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.  

Don't Un-friend the Bathroom Scale

So, like many women, I’m reading an issue of Self magazine while on the toilet, except, I’m not a woman.  Guys will read anything put in front of them while in the moment.  I’ve been known to read the ingredients of shampoo bottles.  “Hmm… I never knew Aveda was in Minnesota.”  Self is a well done kitchen sink women’s magazine with advice on everything from fitness and food to love and fashion.  After a man is done paging through the pictures of women bending over Bosu balls wearing beach volleyball outfits, he starts reading articles.  He bounces from “Toning the Tummy in Ten Minutes” to” 6 Ways Light Up the Bedroom When the Lights Are Out.”  Within minutes, he’s overwhelmed, filled with self doubt and reaches for the comforting factual label of the shampoo bottle.  While I may not understand why bright argyle socks and ankle boots are part of this fall’s hottest looks, I do know the best way to approach the cyclist’s nemesis, the scale.

The reason I was reading Self magazine in the first place was because I was a man on a mission, taking the steps necessary to get an accurate comparable measurement of my weight.  It’s science dammit!  It matters which foot you step in the scale with first.  It’s not a 50/50 daily proposition where either you’re fatter than yesterday or your not.  Weighing yourself like that, especially daily, is closer to the odds of Powerball than a coin flip.  No wonder you want to unfriend the scale.  In your diet, work life and exercise routine, Tuesday is never the same as Wednesday.  You need to tip the scale of the scale in your favor by flushing out the variables.

Eating a vegan diet, this was not my first flush of the morning.  Carnivores won’t get that joke.  My scale ritual is a bi-weekly Monday morning process that involves standing, sitting, a few sips of hot coffee, then sitting again.  Self magazine may softly describe this as emptying yourself.  Remember, if you’re on the toilet, by definition you’re losing weight.  However, it’s not so much as trying to be as light as possible, but trying to be as accurate and comparable as possible.  Welcome to Nerdville.

The Doctor’s office is the worst.  You want to scratch her eyes out every time she points you in the direction of the scale with your jacket still on and your cellphone in your pocket.  “Step on the scale,” the nurse says.  Like the bailiff hauling you out of the courtroom to the gallows, you frantically try to jettison anything heavy.  Clink!  Car keys.  Kick!  Shoes.  It boggles my mind how they can be trusted to prescribe accurate amounts of medication when they have no clue how to measure the weight of a human body.  She plays with the weights.  You hold your breath when she grabs that big 50lb piece and slides it to the right.  You sigh when she reverses and grabs the 25.  Before the teeter totter even stalls, she’s writing down a number.  It’s so frustrating.  Surprisingly, most of us do the same thing to ourselves at home.  Raise your hand if you’ve ever weighed yourself with wet hair. 

So here are my rules for hitting the scale with success:

Same Tile, Facing East

WEIGH BI-WEEKLY:  The scale is like the stock market.  You can’t sweat the daily ups and downs when your focus is on retirement income.  Like meeting with a financial advisor, Bi-weekly is more or less a check in to see if things are moving the right direction.  If you’re reading this blog, you probably eat fairly healthy and workout nearly daily.  Trust in your good habits.  A pound a week is quite an accomplishment.  Two weeks is more likely.  Bi-weekly weighing gives you 13 days of waking up happy, or at least not wanting to pound the scale with a sledgehammer. 

FIND YOUR DAY AND TIME: You’re likely to be lighter on a Monday morning after a weekend of nice long bike rides and a peaceful Sunday night, than on a Thursday, after Wednesday night’s steakhouse social.  If you work odd hours, think about the day and time when you’re likely to be lightest and stick with it.  That’s your day.  As for a time, pick the earliest waking moment, after taking care of business, but before breakfast and a shower.  

WEIGH ONLY YOUR BODY: Aside from your wedding ring, drop the pajamas and lose the watch.  You’d be surprised how much flip flops, socks, undies and a t-shirt weigh.  Besides that, unless you’re wearing the exact same ensemble every time you step on the scale, your weights won’t be comparable.  A large cotton t-shirt weighs more than a dry-fit running shirt.    

BE COMPARABLE: I’m almost savant-like in my process.  I place the scale on the same tile of the bathroom floor every time, the scale always facing east.  I approach the scale the same way, right foot first.  It’s no different than a pre-race warm-up ritual. 

REALIZE LIMITATIONS: Keep in mind, most bathroom scales don’t measure fractions of a pound.  For me, the scale read 154 this morning on the first step.  I was hoping for better.  However 154 could be anywhere between 154.0 and 154.9, nearly a full pound in slop!  Trust that if even if your weight is flat after being good for two weeks, that you probably on track, but its not showing up on the scale.  Or, sit down, re-read the shampoo bottle again, and see if you can muster a 153.  It works!

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.

Cinti #FightforAirClimb, Any Monkey Can Win

Except if I was late to work, I never ran up a single flight of stairs.  The longest “run” I’ve done since Christmas is 90 seconds.  I’m not rubbing it in or bragging about finishing tied for 3^rd at the American Lung Association's Fight for Air Climb at Cincinnati's Carew Tower.  Aside from giggling at my dumb luck, I am pointing out that “run” and “stairs” are not the operative words.  Climbing the Carew Tower is not about running stairs.  It’s pretty much climbing like a monkey, a very fit and determined monkey. 

Me 2nd from Right with the Rewind 94.9 Rump Shakers

Climbing is the operative word.  In fact, I’m pretty certain I heard a hair raising cackle echo in the stairwell on my way up that gave me chicken skin.  “Ooh ooh ah ah ah ahhh!” No doubt I am half man, half monkey.  Ask my wife.  If I could’ve clawed the handrails and walls with my feet, I would have.  Now I’m not saying it was easy.  To the contrary, it was donkey wheezing, sniveling, spastic arms flailing being chased the boogie man hard.  Bounding is a good term.  Tree-squirreling would be another.  It was not pretty, but fast and effective.

Evil Monkey in Full-Effect

Aside from finding a similarly tight stairwell with handrails within reach on both sides, the 2^nd best training would be boarding a cruise ship as it pulls away from port.  You’re not running a gangway so much as getting from the dock to the ship before the rope-railed gangway goes crashing into the ocean.  The 3^rd best training would be running from an axe murderer in your basement.  You would not run.  You would not step on the stairs.  With your heart rate pegged at max you would go from basement to 1^st floor by whatever means possible, a foot on a wall, a hand on a pipe.  If you must run stairs, the closest analogy is running the pedestrian stairs over an overpass...as it crumbles onto the freeway below.  That is the Fight for Air Climb.

Secret Weapons

As it turns out for me, cyclocross bike racing was a near perfect training.  You don’t run up the stairs.  Hands reaching and grasping, you pull your way up, your feet cross-eye aimed at two steps higher.  Look at the position of a cyclist.  Handlebars become handrails.  Pedals are two-stairs high.  In cyclocross and mountain bike racing, we’re used to getting the “holeshot”, first into the first corner with quick fast twitch speed, trying to essentially eliminate your competition by the first turn.  Most races are all about the first lap, the first 7 to 7.5 minutes of the race.  My time at Climb The Carew was 6:27.  I trained for the Cyclocross Masters World Championships in January with months of 30 and 15 second sprint intervals.  Obviously, some of that fitness is still with me.  The cycling training success fits the advice Marty Sanders, 2012 Vertical Mile Winner, gave me before the start.  He said, “Take two stairs at a time, use the hand rails, don’t run and give ‘er hell when you hit the hallway with 15 stories to go.”  Marty is also an accomplished cyclist and half monkey as well.

I’m not kidding.  I don’t think I could race a 5k without being laid up with sore hammies for two days.  To confess, I have been running, if you want to call it that.  I “run” on a treadmill.  My fastest and longest run is 90 seconds at 7.5mph.  High speed intervals.  In my head I run like Jason Bourne for 90 seconds, and then walk for a minute.  In reality I run like I'm escaping a house fire and walk like a zombie.  Then I do it over and over again for about 15 minutes.  That’s it.

The Next Best Thing to Monkey Feet

I will confess.  I did inadvertently have a secret weapon, maybe two, okay 3.  It was chilly, so I wore a thin set of full-finger gloves on a short jog from my car the Carew Tower.  Made for cycling, they had sticky grippers on the palm and fingers, perfect for gripping handlebars and as it turns out 45 stories of railings.  I wore a pair of tall day glow green tall striped socks (pictured above).  They make me go fast to run away from the heckling.  Oh yeah, and I just got a new pair of Pearl Izumi Peak II trail running shoes.  They’re light, have a snug and soft close fit, and are the perfect color of blue.  While most running shoes might come close to those attributes, the killer grip of Pearl Izumi's sole stands out.  No matter where my feet happened to land, I didn’t slip once, obviously the next best thing to having monkey feet.

#Cyclocross: My Diabolical 5-Step Tactical Plan for Masters Worlds Domination

Fave Cartoon EVER!

Trainer: Gee, Joe Biker, what do you want to do tonight?

Joe Biker: The same thing we do every night, Trainer - try to take over the world!

Clicked into a trainer and surrounded by hibernating garden tools, garbage cans, and grease coated shop rags, my water bottle and cell phone rest on the filthy hood of my Toyota 4-Runner.  I lost the remote control a few months ago backing out of the driveway with it still on the hood.  So now, barring unclipping, our 13 inch garage TV is more or less permanently tuned to Universal Sports.  It’s not bad.  At least it’s not figure skating.  I’m watching the first World Cup bobsled race of the season at high volume because my Ipod battery died 4.5 minutes into tonight’s trainer workout.  Facing a series of 5 minute blocks of 15 and 30 second all out intervals for the next eternity, my thoughts turn.  I shouldn’t have made that wrap with beans and started working out in a sealed room.  Secondly, I need a better plan to win Worlds, since actually training probably isn’t going to work.  In bike racing, we call this “tactics.”

I Work Owwwwwt!

I try to keep it positive.  Maybe I am the only guy registered for Nationals and Worlds who came home from work, made a quick veggie wrap, swapped pants for bibs, and hit the trainer still in dress socks.  Then I saw a Facebook post from the US’s #1 45-49 year old cyclocross racer Fred Rose, about “punishing” his trainer after work.  Dammit.  He’s not eating bacon while watching Jeopardy and I’m not the only one in the World, North America, the US, not even the Ohio River Valley dropping sweat on the garage floor in December.  I’m ranked 102^nd in the US of guys my age.  In the World, who knows?  I’m so screwed.

Uber-Legend Don Myrah

Then I start to crunch the numbers.  Not every 45-49 year old Cyclocrosser in the World will show up in Louisville in January.  Look at the pre-reg for Nationals.  Out of the 1450 or so ranked riders, only 65 or so were signed up the last time I checked.  Out of those, Race Predictor slated me in at 28th.  Out of those 28, who will make a second trip to race Worlds in Louisville the following weekend?  I could qualify.  I could even get a middle of the pack call-up.  Then I see Olympian, 4x National Champion, guy I read about in the magazines when I totally sucked at mountain biking and uber-legend Don Myrah is slated in behind me at 29^th for Nationals.  No matter how much he says he hasn’t been training, he’s still a killer.  He’ll certainly race Worlds and he’ll certainly leave me crying for mama between bouts of the pukes in the snow.  Then I start to wonder how many Belgians, Netherlanders and Canadians will make the trip and are watching the bobsled action from their trainer right now.  If I’m going to have a chance at taking over the World of Cyclocross, I’ve got to commence Plan B.

Step 1:  The Irresistible Infecting Invite 

Dear Fred, Mike, Keith and other Masters aged Midwest Cyclocrossers buddies faster than I,

You are cordially invited to travel over Christmas to Wisconsin with me.  I know!  How super cool of me!  I once lived and worked in Madison and have the local knowledge, like how to ride your bike on snowmobile tracks across the frozen lakes.  It’s a perfect opportunity to train on the frozen tundra, maybe pre-ride the Nationals course and enjoy free food and lodging at my brother in law's house.  You can’t pass it up!

Love,

Joe Biker

PS…I left out the part about the house crawling with germ infested kids and dogs and there’s no way any human can walk out of there between Christmas and Worlds without a sniffle or cough.  Good luck with that.  Boo ooh ah ha ah!

Step 2: Divert the Best in the US

To deal with the X-pro and other uber-masters aged athletes in Colorado, circled around Mt. Rainier and Northeast, I contracted with Cincinnati’s hotbed of IT geniuses.  Based on my theory that they spend most of their time training for Worlds in meat lockers at 5,000 feet above sea level and not enough on US Geography, I had my band of hackers make a switcheroo.  The venue for Worlds on the Bikereg.com website now reads:

 

UCI Masters Cyclo-cross World Championships powered by Exergy

Presented by

Louisville Championships 2013

Louisville, OH

Thursday, January 12, 2012 to Sunday, January 15, 2012

For Lodging in Beautiful Louisville/Stark County, OH Click Here

Step 3: Memo to Discourage Eastern Europeans

To: Eastern European Cyclocross Masters Racers

Fr: UCI Grand Poobah

Re: Countries other than the US and Canada not Eligible for Worlds

It has come to my attention that historically so called World Championships in North America, such as the NBA, NHL and NFL are really only contested by two nations, the USA and Canada.  Think about it.  Have you ever seen a Mexico City Football team win the Superbowl or a Dominican baseball team win the “World” Series?  Of course not. Even though athletes outside of the US and Canada may be better, faster and stronger, it’s obvious if the World Championships are in the US, it totally sucks donkey turds but in the eyes of most Americans, your country doesn’t really count.  Sorry, but we’ll see you in two years. 

Step 4: Defend the Northern Border

Since that would leave only Canadians left to battle against me, I have invited hockey superstar Mario LeMieux to Worlds as Master of Ceremonies.  While it appears on the surface as a grand international gesture that’ll draw tons of people from Canada, I have him contracted to sign autographs, let Canadians touch the Stanley Cup with their bare hands and give a hockey demo on the Ohio River at precisely the same time as my race.  Canadian Masters will be forced to choose between an everyday occurrence of beating me at a bike race or a once in a lifetime chance to take the ice with a childhood legend. 

Step 5: Defer to Facebook Fans of the Blog

Readers like Steven have suggested on Facebook to simply have Sven Nys step in as my body double.  Click here to see what other readers have suggested or leave your own diabolical plan to help in my pathetic quest of total cyclocross Worlds domination.

#Cyclocross: Surviving The Holiday Abyss

The faded workout has treated me well

My Christmas list sadly begins with socks.  The other thing I’m working on in early December is how to bridge the fitness abyss of after-work darkness, St. Nick’s candy, Dorothy's ham gravy, and a marathon of New Years Eve parties between now and Cyclocross Nationals.  Then it struck me like a V8 vegetable juice palm slap upside the forehead, my modified Chris Carmichael workout.  It’s an hour long, burns nearly 800 calories and is a good general power workout.  I scribbled it down on post it note which remarkably, 3 years later, is still adhering to the side of the 1987 13-inch TV in front of my trainer set-up. 

I’m no coach, which is precisely why I have no problem copying Chris Carmichael’s workout, modifying it and then dispensing the result as my own for free.  While others charge for their training secrets or leave you wondering what kind of incredible workout they did to post quotes like this to Facebook: “contact Crossresults.com and put that trainer on my victims list,” I have no problem telling you what has got me this season’s incredible mid-pack results and kept me off the podium.  All kidding aside, I started the season finishing in the mid 30’s and now I’m knocking on the door of a top 20.  While no one has noticed this incredible performance but me, something must be working.  Either that, or the 15 Ohio Valley Elite Cyclocrossers I think I’ve become faster than have been abducted by aliens. 

Come Nationals and Worlds time, one thing is for certain, some people will be slower than they are this weekend.  Some will be faster.  I prefer the latter.  If the thought of racing cyclocross past Sunday doesn’t make you want to cry for mama between bouts of the pukes, I think the best you can do at this point is sharpen your fitness and skills over the next 3 weeks.  Come New Year’s day, aside from rest, there’s no interval workout that’ll make you any faster.  So really, you’ve got about 3 weeks to polish that middle of the pile turd.  Chop chop.

As far as skills, I'll try to spend at least one day/week on the cross bike practicing dismounts, starts, and hill carries.  It probably wouldn't hurt to do some running in there too.  I've lived in Wisconsin in January.  I've had to dig my car out of 17 inch snowfalls.  There's no guarantees you'll be riding your bike at Nationals.  Aside from that and keeping your core solid, you still can get quicker and snappier.  While the original workout is listed below, over the years I’ve adapted the structure to specific cyclocross workouts.  Do the warm up, pick the 15 or 30 sec interval workout and be off the trainer at 60 minutes even.  I like to start at 6:30pm with the evening news and finish up with Extra-Extra!  Print it out and tape it to your TV.

WARM UP:

6 Min Easy Warm Up

1 Min Fast Pedal 110-120 rpm

1 Min Recover

1 Min Fast Pedal 110-120 rpm

1 Min Recover

OPTION 1: CX ATTACK 15 on 15 off Interval Insert

5 minute set of 15 on 15 off.

In a hard gear, 53x14ish, simulate starting, punching it out of corners, driving up a short steep hill. 15 sec attacking as hard as you can, 15 sec no pedaling (coasting.)

5 min rest.

Repeat set 5 times.

5 minute easy pedal cool down.

OPTION 2: CX STICK IT 30 on 30 off Interval Insert

5 minute set of 30 on 30 off.

Simulate the effort you’d put in hammering straightaways between course features.  Don’t punch it at the beginning, ramp up to a 100% effort you can sustain for 30 seconds.  Recover in between efforts with a  high cadence spin. 

5 min rest.

Repeat set 5 times.

5 Minute easy pedal cool down.

OPTION 3: ROAD/HILL POWER (The Original Carmichael Workout...more or less)

Five 2 minute efforts with 2 minute fast spin recovery in between.

The two minute effort should be steady and sustained, but as hard as you can handle without loosing power for 2 minutes.  Think hammering a breakaway.

Recover with easy spin for 6 minutes between sets.

Repeat 5x2 efforts a 2nd time.

8 Minute Easy Spin Cool Down.

#OVCX Gun Club: This Is What CX Is About

I’m curled up in a fetal position clutching my Simon Burney book “Cyclocross – Training and Technique.”  I used to think cross was a balancing act between our checkbook and a functioning bike, IPA and body weight, hill repeats and a healthy marriage, core workouts and clean dishes, recovery rides and a well kept lawn.  I’m realizing cyclocross is more of a 60-40 or 75-25 than a perfect 50-50 balance approved with a gas-pump type sticker autographed by Dusty Rhodes, our Hamilton County Auditor. 

While I have yet to be able to sit through more than one minute and twenty seconds of one, this is precisely the reason there’s countless videos with superheroes satirically presenting the life of an “Elite Cyclocross Racer.”  I’m trying to choke back the paranoia, trying not to become a robotic voiced Rain Man cartoon of Cyclocross, definitely, but it’s becoming seriously obvious cross is testing my sanity as well as my skills and fitness.  I’m coo-coo for cyclocross!  I’m coo-coo for cyclocross!

My Best CX Season p/b Pearl Izumi  

The warning signs were there.  I dismissed them all.  It started in July, pre-season.  Faced with needing two new primary tires glued, a chain, a cassette, and a saddle in August, I spared our bank account the added deductions by choosing not to reglue the tires on my 2^nd wheelset even though the glue was a smidgen crusty and few months past a year old, found an end of season sale on a Fizik saddle in Park City, Utah that came with sub-par but free bar tape and struck a blog deal with Pearl Izumi (thank you) for new shoes, a base layer and some other goodies.  I saved $4-500.  Ba bam!

I slightly rolled one of those old glue job tires last weekend at OVCX John Bryan.  I chanced it and I lost.  When I brought the wheel into BioWheels, Mitch, the shop owner, said I should just bring in the other wheel as well.  It was probably due.  I forgot to bring it in.  I had dishes to do, laundry to fold.  At the race yesterday, OVCX Gunclub, a teammate joked, “If you don’t put wheels in the pit, you’ll never need them.”  After the race, after running the last 500 meters of the course, after having passed me with 3 other guys, after rolling the other old glue job tire, of course he prodded, “Told you so.”  Butt wipe.

Having the Best Race of the Season-my balls not so much

I was having the best race of my season.  John Gatch, the race promoter, shouted from the pit, “21^st Joe!  Close that gap.”  I was wheel bumping with the last place payout spot.  While eventually, I got passed by three admittedly faster racers (Jason Karew, James Billiter and Nate Mirus), 25^th was still a good place and I had it locked.  With a gap to 3-4 chasers at the top of the “run-up,” I remember telling myself, “steady and clean.”  With 500 meters to go, literally 3 turns and two straightaways from the finish, on a quick downhill-up hill U-turn, FA-BOMP-FUMP. 

My tire rolled and lodged in my frame.  I didn’t even look to confirm.  I knew by the noise.  The FA-BOMP-FUMP never lies.  Knowing I was past the pit, I picked up my bike and ran, or better put, sort of peg-leg jogged as fast as I could.  My abs ached and my quads begged.  Seriously blurry-eyed, I committed to the run and finishing as best I could.  The three behind approached.  “What’s wrong Joe,” my teammate shouted.  I didn’t answer.  I didn’t need to.  “Oh no,” I heard Mike Schulze say as he passed.  He saw.  I ran…and ran and ran.  I reminded myself, back straight, chin up.  “If you can’t ride you run, “the race announcer chirped as I approached 50 meters to the finish, “This is Joe from The Best Bike Blog Ever!  This is what cyclocross is all about people.”  Through a gauntlet of “good jobs”, the finish line crowd applauded and I smiled.  

Fishstix, Cross Balls and 5th Grade Math

My Best CX Season Ever p/by Pearl Izumi

On 60 Minutes yesterday I heard a quote, “The only difference between men and boys is the price of the toys.”  Lie.  There’s no difference at all.  Yesterday in the first ever combined Cat 1/2-Elite Masters OVCX race all 50 men and boys on the starting grid were no stranger to the podium.  In the past few years of stricter upgrade practices, everyone in the combined field got there by landing podiums.  Everyone knows how to hit a hole shot, thread a bike through a 14 inch gap, and isn’t afraid to make a gutsy pass.  Hands down, I haven’t been in a race this fast and competitive since a Detroit UCI event in like 2005.  Being the runt of the litter, a Cat 2 45+ Master racing with the best in the Ohio Valley, I learned quickly that tiny mistakes can turn into big gaps in the clang of a cowbell.  Here’s two things I’m taking away from the first OVCX race at Fisherman’s Park to raise my game.

More Balls Than Most: Elite Masters Women Podium

Growing A Big Pair of Dangly CX Balls

Through all my training so far, I haven’t sharpened my cross fearlessness.  It’s  the drive to keep driving forward in the mayhem, the trust in your skills and fitness to thread the needle, the mantra of forward momentum, the heightened alertness to be calm and calculating grabbing every opportunity to climb the ladder toward the front in the first half lap.  In July I got back into Yoga, core work, running, intervals and skill work.  Now after 9 weeks of dedicated CX training, I felt as if I came into my first race more fit than I have been in years.  At the same time, with a combined Elite/Masters field, the competition was stronger than it’s ever been in years.  Every guy on the starting grid knows how to win a cross race.  Everyone is fit.  Everyone is strong.  Mistakes and missteps cost double.  A wince, missing a pedal, a botched shift or a touch of the brakes is an instant gap.  They add up quick.

A log killed Corey Green's wheel 

Sunday I bobbled my front row start, usually a strong suit, missed my clip-in and was immediately swarmed on both sides by the first two rows of riders.  I didn’t panic, but I kept sprinting to the holeshot, eventually getting the click.  Into the banked first corner, two riders, one on each shoulder took the high and low lines simultaneously.  The exit had one good line and all three of us wanted it.  Sandwiched, with handlebars lined up as even as school desks, I chickened out.  I touched the brakes and escaped being a pinched loaf, giving up position.  The second the course opened up to a flowing straightaway, with the accuracy of magicians throwing swords, dudes were driving bikes through holes so tight, I swear I brushed knuckles once.  I should’ve been taking instead of surviving.  It’s time to add a little risk taking to practice.  Maybe mass start drills combined with a holeshot, a short straightaway and a 2^nd corner to give it that real cross race flavor. 

Young Spencer Petrov out of Juniors on top of the 4's

5^th Grade Math

It’s easy to get discouraged if you had a bad race, 50 meters may as well be a mile.  But I like to break things down.  Your commute to work isn’t a 20 minute drive.  Its backing out of the driveway, 5 stop signs, an on ramp, three lane changes and hunting for a parking spot.  Look at the finishing splits from Sunday.  Pick out a person or two that you think you can contend with.  If you finished top ten, look at top 5 or the bottom rung of the podium.  If you finished 40^th, look at the top 25 or 30.  You may not have seen them most of the race.  They likely finished 3 minutes in front of you.  However, when you twist and crunch the numbers, you’ll realize it’s not much more than finding a route with less stop signs.

A Deer in the Headlights

3 minutes per hour, is one minute every 20 minutes, is thirty seconds every 10 minutes, is 15 seconds every five minutes, is 3 seconds every minute is 1.5 seconds every half minute.  That’s miniscule.  I don’t have a power meter, but in the course of an hour, something tells me that might be a handful of watts, a kg or two of body weight and/or simply having the balls not to touch the brakes as often.  At 6 feet tall and 158ish pounds, it’s crazy, but I’m one of the chunkier monkeys on the start line.  I don’t need a power meter to tell me that my avg watts/kg (fancy talk for strength to weight ratio) could be better.  I saw more boney ribs Sunday than a Hollywood BBQ.  Some guys didn’t even have pecs, making me feel like man boobs.  I can tell right now that I’d be better served by crunching the numbers on the side of the cereal box and bathroom scale than those of a $1000 power meter.   People like to make racing out to be science, but according to the quarter inch deep hole I call a belly button, it’s really 5^th grade math at best.

Hurricane Irene Upgraded to Cat 3

Despite not holding her line and forcing hundreds off the road and into the gutter throughout Puerto Rico, Hurricane Irene received a sticker in the mail, officially marking the upgrade to Cat 3.  After racing throughout St. John, the Dominican Republic and other Caribbean countries, Irene has apparently accumulated enough points to upgrade before she makes a splash on the US cycling scene in the southeastern states. 

Click Here: Train for your Upgrade With Chris Mayhew

Like a typical Cat 3, Irene will now demand her 25% shop discount be increased, shout unsolicited condescending “advice” to unsuspecting club riders, and in a continuous case of one-upmanship, ask other hurricanes what Cat they are.  Now self-considered Elite and sporting a power meter and handlebar mounted Garmin 800, according to Cycling Coach Chris Mayhew, "Irene was last seen this morning chasing down her own teammates and getting dropped in a 1/2/3 event near the Outer Banks."  Former Cat 3 Katrina said, ”Irene blows and should be downgraded before she hurts somebody.”

Cutting The Course and Other Diabolical CX Practice Tips

Katie Compton Warms Up At Devou 

As if you were 2 days into crossing the Sahara, your mouth is open gasping for breath and water.  Your legs are searing.  Your coordination follows your downward spiral.  You take a turn too wide and bobble the barriers.  Then, pop!  You’re dropped, breathless, bummed, burnt and alone.  You think, “If this is practice, I’m doomed.”

A lot of cyclocrossers don’t treat practice as practice.  Instead, it’s the midweek wee-wee contest on dirt.  I’ve been doing these practices for eight years now.  If hammering every minute of a mid-week cyclocross practice was all it took to get as fast as possible, we’d all be racing Pro/1/2 or have a Stars and Stripes jersey pinned to the wall.

Click Here To Win This Pearl Izumi CX Jersey

BE THE FANCY PANTS RECLUSE

At every cyclocross practice a reclusive super fast guy shows up.  In his fancy pants regional-pro jersey, you’ll see ‘em light up a lap, maybe two or three.  Wow!  All you see is a flash of carbon and meaty quad fastness.  Next time, look closer.  What you didn’t see was him pull out after the first lap and retire for a drink at the car.  Yep, this time he’s doing single lap intervals while you’re riding alone after getting drop by the hammer heads for the 3^rd time in a row.  The next practice, here comes fast guy blowing by from behind.  The next thing you know he’s cutting the course, only to come blowing by from behind again…and again!  What the $%*^ is with this guy!  He’s not being a show off, he’s practicing picking his way through the pack.  The following week, when everyone is doing 10 starts, the slacker is only doing every other effort or already has his bike on the car with a Gatorade in his hand.  Fast guy knows how to be focused and how much he needs to rest between efforts. 

If you treat cyclocross practice like a race, you’re missing the point.  Drilling it at balls-out pace only to get dropped and ride alone, will not make you faster or better.  It will make you very comfortable riding alone.  Practicing cyclocross is your opportunity to hone your skills and focus on short comings.  That’s what fast-guy was doing.  So, before you clip in, have a plan Stan.  I like to choose two skills and a workout.  When you’re done with practice, you’ll feel like you accomplished something rather than got beat by the fast guys again.

PRE-PRACTICE

Kabush & Wicks

 Right now, make a list of what you suck dirty donkey turds at.  Personally, I’m more awkward than my father at a Lady Gaga concert when it comes to barriers.  I also struggle on long false flats where the power pedal mashers get the better of me.  On the bright side, I’ve always been shotgun quick on starts and the hole shot.  I’m a fast hill runner and never worry about sand.  While my mountain bike background makes me a good technical rider, I sometimes take off camber downhill turns like a semi-truck at Pike’s Peak.  If you’re not sure where you can improve, spend your first cyclocross practice in discovery mode.  Pace yourself with riders your speed and take note of where they pull away from you and where you put the hurt on them.  Next time, pick two things to work on.

While the organized practice may have a set of intervals designed in, you may be better off doing your own thing or a variation.  Locally our practices usually do the stair step 1-2-3-2-1 series of lap intervals, which is a good general set that works for most people.  However, if you did longer intervals earlier in the week, you’ll probably benefit more by doing shorter 30 second to 1 minute efforts at practice where you attack, recover, and repeat.  Or, if you want to get a few 6 minute efforts in, ride ever other lap at speed, and noodle your way through the laps in between. 

Molly Cameron @ UCI 3 CX Clinic

Plan to test your equipment.  If you have a pit bike or a 2^nd set of wheels, ride them both.  You may discover that one bike doesn’t fit quite like the other or that those big knobbies feel like they surf on hardpack.  Practice swapping out wheels or bikes in the pit and gauge how long it takes to catch back on.

Bring some tools, a towel & water.  Bring your pump to play with tire pressure and a multi tool to adjust your fit or chain catcher.  If you don’t have another set of wheels, an extra tube can save your evening.  A towel will save you from showing your jewels to the mom and the kids on the soccer field.

SHOWTIME

Maybe your workout goal is to get in ten :30 second attack/recover efforts, practice the barriers, and work on riding the tough off cambers.  Remember it’s not a race.  You don’t have to do 3 laps at lactate threshold with the group.  Split your intervals up and work them into the group plan.  At the end of the night, skip practicing starts and go practice those barriers or the off camber.  Practice is about making sure you get faster, not about bragging rights.  Who is fastest doesn’t matter until race day.

J Pow! at Devou

Ignore the other riders.  Don’t worry if your peer riders are crushing it and leaving you wheezing like a donkey between bouts of mini pukes.  Chances are they haven’t ridden since Saturday, planned practice as their hard ride of the week or had a stressful day at work like you.  No one cares who wins practice.

Cut the course if you get dropped.  It’s not a race.  Plus you'll get an awesomely sneaky cool feeling when you do it.  The premise is it's much more beneficial to ride with others than to ride by yourself.  If you get tailed off by a group of your peer riders, cut the course and latch back on.  Whether it’s a faster line through a corner or something as simple as having faith in your skills, you’ll learn what makes the other guys faster.  If you get dropped by the fast guys, cut the next few corners and get back on the train. 

Start from the back.  Chances are you’re not going to get the call-up to the front two rows, or you’ll get stuck behind a wreck in a race or two.  If you practice starting from the back, you’ll gain the skills necessary to pick your way through riders, learn where you can make up time on the course, gain confidence in your fitness, be more calm when disaster strikes and be able to gauge your efforts when you really need to close a gap.

Trebon @ Devou 2010

Divide and Conquer.  Cross races come in three flavors: 30, 45 or 60 minutes.  Split your race into segments, and practice each with intervals.  A thirty minute race becomes three 10 minute efforts: the start, the middle, the finish.  An hour long race, might be a 10 minute start, a 20 minute first half, a 20 minute second half and the finish.  That’s why practices usually feature the stair step intervals.  How you play within these guidelines is up to you.  Maybe on the single lap intervals you focus on your start and top end speed.  Then on the middle 2 and 3 lap intervals, which could be 15 to 20 minutes long, you focus on an easier sustainable effort possibly with some 30 second attack efforts tossed in.  Or, you could practice starting from the back and fighting your way to the front.  Or, you could practice your sprint by coming in with the fast guys, cutting the tail end of the course and repeating the sprint effort 2-3 times until all the riders are back in.  Tailor your workout to the framework of practice.

Ask A Brother.  Cyclocross is not like the World Series of Poker.  There’s not a cyclocrosser I know that holds deep dark secrets to their speed.  If you have trouble with the sand, ask someone fast how they get through so quick.  What do they look for when deciding whether to ride or run?  You might find out that they’ll run the sand if they're in traffic to avoid a possible wreck and try to ride the shallower left hand side if they’re alone.  If the sandpit ends with a large lip, it may be faster to run it than risk dismounting in the middle.