% of those signing up for a race at the very last minute are watching the weather report as the final decision points for the go/no-go. When the pre-race registration closed earlier this week the weather report looked pretty decent. Cooler temperatures with partly cloudy skies seemed pretty typical for Mermorial Day weekend.

Fast forward to the morning of the race - that weather report not only looked worse, I at first thought I was headed to a cross race. Mid-50s and almost constant rain in the forecast and I was ready to put on my mudders and claim my stand in the pits for bike swaps. I didn't have to muck to the pits, but I did have to think about tire pressure - something you rarely expect in crits. With the cobbles up the snake tire pressure had some impact - if you slipped, you walked. Suddenly I wasn't 'over-prepared' by bringing my battery powered CX pump with super-accurate gauge.

Snake Alley is one of the larger junior races in the Midwest, if not the country. Spencer, Kenz, and Nickzilla all met kids from other parts of the country last year. The boys 15-18 field in particular is a large and very competitive race - with over 50 kids registered to race. The kids have a huge interest in doing well. Having the skies open up prior to the race put some of them at ease - with a good CX background your mindset doesn't shift when a little rain comes to the game.

The focus of the race is on the snake, and the steep, cobbled turns. While many kids would slip, fall, and walk the snake, the descent was far more important. Traditional road hazards play havoc on this day - manhole covers, road paint, potholes filled with water. These traditional hazards could send someone sliding down the descent on the seat of their pants at speeds that impact recovery time.

Names familiar to the OVCX cyclocross scene dotted the front of the Juniors 15-18. The race selected 8 racers at the top of the field, 3 of those were 15-16s and those there were Haley, McShane, Petrov. Not only are our local juniors kicking our adult butts in OVCX, they are kicking butts at big events in the road scene.

Mike Hanley from Team 7-Eleven to Now: The Official's View on Doping

Mike Holds up Scott McKinley in 1988 Tour of Texas Pit

Most of you know Mike Hanley as the chief referee at Ohio Valley cycling events.  In the 80's he worked with Andy Hampsten and the 7-Eleven Cycling team, the team that led the American charge on the then European dominated peloton.  Mike offers a professional, historic, and an official's perspective on doping that only a select few in the sport can deliver.  He answers the question of what it means to us, the amateur/local racers and riders, and what we can do to preserve and grow the sport.  I am both humbled and honored he gave his permission to share his opinion.  Thank you Mike. 

by Mike Hanley
Executive Director
Indiana-Kentucky Cycling Association

(Indianapolis, IN) After the first Oprah/Lance interview I sit here wondering what my friends in cycling think about the recent developments in the Lance Armstrong saga. 

Most of you know me as the chief referee that runs the majority of the races around these parts. And a few of you know that I work behind the scenes with race organizers to develop the annual schedule of events. After watching the first Lance/Oprah interview I feel the need to share my thoughts about Lance Armstrong and how recent revelations/admissions may impact what you and I do as amateur bike racers.

Professional cycling, like most endurance sports, has a long history of performance enhancing (PED) drug use. In the early days, there was a distinct advantage over the competition when athletes at the top of a sport were experimenting with PED's. Over the past 30 years, coaches, team doctors and sports scientists, have developed a sophisticated system of doping with the goal of circumventing current testing methods. That has been the game behind the scenes and that's why Lance has been able to claim he's never tested positive.

The one thing that Lance said during the Oprah interviews that I thought was truly relevant was that he didn't feel he was cheating, just ensuring a level playing field. I get that. During the 1980’s I worked for the 7-Eleven Cycling Team which was the first organized American foray into European cycling. I didn't know it at the time but we learned a lot about racing in Europe, and the most obvious lesson was that we needed to get on the program. A program that was firmly entrenched in a culture of doping that included all the champions in recent memory and a majority of the riders in the peloton during the most formative years of the sport. How can we expect Americans to be successful at a European game if we aren't entitled to a level playing field? What I'm saying here is not justification for Lance’s behavior or an endorsement of PED's, its a question of 'how is one to be competitive when facing a stacked deck?'

I'm proud to say that 7-Eleven, for the most part, and specifically Andy Hampsten, raced clean. There were times when we pushed the envelope (or, more accurately, certain riders took chances) but overall we were the new kids on the block and we brought a distinctly American (read, clean) approach to pro racing in Europe. It wasn’t easy. But with a tireless staff, great coaching and a brilliant team doctor we earned every win and the eventual respect of the European cycling community.

Lance Armstrong’s confession was watched by millions of people who, I’m afraid, now believe that all cyclists are dopers. I hear it every day. However, when applied to amateur racing, nothing could be further from the truth. Doping, on the local and regional level in the U.S., is virtually non-existent for two reasons. First, the cost of PED’s is prohibitively expensive for all but the wealthy. And second, U.S. rider demographics are predominately over 30, educated, professional and family oriented.

If those of us on the front lines of local/amateur racing hope to quiet the outrage associated with Lance and professional cycling, and preserve our heritage of club sport and athlete development, we must take every opportunity to inform our friends and families that Lance's world is about fame and fortune, not what we do as amateurs and weekend warriors. We are riders who simply love the sport for the lifestyle and health benefits it offers and who will never succumb to the pressures of competing in Europe.

Smedium: New Clothes Sizes for Cyclists

I Propose A New Size

“Where’s your ass?” my wife asked.  “I know you have a butt, a nice butt, but I don’t see it.”  Apparently my caboose got derailed in these 33W X 33L jeans I’m wearing.  I think I pulled them off the hanger from the pre-vegan section of my closet.  Maybe I’ve slightly neglected my personal sex appeal over 14 years of marriage, but my wife deserves to see my fine cyclocross sculpted rear bumper.  Two days later, the golden e-mail hit her smartphone, “Tonight only, 40% off at Banana Republic.”  It was mutually decided, skip the easy Monday night at the gym for an hour or two doing dressing room gymnastics.  Oh boy, it got gymnastical.

With four plaid collared button down dress shirts, a baby blue merino wool sweater and a long-john-esque “waffled” long sleeve tee, Joe or Nick or Kevin or one of the Jonas Brothers working at Banana Republic showed me to my stall.  As far as the button downs, I’m upset to report I’m a size Smedium.  From the last time I bought nice shirts and today, I’ve probably lost 12-15 pounds.  Staring in the mirror with the medium, I could gather 5-6 inches of fabric around my middle.  Dammit, it took me months of intervals and hummus to earn this waist.  I want to show it off.  So with the hesitation of a former large, I slipped on the small. 

Hmm...not too poochy in the small.

I could sort of see the last uncyclocrossed remnants of my pooch showing.  I’m not 6-pack sculpted, more of a two-pack.  Like the woman in the dressing room next to me, I went back and forth between the two sizes: small, medium, small, medium.  “Welcome to my world,” I could hear my wife saying.  I spent so much time in that dressing room with so many items I wondered if the Jonas Brother was getting suspicious of shoplifting.  I opted for the small, yet still puzzled.  Why do pants come in so many different sizes stores practically need a card catalog to organize the shelves by size and style, yet shirts at Banana Republic have only four sizes for men, small through XL?  So there’s my case for Smedium (SM) and Mediarge (ML).

As for the jeans, I walked into the store saggin’ no ass pre-vegan 33 squares, 33W x 33L.  Going sub-33 was new territory for me, so I sent Jonas ahead, armed with 32’s, 31’s and even a pair of 30’s.  The 32’s were clown pants.  I hooked the waist with my thumbs.  I could probably shove 3 summer sausages down the front of them.  The butt looked like denim drapery.  So I got extreme.  Wiggling and shimmying, I had to get gymnastical to get the 30’s on.  Beyond surprised, they buttoned right up and fell flat on the hips.  However, the thighs were so tight they could double as muscle recovery wear.  It’s the cyclists curse. 

Those Quads Need A Belt

You ride your butt off, try to eat healthy and lose weight, but your newly acquired Andre’ Greipel in training quads and hammies get so big you need to opt for the larger size.  I walked out of the dressing room without pants, new pants, and this thought.  I propose adding three dimensional sizing to men's pants.  The “T” could mean thigh or tree-trunk, or for skinny people, tent pole.  Instead of 31W x 33L, for those with 20 inch hams like me, we’d have 30W x 33L x 21T.  One way or another, my wife deserves to oogle my ass.

Masters #CX Mediocrity: Hope in the Delta

“Delta Delta Delta.  May I help ya, help ya, help ya.”  The Deltas are what keep me on the grid week in and week out racing a combined Elite/Elite Masters cyclocross field in the OVCX series (Ohio Valley Cyclocorss).  Racing a field with 80% of the guys being younger than you can make you feel 25 again, but the fact that I quoted the movie Animal House tells you I don’t know what the buttons do on an X-Box game controller.  Sure, you and the young guns are the fastest guys in your riding circles, but on race day you’re the guy on the trainer behind your buddy’s RV who pays more to store it every month than they do in rent.  They are the guys warming up under the hatch of a ’98 Honda Civic with those big stoopid Jay-Z headphones which remind you of the Koss you used to wear while listening to Led Zeppelin surrounded by black light posters in your high school buddy’s basement bedroom.  You may be in the same race, but your Delta’s are still waaay off man.

Gray beards race with pimple poppers in OVCX.  The payout goes 20 deep indiscriminately to those with ear-hair or zits.  As a guy who can operate a nose hair trimmer, I get pummeled week in and week out by guys with Safe Auto Insurance.  It’s tough to feel success in 30^th, 40^th and 50^th place.  While less bruised, even the fastest Elite Masters struggle for a top 10.  The only thing that keeps me coming back next week is the compliments I get at dinner parties from un-athletic friends and constantly improving Deltas which give me hope for that 20^th place prize.

If you're a bottom of the pickle jar Elite Masters racer like me and are looking at the overall results, you’re likely two races away from selling your bike and playing catcher for the office softball team or using the cash to get the deck stained.  To me the Elite purse is an Everest-like pursuit, so in the time being I find unseen prizes hidden the lap splits, the deltas.  For the past 25 years it’s been useless, but now is the time to put your college statistics class and Texas Instruments calculator to work.  Dig into those lap times results with the furor of a U-23 with his head in a bag of Doritos and find a glimmer of hope.

Me at Cincy3 KingsCX by Kent Baumgart

Delta to the Leader

The first step is to chop off the head of the monster.  As a Masters racer, you’re not lapped until Andy Rooney eyebrows gets past you.  Looking at the results of an early race, disregard everyone placing higher than the fastest guy in your Masters category.  This will likely eliminate the top 5-8 guys, automatically making you feel better.  Then look at the overall time of the lap finishing at the :40-:45 minute mark.  In this case, my delta to the best placed Grey Beard was a beer-belly-big 5:33.

SEPTEMBER EARLY SEASON RACE EXAMPLE

1 Pimple Popper 40:02

2 Squeaky Voice 40:04

3 Mama’s Basement 40:28

4 Dorm Room 40:42

5 ’98 Honda Civic 41:44

6 Fastest Grey Beard 42:10

51 The Best Bike Blog EVER! 47:43

Now, drill down to a more recent race like the USGP Derby Cup.  This past weekend at USGP, two months later, I’m a much slimmer 4 minutes behind the fastest OVCX grey beard.  I shaved more than 90 seconds off my Delta to my direct competition in the last two months, finished top 20 in back to back USGP races, and earned 4 USGP points.  That’s velvet smoking jacket in a leather chair good. Clink of the bourbon glass to my JBV Coach Chris Mayhew.

USGP MASTERS 45+ DERBY CUP SATURDAY RESULTS

1 EX PRO 40:04

2 PRO’S HUSBAND 40:05

3 FAST OUT OF TOWN FOGIE 41:00

4 FASTEST OVCX GREY BEARD DU JOUR 41:25

17 THE ELUSIVE WHEEL IN FRONT OF ME 45:23

18 THE BEST BIKE BLOG EVER! 45:27

Me chasing Papa @ USGP Masters 45+ by Christine Vaughan

Delta between Best and Worst Lap

Even though you’re wallowing way deep below the payout bar, there can be enough hope in your lap delta to keep you from turning on the gas and sticking your head in your stainless steel oven.  Never compare the fastest lap from your aging carcass to that of the guy who may still own Cars 2 Movie bed sheets.  Instead, compare overripe apples with overripe apples.  This Delta compares the time difference between your best and worst lap with those of others with wrinkly elbow skin.  It’s best to compare only the cruising laps.  Toss out the first lap split which is usually impacted by high traffic, a hole-shot sprint and/or a short first lap start grid shoot-in. 

SEPTEMBER EARLY SEASON RACE

#1 Overripe Apple 6:20 6:22 6:28 6:28 6:33 6:41 6:25 6:43 (best 6:22, worst 6:43) Delta = 21 seconds.

52 Me 7:25 7:11 7:31 7:25 7:48 7:38 7:36 7:35 (best 7:11, worst 7:48).  Delta = 36 seconds.

What you can see in these numbers is room for improvement.  The overripe apple is much more consistent.  Only 21 seconds separate his worst lap from his best.  Me?  Not so much.  But if I can improve my lap consistency by 15 seconds, I’d likely be 1-2 minutes faster over an hour long race, which would translate to 31^st place in this particular race.  I’d gain nearly 20 spots if I could increase my capacity for pain and mental strength to keep racing hard.

This brings us to the Delta from Saturday at the USGP Masters 45+ race, two months since that early race.  You see my lap to lap Delta has improved to 15 seconds from an early season 36. 

USGP MASTERS 45+ DERBY CUP SATURDAY RESULTS

18 THE BEST BIKE BLOG EVER! 7:17 7:29 7:37 7:41 7:44 7:41 (best 7:29, worst 7:44)  Delta = :15 seconds.

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)

Pro CX Tips from Kaitlin Antonneau Clinic

“Who does the stutter step?”  Cannondale p/b CyclocrossWorld.com pro Kaitlin Antonneau asked the group of 30 women attending the Sunday, August 26^th clinic at Cincinnati’s Kings CX venue.  A few raised their hands.  A stutter step is a momentum sapping quick foot shuffle just before remounting the bike.  Kaitlin demonstrated how to remount the bike without doing the stutter step.  As a learning tool, “I tell people to keep the left foot planted on the ground” until the right leg is over the saddle, she added.  As the group practiced on a small loop, you could see the attendees become more fluid each time around.

“Kaitlin is very relatable,” organizer Corey Green of Cincinnati Cyclocross said as he gathered the lunch orders, “especially for the juniors.”  Some pros can be intimidating, not Kaitlin.  She’s not super tall.  She’s petite with a matching young squeak to her voice.  Even behind her pro kit and dark matching glasses she’s very approachable.  The girls opened up with Kaitlin, unafraid to ask questions.  When Kaitlin demonstrated a shoulder carry, one attendee asked, “Wait a minute.  Where did you grab the bike?”  She did it in slo-mo, twice.  Standing in place, about half the group grabbed their bikes from the down tube, set it on their shoulders and snaked their arm under to grab their handlebars. 

Most importantly, Kaitlin gave them confidence.   Most will race at the same venue in the OVCX series this fall.  As the women practiced hill carries, riding through sand and dismounts/remounts, Kaitlin scanned the group and gave individual guidance where needed.  After each break-out practice session she gathered the group for a discussion. 

Here are a few tips I gleaned from the clinic:

1: When riding into a steep hill (long sand or mud) that’s going to force a dismount, Kaitlin advises to get off the bike before it looses momentum.  Maintaining forward momentum is key.

2: Kaitlin said not to follow someone else’s line into sand, saying it’s too unpredictable.  While in some pro races competitors will work together to carve a clear and rideable line in the sand, the practice is rare in the lower categories.  Kaitlin demonstrated to hit the sand fast, stay light on the front end, pedal and hover. 

3: If you have to dismount and run a long distance up stairs, through mud or sand, Kaitlin says the shoulder carry allows you to run more effectively.

Next up, National Champion Jeremy Powers (Rapha-Focus) visits Cincinnati September 1^st and 2^nd for a free cross talk on Saturday and a clinic presented by JBV and Fulcrum Coaching on Sunday.  Spots are still available.  Details and registration at BikeReg.com.

Joe vs J-Pow? I Say, “What the Pho!”

Beach Boardwalk in St. Maarten

The people next to us are blowing up a floatie toy for their kids on the beach in St. Maarten.  Donk-da-donk-dee- -donk-da-donk-dee goes the sound of the reggaeton music distortedly booming from the grass thatched roof of the nearby bar.  It’s a Caribbean club mix of a Rihanna song.  I’m drinking water.  Even on vacation, still too early for beer.  As I remember, I finished the short story I was reading in my Outside Magazine Top 25 book.  From under this umbrella, looking over the rim of my Giro cycling sunglasses across the water stretching to Puerto Rico, I see some snorkeling, others bobbing on those wacky noodles, some kids down the beach playing paddle ball.  I eyed the perimeter of buoys surrounding the swimming area.  It was large, maybe 150 meters out to the tip of the peninsula on my right and 300 meters wide to the other side of the little bay.  I wondered.  Yeah.  I think I can swim that.

You Can't Say No to Pho

Lately I’ve found myself in these situations with little conundrums.  I fight with my brain.  I wonder if I can swim 600 meters in the ocean, not having freestyled a distance like that since I was on the Menomonee Falls HS team.  Then again, this a resort beach, not the English Channel.  Just minutes ago at the radio station where I work, Amy Tobin, a local culinary expert, brought in a dish of Pho for me to try.  It was phresh.  Pho is an Asian soup with a wonderful vegetable broth made of basil, cilantro, red peppers, sprouts, a twist of lime and a few other unrecognizable things.  At the bottom of the bowl is filet mignon.  She tells me the hot soup cooks the meat.  Genius!  I’ve never had it before but it looks delicious, like $15 on Chef Ramsey’s restaurant menu delicious.  I start to waffle and she knows it.  She forgets sometimes.  I gently remind her I’ve been eating more or less vegan since November.  “What the Pho!”  She says coining the phrase with a smile.  Ha!  I picked up my spoon and laughed.  Yeah.  What the Pho.

Granted, these moments aren’t daring.  I’m not booking a Himalayan trek.  I’m not skydiving or chancing an X-Games motorcycle gap jump, but I am kicking off my shoes and jumping in the ice cold water of a waterfall pool mid-hike.  Without a towel no less!  I find myself more and more taking advantage of opportunities put before me, mainly for the reason I may not be able to do them again.  It’s like money in the memory bank for me.  I don’t buy that it’s the cliché midlife crisis.  I could give a crap if I had a corvette or a boat.  Aside from my cycling friends, I look 10 years younger than anyone my age.  I got carded buying beer at a Fray concert the other day.  I think this is more of a decision to live in the moment, not be boxed in by rules real or imaginary and not let life pass you by. 

Me and Jpow at Cincy3 2011

This morning, I entered a pro cyclocross race.  It’s not my first, but probably my first since I got on the other side of 40.  What the Pho!  It’s at night and under the lights.  It’s the CX After Dark Series stop on day 2 of the Cincy3 CX Festival.  National Champion Jeremy Powers will likely be on the driving end.  What’s the worst that could happen?  Even though I had to tread water for a few seconds to get my bearing, I completed my little ocean swim in St. Maarten.  I drained my Hydrapak and got back to our car a little later than expected on that hike to the arch.  I ingested three thin slices of beef in the last 9 months, but now I’ve had Pho.  My veganism wasn’t a no-hitter anyway.  I don’t think I’ll have this opportunity again.  I know I’ll have to race my heart out to even have the remotest chance of staying on the lead lap.  It’ll likely be a matter of how many laps I’ll be down at the end of the race.  I’ll be training.  My wife, friends and fans will be screaming.  My JBV coach Chris Mayhew will be there.  I’ll have my trusted teammate Jaden in the pits.  There’ll be lights and music, heckles and hand-ups, cowbells and cheers.  It’ll be fun, likely a highlight of the season.  What the Pho!

Joe Note: J-pow is hosting a Cyclocross Clinic in Cincinnati with JBV Coaching on September 1st.  It'll be a full day with classroom and on the bike instruction.  You should do it, if only to say you had lunch and rode with Jpow.  What the Pho!  Click here for details.

Bikefucious: A Flat Is Good Team Training

Bad Bikefucius Rendering

PSSssss!  I heard it, looked back from my drops and saw it was my teammate Mark.  “Flat!”  I shouted over the buzz of 30 hubs on Binning, a one-lane beat-up twisting flat farm road famous for chewing up tubes.  It was a pinch flat for sure.  I held up a hand, moved left and eased up to help.  A third teammate, Kris stopped too.  As I look back on the flat, it’d be a great team drill, perfect for a budding team of juniors or a group of mismatched hammer headed masters alike. 

Try this team drill on for size.  Put a cable cutter in your jersey pocket.  At a rest stop with an hour back to civilization, split the team ride into two evenly matched groups.  Tell the 1^st bunch they’ll get a 30 second lead and send them out.  Then immediately turn to the 2^nd group, snip the valve stem off the fastest person’s front wheel and shout, “Go!” 

Actual Flat Tire Fix

We laid the bikes at the edge of the farm field and tag teamed the flat.  Mark stripped the old tube out.  Kris unraveled the fresh rubber.  Like a 14 year old junior, I man-stared across the field.  Just like Belgium, for every one mile of road, two miles of ditches.  In a few months we won’t be able to see above the corn.  Mark woke me out of my day dream, tossed me the old tube to roll up and began dressing the new one.  Diagnosing it as a pinch flat and not debris saved us time.  Kris aired it up as I stuffed the old tube in Mark’s saddle bag.  We were off in a respectable 3-4 minutes. 

Cincinnati's Binning Road Rendering

Changing a flat quickly is half the battle.  Now you need to try and close a 3-4 minute gap in an hour.  Not that blazing group rides aren’t fun, but I love me some good team paceline and the challenge of the chase.  The strongest rider pulls longer not harder.  Hands on the drops, backs flat, we traded even pulls the whole way back.  Elbows flicked and the momentum flowed forward.  No one got gapped off crossing the railroad tracks.  Instead of fighting for air in pursuit of a KOM, we gauged each other’s efforts and kept the group together up the last climb.  As we crested, we could make out a rider turning left ¾ of a mile down the road, almost there, but not quite.

Ten minutes later, we turned the corner into the shop lot.  The other guys still hadn’t taken off their helmets.  They must have just stopped, and were sitting on their top tubes chatting.  While we didn’t close it down completely, we probably weren’t more than 1-2 minutes off the pace.  When you look at it upside down, if the flat cost us 4 minutes, we still took 2 minutes back from the fastest guys in town. 

Bikefucious say: only when you fall back can you move forward.  Teach a team to close a gap and you’ll give a team confidence to bust a breakaway.

Bet On This: The 1st Cat 5 Race

The Cat 5 and 4/5 races are selling out in the Ohio Spring Road Series Races (OSRS).  According to snobish uppity bookmakers at the new Cincinnati casino, here are the odds of seeing the following in upcoming races:

Seat Bag 5/125

Seat Bag That Sounds like It’s Full of Spare Bolts and Broken Glass 2/125

Unshaven Legs that look like the Lower Branches and Peeling Bark on a Pine Tree 10/125

Unshaven Pine Tree Legs with Chain Ring Tattoo 5/125

Threadbare Shorts 4/125

Threadbare Shorts with a Cork-Screw Butt Hair 4/125

Threadbare Shorts with a Cork-Screw Butt Hair and Half Moon of Salty Butt Crust 2/125

Hydration Pack 1/125

150oz Hydration Pack 1/125

Sweet Castelli Bib Shorts 5/125

Sweet Castelli Bib Shorts with Shoulder Straps Worn Over Old T-Shirt 1/125

Tail Light 4/125

Tail Light Blinking in a Seizure Inducing Pattern 1/125

Discovery Team Jersey 1/125

Time Trial Bike 1/125

Discovery Team Jersey on a Time Trial Bike 1/125

I Phone mounted on handlebars 3/125

I Phone mounted on handlebars with riser stem 2/125

I Phone mounted on handlebars with riser stem and 1 inch of spacers 1/125

I Phone mounted on handle bars with riser stem, 1 inch of spacers, on an otherwise rad custom Serotta 1/125