La Belle Route

heraclitus

2011-07-11T00:47:00.001+02:00

where water was born

a poem comes to mind

in glimpses

everything is green

hot and cold

the same, a common sense

of being with you and apart

both here and there

the river between us is one.

sighting Alcatraz

2011-06-26T19:26:00.001+02:00

Thinking about later, I could understand the disconnect. Here I was, a tanned, fairly fit looking bloke with a nice bike who even knew what arm warmers were; who wouldn’t think that a climby ride around and up Mt. Tamalpais wouldn’t be a walk in the park? Watching Andy come into view around one of the bends ahead of me, five hundred feet above the surf, an apt metaphor popped into my head. It was kind of like saying enchanter at a dinner party in Paris, a bit well-practiced and native-like, and then fending off the the passe composer for the next two hours as the other guests slowly change their initial assessment of your language skills.

So it is this morning. I could have guessed as much. The pollen is out big time; I’d just spent the better part of two days driving from Colorado to California; and we landed at my sister-in-law’s home in the midst of a party that lasted until past midnight. Why wouldn’t I feel amazing on a early morning ride?

All that said, it is beautiful. As the grade evens out to a less leg numbing five percent grade, I close the gap on Andy and we talk. As I’ve aged, one issue that’s come to the fore is my need for a longer and longer warm-up before ramping up the effort. This morning the air is damp and thick and the pretty yellow flowers on the sides of the road emit something that feels like sandpaper in my lungs. For today’s warm-up, I coasted downhill for three minutes, greeted Andy and then started a twenty five minute climb.

‘We’ll need to slow it up for a bit, until I warm up.’ He looks surprised; who’d he think he was riding with, Eddy Merckx? ‘My lungs will start to spasm if we don’t.’ He’s polite but probably disappointed. I hate explaining all of the nagging shit that I work through to avoid an inhaler; it makes me feel old. ‘Go ahead and I’ll catch you on the downhill.’

‘Nah, it’ll be a social ride.’

So we ride, me wheezing up the first climb like an tubercular patient in a wheelchair. Andy explains that we need to keep an eye out for packs of motorcyclists. They have a habit of using cyclists as the apex of their turns. In a few minutes we hear the muffler tone of the first group of twenty or so riders, hitting the hairpins, coming up behind us fast. Each slices by a foot or so from my shoulder, confident in fat smooth tires on a damp road. Andy slides forward and I meet him again at the top, talking to one of the bikers. The guy’s dusting himself off. The fat tire let him down. Literally.

We descend through the Muir Woods and I soon realize that Andy is far behind me. At one hundred kilos, descending is one of my super powers on a bike. I quickly hit fifty and start leaning into the hairpins, the coast a whole lane away off my left shoulder. It’s exhilarating, like hang gliding on wheels. Andy I reconnect on the rollers that come next. Hard effort, descent, hard effort, descent.

On the next descent I follow him and notice he’s getting thrown off his line by a too-upright position.

‘Did you ever ride a bike?’ We move between the two denotations: bicycle and motorcycle without much context. He talks about buying two CBR’s fifteen years ago after his wife rode on the back of a Harley. A month into their ownership, they decided it wasn’t for them and they got a race car instead.

‘You gotta counter steer in the turns in order to hold the right line.’ He tries it on the descent from Mt. Tamalpais and has a big smile on his face at the bottom.

brothers

2011-06-19T00:48:00.001+02:00

I never know how things will go on the Acacia Park ride. Today, a smallish group showed up, twenty riders or so, and we rolled up Boulder and onto Platte under sunny skies with a brisk south west wind coming from the backside of Cheyenne Mountain. It was beautiful. I don’t mind the wind; it keeps the little guys in check most of the time. With no mass, they don’t last long pushing against a headwind at 30 miles an hour.

Chatting with the other riders, lately more regular than myself, I catch up on who has a new bike, why they went with regular Dura Ace rather than Di2, what kind of deal so and so got at this shop. A little guy sitting next to me, maybe fifteen years old and racing for a pro shop in town, is talking about the rigors of racing Cat 1 and Cat 2 men. He works really hard in our group, but I wonder how the heck he gets to race Cat 1.

Brian, the owner of Devinci bikes, gets a flat just past our turn onto Platte. ‘You OK, Brian?’ ‘Sure go on without me.’ And we do.

I’m on the front or near the front as we go down Platte. There are two small hills, not much really, but enough to test folks in the group. Who is breathing hard? Who is pedaling squares or standing up a bit too early on the climb? I feel great and coast up the hill to scrub some speed so I’m not sticking my nose into the wind. Looks like a good riding day for Chris.

Things happen in our peripheral consciousness all of the time without us really noticing. A psych prof once said that three million stimuli are registered by the brain every minute and we are only conscious of a small fraction. Somewhere on the three mile stretch of Platte, part of me noticed that my rear tire was squishy, but the part running my conscious self didn’t get the message. I wish it had.

A sign for Peterson Air Force Base points right, off of Platte and we follow it. There’s a light and the group comes to a stop. In one half mile the hard riding begins when we turn right on Marksheffel road. Position is important and I let myself drift to the outside and take the front. I have a clear view of Marksheffel traffic coming from the north; I’m positioned to come through the corner at full speed on my own line and lead up the hill into the wind. I plan to make everyone suffer for the next ten miles.

At the apex of the turn, my rear wheels slides about two feet. At last my conscious brain realizes I have a flat and I remember the squishiness from a few miles back. I’m on the outside of the turn, so I just raise the right hand and slow to a stop. A one inch finishing nail is stuck through the tread of the tire. This is a first. I know Brian is coming up and look forward to talking with him as we roll into the wind. Instead of just one, slightly portly, rider coming up the hill, there are three. All had nails in their tires.

We make a compact group of four and begin our hard pulls into the wind.

Saying rosaries

2011-06-13T00:00:00.001+02:00

I’m cycling with friends, two guys I’ve spent a lot of time with on the road, pushing limits in races and just putting saddle time in during six hour rides. These two, Mike and Byron, are pretty much the only guys I know here in the Springs who will say ‘Sure, why not?’ when I ask if they want to do a 120 mile loop up to Sedalia and over to the Platte River. We’re riding from Woodland Park and down to Deckers. They’re continuing on to Pine Grove which adds about 5000 feet of climbing to the ride. I did a couple of months ago with Mike, and we both bonked, or met the ‘man with the hammer’ about ten miles out of Woodland Park. I would love to do it as well today, but I’m still recovering from a cold and 60 miles and 3000 feet of climbing will have to do.

Riders give up about 1500 feet in elevation on the way to Deckers, but it doesn’t happen in a consistent way. After ten miles of descending, we climb three miles to Trout Creek Road. The healthy ponderosa forest has given way to the Hayman fire burn, a fire that burned so hot in 2002, that nothing has grown since; the ground was scorched. Blackened logs still lie on the ground, charred stumps dot a tree line where there are no trees.

It has been a week since I’ve had a good ride, one that made me sweat. Today I feel like a teammate, indeed Mike is a teammate and we’re sporting matching jerseys, so I pull into the wind for twenty five miles. I set the pace at a comfortable effort on the edge of my 60 minute threshold, my power meter numbers moving back and forth over 275 watts. Mike and Byron line out behind me, taking the big draft and not really making an effort to pull. And that’s fine, they’ll be doing another twenty miles then I, climbing out of Deckers on a six mile climb averaging 7 percent on a mind-numbingly straight road. I’ll have a bar in Deckers and then toddle back to Manitou Springs at my own pace, so I can lay down an effort here and help them save themselves for later. Teammates.

We run the downhill to Deckers. Twelve miles of downhill, steeper at the beginning. I’ll be doing the inverse in about an hour, so I enjoy the speed as the numbers run up to 55 miles an hour. The first corner is a hairpin and the rubber on the rear wheel distorts and I feel the wheel moving to the outside of the turn, fucking clinchers. I move my weight forward and tap the front brake to push weight forward and normality returns. A straight through the burnt timber, and then two turns in sequence. I don’t scrub any speed and counter steer a bit to lower myself into the turns. It feels wonderful, like hang-gliding on wheels. The sides of the road are a blur, but I’ll get to ponder them in slower detail soon. I don’t hear any cassette noise behind me and glance back under the arm; Mike is about two hundred meters behind, catching up now and Byron is not to be seen. Mike and I stop and I hope Byron is not laying against a rock with a handlebar in his gut. He isn’t; he rolls up in a minute.

‘Chris, when’s your next race?’ ‘I don’t know, I have to figure out my heart.’ I then explain my tachycardia ‘event’ at the Haystack TTT; I’m not sure what feels worse, the racing heartrate at 250bpm and days of fatigue that followed, or letting my three teammates down. Instead of finishing first, they came in last, minus one large ttt rider with plenty of draft.

Deckers comes up and we slow into the parking lot. Bikers, motorized, line the parking area, watching us as they sip beers and lattes in the shade of the patio. I really want to continue on with these blokes. ‘Have a good ride, guys.’ And off they go.

My legs feel the strain of the first twenty five miles; the road moves up first as a faux plat. I can feel nerve ending burning in the quads and hips. The pedals turn on their own now and my mind works in the Colorado sun.

‘Road cycling is boring.’ Often I have conversations with myself or others as a I ride. Probably too much of the aforementioned sun, or maybe this is initial onset psychosis, but I often talk to folks for periods of time, not out loud, or write things that never end up on the page. I’m thinking of what a friend said the other day on a nighttime walk in Vancouver. Outside of the stunning scenery around me, this would be the boring part of the ride. Clomping along at ten miles an hour up a twelve mile climb, why do I not find it so?

I think of religious metaphors, for the benefit of my friend?, and compare where I am to a church, granite spire, evergreen windows and a baptismal font on my left called the South Platte River. If there is a God and he does have an interest in hanging out with us, this place would be a fine one to do so. Prayer. What is it but an inner conversation between the self and Self, atman and Atman, person and God. I move higher. My body is rhythmic, each turn of the crank another bead on the rosary. What is the purpose? What is the purpose of prayer but to move closer to the Source of what and who we are. My mind is emptying. Thought is consumed by the effort of climbing. Passion is funneled into the muscles of the legs and shoulders, body swaying, hands gripping; love is burned in the firing synapses, the effort of muscle and thought. At the top, I’m empty, pure, a vessel waiting to be filled.

A downhill run and I’m climbing again.

Going coastal

2011-06-04T23:12:00.000+02:00

After a week of riding circles in Stanley Park, the road went straight, up and over the Lionsgate bridge and north to Horseshoe Bay.

After a week of someone else's food, a few too many latte's and sitting listening to the particulars of AAIEP versus UCIEP membership and the vaguaries of the new SEVIS process, I just wanted to hurt myself on some hills. Reductio ad absurdum. My vision is reduced to a patch of road in front of me and the strain of my body against gravity. There are hundreds of cyclists on the roads, but I'm polite and nod and move one. I want to think and then I want to stop thinking and just exist in a suspended moment.

A fellow on a tri bike, shirtless and reeking of bravado, storms past me as I munch a muffin. Fine, he can join my effort. I swallow, shift and move into his slipstream, shift again and ease past up the climb. I do the racer's head fuck and slow my breathing and smile and say a cheerful "hello!" I shouldn't have, but I did, and he rolls another fifty feet off my right shoulder and then is completly demoralized. Maybe it will help him learn not to pound his chest with cyclists he doesn't know. Probably not.

I roll on to Horseshoe Bay and talk to an older woman and her husband on the climb to the Sea and Sky Highway. I have no problem easing up and having another muffin. Thirty miles in. At the turn back towards Vancouver, an older fellow comes up from behind. I slide into the draft and then we talk a bit. He invites me up Cyprus Mountain and we suffer the 12km to the top in a huffing silence. I feel weak now. Sweat stings my eyes. The bars feel hard in my grip and a slow rolling motion comes into my shoulders as I rocke back and forth on the climb. Snow shows up on the roadside and I realize we're part of a long procession of cyclists making a pilgrimage to the top.

What is it we believe in?

Refraction

2011-06-03T18:39:00.001+02:00

Light rain was falling. Tiny drops somwhere between mist and actual rain hung in the air. If Whorf was right and Inuit did have thirty or fifty or seventy words for snow, then Vancouverians must have an equal number of words for rain. This was a sneaky rain, with drops to small to feel different than the humidity in the early, early morning air, and then congealing at the top of the stairs once home into general wetness.

Light refracts between the neon signs on Granville and me across the street. Red and green, yellow and blue split into a thousand shards of color, splitting once, twice, three times, a hundred times. People wander on sidewalks, entering and exiting doors, laughing, shouting and disappearing into clubs. I'm somewhere next to them, near them, refracted myself into shining, broken beams.

'Excuse me, sir.'

I'm crossing Thurlow, following my familiar path down Robson. I'm in the middle of the street, stopped, turning, recognizing the incongruity.

'First of all, let me thank you for stopping when I said 'excuse me'.'

A gray-brown face is looking back at me. Dreadlocks fall past gaunt cheeks. His eyes are too large, luminous in the broken light of the street. He's sick. But the voice doesn't fit. British, an attempt at received pronunciation, something out of Major Barbara or Pygmillian. I turn around and he guides me over to the curb.

'I wouldn't ask this but, you see, I'm...' His voice is drowned by a car passing. I excuse myself, pointing to my ear.

'Right, I'm dying...' Again, the white noise of tires in the rain. This must be the most common sound in Vancouver. I apologize, feeling terrible that I still can't hear what he's saying, but very interested in whatever it is he wants to say, not because of what he's saying, I guess, but because of how he's saying it.

He shouts, 'I'm dying of AIDS.' I get it then and understand. 'And thank you ever so much for not recoiling when I said that.'

I'm in a universe where David Copperfield and the Mad Hatter have merged with a bum. I'm still standing there. Why not?

'I could use a five or ten, sir, if you please, to buy some food.' Right, I knew this was coming, but it was worth it. This was the cost of the entertainment of the real. I reached for my wallet and his mania peeked through. 'or a twenty of 1.5 million for a new brassiere!' I laughed and handed over the bill I was going to pay for beers with. It could buy him food, or meth, or a couple of tokes. His choice.

I turned and walked, considering my day. A friend spoke of fate earlier. I wasn't so sure about that, but I was filled with a certainty that walking down this street was exactly the right thing to do.

Descending without brakes

2011-06-01T16:45:00.000+02:00

In the great hall, past the suspended acrobats pouring drinks, inverted on lines, a fisherman impossibly perched with rod and reel twenty-five feet above the floor, past the stage where twenty glee club singers, smiles stretched, arms akimbo in unison, singing all of our Motown favorites, a man sits alone at a table. Rheumy eyes are set in a large face furrowed with eighty years of life, thin white hair pulled over a white scalp, hands folded expectantly. An old friend, a new friend and I sit across from him, balancing plates of 'heavy hordoerves,' a beer, an umbrella, and several books. The open chairs are a relief. The man welcomes us and we shake hands.

He looked alone, but he introduces his wife as she comes back to the table. A lovely South Carolinian drawl, dwelling on vowels with lilts in unexpected places. I strain to latch on to phrases eddying in the torrents of awful music and crowd noise. "School of business... Korea... Charette..." I nod understandingly and admire my friend's listening skills, but then suspect she's doing the same thing I am.

How much of a sentence do we need to hear to understand an idea? It must be thirty percent. The old man carried us on a conversation about the Vendee counter-revolution in post revolution France, to the intricasies of negotiating contracts with Chinese schools, to the civil war and back to his family's history in South Carolina. He spoke of his great grandfather's desertion before Appotomax, keeping his rifle from Lee's army. He laughed and listened and his eyes drank us in.

We are seldom what we seem. Our bodies change and grow old around us; our lives become a confabulation of dates, times and duties, our minds create a web of connections, inferences and calculations, worries and fears, loves and hopes. Our one saving grace is the ability to let ourselves become connected to someone else. A brilliant, brief, accidental connection with an old man at a table in a crowded hall left me wondering for the walk home through the Vancouver rain.

Stanley Park

2011-05-31T16:51:00.001+02:00

I uncover you in mist
emerald ribbons
hyacinth buttons and fern lace
I follow points in a circle
jetty and wave
rock seagulls cry
picket white fence says 'members only'
we are a union
our love is a meditation
souls ephemeral
of time and place
a breath of sound
three years is a long time
in a moment a smile crosses my face
what is it?
we rise and descend a fine line
a twisted rain forest of
moist bark, growing and decay
the mist is our breath.

2011-05-31T16:43:00.001+02:00

Lifetimes

2011-04-22T00:44:00.001+02:00

Last night I was an imposter; a vegetarian eating small strips of beef, wrapping them in lettuce and garlic and pretending they were good. There was context for the deception, twelve of us sitting on cushions around a low table, three Korean woks sizzling in the center, suit coats hung in the corner. Small plates with slightly pickled cabbage, sliced garlic, a hot pepper paste, sesame oil, bowls of lettuce and sprouts, and a large plate of sliced beef with a chunk of beef fat for greasing and regreasing the skillet.

On the outer edge of the table, I hid my small bites in large leaves of green. The vice president didn’t notice, I’m sure. He was more concerned with keeping the small shot glasses of Soju filled for his guests. He spoke maybe four or five words of English and one of them was ‘Cheers!’ We smiled, drank, spoke and laughed.

Later, the director of the village sits next to me in a small chicken restaurant. A dish of duck meat steams on the table, surrounded by small dishes of kimchi, potatoes, sprouts and finger food for drinking. He’s younger than I am by about ten years, but he’s responsible for a English school that sees more than 22,000 students a year. And the project pays my salary as well. He looks at me, serious and then puts a hand on my shoulder.

‘In my country, we have a word for good friends. It means something like ‘friends for many lifetimes in the past;’ you are my innae.’

Today I’m riding my bike in Korea for exactly the second time. Rustin, a teacher at the English village, is my guide, fellow teacher and friend and we’re gliding past the long greenhouses filling the valley next to the village. On our way to the Yuksinsa shrine, about 10 miles from the school. The road is flat and smooth. Rustin points out reindeer penned on the right, raised for meat we’re assuming.

The wind is blowing and the air is moist, the sky slightly overcast. Cars and trucks are polite, waiting and moving over to pass. After experiencing traffic from a cab’s point of view my last two visits, traffic was my biggest fear, but on the small highway 177, it is not a problem and we tell anecdotes of past rides, talk of family and love and don’t talk much about school.

Despite the wind, the shrine arrives fast enough. This place

has been designated Treasure #554. The shrine marks the burial site of six officers who, along with their families, were killed for supporting King Danjong in 1455. One family member survived and his descendants live in a small village next to the shrine.

We walk up the stone stairs to the marble marker, six turtle heads sticking out at the base. The symbolism is lost on me, but it’s beautiful and unique. How many lifetimes have passed since theirs ended?

View Full Album

Chrysalis

2011-04-19T22:26:00.001+02:00

The best way to get over jet lag and the second best thing to the jimjilbang in Korea? My bike.

Wide awake and bushy-tailed at 3:30am at the Daegu Gyeongbuk English Village, just off of Hwy 4. There is a jet plane parked outside of my window and, no, it’s not a delusion brought on by the wierd Hindu meals I ate on the United flight yesterday. It’s a DC-3 brought over from the US and reassembled on the Village’s grounds as a thematic classroom. It’s outside my sliding glass door window, lit up by both the full moon and floodlights. With no window coverings, my room is lit up in megawatt incandescence.

I sleep for five hours. This is a good thing. My plan for tomorrow/today is to get physically tired enough to sleep six hours tonight. Part of the plan involves what’s in the bag.

View Full Album

Numbers

2011-02-23T21:34:00.001+01:00

Three weeks ago I kicked butt on the Acacia Ride. Two weeks ago I was dropped. Last week I didn’t too bad, hanging with the big boys into the last sprint.

An image pops into my head of an graying alchemist perched on a stool in a dusty room, piles of books stacked randomly on the floor, an oil lamp casting a weak shadow of a beard, over-perched by a long nose and the hat of an academic. In his lap he is looking at a laptop computer running WKO+. Charts populate the screen: mean wattage, watts per kilogram, CTL/ATL, TSS scores and IF numbers.

It is an alchemy of sorts, piecing through the numbers that quantify the efforts that fill in the qualitative assessments, ‘I kicked ass today’ or ‘I was dropped like a hot piece of dog crap.’ I don’t obsess about my numbers too much. I know a small piece of viral protein can ruin a ride or a week of rides. But it’s heartening to see a number jump out at you once in a while, perhaps an omen or a talisman of good things to come.

A Sunday ride a week and a half ago with my team up in Denver took the six of us south to Castle Pines. It was a hilly route and I was the largest fellow in the group, so I was ready to be in pain. We assaulted Jackass Hill (which is really fun to write; no one in the group knew why it was called that. There’s a park by the same name as well, ‘Honey, I’m taking the kids over to Jackass this morning.’) and I focused on spinning and felt good when I didn’t fall off the back.

They were taking it easy on me, though. We hit a series of climbs and soon I was off the back, ahead of one fellow, but behind four others, bouncing away up the climb. Denver has had a lot of snow and it was all melting and pooling in the road with the cinder used for cars. At twenty five miles, the turn around, we all looked like cyclocross riders out in the mud.

We pushed back and descended a hill. On the flipside climb, my rear derailleur made a snapping sound and shifted into the smallest cog. The cable had broken and I was now demoted from a sleek 20 speed carbon racing machine to a two speed instrument of muscular torture. I was fine descending and on the flats with my 50x11 and 34x11 gears, but any climb was an agony of low cadence, Jan Ulrich-inspired diesel pedaling. Ten miles in, and my legs were hurting.

Short, non-dramatic story; I made it, even if the guys did have to soft pedal a couple of times (sorry guys). Back in the dusty room ten days later, doffing my medieval cap and moving the lead out of the way on the desk, I notice the number, 600w for 1 minute average. That was a good 140w higher than any 1 minute average in the previous year.

What doesn’t kill you…

The last dingleberry

2011-02-21T23:33:00.001+01:00

Two bright red Planet Bike jerseys move through the paceline, Katie Compton and her husband Mark, smooth into a twenty mph wind out of the south, southwest. Marksheffel road moves back and forth, first putting the wind on our noses, and then it pushes on our right shoulder. The group is riding into its own red, guys not yet ready for the pace of the silver medalist in the Cyclocross World Champs; it’s February! The riders push a bit too hard.

I’m in the echelon, shaded from the wind by the left thigh of a young rider. He’s clueless and suddenly moves left and hits my bars with his leg. He thinks its my fault and I make a note not to ride near him again. It’s important to trust the person you’re riding behind; they control your fate, whether you will be pushed backwards as they blow up, or worse, hit the tarmac as they do something unpredictable. My bars wobble and I hear my friend Cody snort; he’s in my draft, the sweet spot behind the biggest guy in the pack.

Planet Bikes move forward into a rotating paceline a few miles south. I’m coming off some kind of viral thing, power wasn’t back all week, and I choose not to rotate, but sag back behind ten wheels or so. I’m feeling myself out today. The sprint up Link Hill will tell me where I’m at, but the legs actually feel strong. I take a pull before the left turn and get myself towards the front as the pack turns onto Link Road.

I don’t see it. The truck that was standing still when I pass, moves forward into the apogee of the turn for the second part of the pack. Brakes squeal and bikes slide on the loose cinder in the turn. Mark rides directly into the ditch and then back out of it. I’m ahead, no longer taking turns, feeling the road rising and the twelve or so wheels in front of me accelerating. I just want to hang. Glen and Marissa are on a pink tandem, coming slowly backwards through the group. They offer a nice draft and I slide in, complacent with just keeping a good pace up the climb. We’re over and a gap of about 100 meters to the riders in front.

The gap is closed by a train crossing, barriers down. A break for the legs.

Fresh, we jump on our pedals and the stragglers that have caught up, are off again. It’s amazing what a two minute break will do for the energy levels, I push hard and move into the paceline. It’s much easier to do this than to ride alone into the wind. A new guy, young and on a tt bike, is in the rotation. As he moves into the crosswind, he leans down and goes into the tt bars. Katie glances over and shakes her head. The second time, she yells at him. I give up a spot and yell over to him that he shouldn’t ride ‘on the bars’ in a group, in a crosswind. He looks bashful and says ‘sorry’. I smile back; this is the way we learn.

Where the road splits at Old Pueblo, there is a rise over a bridge and then it’s a mile to the sprint line, our turn-around. Another new guy sticks his nose into the wind and pushes hard, ending our rotation with me in third wheel. Mr. Planet Bike is in front of me, pushing hard and there is a gap. I push and close it and holding on is like holding my breath. I keep it there just a bit longer than comfortable and then wiggle my left elbow, ‘come on by; I’m done.’

No one does. We’re going 30+ into a heavy wind and everyone else is thinking that it’s much too comfortable to sit behind me. Finally, a few riders come through, and I see Katie has been sitting in my draft. Mark has also come through and we all ease up and roll a bit before turning back north.

Threshold

2011-01-30T15:45:00.001+01:00

‘Cody, what’s that in your pocket.’

‘A corn dog.’

‘Why the hell are you taking a corn dog on the ride?’

‘You know, I like real food.’

Later, we are rolling down Platte Avenue, 40 or so riders two by two, sometimes three wide, chatting in the warmth of a 60 degree day.

The wind is blowing hard enough out of the north to fully extend the gigantic American Flag just before the last small climb heading east. Everyone knows that the pace will be high on Mark Sheffel Road and I think about the small 50x11 gear I have. Traffic coming south on Sheffel and a car waiting in the lane force the pack to come to a stop at the turn; I hear Mike swear and then we’re off, standing on the pedals and accelerating up the hill that marks the start of the race-pace portion of the ride. The hill is a small rise about 400 meters long, but from a standstill it hurts to reach 30mph by the top; the line strings out and I ride towards the front.

I’m always strong on the this leg of the ride. The road is flat to slightly downhill and I can power to the front fairly easily. Today I’m planning on adding a thirty mile extension to the ride by turning left on Squirrel Creek Road and riding a loop out to Hannover. It’s early in the season and, while I enjoy some speedwork with the combination of my low gear and tail wind, I really don’t want to do any sprinting today.

I rotate through the front and freewheel back into the line about seven wheels back. Byron and another rider move off the front and quickly gap the front of the group. I’m coasting a bit, dragged along in the draft and slowly move towards the front again. I’m not working to hard and, when I’m on the point, decide to bring Byron and co. back to the fold. I’m spun out at about 150rpm, just a bit too fast to not move around on the seat. Byron slowly comes back and I’m in no hurry and grab his rear wheel after a few minutes of effort. I brought the group and immediately a rider in a green Scattante outfit slides past and pushes the pace. I’m a little miffed that he never came past to chase, but this isn’t a race; it’s January.

Squirrel Creek Road comes just before the sprint to the top of Link Hill. This works for me, short-circuiting a too hard effort up the hill and adding some much needed time in the saddle at endurance pace rather than the crazy race pace that will go on for another seven miles. Byron looks over and we slide down the pack and then turn left. We wait for Mike or Erik or Cody to appear, but they don’t so we head off into the treeless distance, the road rising five miles ahead in a long ribbon of asphalt amidst a brown landscape. The wind blows and the only thing stopping it are the cholla, blooming yellow in the winter spring.

‘Hey Byron, the cholla are having sex all around us.’ We laugh and settle into the task.

Quickie

2011-01-03T00:25:00.001+01:00

GeoTagged, [N39.28873, E106.06411]

The post, not the ski. Fun trip up Breckenridge with friends and family. A morning ski up the aptly named Siberian trail with Mark and Glen and then an afternoon jaunt through Troll Forest with the boys. Amazing how much fun one can have with a little snow, some sun and very little oxygen; and no batteries required!

Dancing with Coyote

2010-12-17T18:18:00.001+01:00

At Cherry Creek

Coyote dances

red face grin

slash of fur

in my space I wonder

wheels turning

at the message from the Yei.

On a lark

2010-12-13T17:00:00.001+01:00

It’s hard to ride a bike when it’s seventeen degrees outside. The simple act of opening the door and pushing it out the door into the semi-light of 7:30 becomes a force of will.

I do it anyway. Byron is waiting at the Starbucks on 30th and Colorado and the idea that someone else is riding with me and sharing my pain is comforting. It’s also the first day of my training year, the cycling equivalent of the first day of the rest of my life: day one of base one.

Of course, I’ve already been training, hundreds of miles and hours in the pool, but that all gets lumped into the ‘preparation’ period’, all of the time before base one and after my last race.

Endurance and speed work for the next couple of months. Endurance means long rides like today’s up to Larkspur. The first goal today is not to sweat, but Byron always pushes the pace a bit beyond my comfort zone. Sometimes I get to reciprocate, but when we ride too fast, I can feel the rivulets of sweat on my back. At seventeen degrees, this can get ugly.

Byron pulls away on the climb to Palmers Lake and then waits in front of the Speedtrap coffee shop. It really is a speed trap today; a cop car is nestled along the south wall of the building, out of sight from anyone heading towards Monument. A coffee and then we’re rolling on the loop to Larkspur, seventeen gorgeous miles with a deceptive climb up to the Palmer Divide.

It all passes quickly: conversations with Byron, my cheese sandwich, the numb toes and fingers, the brief headwind as we headed north. Too soon, it’s a fist bump as Byron turns off for his house in Old Colorado City and I head a few miles up the canyon to Manitou and a hot bath.

Eighty miles in the books and the new year has already begun.

Acquiring satellites

2010-11-29T22:51:00.001+01:00

The sun is up and I’ve got 50ml of caffelatex in each of my tubulars. There is no way I’m going to call Janet from the side of the road today. Last week’s ride to Canon City ended with a flat (and the failure of the spare) just at the top of the last climb with twenty five miles of downhill left and a smart tailwind.

Today we’re riding north to Castle Rock. It’s cold, but my gloves aren’t freezing to the bars like last week. The sun is out and we have a slight tailwind as Byron and I roll to Palmer Lake. A quick latte and my hands are thawed. A left on highway 105 and we’re over the rise of the Palmer Divide and my favorite Colorado road stretches out sixteen miles in a gentle downhill. A turn at Wolfensberger road and we’re climbing four miles up the side of a small mesa. Byron is sixty pounds lighter than me, and he moves away, a foot here and there, until he crests a couple of minutes ahead. There’s one other cyclist going our direction and I catch her right before the road descends to Castle Rock. A good morning to you!

Another latte at Daz Bog. We’ve gone fifty five miles and I feel pretty good. Just fifty miles until home. The wind has picked up. I look down at the Garmin and we’re going just thirteen miles an hour. A tap on the computer… 250-300 watts. That’s a lot. I can maintain about 300 for an hour, my threshold wattage. An hour is only thirteen miles away. I move into Byron’s draft and feel slightly guilty.

Riding into the wind is an emptying experience. First I lose my expectations about the ride, how fast it will be, what time I’ll get home, how much it will or won’t hurt. Then, slowly, I lose most of my other thoughts as well, until all that’s left is the white noise of the wind in my ears. My thought for a few minutes is limited to, ‘What noise do my helmet straps make when I tilt my head? Hmm, that’s interesting.’ or ‘How close can I get to the northeast quadrant of Byron without hitting his bike?’

Life is simple in the wind.

At two o’clock we return to Palmer Lake feeling much different. I realize we likely won’t make it back to Manitou with the sun still up and put some of the layers I shed a few hours before when the sun was high and we had a tailwind. The sun was behind Pikes Peak as passed the Great Monstrosity and descended into Colorado Springs. ‘Hey, Byron, we just passed one hundred miles.’ A fist bump and I climb the hill back to the house.

Sweating the details

2010-11-17T20:35:00.001+01:00

Before the sun warms the red rocks in our canyon, the temps are stuck at twenty two degrees. A glance south, towards Crystal Park, reveals the snow dusting the dark side of the canyon, but the clear blue backdrop means that the temps will rise.

On the bike an hour later and I’m thinking about my son Johann. Our annual Individual Educational Plan meeting is tomorrow and, as a I ride, I let the conversations Janet and I have been having bubble up. For some reason, the movement and external stimuli on the bike have a freeing effect; sweat, breath, toxins, thoughts float up and out and into the cold, dry air. Soon the clutter of the road, buildings and signs, cars and people, fall back and I’m heading into the high plain country east of Colorado Springs.

Brown and dead grass, rolling hills stretching out with no trees, the wind’s desiccating effect empties my soul of detail.

What was it Janet said? my son is on a continuum, moving from mere presence, to tolerance, to pity, to acceptance. Where is he now? That is the question for the group tomorrow.

Maybe because it’s cold and I have leggings and a coat on, I’m removed from the immediacy of the climb to Curtis Road from Highway 94. I move back and forth on the bars, feel the wind on the right side of the tights, soaking through the seams, but it doesn’t seem so real.

What future does my son have? I think about this and notice the top of the climb is past already. When Johann was born and the lab in Madison later identified the Down’s syndrome that had distorted one of his chromosomes, I grieved. A while later I wondered what it was that made the tears flow and I realized that I was grieving for any number of lost futures that would no longer be possible for him.

The road turns south and the rolling ground is a carpet running all of the way to the foothills. The granite above the tree line is dusted with snow. The wind is on my face, but I’m still numb to it.

My insight thirteen years ago, sitting in a hospital in Dubuque, was that my father grieved as well for me. The test results had simply accelerated the process. Instead of grieving for my lost future as a basketball player or a manager in the same factory he worked at, when I was much older, I was suddenly in the position of knowing my son would never be a doctor only a week into his life.

Or so I thought thirteen years ago. What is possible? And what is it we all need? Now forty six instead of thirty three, I understand my identity is not my job. What is necessary is to belong and that is what erases the tears.

I smile as Curtis Road rounds into Powers and there’s a tailwind as I roll north. Everyone needs a tailwind once in a while.

A winter morning

2010-11-11T22:04:00.001+01:00

If the fingers are lined up behind the bend of the handlebar, the index finger is the only one to go numb.

I think about things like this as Janet and I take a whirl through the Garden of the Gods. Not deep thoughts, but ideas that have immediacy in the here and now. It’s 30 degrees and sunny. A light snow has fallen on the higher slopes, but leaves are still falling along the streets.

We ride through the Garden, up Mesa’s climb and then descend for a couple of miles to the edge of Old Colorado City. The climb warms us and then the bright sun makes up at least 15 degrees in temperature and we are all smiles back home to Manitou. A hour and half of the morning well spent, together and on bikes.

Cold morning

2010-11-05T20:27:00.001+01:00

The air in Manitou, warmed against the red rock by the sun, has to be at least fifteen degrees warmer than the air a few hundred feet down slope on Colorado Avenue. Morning rides are a bit of a trial right now. It’s not exactly the cold temps at 8am, rather it’s the knowing that in four hours it will be thirty degrees warmer.

No matter, I pull on my light winter tights (my real winter tights haven’t been used since I rode in the real winter weather of Iowa), dig out the wool socks and pick out my old Wheaton jacket. That jacket is coming into its own here in Colorado. As I told Dan, my cycling come-librarian friend from DWC, the jacket makes me sweat like a plastic bag but it doesn’t breathe. I can wear it with a tank top and be just fine here at altitude and forty degrees. Iowa wind, cold and humidity would freeze the sleeves to my bear arms.

I rode up Gold Camp Road, turned around and came home. It’s about 1200 feet of climbing in sixteen miles and not a bad workout. My replacement crank is a compact with a 50/34 (the teeth on the big and small rings). A 34 chainring paired with a 26 cog on the rear cassette now means I can spin up anything. Nice on a cold day.

Horlivy

2010-10-23T18:48:00.003+02:00

I enjoy washing the grease out of the creases in my hands. The detailed attention to reaching the parts normally out of eye shot relaxes the mind; the feeling grows that something good was accomplished, the cause of the black grease. The sensation of warm water, the smell of chain grease and the course grit of the soap erase three decades of time.

Young and in flux at sixteen. A small, typed ad on the job board caught my attention walking the halls at Marquette High. I was old enough now to work a job other than the Milwaukee Journal paper route I’d recently sold to my brother or the under-the-table dishwashing position I had at Ingrilli’s Pizzeria. It was spring and I was thinking about what the summer would bring. There was a brother in the counseling office who handled inquiries for the college-bound and requests for young men interested in working summer jobs. The position he stuck to the board was a new one, Position: bicycle mechanic. I read the details, there was an address and a phone number and I called and they asked me to come in for an interview on Saturday.

“Do you know where that is!” My dad always shouted when I came up with a new idea. “It’s in a really dangerous part of town. I don’t know if we can let you go there.” At this point he would usually give me the you’re-an-imbecile look and head out of the room. The pattern would become thus: dad yelling, me squirming uncomfortably for a while until he was out of sight and then me waiting some place unseen, my room, outside, in the garage taking apart my bicycle for the twentieth time, and my mom would intervene and then ask me to talk to him again.

The bicycle shop was on the north side, 23rd and Fond du Lac Avenue, next to a motorcycle shop that specialized in Motoguzzis. Dad was right, it was a dangerous part of town in what folks from other parts of Milwaukee called the ‘core’. I was to learn later that there were robberies, shootings and drug dealing, but what struck me on the bus ride down to the shop was that all of the white people got off at Wisconsin Avenue, the stop where I always got off to go to Marquette, and the all of the black people got on. For the first time in my life I was a minority.

Jim King owned King Cyclery and he rented the shop from the Motoguzzi fellow next store. Jim was exotic. He grew up in different parts of the world, son of a military man, and told stories of men kissing in Afghani theatres and challenged everything that I thought I knew about the world at sixteen. “You’re Chris?” “Ok, I want you to take this boxed bike here and build it in that stand. Do your best and Marty will take a look at it when you’re done.” Two hours later I had finished and Marty proceeded to twist my bars, seat post, wonder at the crooked wheels and the mis-shifting derailleurs. But the test wasn’t that the bike would be perfect, the test was how I dealt with the critique of the build and whether I could correct my mistakes. I could, it just took me a long time to do it. That was fine, I would get faster, and I had the job.

We would wash our hands in a dirty sink behind the attic stairs. Jim preferred Lava liquid soap which cleaned by removing a layer of skin from your hands, so I washed only occasionally, when I had a new bike to build, new bar tape to install, or to wait on a customer. The smell of that soap brings back a flood of memories now of that quiet back room, in the old building with plastered walls and two rows of bikes separating two repairs stalls. I was ensconced after a few weeks in the far stall and in the nearer stall was my English teacher, John Horlivy. Thick black beard with a rosy mouth and horn-rimmed glasses, he was short, a tad pudgy and quiet-spoken. My freshman year, he had caught my attention reciting the scene from the Merchant of Venice where Shylock demands his pound of flesh, and we all knew right then how horrible a demand that was.

Yesterday I found out that John had paid his pound of flesh. He died of pancreatic cancer at 69. I had lost touch with John, but the soap brings me back to John at the sink, carefully washing his hands. I remember that he wrote a poem for me when I crashed at a criterium and lost most of the skin on my left side. We had long talks, John, Jim, Marty and I, in the back room and I realize now that this was me growing up, crossing the bridge to my adult life, tied to these people by my love of cycling.

I’m washing my hands. The master link in my Campagnolo ten speed chain needed replacing. It was getting old, maybe had 15,000 miles on it and there was a slight catch in the drivetrain every three or four revolutions, nothing severe and most people wouldn’t have noticed. John Horlivy would have and he would have focused on it very intently, deciphering the mystery and fixing it, before moving on to something just as important.

A twenty mile loop

2010-09-30T17:47:00.001+02:00

Four and a half miles from my house, at the end of a faux plat that begins when I turn left at my mail box, the road turns south and begins snaking up. It begins as innocuous 26th Street. Bott Park, sometimes Butt Park if someone has dark green paint for the sign, passes on the left amid the fringe of century old ranch homes, last vestige of Old Colorado City. A white horse fence on the right and, behind it, the looming red rock formations of Section 16.

The rider’s eyes are pulled towards the hairpin ahead. The grade of the road stiffened to 10 percent past Bott Park, but has eased to 6% here. After the hairpin is a false flat and then a ramp to the crest of 10 percent.

Cheyenne Mountain takes over the view at the crest of the hill. Dull green with juniper and pinon, it sets a clean, falling line to the horizon. The road ahead dives into Bear Creek Park, but the rider turns right onto Upper Gold Camp Road. He doesn’t want to pay for descending right now; the road continues up past Bear Creek and he clings to the side of the rock and continues the climb.

Some wealthy people have built too-large homes overlooking Colorado Springs, driveways poke into both sides of the road before it breaks free and squeezes between two rocks. Now there is just the occasional run-away descending cyclist or distracted motorist looking down at the Broadmoor. Twice I’ve seen the small black ribbon tied to a juniper, marking the spot where Ed Burke, a published author on cycling health and local rider in the Springs, died of heart attack while riding his bike back in 2002.

The paved road ends and usually the rider turns here and speeds back down. Today he decides to continue on the dirt and descend past Helen Hunt Falls. He hasn’t done this before, there was always a good reason not to ride on the dirt and he doesn’t know how far the road continues. Riding an unpaved road isn’t so difficult, unless the road climbs past ten percent; he doesn’t know if it does or not.

A mile into the dirt section, the first of two tunnels. The other end is visible and there’s just a car going by raising the dust a bit. The road becomes soft inside, sheltered from rain, almost powder. The second tunnel is much the same, rough and old like the first, and the cool air inside contrasts with the hot Colorado air outside.

At three miles past the pavement there is a parking lot, a sign telling visitors to respect the p lace and each other and the top of the paved road coming up from Cheyenne Canyon. Tall ponderosa pines, rough red rock, the pleasant tinge of sun-warmed juniper and, soon, the rush of water from Helen Hunt Falls. Just a few miles from the city, but I roll down the hill in an elemental wonder land.

Up the road

2010-09-13T22:28:00.001+02:00

‘The first thing about racing is actually being there at the end. Then you can worry about your intervals.’

And there in lies the rub. Four days of racing at the Steamboat Springs stage race, three days of watching the group ride away from me on a hill and four days of struggling with the pollen in the air. Frustrating, but motivating.

The road race will be like a training ride. That was true last year and true for the guys heading out at 8am, but by noon the wind had whipped up to thirty miles an hour and the team with the leader thought it would be cool to bury themselves on the two mile climb leading out to the course. I stayed in the midst of the pack, visualizing a flat road, focusing on the little Assos label on the butt in front of me, thinking of how difficult it would be on my own… funny how time can slow down, until each moment stretched into a prolonged painful series of gasps, each filament of muscle on fire. I look up and the road is turning to reveal another mile of the climb. I push and slide back a wheel. I push and I’m on the end of the group. Soon I’m off and staring at three lengths to the back. Five lengths. I feel the wind full on now and panic a bit, standing up to try to bring back the group. It’s strung out, guys are falling off in ones and twos and the wheel van is just behind me. I glance at the odometer; I’m only four miles into a fifty five mile race.

Riding alone into a headwind for twenty five miles can be a cleansing experience. Any pretense at ability is washed away. At fifteen miles I pass the turn in the road. An ambulance and course marshal yell encouragement. I nod weakly. I can’t hear anything, just the constant rush of wind eliminates thought, just white noise to go with the high desert. Around the turn is a lone rider, thin and bobbing in the wind. I’m ok, despite the effort, and slowly bring him back. It takes three miles, but it gives me something to think about. I can’t see myself, but I see the pain in his eyes and read that he’s giving up. Somehow it makes me feel better. When I come up to him, I give him a little relief from the wind; at last someone more helpless than me.

We ride towards the cone, the spot where the course turn back on itself. Three miles from the spot, the road turns and offers a respite from the wind. I hit forty miles an hour for a while down a hill and realize my mate has drifted off the back. Going downhill is my only super power right now. Before the turn around, groups of twos and threes from the pack head past, about a mile in front of me. This makes me feel better. The first few are actually racing, the rest have various blank looks in their eyes. Just before the cone, one of my teammates is fading fast and I roll up from behind. His eyes are completely vacant, streams of dried salt and saliva streak his face. I shelter him in the crosswind, but he struggles to go slow as we hit the cone.

I soft pedal through the feedzone, grab and drink a bottle and grab another for the pocket. I glance back and my teamie is not there. He must have stopped.

Solo now into the wind for a few miles. Wind and climbs are de rigueur now. The countryside is a blur of pain, grunting into a wind and pushing on the pedals. The turn comes and suddenly the wind is a gift and I’m sailing alone and brightly into the sage and pinon. I know I’ll finish, because now there is no other choice.

Steamboat Springs

2010-09-04T22:03:00.001+02:00

I'm watching my boys now, in the rental condo pool. They keep competing measuring themselves against each other: who can hold their breath the longest; who can sit on the bottom the longest; who can jump the highest out of the water.

By those kinds of measures, I'm not doing so hot right now. It seems that nearly every rider does something better than me: climbing.

Today's circuit race was 30 miles, 4.5 miles at a time at the Maribou Ranch north of town, two miles up, two and a half down. Our first time up the sharp climb to the finish, the group accelerated hard and my lungs started to spasm. Likely a combination of forty degree air, pollen and twenty pounds too much of me. Today's goal was to survive and conserve, same for tomorrow's road race. Monday is a flat, four corner crit, something suited to me.

The kids splash and play. The sun is shining and I feel good, alive.

Last day in Korea

2010-08-04T09:07:00.001+02:00

Looking forward to home, but with a last meal of bean paste seafood stew and kimchee, quail eggs soaked in red tea and banana milk.

On to Busan

2010-08-01T02:04:00.001+02:00

The air hangs in semi- transparent sheets, between mountainsides fading from deep green to gray in the mist. This is the steamy season in Korea.

Busan is not far, but we stop for a rest stop and soon after there are sandwiches. An hour later we are standing at the beach.

The air burns the lungs, chemicals mixing with heat, humidity, car exhaust and cigarette smoke. I walk the boardwalk slightly lightheaded, pausing near the stacks of tubes, neat rows of beach umbrellas stretching out in five rows in either direction, covering the sand in artificial shade. But there are no shadows.

Time Trial

2010-07-04T14:38:00.001+02:00

This place is old. Stone, wood, water, wind, even the people are elemental, burnt clay figures walking, selling red Chiminyo chile, sitting in the shade by the side of the road. The sky has an inverted mass of its own, spreading into the gaps of the red rock country, seeping into arroyos and merging with the land. This is an old place. This is a place where the forgetfulness of quarter century can be forgotten, absorbed into the sandy ground like an afternoon rainstorm.

The pain comes quickly. I glance down at the computer on the stem and think that it’s just been one mile, just one, with four more to go before the turnaround and the quick descent back. No one has passed me yet, though the windy sound of tourists on the highway mimi occasionally a disk wheel slicing through the air, chasing me.

My road winds through canyons. The sight and smell merge into a memory of the Cevennes, driving with the family from Nimes to St. Flour. Arid, browns and red and light unfiltered by contaminating moisture. Smells travel far. I can smell the pinon before I see it. I can smell the rain before it falls.

I’m never fast enough on the climbs. I’m soaked in an inertia I can’t resist and it pull me back to nineteen miles an hour. The struggle against it is the point, the purpose. Why else would a grown man dress in a lycra skinsuit and put on the helmet of Bugs Bunny’s Martian nemesis? Why else? A mile to go on the climb and I’m passed by my two minute man and then my minute and a half man.

Cordova lies in a valley off of the high road to Taos. I turn off the high road and go to meet someone from my memory. In my memory there is a skinny young guy with infectious energy, a mop of black hair and a smile. We played basketball together thirty years ago. I have moments with Terry, a pat on the back after a blocked shot, seeing him in the old Marquette hallways, sometimes with an organic odor about him, a difficult scene in a locker room before a game. A mixture of energy, happiness, pain; I suppose the stuff of our existence. I pull into the gallery parking lot.

The turnaround comes, a red cone in the road. I’ve yearned for that cone for a millennia, for fifteen minutes. Why this is true, I have no idea. My heart rate was right at threshold the entire time, 162 beats per minute, the measure of my effort. I turn the cone, hear ‘Keep it up 334!’ and make the turn downward. It’s easier; I’m faster; the effort is the same, 162bpm.

A hug. There is perhaps a slight awkwardness standing in the gallery surrounded by beauty. How does one compact thirty years of life, time, experience, love, loss, thought into the moment before the shower is offered? We move through this. Our conversation offers peeks behind the curtain of who we have become. The point of this is our becoming.

I am spinning a 53x11 gear down the hill which means I’m touching 40mph. My effort is the same, but now I’m fast, flying, steering with my elbows, slicing through space with a narrow focus on the riders ahead who passed me. When I catch them, they will still be two minutes and one minute thirty seconds ahead of me, but that isn’t the point.

Laughter comes easily and we share riffs of the same ideas, similar experience, like loves. We share a black market Budweiser in a can, purchased through intermediaries in a local shop. It tastes good, so I know this place is magical. Soon, his family comes home and I see Terry from thirty years ago, gangly, a tad awkward, a big smile on his face. His wife Paula completely shares the beauty of this moment, now as participant but in reality as creator. I dwell in clear moments talking with each, my mind a mirror of the clouded sky sometimes, but then clear with a memory or thought as we move from place to place, time to time, Milwaukee, Africa, Germany, Santa Fe. We remember people, times, places and now create something new.

Playing in the garden

2010-06-29T22:56:00.001+02:00

His eyes were wide, round circles and his mouth was frozen open, some grass still hanging between his teeth. A frozen instant we were a few feet from each other, face to face and my eyes were likely as wide as his with the thought of running into a twelve point buck at 40 miles an hour.

I live a few miles from this moment, and it astounds me every time it happens.

Five times around the Garden of the Gods. Each loop the same glorious backdrop of high desert and red rocks, Pike’s Peak denting the horizon, each loop the foreground changing from a mule deer in velvet to something else.

A fellow with cerebral palsy, his body twisted like a clenched fist, rolls along the bike lane, a red umbrella shading his chair and his wife/girlfriend/sister smiling a good morning in unison with him as I roll by the first time, a second time a third time. They cover the two and half mile loop and we intersect along the way, me feeling a bit guilty as I roll past the Kissing Camel overlook.

Later, three people on Segways, in the bike lane on the long climb. What is the point of this? They dramatically wave me out of the bike lane; we’re all going about 8 miles an hour. I dramatically ask the leader if he qualifies as a bike or pedestrian. This question seems to surprise him.

Third time up the climb and I pass some runners. The woman starts to veer off the path onto the grass to give me room. ‘No problem, we’re all going really slow.’ This strikes her as really funny.

Last time up and I move in between a dotted line of older fellows on road bikes. One is skinny and wearing a Front Rangers jersey from Denver. He’s about a quarter mile up the climb and is my rabbit. I catch him before we crest and we chat. He must be a tad winded as he says ‘So long, have a good ride.’ before I indicate that I’m moving on.

Each time up the descent, I question my need to do it again. After the run down to the turn, I forget this, and the all of the other unpleasantness and think, ‘Hey, let’s do that again.’ The fifth time this doesn’t occur to me and I turn up Ridge road, not the last climb before home.

It seems easier now.

Testing, 1, 2, 3

2010-06-22T01:15:00.001+02:00

I have a recurring nightmare. I’m twenty years old, taking an undergraduate linguistics class at the University of Wisconsin. In my then-major, German literature, it was an elective. The prof was basically reading from the book each class and I slowly stopped going. First it was one day, then I missed two classes in a row. Then I didn’t attend for a week and a half. When I finally showed up, she was handing out the mid-term exam and there was a big smile when she saw me darken the doorway to her room. My dream always ends there, anxiety, panic, an intense desire to run away; it never goes to the next part, where we get our tests back and I have an A-.

Last Saturday was the Colorado State time trial championships in the beautiful countryside north east of the Denver International Airport. In Britain, a time trial is known as a test, and it is. Basically, you go as fast as you can for the specified distance. On Saturday, it was 38 kilometers. My first season racing in Colorado has also been a test. In many ways I feel like I’m starting at the bottom again.

The land around the airport is a bleak prairie landscape. I can remember the four or five trees I passed fairly clearly today, dark shapes two miles away. An old parking lot was the hub of the race activity, burned out shells of an RV and many cars lined the western side and tall, steel garbage bins lined the periphery. We were an oddly nomadic clan of lycra-clad people, walking between a smattering of brightly colored pop-top tents with very expensive, strange looking bicycles.

People were friendly in that excited way right before something big happens. Chatty and focused at the same time. I parked on the edge of the lot, within site of the RV, next to a fellow from the Colobikelaw.com team I recognized from Arkansas. Couldn’t remember his name, but I was too embarrassed to ask directly, hoping he would offer when he asked my name. Didn’t. So he will be known as Friendly 55+ guy with the mustache.

I warmed up on the rollers and then made my way through the rocks at the entrance and rolled back and forth on the dead-end paved road going towards the airport. Twenty others had the same idea. Fifteen minutes until my start at 11:24. Then ten minutes.

Five minutes. Time for another roll around.

‘Chris Sauer?’ a loud voice shouts as I roll up towards the start line. ‘Twenty seconds.’ No time to panic, have second thoughts, worry about what it was I was forgetting. Clip in and go.

And I’m off and it’s beautiful. A wind is blowing right up my butt as I pump out the ten seconds of creatine in a smooth sprint to get up to speed. I glance down to see the speed… ‘BAM’ That’s the sound of a carbon wheel hitting a pothole. Holy crap, my right extension is now a few inches lower than my left one.

I turn left on 120th and head directly west. The wind is moderate out of the southeast, so this is my tailwind. I hold my speed at 28, effort is near threshold, but I want to hold back a bit. The road trends down and I imagine the reverse when I do a u-turn in five miles. There is paint on the road. Red is easy, two red lines mean ‘if you hit me, you will be walking’. But then there are green lines as well. Green is good? or bad? I hit another hole in the road and learn they’re good, the hard way. Aim for green avoid red. But then there are yellow lines. Do I avoid them? Ride over them? Or do these mean ‘good luck, you’re on your own?’ I learn later from the fellow from Aspen that we learned about the lines when we were being held up at the start. I guess twenty seconds wasn’t enough.

I’m passed by someone after the turn-around, and this is disappointing. I was hoping to hold out longer than 5 miles before being passed. Soon I’m passed again and again. Usually as I struggle to maintain speed on a climb. I feel so fat. If I lose twenty pounds… if I lose ten…

In French, contra le montre, against time. Against the psyche as well. There’s so much to think about. Am I pushing enough? I glance down and see my heart rate has dropped five beats below my threshold; I push harder. The rate moves up to 160 and I feel better.

I finish last. Not in the race, but in my group. This is disappointing on its face. My time is twenty seconds over an hour, a respectable time for a big guy I suppose, but I expect more. There is no hiding in the tt, no way to mask the weakness as it’s exposed. This is good, but not pleasant. In me, it creates a resolve to do better. Unlike the A- on the exam twenty five years ago, there isn’t an amazing outcome. Everything seems ordinary.

When sixth isn't bad

2010-05-25T21:05:00.001+02:00

"Number 104, come over here. No, you're not in trouble."
I'd only been number 104 for a short time, so it took a second to react. I was taking a spin around the Angelos de Pueblo criterium course before the men's 35+/45+ race started. My cat 3 race was still an hour away.

"Your race has been cancelled. Only three riders signed up."
"Shit."
"You can ride in the 45+ race or get a refund. How old are you?" As if age is why I signed up for the cat three's.
"There's only fifteen minutes to warm up." Pause. "I might as well race since I drove all the way down here."
On the loudspeaker, "Colorado Bike Law says he might as well race..."

I'm off for my fifteen minutes to warmup. I need up to an hour for a hard effort. In fifteen minutes I wouldn't work up a sweat. My routine is to ride for twenty minutes and then begin three 30 second efforts at high cadence. It loosens things up and gives my body an idea of what's going to happen to it shortly. I squeeze in the thirty second efforts for form's sake; part of the warmup is the comforting routine, better stick to that.

There are fourteen riders at the line, one 35+ fellow, three of us cat 3's and ten 45+ riders. One rider, is the current national record holder for the hour, Norm. My plan is to hide until I feel warmed up. Then my plan is stay in the group and hide some more. This is my first real crit of the year.

The ref sends us off with a relaxed 'go' and I clip in and move to my favorite spot at fifth wheel. Not in the wind, not too far back so that I have to brake in corners and a spot where I can manage the wheels in front of me. If I get to the third wheel, there's no way to avoid taking a pull without disrupting the flow. At number five, I can pull into the draft of the fellow moving off the front and keep out of the wind. The wind is blowing down the back straight, directly in our faces. This keeps things together until Norm decides to make a break about ten minutes into the race. I feel bad because I probably could go to, but my legs aren't ready yet and I stay in place. Norm is joined by another rider from Great Divide and they stay 15-20 seconds in front of us for the rest of the race.

The racing is fairly easy. Fast but easy. Riding with experienced guys is nice; there's no braking in the corners and everyone manages their lines pretty well. The course is layed out in an 'L' shape with a few extra turns before coming out onto the finishing straight with 200m to go. The finish is just over a small rise and it feels good to spin the lower corner gear right over the top. In the last corner, the road is split by a small island with traffic light. In the turn is a crease in the road just past the manhole cover, the only real defect in the course.

Well, that and the old guy with single speed bike drifting across our vision with about ten laps to go. He's going slow. I'm sure the marshal sees him. He's in the middle of the road. Holy crap he's coming straight across, ignoring the pack of riders bearing down on him. We swear, we slide, we swear again as we turn the now heavy cranks up the hill. Norm and co. are now safely away.

Four laps to go and a fellow in green shoots by as the group slows into the wind. A good tactic, he already has 100m before anyone can react. He gets third. Our group settles in for the bell lap. Mark has been taking all of the pack primes and everyone is satisfied to ride his wheel. We wind up through the L and I'm holding onto the bars and leaning each arc, inches from the fellow in front of me from the Velonews team. He's big enough to give me a draft. The last two turns come and we come past the island, sprinting. I pass fading riders over the small rise and come up to Mark's back wheel as we cross the line. Sixth.

I'm happy.

Cherry Creek Wednesdays

2010-04-20T17:17:00.001+02:00

A nice counterbalance to my last two weeks has been a trip north with Karl to do the Wednesday night Cherry Creek Time Trial series, ten miles of fun at Cherry Creek State Park. About 500 other riders join us as we shove off at 20 second intervals. Karl heads out at 5:05 and I follow at 5:15:20. The spacing allows me to keep an eye, albeit one blurred with sweat and whizzing by at 30mph, on him. He keeps close track of where I cross and pass him on the course each week.

The first week, we crossed paths just before the first turn-around at the west end of the park (week 2-about 200 yds earlier), then I passed him in the final turn-around before the gutbuster climb to the finish (week 2-just at the start of the climb) and then we meet past the finish line when he finishes a couple of minutes after me (week 2, about a minute later).

The first week, our trip was slowed by an overturned tanker blocking I25. With the detour around, we arrived a few minutes before Karl’s start, grabbed and pinned his number and went to search for the start tent. It was cold and there was no warm-up for either of us. My ride was essentially pedaling squares, bouncing around in the saddle and

trying to be smooth. Karl took a wrong turn and went off course and then turned around and came back.

He finished with a huge smile on his face.

We both finished last in our groups. The second week, Karl shaved two minutes off his time to finish fourth and I took off a minute to not finish last.

New bars for last week’s race made the position a bit more comfortable, up about 10cm and a wider placement of the elbows.

Adding regular, early tt’s to the training is taking the place of a workout with longer cruise intervals and seems to be helping me develop my power at threshold. Racing with my son on a regular basis has become something much more valuable.

In a Haystack

2010-04-18T18:54:00.001+02:00

Thick drool hung from my chin to the aero bar of my bike. Sand and dirt clotted my teeth and I could just see the outline of Sean’s tire a few inches in front of my own. I couldn’t see much else; the third turn, and a short run to the finish line were coming up, but I really had no idea of where and how far.

Gap!

We had crested a small hill, Sean pushing the pace, alternating with Doug up the rise. I couldn’t see how fast we were going, rivulets of water and dirt coated the computer and my visor, but it hurt. A small cramp was emerging from deep inside my right thigh, and I felt Doug’s hand pushing on my butt. I closed to Sean’s wheel again and we descended, speed picking up and blessed rest settled into both legs as I coasted past Sean to the front. I had about sixty pounds on both of these guys and the brief respite on the downhills evened things out a bit. They needed a brief break too.

Sixteen minutes earlier we were a five man team, astraddle five wet, but shiny bikes at the start line of the Haystack team time trial. Only 12.1 miles to the finish line on a slightly downhill course due to the road closure on the final leg. It was cool, about fifty and the rain was picking up a bit and we were off. I slotted in behind Doug, our ~~smallest~~ most aerodynamic rider, and made an immediate note to skip a pull and get behind Colin or Sean at the first opportunity. The road rose a bit and then a nice descent and I was on the front feeling smooth and fast. The speed was just at forty as Colin struggled to come around, I eased and moved to the right, into the side wind and drifted to the rear. We hit a small climb and Colin came back, too fast, and now we were four.

I found comfort behind Brian, with his more upright position on the bike and the miles began to tick past, a mixture of road spray, dirt and wind. I’d come through with a pull for thirty seconds or so, see the groups in front of us, coming back to us after their forty and eighty second head starts, and pull a tad harder. A few miles in, we hit a sharp climb with Sean pulling on the front and the legs burned. I pulled through quickly and moved over for Doug and then realized Brian was gone. I yelled gap, but we were now down to the minimum of three; our team time would be determined by the third rider to finish. This was good; now when I yelled gap, they had to wait.

Of course, the terrible thing was that Doug and Sean offered not much in the way of draft and I could feel each pull on the front sap a bit more of the strength. We were pushing hard to close on the riders in front of us. The second turn came and I could no longer think clearly. The wind was straight on, but my wheel weaved back and forth as I fought the bike and the bile coming up from my stomach. I skipped a pull, then two, trying to recover. I would, if I could get just a bit of rest.

Gap! We crested the hill, Doug was pushing my ass with his hand. This helped not in pushing me up the road, something akin to lifting yourself off the ground, but it made me angry and I found a pinch of energy to match Sean’s speed for the last 500 meters and cross the line. Spent. We averaged exactly 30mph for the race.

We were second, thirty seconds behind the winning team, yet ten seconds ahead of our ‘A’ team. Brian rolled through the finish, battling cramps, and Colin came through a tad later, wondering why he tried to pull through on my first downhill pull. These are the things we learn from doing a team time trial.

From Doug’s report:

We were rolling like a freight train on fire, and 2 of our boys took shrapnel in their legs. We're drilling with all we have, and Chris explodes. Seriously explodes. But somehow, someway, he manages to dig deeper than any man I have ever seen into one of those places inside that can overcome the absolute terror of the moment, and he comes back. Not only does he come back from the brink, the edge, the pit; but he comes back and allows the "B" team to put around 10 seconds into the "A" team. Beers all around courtesy of the "A" team I believe?

So there were 4 teams, and we took 2nd and 3rd, racking up major BAT points. It was truly an honor to race with these men, I am seriously humbled.

Bicycle Ped'lar won, but they have some massive guys, I think they got 30 seconds on us.

After the race was over, we rode the long road home, washed off the mud from the bikes and hung out over beer and pretzels and allowed the blood to come back into our skulls. It was a good day. It was a good day to fight the good fight.

What I know is this: those guys made me a better rider than I was before.

Haystack TT
Find more Bike Rides in Boulder, Colorado

the Koppenberg

2010-04-06T18:54:00.001+02:00

I knew something was very wrong when the portapotty, neighboring the one I occupied, blew over. The floor began to rock backwards and I scrambled towards the door to get it back on the ground. Outside, my family was huddled in the car. The sun was out, but the wind whipped the parking area, the registration table began losing forms and riders clutched their bikes, flags were tilting up. Sand and very small rocks were airborne. There wasn’t a thought of not racing today; we’d driven 70 miles up to this god-forsaken suburb of Boulder, pre-registered online and committed mentally to the idea of suffering for an hour and a half.

There is a hill on a dirt road in Colorado. A sign says ‘No Outlet’. The road is three ridges at the bottom separated by two deep gullies, deeper than the axle of my front wheel. By the middle of the climb there are two ridges separated by three gullies. Rocks and sand fill each trench. Our group of 35+ Masters riders, turns onto the climb and play Monty Hall, ‘I’ll take curtain number 2, Monty’ with the ridges. I choose correctly but mid hill, my tire slides into a trough and I stall into a strange trackstand, kept upright by the gusting wind and my tire wedged into the side of the hill. I am the only one that has this problem and the group crests the grade and turns right. I unclip and scramble the rest of the way, jump on the seat and pedal east, the wind on my side. The group stays just in front, a few hundred meters away, but I can’t make the tail.

The road turns to pavement with a thump where pavement and dirt come together in a elongated hole. I’m abusing my bike now, focusing on the peloton instead of the pavement. I make the gap smaller by diving the corner onto the highway and get the full tailwind now. I’m doing 45, but the group begins to pull away a bit. Another corner helps me close and then the straightaway to the finish. Each straight the group gains ground. When we hit the dirt, I know I can’t close before the hill.

The flyer said the hill is 17 percent. On a dirt road with sand, this means the rear wheel will slip unless it’s weighted with my rear end. Climbing a road that steep seated is a painful exercise. I’m sure it’s good for me in some strange way.

‘That’s it, keep it up.’ ‘C’mon, get back in the game. they’re just ahead.’ None of this helps, really. It’s a physical problem, physics problem. Mass (ie. my large self) + Force (where is my watt meter again?)= I can only go up this hill so fast without blowing up. I have to do it four more times. Can I do it four more times? The wind greets me full in the face at the top, sand blows in under my glasses.

This really sucks. Each time up the hill is a slowly increasing fraction, one out of six, two out of six, three times (only half left!). I ride by myself. Twice, a fellow rides by on the section past the hill, gapping me for a few moments and then blowing completely up as I pass. I assume they drop. I parcel out the effort, thinking of finishing. On lap 5, a fellow from the Swift team, who I passed two laps before, comes by, sucking the wheels of two pro riders out warming up on the course. It’s not fair, so I grab his wheel until the pros are gone. He’s friendly and we chat. We take turns pulling and my legs feel much better.

I have no idea who is behind me, but I’m determined I will not be last. On our last time up the hill, I take a pull and then recover. Onto the highway, I move to the front and stay there. I glance back at the last turn and don’t see him. I’m definitely not last.

Spring, Winter, Spring…

2010-03-20T00:13:00.001+01:00

After three 70 degree days of sun and gentle breezes, I’ve got tan lines on my arms and legs. Yesterday’s 85 mile ride out to Hannover left me feeling like spring had finally arrived. Today the snow is falling; it’s thirty and a winter storm warning has caused me to cancel my visit to the vomitron in Denver. I feel bad about that. I was scheduled to take a VO2-max test as part of the bone density study I’m participating in. During my last visit in January, I found out what my fat percentage was (it’s not good). I still hold out hope that with the machine snipping off my scalp and the bottoms of my feet (it was inexplicably made for people shorter than me), that somehow my fat percentage is lower.

I doubt the vomitron would have any wiggle room in determining my aerobic capacity. I thought about this yesterday in the middle of my ride, contemplating the horizon line of sage brush and browned grass, would finding out ‘my number’ actually help me or hurt me? Would it be better to labor under the illusion of superior aerobic capacity, than find out that I have all of the innate endurance talent of a chain-smoking couch potato?

My tribe, your tribe

2010-03-07T15:36:00.001+01:00

The road down the canyon on Manitou Ave is a gradual downhill, following Fountain Creek on its voyage from trout stream in Manitou Springs to drainage ditch in Colorado Springs. The air is crisp and the sun is out and I’ve been promised via several weather sites that today will be warm and sunny. Three miles down the road, I see two cyclists slowly coming back to me; the catch is just before highway 24’s on-ramp at the gas station’s green dinosaur.

‘Morning!’ to the first one, a man dressed in fluorescent yellow ‘please don’t hit me’ attire. Does he look at me? I’m not sure though I’m just inches away when I greet him. No answer. I move on.

‘Nice morning, eh?’ This time to what must be his significant other, identically attired in fluorescent yellow. Her expression isn’t exactly vacant, but a slight grimace is poking through. Again, no answer, not even eye contact.

I’m not sure why this bothers me, but by the time Old Colorado City’s shops show up, I’m thinking that it’s related to something I shared with my students the other night. Humans, I said, have two distinct needs. First they want to belong to a group. Second, once they belong to a group, they want to exclude others from it. I’m not sure these two fluorescent cyclists were proof of that second maxim, but I’ve noticed something over and over; folks dressed in cycling kit obviously connected with some team will greet and wave, almost without exception, and cyclists dressed in generic kit with no sponsor names or logos, often will not. Being part of the former group, I know the work that has gone into being part of a team and racing in general. One of my favorite quotes from the pack, heard years ago, was that in racing ‘you have to be really fit just to suck.’ So true. When I see someone out training, we both are sharing a bond of training, pain, dedication, sacrifice that is a large common ground for us. Someone dressed in Performance gear out for the first time since the last warm day of fall, not so much.

After I get to the ride start, the group of assembled riders provide another example of this two-wheeled, instinctual tribalism. The first thing to notice on this warm day even before the team jersey, does the rider have hairy legs? On the first part of the ride, heading east on Boulder, a rider with hairy legs fails to clip in, swerves into the traffic lane and nearly gets hit by a car. Everyone notices and for the rest of the ride he is a marked man, an interloper in the tribe. In the paceline, everyone moves to be in front of him or at least three wheels back.

Later, when we’re chasing to get back on after Link Hill (yes, I was dropped again this week—long story), I was working with five riders, including Mr. Hairy, and noticed that when he would pull left in the paceline, he would continue accelerating, gapping the rider behind and leaving him in the wind. Very rude. Of course, he didn’t know any better and I tried to explain to him what he was doing. ‘Watch me, pull through and then downshift and let the rider behind get your draft.’ Such a simple idea, to think of the other rider in the wind. Might even seem altruistic, except everyone needs to be strong to catch the group. But knowing how to act in the group is also a sign of belonging to the tribe, knowing its rules.

I catch and get dropped a couple of times today. There is still some funkiness left in the legs from the virus two weeks ago and they feel stiff and congested. By mile 60, heading up the canyon on Manitou Avenue, I have to stop; I feel like I’m bonking. What is it? The food is the same. Am I overdressed? Did I work too hard taking pulls? Did I do too much during the week? Am I still sick? I make the final climb up to our perch on Pilot Knob feeling completely knackered and lie flat on the floor for a few minutes.

It was a beautiful day for a ride.

Dancing with bugs

2010-03-05T21:52:00.001+01:00

I was riding the hairy edge of longer hours in the saddle and colder temps outside when a cold virus knocked me off my feet. Only a few days of no riding, but it’s amazing how much a virus takes out of one’s ambition to write on their blog…

The snow fell and melted, fell and melted again and Saturday’s training ride came around with a sunny and 45 degree forecast; it was time to push it a bit again. A large group turned out, the sun warmed the front of the Starbucks and folks chatted away, catching up, some after a winter-long absence from the ride. It all made me feel less bad about cutting from fourteen hours down to five and then then ten in the two weeks before. A group of five or six Garmin-kitted juniors were there, the largest single team, along with another junior from the Frontrangers, a local junior team that Karl wants to join next year.

We rolled away, fifty strong and I settled into the paceline wondering how everything would fall into place today. I wasn’t feeling bad, just a bit of phlegm (isn’t that a cool word to type?). We turned on Boulder and the group split as about ten guys nearly ran the light. We slowly brought them back before leaving Platte, but already the pace was spitting people out the back. At one light, a red-faced fellow in matching jersey sputtered about how no one else seemed to breathing hard.

‘We’re just hiding it.’ I laughed, but never saw him again.

South onto Marksheffel and the pace slows into the south wind. ‘This is the slowest we’ve ever climbed this hill’ and Cody isn’t kidding. Soon the pace increases and a double paceline forms. I’m feeling Ok enough to move into it and I take a longer pull. Not bad, but just as I pull off, a couple of juniors blast out from behind, attacking.

‘What the fuck?’ Tired, I drift back twenty wheels and take it easy. Five juniors tried to hit it hard and then died in the wind. Not good form, attacking an old bloke like me. Later, I think that maybe they downplayed the strength of the wind while coasting in my draft, but it was still bad form to attack. Now, though, they are stuck on the front; not one of the older guys is moving to the front for them. They’re too dumb to figure out why.

The pace goes up and down, led by the antics for the teenagers on the front. When it’s time to climb Link Hill, I don’t have the gumption to make a big effort and slowly let the group pass. It just doesn’t feel right and I listen to the body and back off. For the next five miles or so, I beat a tempo and cruise about 20mph into the wind, catch another guy and chat until the group doubles back after the second sprint. I’m pleased that I’m recovering, bummed at the loss of form to the virus, but eager to be on the upside with races starting in a month.

Potholes in the road

2010-02-07T18:49:00.001+01:00

The water bottle flew past my head. Its trajectory would give me a few inches to spare, but I ducked to the right just to make sure. Where was I? In a bike store confronting an angry clerk? In a heated post-race argument over the correct line in the final corner?

Nope, I was safely ensconced in a paceline heading south on our Saturday morning ride. Partly due to the tax policy of Colorado Springs and partly due to the cold December, the road was a patchwork of holes, many deep enough to swallow a wheel. I chose the safer, outside line; I like an ‘out’ if someone wiggles or has a brain fart. A few riders in front, the fellow in the Discovery kit, a former member of their masters team in California, hits a hole. The bottle flies over two riders, past my face, hits the pavement and slides harmlessly into the opposite lane.

There a bunch of us, some fit, some not so fit and we’re riding hard into a freezing fog. My fingers hurt, thawing now that we’re going hard and I’m pleased with how I’m feeling, strong and smooth, as we crest the hills before the pace ramps up on Marksheffel Road.

‘Shit!’ Discovery Guy has hit another pothole and this time his second bottle rolls underneath the wheel of the rider behind him, an older guy on a purple, steel bike with downtube shifters. His front wheel crushes the bottle and the contents spray into the air covering me from sunglasses to shoes. We’re going fast, I’m spun out in a 53x14, and Purple Bike Guy keeps himself upright despite a high speed wobble from two broken spokes in his front wheel. He pulls to the left of the line and a truck promptly does a high speed pass of the group and nearly kills him.

Sometimes groups rides are like this. A group dissonance runs through the pack and bad things happen. Wheels lap, guys make bad decisions, people get hurt. Thinking about it, it’s wondrous our high speed dance doesn’t result in more of this than it does. Discovery Guy is next to me in the paceline. He has no bottles left. ‘Think it’s time for some new cages?’

‘Did that guy go down?’ He seems concerned. ‘Nope, just broke some spokes.’ He’s satisfied with this and continues his ride. I imagine that Purple Bike Guy is on the side of the road, ten minutes later and several miles back now, thinking about his solo ride back to town on a broken wheel.

There is one more brainfart: a fellow on the Spike team, someone I’ve had words with before, comes by on the right side of the paceline and sends a shard of pottery skittering into the line. It clinks off several bikes before sliding underneath me. There was no reason for the fellow to push ahead on the inside, and doing so put us all in danger again. Later the same fellow splits the group by leading folks past the customary stop for water in Fountain.

We regroup and ride tempo north, towards home. This is our reconnecting time. Some of us have been gone, some have come for the first time and we chat in two rows, moving along at 22mph on the rolling roads to Fort Carson. The freezing fog is lifting and a cold sun is out. The temperature nudges past freezing and the sun warms our black layers and I feel relief. After our second sprint point, my lips and lower jaw were numb, the blood needed for more important things in the legs. Now, in the sun’s warmth and the comfort of the draft, everything seemed just right in the world.

Flying with B52s

2010-01-27T17:13:00.001+01:00

The cold comes in through the fingertips, slowly spreading until I have to take my hand off the bar and move it a few times to push the cold back out. There is sun today and there is wind, twenty miles per hour of it out of the northwest. Five of us push against it thinking about the tailwind we’ll enjoy on the flipside.

Sean can’t help himself. Each hill represents a chance to burst forward from the confines of the group. Having twenty percent of the group surge ahead breaks the tempo a bit, but no one says anything. We’re cold, maybe that’s it. Or maybe complaining about the pace would be an admission of weakness, something a middle-aged man is normally loathe to do. I’m leading the ride, it being in my neck of the woods, so folks off the front have to ask directions from the plodding old man each time we reach a turn.

I’m at the end of a fourteen hour week, long for me, the last week of the first base period. Next week the hours are cut in half to seven and I’ll do a power test to see where things are at. And then the second base period will begin with a twelve hour week. There’s a rhythm to the year that I find pleasant, an ebb and flow of fitness and fatigue, recovery and exertion that mimics the world’s rhythms. It’s impossible to be in peak form year round and this period I’m in now is building the large base of aerobic fitness needed for the hard stuff coming in a few months’ time.

All of this might seem like narcissistic navel gazing to some, but riders understand it deep down. I have to, otherwise Sean shooting away on the climbs would be discouraging. During our roll up to the Academy, I ask him how his training is going, and he confides that he’s focusing more on mountain biking this year and hasn’t ridden a great deal. Somehow this makes me feel better, but I know better than to trust a roadie telling me he hasn’t been riding much.

We round into the wind full on as we leave the south gate and enter the Air Force Academy proper. The road here is probably the best in the area. Undeveloped, smooth, little traffic and long climbs. Four climbs to be exact if one takes Pine to the left and does the entire ten mile loop. “What is the elevation?” one of the guys asks. “We top out at 7400. On the second climb.” I tell everyone to feel fine about leaving me behind, my legs are a bit tired, and we roll into the wind.

The first climb comes and I fall off the back with our team leader, Doug, and the U23 (Under 23) rider, Taylor. He’s actually U20 and spent a few weeks this summer riding in France and Belgium with Bruyneel’s camp. He’s supple on the bike and has that narrow look of younger riders, more greyhound than Clydesdale. I assume he’s being polite to stay with Doug and me as Sean and Steve have gone up the road in a fit of climbing exuberance. The climb is long, more than a mile, and I know there’s more to come, so I’ve settled into a hardish pace that I can keep for a while. Doug and Taylor move away and then come back and soon we’ve crested and begin the second climb to the high point. The views fall away to our right and, through the tall pines, we can see the mess that is Colorado Springs and the tree line of Black Forest to the north. On our left the foothills sometimes block the wind and sometimes funnel it directly at us. Sean and Steve are waiting at the pull out on top of the climb.

We eat bananas and powerbars and zip up for the descent.

“Turn left at the T-junction. There’s still two more climbs.” Doug says Oh, great, who picked this route? and we laugh and slot in for the short descent. The third hill is psychologically a challenge, it can be entirely seen from the descent, but it’s a power climb and I feel good and keep a nice tempo up it and stay with Doug and Taylor and watch the other two hit the top a few hundred meters ahead. The last climb comes after another descent and Taylor blows up and falls back with Doug, who offers a helping hand. It’s not long, but again one can see it coming and think about it too much before actually working on it. I know what comes next, the long descent to the B52 and a right turn where we’ll feel the wind’s hand on our back, helping us home.

Forty six years

2010-01-12T16:15:00.001+01:00

Yesterday was my birthday. The day before, it occurred to me that I was getting older. Not because of the hard ride my teammates on Colobikelaw put me through on a supposed ‘easy’ day on ‘flat’ roads southeast of Denver. After three hours of four-man echelons into the wind and chasing down escapees on the hills, it suddenly popped into my brain that thirty years ago I built my first wheel.

I was suddenly old.

Sixteen years old, riding my bike to a small bike shop on the north side of Milwaukee, in the ‘core’ of the projects on 23rd Street and Fond du Lac Avenue, I had no idea how the decision to apply for a job posted on the board at school would change me and the direction of my life. A couple of years earlier I had ridden my first century on a Sears Free Spirit ten speed, an abomination of a bicycle. Made with plumber’s pipe painted a dull mustard and fitted with the lowest tier of components available, it even sported ‘safety’ levers on the brakes. Riding one hundred miles on it, lap after lap through Whitnall Park for a March of Dimes fundraiser in 1978 did three things. First it destroyed the bike and launched my experience as a bicycle mechanic, then it showed me the delicious joy of riding for hours on a bicycle. I was hooked and started racing the next year on a Trek, before Trek was cool.

And it led me to a bicycle shop far away from my semi-suburban home on Milwaukee’s southwest side. About that same time I remember a story in the Journal about minority numbers in the different areas of the city. Our area, with a population of 10,000 had exactly three minority residents. I rode the city bus (or my bicycle) to my high school every day, a ten mile trip that took me past County Stadium and up through Pigsville. Marquette High was on 35th and Wisconsin Avenue and I never noticed before that every white person on the bus got off there and a crowd of black people stood waiting to get on. After two years, I rode the bus past Wisconsin for the first time and it hit me like a brick; I was the only white on the bus. Years later, I would have the same experience as a Peace Corps volunteer in a small village on the edge of the Kalahari.

I’ve been led to many places by my bikes. As I reflect on my life so far, there are few regrets, few lost opportunities to keep me awake with thoughts of what could have been. Perhaps it’s lingering fatigue from yesterday’s ride, but a sense of contentment is all that I find and a renewed excitement anticipating the time ahead.

A new year

2010-01-08T19:13:00.001+01:00

A painful blue sky backdrops the red stone formations of the Garden of the Gods. White then gray then dark mist coalesce into clouds riding the north wind south. It’s likely snowing just a few miles away on Woodmen Avenue. Here the sun penetrates the freezing wind and my left side is warm climbing Mesa’s two mile rise. My legs feel great; I’m sneaking a ride in before a predicted snow storm; every turn of the crank feels like a bonus, a reprieve from another session on the rollers.

It’s a new year, full of the possible, the improbable, the likely. Cycling-wise, I’ve joined a new team and have had the opportunity to ride with some good guys, good at cycling and good in the Aristotelian sense as well.

A new year also means a new training cycle. This week is my first week of Base 1 (Base 123, Build 123, etc) and I’ve had the chance to supplement a bit with xc skiing at 10000 feet in Breckenridge. Nothing like a good lungbuster workout with a better skier to push a limit.

Plans for 2010? Cycling: use my new TT bike to get better at the TT events up in Denver, develop a rapport with my team and work on winning races together, drop a few pounds and continue progressing in my fitness: increase my total hours to 600 this year. Build a bicycle frame.

Off the bike: Develop more friendships with adults, something that seemed to get harder as I got older. Spend good time with the family, continue keeping time to ride and be with Janet alone, hike a few 14 teeners, find time to write more.

All good things.

2009-12-26T19:22:00.002+01:00

The first twenty years

2009-12-16T04:38:00.001+01:00

Humans are funny, really. We take for granted the most important things in our lives, the love we share with others. Every once in a while we use arbitrary tools like holidays and anniversaries to wake ourselves up for a moment and realize for that fleeting moment what we have.

Today we rode our bikes under sunny Colorado skies in a kind of déjà vu of our lives nearly twenty years ago. The cold wind kept snapping my attention back to the woman spinning next to me and I don’t know if I’ve felt so close to her as now. We struggle in our lives, a climb up a twelve percent grade sometimes, but in the deepest part of ourselves we know that there will more moments of free motion, gliding with the wind at our backs.

And I smile in anticipation.

Happy anniversary Janet!

The swiss chard is dead

2009-12-08T18:31:00.001+01:00

Had to happen really, there was no way that we’d be able to eat swiss chard year round at 6500ft in Colorado, but I was secretly hoping. After Saturday’s excellent ride, the temps dropped and the snow began to fall on Sunday. It’s still falling.

We are assured by neighbors and friends that this is not normal. Yesterday I drove Karl over to his buddy’s house a mile away and learned something very important: these ultra-conservative types that run the government south of Denver walk their talk. They sincerely believe that God will take care of snow removal. Or perhaps they believe in that adage that “God helps those drive who shovel the roads themselves.” Regardless, this place makes Iowa snow removal look awfully good.

Today is Tuesday and I was hoping to get out with a riding buddy on Wednesday or Thursday for a long ride. Unless a miracle happens (see above, God, if you read my blog), I’m staring at a lot of hours on the rollers this week. This is where rollers move from being an occasional novelty, “Hey look, honey, I can ride with no hands.” to which twelve hour Tour dvd am I going to watch again. I’ll also need to think about which days are going to be my quality days with significant workout goals beyond time spinning in aerobic zones. That’s easy when there are sprints, hill climbs and the surging egos of our Saturday chain gang, but on rollers these things must be simulated. Here’s what the week looks like:

Sunday: easy one hour or so spin to recover from Sat’s 3 and a half hour training ride.

Monday: off, time to do some work on that online class!

Tuesday: Two hours on the rollers, with 2x20min reps in zone 3-4, okay, zone 4. Time to develop power and push the LT a bit. Maybe the 1998 Tour de France…

Wed: Easy one hour spin to loosen up the legs, time to reinflate that excercise ball and do some core work?

Thurs: See Tuesday. Should be on Stage 5 or 6 now, or maybe already into the mountains if they do those short summaries of the stages.

Fri: An hour and a half on the rollers for Spin-Ups! Such a happy sounding workout, just do ten reps of 30 sec maximum cadence spinning in a low gear. No bouncing in the saddle!

Sat: Is the snow melted yet? God are you reading? If the roads aren’t clear by now, it’s 3 hours of steady endurance pace on the rollers.

Sun: Note to self: Shoot yourself before you do this again.

Despite the ice

2009-12-06T16:10:00.001+01:00

Minnehaha Road twists down the side of Pilot Knob to Manitou Avenue at a twelve percent clip. Normally there’s a pothole just past the hairpin and some loose sand strewn above the road and in the middle of it, the rain leaving part of the hillside in the road. Today there is a sheet of ice and snow. It’s only .27 miles according to the computer, but I have a foot out and search for the gravel hiding under the snow at the edge of the road for a bit of purchase.

The thermometer reads 27 when I push off for the Saturday morning ride. I’m bundled in my winter riding clothes, some of which haven’t been worn since March. When was the last time I used the Lobster gloves? Can’t remember. Why am I headed out? Well two hours on the rollers yesterday is a motivator. The spectre of three more hours churning away on those instruments of torture were a great motivator. With the cold and snow forecasted for Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, I’ll be back on them soon enough.

I make it to the main avenue without sliding out and take over the center of the lane, the only clear spot where the concrete comes through the snow. Yesterday warmed up in the afternoon, right before the sun slid behind the peaks at 3pm and just long enough to melt some snow, which then quickly turned to ice. Today is supposed to warm again, all the way up to 40 and the process will be repeated. The lanes are increasingly clear as I descend with Fountain Creek towards the city. By the time I pass under the Welcome to Manitou Sign, I’m home free and thinking more of exposed face then sheets of ice.

I’m early to the coffee shop and get to wait ten minutes for the hardiest souls of the training group to show up. And they do, about fifteen of them. Bundled against the weather, sharing stories about the ice and snow and secretly feeling good about having the gumption to get out and ride today, this day being an oasis of warmth on the weather forecast, surrounded by temperatures in the teens and foreboding forecasts of snow and weather advisories.

Just read somewhere that the air resistance at 40 degrees is 6 percent higher than at 90. Seems like picking nits, but I hold onto this as an explanation of why I feel slow and sluggish this time of the year. Thick air and thick clothes. We’re all in the same boat as we head east on Platte. It’s been exactly five months since my first ride with the group, a hot day in early July where the air was thin, very thin and I spent a great deal of the ride hiding the fact that I couldn’t breathe. Today I pull the group most of the way for the warmup. Riders line up behind me, probably more of an effect of my generous draft then my mind-boggling speed. It’s OK; I’m warm now, the blood is flowing and I hit the sweet spot with my clothing: warm enough to keep out the draft, but still able to breathe enough to not leave me soaking wet in a plastic bag.

We turn south and hit the hill. I’m at the front and ride a smart tempo into the hill. I’m undergeared for this part of the ride, a 53x14 is my tallest gear, and I’m spinning at about 110 rpm as a rider sprints past and gaps the front of our group. Not sure why he’s doing this and that is the central idea in cycling, isn’t it? Energy should only be spent for a reason. It’s winter, we’re all bundled up, and there is no way in hell this guy is staying off the front by himself until the first sprint point in ten miles. Besides what’s the point? There’s no honor in winning a sprint in December. Eric jumps out to join him.

I pull them back. It takes about a mile and I see that I can spin my top gear and hold 32mph pretty comfortably. The small gear keeps me honest and spinning, building base. Later, I’m explaining to Eric, who’s been riding since July and is new to the sport, why I put the easy gears on. It’s not complicated: it’s base-building time and the small gears will prevent me from succumbing to the temptation of mashing the big gears. Time for that later on.

As we reel the escapee back in, I see he’s a new guy, big like me, but young. He’s angry with Eric for not working with him and even threatens to fight him. I tell Eric maybe that he was speaking metaphorically, but the big guy is new to the culture of the ride. He has no idea what he’ll feel like 45 miles from now as we hold a steady tempo back into the city. The other guys do and they’re saving they’re matches so they can finish well.

The sprint up Link Hill comes and goes. The big guy aggressively takes it from Eric and the rest of us enjoy their draft and spin up the hill. We’re into a slight wind right now, but any wind feels significant when it’s freezing outside. Miles later, we realize the hill has erased half of our group. I move to the back and it only five riders come by. Where did they go? The tiny, bossy woman frantically waving folks through to make a rotating paceline, the owner of a local bicycle business, the fellow wearing the USA team kit. Gone and we miss them, or at least their draft.

I’m enjoying the ride and soon the flat sprint comes and I spin away in our group. Eric and the big guy duke it out and I don’t see who wins. That’s Ok, we’ve got thirty miles to go back home and I feel lucky and alive and good.

A brick in time

2009-12-03T22:43:00.001+01:00

“A brick is a brick,, it is 20kms of training,, so 100kms you get 5 bricks,

Each brick is placed on the ground,(flat line) and when you have 10 bricks,

You start again on the bricks and build a wall.

So you have a wall with 5 layers of bricks on it,= 10000kms,

Target is 50 lines of bricks = 10,000

Easy peeezy” Geoff Smith, alias Bicycle Rider France, alias Old Sog Smith, alias my very good friend and mentor on two wheels

The snow is falling, lightly but stubbornly, and the temperature went 25 degrees below freezing last night and climbed to only twelve degrees below freezing today. No chance for a ride outside, not from our perch on top of Pilot Knob, until the sun burns off the slick roads.

Another day on the rollers. I have my Ghent Wevelgem dvd set up on the computer; it’s the 2005 edition of the race won by, not to be a spoiler four and a half years later, by Nico Mattan, a spunky little Belgian who passess Flecha in the last 100 meters of a nearly 5 hour race to win. Great stuff. I bring the wheels up to a spin and hit the Start button on the Garmin. We’re doing spinups today, a 15m warmup, then eight 30 sec low power, high cadence seated sprints with a five minute easy spin between each.

For the first two sprints, there is sludge in the legs. The cadence gets to 120rpm before the smoothness goes away and I get bouncy and have to throttle back a tad. The last six sprints are better, topping out at 135 before the bounciness appears. The point is to develop leg speed and a smooth spin.

After the third or fourth spinup, I notice how slowly the thirty seconds is passing. I’m not dying or anything, but each breath comes and goes and the seconds slow to a slowly measured trickle. I look up and see the break of six men slowly being brought back and then the five second beep, beep, beep, beep, beep and the monitor says Rest 5 min and everything in the world accelerates towards the next beep, beep, beep, beep, beep of the following interval. Time surges and pulls back in direct opposition to my effort on the bike. Criteriums are like this. 60 laps to go and then after the pulsing and contraction and expansion of efforts, four good efforts on each lap, it’s 3 laps to go and the the last laps take up most of the time as each motion, sound, click of a gear shift and touch of brake become a conscious mix in the mind, deserving notice, a thought, perhaps a reaction. The bell lap and then time stops. I age a year during the final four turns and then the shout, grimace, surge and dive down into the quiet of the effort and the line.

Spinups. I travel through time and watch the snow fall as I wind down. Nico wins the dramatic finish. I look at my monitor, ahh, one more brick.

First ride with team

2009-11-30T17:30:00.001+01:00

Cycling is a team sport. Many folks think otherwise, riding a bike is a solitary practice for them, culminating in the ultimate example of solo self-absorption, the triathalon. Americans have really bought into this perspective and even here, in Colorado Springs, home of the USOC and numerous coaching concerns, riders spend most of their time riding by their lonesome and the few teams that are here, seem to lack the cohesion to train together, let alone race together.

So I’m excited about joining a team, Colobikelaw, and doubly excited that they have a group of twelve guys or so that race the Master’s 35+ category 3 together and get results. And they have training rides to build cohesion.

Left to Right: Philip Capraro (35/4), Chris Sauer, Marco Capraro, Brian Hart, Colin Catel, Marco Horton, Jason Cherry, Steve Ruskaup, Ryan Muncy, Tim Cody, Doug Gordon, Brad Rolf

We met at Cafe Europa in Denver for a post-Thanksgiving ride to burn a little fat and to chew it as well. Several of the guys were new like me, some had upgraded from category 4 this year and this was our first chance to get to know each other and our riding styles.

Sounds so complicated, this riding the bike in a group, but so much of what happens in a race depends on what you know of your teammates, their personalities, desires, abilities. I’m descending with a fellow six inches in front of my wheel at 50 miles an hour; I need to know what he does when there’s a pothole, or gravel in the road. I need to know if he keeps pedaling when he gets out of the saddle on a climb or slides backwards for a moment. In a race, is he the guy that chases down a break and can hold it, or does he have the big sprint for a finish? These are things that you get to know on training rides.

Doug is our team leader and is immediately dropped as we head to the bike path and Invesco Field. We don’t realize this for five miles. First rule: do not drop your team leader. It’s not his fault, the pace was way too hot for warming up and we were dodging in and out of side roads and turns on the trail. We reconnected after a phone call and sending Marco back down the trail.

We ride to Golden and then the group decides against the climb up Lookout Mtn and instead adds a few more k’s of rolling terrain north of Denver. It’s a bit cold, 40 degrees or so, but the sun stays bright. The group surges and retracts, over and over again. A rotating paceline is started and then stalls as young Marco needs a push to pull off. Gaps form as riders pulling off don’t ease up and we talk about all of it, part of the process.

One of the hardest things about group riding, especially in the states, is that strong riders always feel the need to pound their chests, ride their bikes as hard as they can, even to the detriment of the group’s cohesion. I always come back to my Wed outings with Geoff in southern France, ‘Tranquil, tranquil, Chris.’ as we would head out on the long ride with some really good riders. The object was always to be riding the same pace five hours later, together.

Later, when we’re sitting a table outside the cafe, sipping lattes, one of the strong fellows says, ‘When I ride, I ride hard.’ We laugh later when the same guy declines the idea of riding a team time trial. There’s much more to this riding game then just being strong. As crusty old Geoff said a few years ago, riding now is 70 percent mental and 30 percent physical, while in our more youthful days it was the opposite. I try to explain this to young Marco during the ride as he sprints out ahead of the group and then fades. Save your strength, use it to be smooth and do things that help the group.

Sounds like good advice to live by in general.

Thanksgiving day riding

2009-11-27T19:18:00.001+01:00

A little bit of everything

2009-11-25T16:20:00.001+01:00

Winter is almost here and the air is cold and thick and penetrates our skimpy layers. The long downhill to 26th Street and the run up Gold Camp Road leaves a chill in the bones that sticks until we’re half way up the climb. Janet and I split up in the Broadmoor; she heading back up to Manitou and me doing a bit larger loop through town, up Mesa and around the Garden of the Gods.

2009/11/24 Import
Find more Others in Manitou Springs, Colorado

Ubermensch to Jedermensch

2009-11-20T17:30:00.001+01:00

“Mature Fantasy Store” says the sign over the strip mall, lending new meaning to ‘strip’. I’m sitting in the sun, out of the north wind, in front of a wall mural shouting patriotic support for our troops, and watching as car after car park at the end of the lot, SUVs and trucks mostly, and indeed mature men file into the store with no windows. No one comes out. Why is it that the most conservative Christian parts of the US have the most strip joints and XXX shops?

I’m waiting on Mike, a teammate from Colorado Bike Law, the team I’ve joined. We’re going to ride east of the Springs today, destination a bit uncertain, but there’s a strong north wind and the temps will peak at 45 degrees a few hours from now. I can see the slopes of Pikes Peak from where I sit and the white blanket of snow has spread farther down the slope and even onto the north facing foothills surrounding my home. It’s getting colder.

Suddenly a furry face, and I’m being licked by a large German Shepherd, and then another romps up with his jaws open wide, not in some kind of canine threat, but because a ball is lodged about as far back as it can fit. I fish it out and toss it and then a smoking man turns the corner. Toss, fetch, toss, fetch and then they jump on me again.

After a quick phone message, a figure shoots south on Peterson Road. How many fit cyclists are out today? I hop on the bike and follow suit and discover there is yet another strip mall on the other side of Powers. We settle on the southern route that we ride with the training group on Saturday mornings, south to Fountain, south a bit more and then back north on El Paso and across Ft. Carson. The wind is at our backs and the sun is on our faces and we live in that brief moment of cycling bliss when all is right with the world. We know it’s temporary, but that is what makes it so wonderful right now.

I’ve been fighting a cold virus and feeling pretty crappy the past few days. Janet and I rode yesterday before her flight to Pittsburgh and it felt good to stretch the legs and get the blood pumping after two days of moping around and doing laundry. Today I’m not sure if I’m recovered from yesterday’s short ride, but I feel pretty good at the turnaround, forty two miles and not yet two hours into our effort. Of course, the next twenty five miles will take two and a half hours, but as I explain to Mike, one of the great benefits of my fancy power meter is that I can focus on the power number instead of the speed. Coming south, we were averaging over 25mph, closer to 30, but the wattage was floating around 150, an easy effort. Coming back north, into that cold wind snapping the flags straight (who ever said patriotism was useless?) the power number is sitting right at 300, climbing to 400 on the slight rollers. I can feel good about that on a day that started with a sore throat and sniffles.

Our conversation ranges from politics to wardrobe malfunctions to time trial bikes and back to politics. We’re getting to know each other. As an adult male, it’s fascinating to be aware of the friending process that happened unconsciously to me as a kid. Janet and I are so focused on friendships for Johann and Karl, we sometimes neglect attending to the process for ourselves.

Soon, we are at the corner of Tejon and Arvada. A tap of the fists, an invite to dinner and we’re off in our separate directions, Mike back to the ride start for him and me 600 feet back up to Manitou just in time to pick up the kids.

Larkspur

2009-11-12T19:55:00.001+01:00

A naked man sits on the edge of his bed, a spaghetti of bright lycra mounded next to him. The order of dressing is dictated by the weather outside, cool, gray and windy, also from the purpose of the day, a long ride along the front range, five or six hours in the saddle. The socks are first, then the legwarmers and armwarmers. I’m an unusual sight, but the door is closed. Heart rate monitor strap around the chest and then an underlayer for the torso. Red big shorts and with the straps now over the shoulders, he’s starting to feel clothed. A long sleeved wool jersey, Campagnolo emblazoned across the back declaring my affinity for expensive bike bits from Italy, but something only a few people will understand, and I’m ready to load the back pockets.

The air is warm outside, but descending the valley road to town, things cool off and soon my breath is visible as I wait at the stoplight for my left turn onto Cascade. Mike rolls up a few minutes late; he also spent time waiting at stop lights en route (who says that cyclists are all scofflaws?) and we roll north towards Palmer Lake and then Larkspur.

Living in Manitou Springs presents a challenge for me. If I head west on a ride, uphill, it basically means riding hard for an hour or two and then coasting downhill back home at ridiculous speeds. If I head the other direction, we live in a valley, it means coasting downhill into a not-so-bicycle-friendly city and then choosing between the wastelands south and east of town or the hills north. I don’t want to diss Colorado Springs too much; city fathers have made an effort to create bicycle lanes and put up Share the Road signs when it isn’t possible to make a lane, but riding in the area for a few months now, I get the distinct impression that someone did this purely at random, perhaps with a blindfold, map and a tail with a pin in it.

Beyond the faux bike lane planning is the fact that most people in the Springs are trying to kill me.

True. Although my head is on a swivel and I peer into every empty parked car and look through every intersection to guess the intentions of each participant in our traffic dance, someone tries to kill me. Mike, too. This time it’s a Hummer H3, black with tinted windshields, trying to run us off the narrow Jackson Creek Parkway, which runs parallel to Interstate 25. When someone tries to kill you, it’s a flight or fight response. Flight is impossible, so we shout, scream, wave our impotent fists in the air at the tinted rear windshield. The little bit of adrenaline gives me a push up the hill, maybe H3 is stopped at the light.

Our run today takes us to the Speedtrap Coffee shop in Palmer Lake. It’s a weekly stop for me now. They close at 1, long before our loop to Larkspur brings us back, so we enjoy a quick and legal PED (performance enhancing drug), half a bagel with cheese. A bottle refill and we’re climbing the rest of the Palmer Divide. Two miles and then it’s fun time, downhill with a tailwind. There is nothing better on a bike. Free speed, everything quiet, on a smooth road and then Perry Lake Road appears far too fast and we’re on rollers trending upwards to Larkspur. ‘Should we go a bit farther north?’ Mike asks before the turn. Naw, we’ll be right on 90 miles for the ride by Manitou and it’s time to pay for the tailwind.

The road south to Palmer Lake, Spruce Mountain Rd., is relentless in a flat, treeless, hill five miles away kind of way. I look down for awhile and watch the pavement flow beneath my wheels. I look up and that far away hill is still there. The wind slows us to 15, then 13 as we climb. The computer tells me it’s a 3 percent grade, even though the road appears to be flat-lined. The hill is 7 percent and we keep a decent pace up and then it’s flat again. The faux plat.

The constant pressure on the pedals is excellent training and we use the time to talk about ourselves, local races, training philosophies, friends we’ve made, new equipment. Palmer Lake arrives and I’m surprised we’re actually 50 feet higher here than the summit at Spruce Mountain.

It’s all downhill from here to town.

Two standard deviations

2009-11-09T19:11:00.001+01:00

Friday, easy ride today around the Garden of the Gods, maybe hit a climb hard to open the legs up. The sun is out and the sky is ridiculously blue. Just past the rondpoint on the west side of town, a tourist is trying to read the signs in the shops and slows to five miles an hour, I slide through the gap on the right side just as a trike with a leathered up biker on top moves to the right, towards a parking spot. I move to the left anticipating a pass. Suddenly he swings the trike to the left also to do a U-turn in the middle of the block. I hit the brakes and skip on the cobbles in the meridian.

It’s amazing how fast the mind works. Instead of spewing invective and cursing his pets in front of people that know me (Hey, that new guy on Pilot Knob is a real wacko), it’s ‘Hey, buddy, where did you learn how to drive?’ He doesn’t like this, ‘You shouldn’t pass on the left.’ Retort, ‘You shouldn’t try to kill me by crossing two solid yellow lines.’ And now we’re past each other.

I’m angry, way too angry for what’s just happened. A couple of turns of the crank and thoughts about my meeting a couple of days before begin leaking out and I understand where the anger is coming from. Wednesday morning Janet and I met with Johann’s IEP team. IEP means Individual Learning Plan. If you enjoy acronyms, you’ll love the world of education, where acronyms are a convenient way to refer to people and their needs. ELLs? As in I’ve got a bunch of ELLs in my classroom aren’t a kind of bug or type of computer, they’re kids who speak a different language at home. You could call them LEPs in some states, or NNSs if you’re more theoretically bent.

In my sons’ educational worlds, we’ve been focused on having them seen, referred to and treated as kids. Unfortunately, that isn’t enough for some folks who feel a need to quantify who they are with ‘instruments’ and ‘probes’ to find evidence of who they are that is readily evident if you get to know each of them.

‘Our hands are tied. In order for your son to get paraprofessional support, we have to do ‘cognitive' testing.’ Intelligence. Some test results from the battery of other tests already done are pushed across the table. Look, see where your son is testing? His scores are below the large white space in the middle. This is somehow meaningful. An estimated age equivalent is scribbled next to the table, 7 years, 6 months. So precise! There is strong magic in the precision of the test, a test normed on the folks swimming in the middle of the bell curve. ‘We need to do an IQ test to rule out cognitive deficits.’ Hmm, have you taken an IQ test as well? Nervous laughter. Why don’t we put all of our IQ cards on the table?

Raised voices now, this is getting personal. How will an IQ score help you teach him better? We gave you a box of ‘evidence’ before we came; I don’t think you looked at it too closely. ‘Now we need the numbers.’ The bait and switch.

We are so concerned about separating those that belong from those that don’t. When my son was born, I saw a long line of ‘services’ leading to a life of separation, wiping tables at McDonald’s, living in a ‘home’ with others separated from the rest of the normal people. He was one week old when we were told about a special school forty miles from our home in Iowa where ‘his needs would be met.’ I got angry then and told the ‘team’ they had five years to plan on him being in our local school two miles away.

‘Have you met with local families who have children with Down’s?’ I look at the nurse, ‘Wouldn’t that be like a meeting of amputees?’ I know she’s trying to be helpful, but she doesn’t know us, our family, my son. I know the reason that a Down’s group might be useful would be to fight a system of separate but equal, a habit of pulling out those different ones who don’t belong. My team is the system and we’ll have that fight now, thank you. ‘Your son is two standard deviations below the norm.’ Let me translate: Your son is two standard deviations below being fully human.

I push into the climb, red rocks in the sun, pinion pine in the air; I feel the wind on my face and let the anger flow through my limbs. I’m alive; I feel the pain, gravity resisting my will, the sweat and stink of the real world reminding me that I’m alive. The struggle of life is not antiseptic and defies measurement. I laugh at the crest and dive down the apex of the turn.

We are all two standard deviations away from something, otherwise we would all be the same.

Quantitative and the Qualitative

2009-11-01T19:46:00.001+01:00

Saturday morning training ride numbers:

Easy ride down to the start, sticking to the even grade of Colorado Avenue, no traffic, no wind, lots of sun

Duration:      22:59 (30:09)
    Work:          127 kJ
    TSS:           7.7 (intensity factor 0.447)
    Norm Power:    143
    VI:            1.55
    Pw:HR:          -46.25%
    Pa:HR:          22.77%
    Distance:      6.844 mi
    Elevation Gain:        516 ft
    Elevation Loss:       1039 ft
    Grade:         -1.5 % (-525 ft)

Ride starts with an easy seven mile roll to the east side of town, we average around 20mph and the group sticks together. At Mark Dabling Rd. we turn south and hit the hill at race speed, position is important, towards the front and push up the hill and we crack into the thirties and the group is now a long string. Rotate on and off the front, raise the tempo and we’re in the high thirties, the road rolls away beneath us and I hear no one talking behind me; they are just trying to breathe.

Duration:      1:08:14 (1:11:39)
    Work:          830 kJ
    TSS:           78.1 (intensity factor 0.83)
    Norm Power:    265
    VI:            1.31
    Pw:HR:          0.93%
    Pa:HR:          -27.65%
    Distance:      27.636 mi
    Elevation Gain:        1420 ft
    Elevation Loss:       2139 ft
    Grade:         -0.5 % (-719 ft)
                          Min    Max    Avg
    Power:           0    1115    203     watts
    Heart Rate: 98    167    145     bpm
    Cadence:       17    178    81     rpm
    Speed:           0    37.8    24.2     mph
    Pace             1:35    0:00    2:29     min/mi

After the last sprint we roll easy and pick up the riders jettisoned from the pack, most do go off the back. After a few miles we’re all together and the tempo picks up a bit, maybe around 22mph as we go into a slight north wind. My legs have felt sluggish all ride and this makes me feel good; I’m now able to participate, belong, on a sub-par physical day.

Duration:      2:06:34 (2:31:24)
    Work:          1318 kJ
    TSS:           99.1 (intensity factor 0.686)
    Norm Power:    220
    VI:            1.26
    Pw:HR:          5.53%
    Pa:HR:          29.24%
    Distance:      34.108 mi
    Elevation Gain:        3806 ft
    Elevation Loss:       2539 ft
    Grade:         0.7 % (1267 ft)
                           Min    Max    Avg
    Power:           0    955    174     watts
    Heart Rate:   80    160    133     bpm
    Cadence:         19    155    74     rpm
    Speed:           0    28.9    16.1     mph
    Pace               2:05    0:00    3:44     min/mi
    Altitude:        5359    6775    5988     ft
    Crank Torque:    0    1101    200     lb-in

‘My wife left me. She got the kids up earlier than usual and left the house before I got up. Then she texted me and told me to pack and get out of the house.’

Amazing how words can change things, alter an environment, nudge what we think is true to another place. We’re standing in front of a Starbuck’s on Tejon in Colorado Springs. It’s warm, a wonderful day to do something we’ve been doing together for a while now, ride our bikes in a big circle. People are laughing, leaning over their handlebars, feeling the sun burn through the cool air and heat the lycra stretched across backs and arms. Eric has stopped talking and I look up at him. A few seconds ago, this was just pre-ride banter and now he has just said something very important, much too important. I look up and see him, his face is open, honestly listening to what I will say in return. Over his shoulder one of the women on our ride is also listening as spectator, interested in our conversation.

‘She left me because I’m riding too much.’ And it’s true, Eric is riding much more in the last few months than he has in his seventeen year marriage. He’s also dropped fifty five pounds and feels good about himself for the first time in a long time. ‘She says I look unhealthy.’ But it’s not about that. It’s not about the cycling, the time spent in the saddle; it’s about the discrepancy between who he was and who he is now. He’s changed and his wife is confronted with where she is now. It would be presumptuous to give advice, so I tell him about my marriage.

Twenty years ago, I was scared silly about committing to a relationship with someone that wasn’t going the same direction as myself. We fall in love with people all of the time, I still do, but what occurred to me twenty years ago and what still seems true is that we often fall in love with someone at a common meeting place, but on the way to somewhere completely different. Make the connection there without realizing this and soon the bond is getting pulled at, snapping when the roads are far apart. I remember telling Janet this metaphor in a tent pitched in a Bulawayo, the scent of Jacaranda falling around us, moments before we decided to get married.

Twenty years is a long time for two individuals to change, and we have, but we haven’t just changed, we’ve grown and were lucky enough at twenty five to have enough self knowledge to make a reasonable guess that we were growing in the same way. Lucky.

Eric is growing, cycling is his new found medium, and any advice that I could give him would be to look for opportunities to allow her into the joyful world he’s discovered. It’s so easy not to, hoarding the experience for yourself, developing new relationships, confronting new challenges and feeling rising fitness and self-esteem. So tempting to keep it all. I give some advice. Plan time to ride together. Give her time to exercise with friends and work to facilitate it. I think of what I’ve learned the hard way. I’m smiling and see that the woman behind Eric is smiling too.

We push off across the intersection. She’s wants him to come home. She’s started running.

Culture of the bike

2009-10-28T20:11:00.001+01:00

Any group of cyclists is a culture onto itself, a unique combination of personalities, skills, rules and mores for the time that group is riding together. Moving from a culture of riders I was comfortable with for the past eight years in Dubuque and trying to fit in with a new group of riders here in Colorado has been a personal challenge, one that helps me to understand the dynamics my kids are facing at school, making new friends, understanding what’s done and what isn’t done.

I make mistakes even when I’m certain I’m not. On a ride in southern France a few years ago, I was on the front of small and diverse group of very good riders. I’d been in country for several weeks already and had dropped the beat-your-chest riding style of most American group rides and was riding calmly next to Steve, the U23 road champ of Britain. Steve’s a great guy, it turns out, but in the middle of our first ride together he grabbed my arm and let loose with a string of obscenities. “What the f--- are you doing? You think you’re better than me? I’ll kick your a—any day of the week.” The last few sentences give the gist of what was said. I was confused; moments before I’d been so pleased to be riding with this group, and now I’d done something that must have been on par with killing ‘is mum. “You’re f---in’ half-wheeling me!” Another slew of obscenities. Half-wheeling is when one rider, riding abreast of another at the front of a paceline, nudges his wheel in front of the other. This causes the other to accelerate slightly to compensate. The other rider again nudges forward and again the other rider has to accelerate. You can see why this would be uncomfortable after awhile. To this day, however, I’m certain I never half-wheeled Steve. I think he just wanted an opportunity to vocally demonstrate his position in the group, which was certainly above me.

All of this is unsaid, except for the obscenities of course. I need to earn my position in the group by demonstrating my fitness over time.

Flash forward a couple of years and there is Chris riding on the Saturday morning ride in Colorado Springs. Riding with the group since the first week of July, this was probably my twelfth or fourteenth time out. Folks know my name; I chat with people in the paceline; heck, I even took a sprint a couple of weeks ago. So, I wasn’t prepared for the drama of the ride as we approached the hill sprint on Link Road.

We were really rocking as we headed south and Cody and I floated to the front and drove the pace to about 40 for a few miles, alternating pulls. We were going into a wind, so it made sense for the two biggest guys to be on the front for a bit. The spring was miles away and there was time to recover for it, but when the group heads south, it’s definitely race time. Guys work for teammates and small breaks try to happen and they get chased down by other folks. Every time for fourteen times that’s the way it’s been.

A mile before the sprint, I’m taking a breather and come off the front and three guys come by. A gap, no one else wants the wind, so I slot in at fourth wheel. Two guys are Spike teammates and one in all gray is obviously a friend; not one has taken a single pull to this point. They do a quick rotation and the gray guy tries to wave me through as I just ride in the rocking chair off the last wheel of the rotation. I decline, still catching my breath and not wanting to get attacked before the hill sprint after a pull. He waves more vigorously and I decline and he shakes his head in disgust. I grunt and tell him to do something to himself. He is offended, but weighs all of 130 pounds. I ignore him and he continues to rant about what a idiot I am on the bike. I realize he is a Kiwi, and likely a visiting pro. The hill sprint comes and goes and we surge to the next sprint. He shouts for folks to pull through, no one wants to and I’m still in first six wheels, surfing folks moving up and staying out of the heavy wind. Another rider I’ve never seen before, this one is a Stars and Stripes outfit, tells me to take a pull.

‘Why?’

Quizzical look on her face.

‘Why should I pull through? Are we on a team ride? Will it help me in the sprint ahead?’

‘This isn’t the world championships.’ Well, duh. But it is a race simulation in the middle of a long training ride with a bunch of guys from different teams. I’m not going to be bullied into pulling other people into sprint finish with a headwind.

For some reason this bothers me for a while during and after the ride. Cody, drafting me into each of the sprints rides up behind the gray rider and loudly complains about little riders making noise about pulling when they were no where to be seen during the first part of the ride. Of course I’ve cleaned up the language a bit.

Later, I realize it’s about pecking order and the constant psychological games that riders play with each other, especially in the heat of a hard ride. My dog does the same thing with other dogs and I guess cyclists are doomed to behave in the same manner with each other.

Thank goodness we don’t pee all over the place.

A week in review

2009-10-27T17:36:00.001+01:00

Before writing about Saturday’s weekly training ride with the group at Starbuck’s on Tejon, getting the pics downloaded from the last week and a little commentary about two significant rides is definitely in order.

Saturday

Drove up to Parker to ride with prospective teammates on ColoBikeLaw’s 35+ Masters cat 3 team. With just four guys, hills and wind, our 62 miles together had a higher average power output than riding with the group on Saturday mornings. No where to hide, and I didn’t need a powermeter to figure out that we were working hard.

A couple of moments: “So what do I need to do next to be on this team?” Phillipe with a completely serious face, “Well, write a three to four page essay about why you want to be on the team.” General laughter, but a few minutes later we learn that Phillipe really did write an essay. Harder laughter.

“You look like Jan Ulrich.” Hmm.

“Let’s bike into Watkins.” A few minutes later, “Is this it?”

Sunday

Long spin with Karl down to ‘the Springs’ on the bike path and then north to UCCS and back through the Garden of the Gods (above, looking at Cheyenne Mtn to the south).

Monday

There’s really no reason to go to Hannover, CO except to go through it on the way to somewhere else. Dodging tumble weeds blowing across the road at twenty miles an hour, enjoying the fragrances from the Fountain City Dump was balanced by the complete lack of traffic and the opportunity to say I’ve been to Hannover, a statement the few in the Springs can make.

Notes for next time: bring extra water, unless you want to knock on the door of that seriously scary looking trailer again. (above, heading back, and up and into (the wind), to the front range. A glimpse into how the area looked fifty years ago before 400,000 people moved in).

Tuesday

Shortened ride with Janet through the Garden of the Gods. Life intrudes and the weather is turning cool. A nice recovery ride from yesterday’s windy, 85 mile effort.

Wednesday

Snow and sleet are always a good excuse to squeeze in a rest day.

Thursday

Dust off the rollers and do an easy spin. Is that a sore throat coming on?

Friday

A harder effort on the rollers as life again intervenes and the kids are home for another break from school.

Green Eggs and Yak

2009-10-09T14:05:00.001+02:00

In a hundred miles the ride can go from the ecstasy of 30mph with a tailwind for twenty miles to a relentless wind layered over an unmoving horizon, a straight, treeless line, thin lipped except for the slight smile of a faux plat a few miles ahead. How quickly we forget the ecstasy and dwell on the single digit speed and the tight weakness in the legs.

I glance back up, that is one shaggy buffalo. Wait. Beefalo? Holstein colors and long hair.

“Organic Yak Meat” reads the sign a few minutes later. www.greeneggsandyak.com. Who knew?

We trundle on.

The forecasts these days on the front range of the Rocky Mountains extend from 70 and sun to 20 and snow. Weather.com is the cyclist’s friend and Wednesday’s forecast was beautiful, sunny and almost seventy; definitely a time to ride, especially with snow predicted for the weekend.

Yesterday Janet and I climbed Ute Pass to Woodland Park and today my legs were still feeling a tad sore from the effort and reminded me of that as I climbed through the Garden of the Gods. The sun was out, though, and the tourists were snug in their beds and the road was a glorious ribbon holding my spinning wheels. Here I was heading out on a long ride along the mountains. Desert smells brought me back to our time in southern France a few years ago. Instead of cork oak on the sides of the Alberes, there was Gamble oaks on the sides of Red Mountain and the Colorado foothills.

In and out of the Garden, then through the north side of Colorado Springs and it’s urban traffic and soon I was knocking on Brady’s door in Gleneagle, across from the Air Force Academy. We had a tail wind and it pushed us through Monument, Palmer Lake and Perry Lake. When we crested the Palmer Divide, the road began a gradual downhill to our turn east on Wolfensberger Road. Then we paid.

There is a mesa in front of us, to our left, and the road seems intent on climbing it. The pitch rises to 8, then 10 then 11 percent. Anything above 6 percent hurts. Double that and I’m in difficulty. We climb and climb and the road moves away and then back to the mesa. This is hurting a bit much and I shift down and back off the effort. The wattage drops below 300 and let Brady venture out in front of me. Goals for this fine fall day? Get out on the bike and turn the pedals for five or six hours. Snow is going to cancel the Sat morning ride and the rollers are looming large for the weekend. A long effort now will carry me over until the warm weather returns next week. I’m building my base now for next season, my first season racing here in Colorado and I want to do it right.

We descend into Castle Rock and scan for a coffee shop. The flags are nearly stiff and pointing north, so we’ll need something to perk us up for the ride home into the wind. Daz Bog beckons from a corner and we slip in for a latte and croissant. Sixty miles in and just forty five back to Manitou. Gilbert Street and then Lake Gulch road take us towards home and we again are going up, up the Palmer Divide.

Time to pay for the ecstasy and restore the balance.

From the porch

2009-10-05T16:29:00.001+02:00

Mist hangs over Ruxton canyon and the sun is working to burn its way through to the hillsides. Blue can be seen if you look straight up, so we know it’s going to be sunny this morning. The damp brings out the smell of pine and earth, and the air is thicker again, if just for awhile.

Today is a day for hanging out the laundry, putting together a shopping list and planning a couple of meals. Karl is home and Johann has a late start at school, so a hike on the Intemann trail halfway up Red Mountain (middle of the picture above) might be in order. No bike time today, maybe gluing on a new tubular as the rear has threads showing.

I love it when I can wear a tire completely out.

The wind is the fat guy’s friend

2009-10-04T18:52:00.001+02:00

Well, even the larger-than-average guy’s friend.

Bundled up against the just above freezing temps, I could feel the southeast wind pushing through the layers of clothes. Should I have worn the vest? the heavier winter mits? the full winter bib? The sun was out and the black lycra warmed and soon Bijou and Tejon was in front of me and I found a warm spot in the sun in front of the Starbucks.

Cody popped out of the bagel shop next door, dressed in his summer kit. ‘Do the tattoos keep you warm?’ He looked at me like I was dressed by my mommie. I know the thermometer read 37 when I left the house, but I was still reassured when some other guys rolled up with arm and leg warmers and winter hats.

About thirty rolled out of town, a good showing for a cold Saturday in October. The group dodged broken glass, bits of scrap iron and wood and the occasional rednecked F150 driver flipping us off for taking a third of a lane on Platte when two and a third were still available. The pace picked up on the climb by Academy and Byron from East Lansing says ‘I feel a recovery week coming on.’ Echelons keep forming to the left as the wind spreads us out, the older, wiser crowd find spots to the left of the wheel in front and the pace slows as the turn south approaches.

I’m feeling good today, a good week of cycling as opened up the legs and none of the achy congestion of last week remains. It takes a couple of hard standing revs and I move up to fifth wheel. We’re going into the wind now and a couple of guys sprint off the front to crest the hill. They’ll be back. I’m not feeling generous today and keep my pulls short as we sweep south towards Link Hill, the first sprint. We’ve got an assortment of riders on the front today and I’m choosy whose wheel I take. Cody wants me to fill a gap behind a guy with hairy legs riding a mid-80’s Trek with downtube shifters, knees splayed to the sides, and I decline. He fills it and I follow him, a wall of exposed flesh with an awfully nice draft. Another good wheel is a fellow with a real Posties kit on, perhaps Creed or another former Lance underling. He’s solid and predictable and I notice he leaves a huge gap behind the guy with hairy legs.

With the wind, the little guys who normally torture us on the run-up to the hill sprint are quiet, timidly following in our slipstreams. The pace slows to 24mph and we ramp up the hill, Clay coming around Cody and I to take the sprint. I feel good and save a lot for the second, flat sprint coming in ten miles. Clay, someone I just met on the warmup, gets a slap on the back. Cody says he faded badly at the top, but he still nipped us. His prime? He gets to pull the group down the hill.

The second sprint south of Fort Carson is more typical for me. Time changes, moves and elongates as the distances stretch and a meter grows longer. Thoughts aren’t complete, more like perceptions, clipped Twitter-like ideas like: green will sprint, stay five back, where’s Cody the big Ape, right gear, one smaller, Cody is shifting and lifting out of the saddle, jump now, hard, hard. How many meters have passed? 30? Cody gains an initial two bike gap as Hairy Legs is flustered by someone flying past, and then I come past and he snorts a ‘holy shit’ and I don’t hear him any more. I come by Cody and suddenly I’m out front. The sign goes by and I sit up and coast. Today I didn’t feel the effort and feel like I could do it again. A good feeling.

Our tempo ride back to town is punctuated by a stop at the 7-11 in Fountain, where we reach over the back of the counter to fill our bottles, and an ID check entering the base at Fort Carson. After filling my bottles, I introduce myself to a fellow in a CoBikeLaw jersey. I contacted them last week about joining their Masters team. Mike and I talk for the rest of the ride to Colorado Springs. He’s ridden a great deal in Italy with his friend’s cycling company and raced all over the west. We talk about travel, riding in Europe and the people we’ve grown to lover there and I finish the ride up to Manitou feeling that maybe I’ve found a niche in this crazy, beautiful place after all.

A week on the rear

2009-09-24T18:33:00.001+02:00

There is now a certain comfort in the routine of the Saturday training ride in Colorado Springs. People are beginning to look familiar, their riding styles apparent, even while focusing on the 23 millimeter width of their rear tire from behind, and I’m even remembering some names. Cody stands out, a fellow has large as I am, arms and legs tatooed and a ready comment in the pack. One of the few fellows in whose draft I can really recover after a long pull. I readily give up my place in the paceline when I’m behind one of the 90 pound women and search for Cody. It must be reciprocal because he’s close enough behind me that I can hear him breathe.

Patterns and routines, moving from week to week, and then year to year. During our ride Saturday, under brilliant blue skies and an easy breeze, I felt the first twinges of winter in my legs. The first year I was taken by surprise; what’s wrong with me, my legs just don’t have it and I’ve been training so hard. Now I know that I’m coming up against my annual week off the bike, an annual chance to scrub the fatigue accumulating in my body and mind and begin the training process anew.

As we head south, I take my turn pulling into the breeze. I take the first turn, as we lack the heavy hitters of previous weeks who turn the screws the first chance they get. So I hit the front, put some pressure on the pedals and crest the rise at 27mph and glance back. Cody comes by and pushed the pace again. He seriously enjoys putting the hurt on the smaller riders. Into the wind, mass has its advantages. I let a few riders slide by and take a turn again. Rinse and repeat. This is now easy and the miles tick off to the first sprint point. A tired sensation begins to boil up from my quads and I push it back down. We turn east and I can see the road rising and then the final rise to the sprint. I’m positioned well, on the outside of the line, maybe six bikes back and it’s all about relaxation and spin here. People work to get behind me and I hear Cody’s laugh; he’s pushed his way in, another advantage of mass.

But I’m tired. I suddenly realize this and three of the riders fade back to the right. I’m second wheel and know that I have nothing in the tank, the hill is going to hurt bad. I say in a conversational voice, ‘Want a leadout?’ ‘Hell, yes’ floats back and I dig into the downhill and move off the front with Cody in tow. We touch 40 and then I sprint into the side of the hill, digging myself into a deep hole of pain. Two thirds of the way up, Cody comes by in full sprint and I fade, fade away through 30 riders standing on the hill. Two of Lance’s Livestrong riders come slowly by and I go over the hill last in the group, hanging on, but spent.

One of Cody’s charges, a fellow he’s coaching for triathalons, asks why in the world I would lead out Cody and give up my chances. ‘That’s what makes bike racing so much more interesting than triathalons,’ I tell him. He ponders this as we spin north back the twenty miles to town.

So, it’s a week off the bike. An attempt at a ride on Monday to meet folks in the cold rain at UCCS was aborted as my legs felt like two pieces of timber. Fatigue from the move, from acclimating to the elevation, from the increasing time on the bike can lead to other bad things if I don’t rest. The forecast of four days of snow, sleet and general wet, nasty weather aided the decision.

We’ll start the next season this Saturday with the gang at Bijou and Tejon.

When you’re down

2009-09-17T21:52:00.001+02:00

Note to self: anytime I’m feeling a little blue about my situation, take a ride on Upper Gold Camp Road until the pavement gives out and there is only a view for miles to the east and ribbon of asphalt trickling back down the mountain.

The air is moist from yesterday’s downpour and I’m rested from a day of watching rain fall on my parched vegetable garden. The squash are starting to flower again, what is the suggested annual allowance of zucchini for one person? Whatever it is, I remember clearly why we hadn’t planted it in Iowa for the past five seasons. I’m a little frustrated with how things are developing at the university. Maybe not frustrated, but just missing what I had at Divine Word, camaraderie, challenge, friendship, a shared mission and wonderful students. I’m thinking about this as I pull on my kit, stretching the legs a bit to get into the Castelli shorts, optimistically sized an XL when a XXL was really needed. When I get those climber legs…

I take Minnehaha on the west side of town down to Manitou. There’s construction just below us on Illinois and the rains washed rock, sand and gravel onto the

road in wide swaths. I remember Karl sliding sideways two weeks ago and holding it up; we didn’t tell mom about that. Post Labor Day Manitou is almost normal; the rondpoint is free as I buzz through, the cassette clicking and an older tourist, children no longer at home, glances up from the curiosity shop window. The speed limit is 20 through town and I can easily coast that, so I arrive at the base of 26th, not so warmed up, in fact chilled would be a better word, but a sunny climb beckons and I turn south and face Cheyenne Mountain, erstwhile home of VP Cheney when he was hiding from the bad guys after 9-11.

The road begins with a steep push past Butt Park (I kid you not) and soon the Red Rocks Open Space sprawls into the distance on the right. The climb is steepest right now and my stiff muscles work to pound out a rh

ythm. Keep it at 330 watts or so, my threshold, this is a five mile climb and I want to pick it up at the end. Bear Creek Park passes on my left, a beautiful road drops off steeply in the middle of a switchback. A quick push and we’re back to five and six percent. No one passes and I see a clot of people ahead on a pullout. The NBC television van and some cameras set up facing the cliff face. I spin by and say good morning. A bend later and cyclists are coming down. A tandem, two tandems and then a handcycle, low-slung and hugging the turns. Each gets a wave and then I’m passing a woman on a handcycle. A fellow on a road bike is coaching her up the climb and I give her a ‘Looking good!’ and spin past.

I started the ride down feeling not so good, now a combination of the human spirit displayed by these handcyclists and the self-inflicted pain of the climb have the endorphins and philosophical thoughts flowing and I’m much better now.

Snippets

2009-09-13T15:22:00.002+02:00

Post ride, fragments of ideas, random thoughts and images, tiny chunks of time spent on the bike compressed and tied to the effort spent. How long was that? My computer tells me the entire ride, from home to ride start to somewhere south of Fort Carson to home again, lasted two hours and forty-five minutes. The computer breaks down the calories, kilojoules, wattage, speed, cadence: information that attempts to quantify the lovely buzz in my quads, the slight ache in my shoulders, but the numbers are grainy despite their precision.

Some crystaline pictures. We are a small group crossing Tejon as the morning traffic at Starbucks watches us depart over a steaming mochacinno, maybe twenty riders. The forecast of rain mid-ride as cut our numbers by two-thirds. I'm new; is this normal? 'I don't know,' the guy in the Kelly Benefits kit says, 'I usually don't come when the forecast is for rain.' I realize I'm riding with folks who didn't check Weather.com before they left.

The exceptions are from the midwest. Byron from East Lansing, his pro mountain bike friend, Kelly and myself did look at the forecast and still came. Without so many riders, what will the training ride be like today? An easy cruise?

Kelly's blue Giant kit is a permanent fixture at the front as we hit race speed and begin south. I pull through and notice I'm holding 34mph into a stiff SE wind. I notice that and count pedal revs to ten, then twenty and pull to the right. I don't feel well; my legs are gummy and I'm a bit tired. I've strung out the line with my pull and it takes a while to find a comfy spot behind someone big enough to shelter me.

We're moving up the hill to the first sprint point and I'm following wheels and go over fifth, second week in a row that I can still draw breath over the top. I'm pleased. Kelly and a fellow from Spike who seems intent on impressing her, go over first. I move in behind her as we line up at 40mph for the turn right. Drafting her is like drafting a paper clip and I feel like I'm pulling but not getting any credit. First chance I move over to Spike and feel about fifty pounds come off my legs.

Kelly is attacking. Attack, Kelly, attack. Kelly is attacking into the wind. Does Kelly weigh more than eighty pounds? Attack, Kelly, attack. Spike follows. Spike is bigger than Kelly. Chris follows Spike. No one follows Chris. Spike is tired. Kelly is tired. Attack, Chris, attack.

As I pass her, Kelly is breathing in gasps. I was breathing hard, too, but when I come from behind, I relax my face and control my breathing for a few moments. She glances over and I smile. The effect is immediate and she falls back to the group.

I'm by myself and it feels too hard, too far from the last sprint and my legs are tired. I ease up and Spike catches me. I ride behind him and the right arm wiggles, the international signal to pass and pull on that side. I decline. The group swallows us up.

Reaching up to the baseline

2009-09-06T17:33:00.001+02:00

It’s September now and the air is cold, even at nine o’clock in the morning. Arm warmers, a relic from my memories of springtime rides in Iowa, are pulled out, adjusted under the jersey and much appreciated on the descent to the start of the Saturday morning ride.

Manitou Springs proper is quiet, tourists don’t seem to wake too early, and the rondpoint on the west side of town doesn’t even require a touch of the brakes as there is absolutely no one about. A bit different scene after the turn to El Paso at the park, preparations for the weekend art festival sponsored by Commonweal artists are underway, tents raised, booths set up, a crazy knot of parked cars, vans and trailers. I glide through, more than a door length away from every vehicle; no one is watching for me.

Ahead a cyclist, no two cyclists spread apart, the one in front 25 meters ahead of his partner. I spin and let gravity pull me closer. ‘Good morning!’ He glances over and offers a greeting between breaths. We catch his partner at the stop sign on 31st. I lag a bit, but they lag more and I keep the spin going. They seem gone, maybe turned off to the Garden on 30th, but then there’s a click of a derailleur shift and I slow a bit to chat and they lag some more.

I’m downtown too fast, too early and pick a seat at the Starbucks. I see Steve the homeless guy, shuffle down the street as I arrive, no verbal assault today, I guess. I think I’m sitting in his chair.

Tom rolls up next, a great conversation partner in the group and one of the only guys to laugh at my jokes. By our ‘start’ time of ten, about half of the riders have arrived; when we start at 10:15, there’s a good forty riders, including some new notaries: Steve Johnson, head of USACycling, and Danny Pate and Mike Friedman of Garmin. As Friedman moves up in the group, he deliberately rubs his front wheel on the back of Pate’s rear wheel. This is a greeting of sorts and they’re slapping each other on the back and talking. Steve Johnson is riding a brand new Specialized bike with electronic Di2 on it. He’s also wearing Mario’s world champion jersey as well; a little retro with a lot of latest geek equipment.

We hit the turn south and the group spreads and accelerates up the hill marking the beginning of the 20 mile hard section of the ride. My legs feel wonderful today, again a strange thing after the hard ride on Wednesday, but maybe this is the way it works. I mentally take it easy as we’re cruising along at 35mph, on a slight downhill into a headwind that will keep the little guys in the group. For the first five miles, many of the weaker riders are taking turns on the front; most of the jerseys with sponsor logos hang back, shepherding their effort a bit and this is not a bad tact to take.

I go on the front in the paceline about half of the way to the first sprint point. Just ten turns of the crank, maybe a few seconds, and I move to the right and downshift to slow and give the fellow in back a break from the wind. It’s a pleasure to work in a group of skilled riders. There’s no worries about lapped wheels or bad lines and we rocket toward the sprint.

At ten wheels back, I practice a mental trick I use in races; these guys are working for me, pulling me to the line. I stay in the wake and feel myself being pulled up the hill. My goal is to stick and not fall back and I don’t, I float over about fifth wheel and I can still breathe! Downhill and we hit 40 and into the turn we go.

Later, ‘Not bad for a big guy. I thought you were going to go back.’ Christine weighs about 90 pounds and offers absolutely no draft in the group. I manage to get her wheel several times and give it away as soon as I can. She thanks me for my draft and we talk a bit. Perhaps a riding mate for Janet? She needs other women to ride with and Christine is a very good rider.

The ride stops at the Seven Eleven in Fountain and we cruise through Fort Carson back towards the mountains. Lightning and smoke fill the valley. ‘They’re doing some prescribed burns today.’ Our group has been reduced to about 20 riders, among them Mark, the fellow that inspected my new house in Manitou. He glances back for me and we turn off and ride a shortcut on Motor City road, a terrible place of car lots and wide concrete ugliness. We talk, we’re about the same age and similar experience and we’ve developed the instant trust of pulling together in a paceline.

Up a creek

2009-09-05T02:50:00.001+02:00

She is beautiful. Not in that glamorous. over the top way seen in Bazaar, a magazine whose sole purpose seems to be recycling, but she is beautiful in a rare and lasting way, more an expression of her soul than any particular physical attribute. I ride behind her and she blends with the beauty of the landscape, an expanse of red rock and juniper stretching to a horizon far to the east, framed by a red wall towering to the west.

Perhaps I’m high. Literally. The altimeter shows about 7500 feet on my fancy computer. We’re climbing steadily up Gold Camp Road, a few miles from our home in Manitou Springs, an easy downhill glide to a five mile climb up Bear Creek Canyon. The rhythm of the effort becomes a chant; my mind wanders to the Beauty Way chant from the Navajo healing ceremony,

All that has harmed me will leave me,
leaving my body cool once more.
Within me today,I shall be well.
All fever will come from me,
and leave me,leave my brow cool.
I will hear today
and see today
and be my own true self today.
This is the day I shall walk.
This is the day when all that is ill will leave me
and I shall be as I was,
as I walk in a cool body.
This day onwards I shall be happy
for nothing will prevent me.
I shall walk and beauty will go before me.
I shall walk and beauty will be behind me.
I shall walk and beauty will be above me.
I shall walk and beauty will be beneath me.
I shall walk and beauty will surround me.
I shall walk and speak of beauty.
For the rest of my days I shall be whole,
for all things are beautiful.

We wind our way up, the pedals now part of the chant, the effort part of the chant, the rocks, wind, our lives together, our shared laughter, we continue on our beauty way, riding with beauty all around us, a whole, our ride together.

View Full Album

Now I know why God made streams

2009-09-03T14:53:00.001+02:00

Like a nagging headache or an intermittent backpain, my bonk-aborted ride two weeks ago sat in the back of my brain festering. “I’m going to do a long ride today, honey. I should be back for the kids’ soccer practice at 5.”

The plan was to complete the loop up to Sedalia and down to the South Platte River, returning via Deckers and Woodland Park. Doing it counter clockwise would mean going down the 15% gravel grades down to the river, instead of up them which was part of my undoing last time.

Manitou Sedalia Woodland Park Route
Find more Bike Rides in Manitou Springs, Colorado

Palmer Lake and Deckers both have places serving espresso, so I knew I was going to be OK.

I rode through the Garden of the Gods, turned north on 30th Street and left the scenic portion of my ride and entered the crazed car culture that is Colorado Springs. Centennial to Allegheny is somewhat bike friendly, if not friendly to the eyes. Rows of condos, and apartments and the itinerant Walgreens give way to one acre lots and suburban homes. Looking beyond the houses and one can visualize the beautiful red rock country they’ve been super imposed upon. A woman is washing her driveway with her hose as I descend to the knot of roads and Academy. We’ve come to this.

I’m not feeling that great, probably allergies, but I dread my time on Academy. Last week I was nearly taken out trying to get to the friendly cycling confines of the Air Force Academy, turned back because of road construction at the North Gate, and damn near killed again by an organic shopper rushing to get to Whole Foods. The irony. Janet chastized me yesterday for yelling at a driver that cut us off on a ‘Bicycle Route’. ‘What am I supposed to do? They’re trying to kill us!’

And so it happened, as it must I suppose, a fellow in large Dodge D250, probably in a hurry to buy something, lays on his horn. I’m riding north on Academy, trying to get to the turn north on Voyager. There are four lanes of traffic, including a turn lane, which I’m taking right now, not wanting to move into the middle of the crazed shoppers and commuters who are much to busy texting and talking on their cells to bother with some freak on a bicycle. No, the turn lane is the safest location. The guys hits the horn again. There is an additional turn lane 10 yards up the road; he’s turning into a parking lot; I am impeding his shopping instinct. My own instinct of self preservation kicks in (he’s trying to kill you!) and I turn and let him have it, gesticulating like a crazed Italian. This all passes quickly. He moves ahead in the additional turn lane, briefly hitting his brakes, perhaps considering a more physical challenge. I turn on Voyager.

The urban center gives way again to suburban and then I’m riding along the expressway towards Monument. I am still in the Suburban Sprawl, home of the Village Inn, Seven Eleven and intense traffic. Where are these people going at 10am? Finally, a few miles north, I can smell pine again and Palmer Lake arrives

with my first latte. I put my feet up and take care of a cheese sandwich tucked in my jersey.

There’s a headwind today, about 10-15mph out of the northeast, which means that I get to eat it all the way to Sedalia, about 60 miles into the ride. The great thing now is that I’ve nearly crested the Palmer Divide, a gradual ramp that peaks around 7500 feet just north of town. Downhill into the wind shouldn’t be too bad and there is always the possible tailwind once I get to the Platte.

The road smoothes out and the wide spaces begin to digest my thoughts. The scale of the west is monumental. Grass and the occasional pioneer pine, a complete lack of traffic and the smooth then dotted then smooth yellow center lines of the road tap out a visual rhythm and my ride becomes a meditation.

Sedalia and another gatorade stop at the local fly and convenience store. ‘Where you heading?’ ‘Back home to Manitou.’ The flyfisherman/grocer eyes me. ‘You’ve got a ways to go yet.’ I agree and thank him for the two gatorades. I’ve drunk six bottles so far and it looks like this will be at least a 12 bottle ride. Gatorade and my bagel with schmeer and cucumbers, my cheese sandwich and giant chocolate chip cookie, my clif blocks and granola bar; I will not bonk or

dehydrate today.

I do know why God invented streams for cyclists; roads built along streams are humane affairs, with tolerable inclines in the 3-4 percent range. Any time a road leaves the stream, creek or river, the cyclist is in human hands and then the sky is the limit, literally. The road from Sedalia begins the trek back to the mountains. There is a stream off to the side and the climb is gentle. I’m astounded how good it feels not

to have a headwind and begin to daydream a bit as the mountains loom closer. Suddenly the road is jerked to the right and the pitch is over 12 percent. My legs scream at me for not putting on the 13-27 this morning. The brain forgot. The sun is out and it’s suddenly hot with no wind blowing and the road goes up and on and on and up again. There is brief respite and a phantom horizon through the trees; just cruel jokes. There is no stream to regulate this agony just my brain and some gatorade and I pull over to rest a second.

‘You OK? Got enough water?’ Sure, thanks, just taking a breather. The pine forest is deep and I’m surrounded by the scent of sun-warmed pine sap. A logging truck is pulling out up the road and I contemplate this short, 27 mile jaunt to Deckers. I already know that there is a steep downhill grade on gravel; I attempted the reverse with Scoots two weeks ago, but what is there between the two Knowns of where I’ve been today and where I was two weeks ago? A philosophical question.

The legs churn on up the climb.

All dressed up

2009-08-30T20:48:00.001+02:00

I’m still getting used to the air, not just its thinness, but the crisp, dry mountain smell that greets me each morning when I open kitchen door to pump up the tires and look over the bike before a ride. The air is bracing, the sun is out and I’m looking forward to a good, hard ride with my new friends on the Saturday morning training ride.

I slide through the back streets and main street of Manitou. The tourists are still snoozing and few locals are getting things ready for a day of business on Manitou Avenue. Just past the cop shop, I turn left and take the little jog over to El Paso. El Paso runs parallel to Manitou, past bed and breakfast establishments and older estates looking south over the canyon. It’ an easy downhill spin. A climb past 31st and then dodging the cars going to the market in Old Colorado City across from their Carnegie Library.

At Walnut, the road is going to end, a quick right and left and I’m on the main drag of Colorado Ave, pointed at Downtown Colorado Springs, warmed up and raring to go. Perhaps this week I’ll play more on the front, take a pull or two and sprint for the at hill climb…

Road Closed Ahead. Tejon is closed? Then I remember, the big military parade today. I turn a block earlier and then right on Bijou to the Starbucks. Fifteen minutes early and not much to do but sit and watch the preparations with the patriotic folks on the street. A young black guy, street person through and through, “You OK?” Yep. “No problem?” I don’t think so. An older woman, to no one in particular, “My husband is off to Afghanistan for his eighth tour.” Uh-huh. “If we don’t keep ‘em out of here, then they’ll be hanging jews from the lamp posts.” Ok, that’s enough. I move away from my conversation partners and sidle up to another rider sitting at an outdoor table. Ahh, my tribe.

Byron, a new student at UCCS and transplant from East Lansing, pulls up. Greetings. Soon we have a posse of about 25 riders wondering how we’ll get to our route, on the other side of the parade route. The parade starts at precisely 10am; we lollygag for a few more minutes and then head back west a block to try to ride around the start.

Bump, pause, bump. I feel the roughness of Bijou under my bum. Either the rear tire is really over inflated, or I have a flat. I look down; a flat. The group rides away and I prop the bike up on bench. It’s game over. I change the flat and ride back up Colorado Ave, Pikes Peak Ave, El Paso Ave and the back way to Manitou.

Instead of high speed jockeying for position this week at the front of the pack, I trade ideas for cooking zucchini with an older woman coming back from the Old Colorado City market. Funny how these things work.

Taking a spin with my baby

2009-08-26T22:26:00.001+02:00

The morning is clear, dry and there’s a cool easterly breeze blowing. The kids have school. All day! and Janet and I both have very nice bikes.

We go for a ride.

Who am I?

2009-08-24T19:48:00.001+02:00

A dull throb, a low remembering of the effort on Wednesday, a slight feeling of constriction, the blood forcing its way through capillaries blocked by something or mysteriously shrunken since the last big ride. Thoughts, can you do this? why are you doing this? you’re old, you will get dropped, you will be embarrassed? Inward fears, but on the outside there’s just a rider cycling down Manitou Ave, dodging the early tourists and folks setting up for the annual buddy walk in town.

Bravado is usually in great supply before a training ride, especially one that draws riders from so many teams and regions. No one blinks at the Kiwi or Aussie accent in the paceline, or the team kits from various domestic and international teams, Team Type 1, Jelly Belly, Garmin Slipstream, Rock Racing. Perhaps this is adding to my anxiety. My legs still ache but I keep it all tucked in and meet the other riders at the Starbucks on Tejon.

Waiting for the ride to begin. It occurs to me that insecurity comes more from not knowing than anything else. Ignorance of the other riders abilities, ignorance of my own. Weakness is a human quality that makes us do stupid things, like shoot past another rider on a climb, an act that shouts, I’M STONGER THAN YOU! for no other reason than to mask some shortcoming in my head.

We roll out, kitty corner across the intersection, our group large enough to last the entire light, but impressive enough in size that the drivers are patient. A few blocks north and then east on Boulder, the group sets a comfortable rolling speed that touches twenty and then backs off. Folks are talking, catching up; some have a serious, brooding look. Most often the latter are dropped when the speed doubles at the turn south. The well-trained are comfortable enough to laugh, the others focus on the pain ahead.

The road descends and then crests a small hill at Powers. We’re on a multilane concrete ribbon with drib drabs of Saturday morning traffic. The hill is the first effort of the morning and there is a huffing and gasping as some riders slow too much and come back through the group. I’m sure this worries them; we’re not at speed yet. We leave the main drag and take a frontage road and there is a stop. The group obeys lights and considers stop signs seriously but not literally. Hands go down, palm back, to let following riders know to stop. Forty riders today? Maybe fifty. The next stop sign is our turn south.

The pace goes from twenty to thirty five just past the turn. Chain noise, riders out of the saddle, the strong sun glinting off helmets. I stand and move smoothly into a comfortable seventh wheel or so, just behind someone large enough to provide a comfortable draft and steady enough to not kill me. I dread the idea of hitting the edge, or lapping a wheel at this speed and quickly put the idea out of my head.

My strategy today is to not take any pulls at the front, even if I’m comfortable. This is based on two things: my tired legs and the fact that the group attacked me last week after a pull and dropped me just before the railroad tracks and the second sprint. It might happen today, but I’m going to do everything to not get dropped. I’m aware that I am feeling good and resist an invitation to pull into the rotating paceline, choosing to ride in the rocking chair just off the tail of the rotation. I’m good at this. So good that the rider looking to move to the right and towards the front doesn’t even see me. Once in a while a rider does, and leaves the gap, but I resist and they move into it themselves.

Riding at the front, I have no idea who is behind me, the same riders move around me, familiar pedaling motions, predictable behaviors. I hear Cody, a large rider like myself and so instantly a friend in the draft, telling a new rider he brought along to stay on my wheel. “Just stay on it. Don’t worry about the sprint, you won’t be a factor. Just keep his wheel.” This makes me feel good. I’m a resource; I can be counted on; and, I belong.

The sprint is approaching. We pass a subdivision HOMES STARTING IN THE 120,000’s; we pass through a left turn and I see the first hills approaching. A few weeks ago I made the mistake of moving onto the front here and paid for it. I’m comfortable, there’s no trouble keeping the pace or the wheel in front of me and and let’s keep it that way. Over the second bump and I see the hill whose top marks the first sprint. My goal is too stay comfortable. Comfort, easy, breathe, be comfortable and smooth. Cody comes by on the left and I let him. Good for him if he gets the sprint today. He fades. The little guy in the Garmin kit takes a pull and we all strain under the effort to not break the string. We crest the hill and I’m fifth wheel now and the effort has taken my ability to breathe away. I take regular gasps, but I’m on the moon; there’s no air. And we’re going downhill, spinning out my 53x12, probably around forty but I can’t see clearly enough to glance at the computer.

The secret is to keep the mask in place. Catch your breath on the sly and by the next turn, I’m following the wheel of someone and letting another into the corner. If this were a real race, I’d close the door on him, but I’m sure I’ll need whoever it is in a few minutes.

We’re rolling on to the second sprint. I let myself go to the back. All of these riders are working for me now! The back comes up quickly; there’s maybe ten of us now. Ten. We pass the spot I was dropped last week after a pull and resist the urge to pull again. A slight rise and Garmin sprints and pulls the chain taut. A gap grows in front of the rider in front of me and I let it. He pulls off and I catch the wheel of someone else to close the gap. Comfort. Garmin sprints again and we all stay close. The sprint point is in eyesight, a lonely sign on the side of a deserted road next to a railroad track. I survived. I feel good. I belong.

Redemption and adaptation

2009-08-23T18:46:00.001+02:00

I know, confusing title without some background of what needed redeeming the past two weeks on the bike.

The shape of my cycling week here in Colorado:

Saturday is the training ride with the local hot shots who meet at 10:00 at the Starbucks on Tejon. A mixture of local guys, visiting pros, and top amateurs, this is the ride to be on in the area. I ride to the start from our home in Manitou, about 8 miles down the canyon to Colorado Springs, then an easy tempo for the first 10 miles east past Peterson AFB. Once the road heads south, the fireworks begin and the group lunges up a hill after the turn. From that point, it’s balls-out, race-pace to the first sprint about 12 miles up the road at the top of a small climb. The last sprint is just before the turn-around where the road tees into Hwy 115 south of Ft. Carson Army Base. We turn and pick up folks that had to pee, couldn’t hold the pace or had a mechanical and carry a tempo back to the start. 55 miles of training ride and 8 miles on each side for warm-up and cool-down. It’s a nice ride and every week we ride the same course with slightly different results depending on who’s in town.

Wednesday is my long ride and this week I spent it with Scoots, aka the evil Mountain Elf, on the road north of Woodland Park.

Two days this week were spent with Karl on a loop through the Garden of the Gods and these rides, more than any other, keep me in love with cycling.

Monday Karl had a half day at the elementary school, his first day at his new school, so afterwards we aired up his tires, cleaned the Nebraska bugs off his frame and located some gloves and his helmet. We rode from the house for the first time, down Manitou Ave and then zigged over to El Paso for the ride into the Garden of the Gods.

Karl was nervous at first, but then was shouting, “Dad, I got up to 37 miles an hour on that hill!” We laughed and I shouted out pedestrians lumbering up the bike lane. It was a sweet and beautiful way to spend a recovery ride and Karl showed some panache on the longer climb on the north side of the park, accelerating away from his dad.

Two days later, I figured it was time to do some base miles to build up my endurance fitness. One thing I’ve learned since moving out here a month and a half ago; you can’t ignore the difference between the rolling hills and thousand foot elevation of northeastern Iowa and the Rocky Mountains. Recovery is longer and so are the climbs.

Scoots came down and we saddled up at 9:30, envisioning a 118 mile loop from Manitou, west to Woodland Park, north to Deckers, over to Sedalia and then down through Palmer Lake and the Air Force Academy.

I’ll make it official here: Scoots is now a climber. From Manitou it’s straight onto the climb up Ute Pass, the only warm-up the brief descent from our home on Pilot Knob to Manitou Ave. Then it’s up. For twelve miles.

I’ve been up the pass four times now and each time I give myself about twenty minutes to let the muscles cool, but not this time. Maybe it was the rider just ahead on Highway 24, maybe it was some inner alpine demon struggling to possess Scoots, but we went up the pass in record time, even with my friend slowing down for me on the steeper ramps. By Woodland Park, we had only 106 miles to go and I felt like I’d just been put through the ringer and there was still suds in my hair.

Descending to Deckers is a blessed thing. There is a climb on the way, past hills scorched by the Hayman Fire, but soon the pines come closer to the road and the cool breeze coming off the Platte River rinses the sting from the quads. We stop in Deckers for some gatorade and run into two cyclo-tourists from Washington, Lauren and Tai. Great folks, I invited the

m to stop for the night at our house; we’d be there in the middle of the afternoon, just 85 miles to go. Right.

The sweet scene continued along the Platte. The water was muddy from a landslide a few weeks before and when the north fork entered, the clear water ran next to the brown and we scooted along at a respectable 17mph as the tarmac gave way to packed dirt. We must have been looking at the water, because we rode right past our turn to Sedalia.

We noticed this fifteen miles later, when our road teed into Foxton Road and Scoots said, “Hey, if we take that road we’ll be in Denver.” So we turned around and passed the fly fishermen, the kayaks playing in the rapids and the astounding scenery. One worry was the waterbottles were running low, putting off the peanut butter sandwich in my pocket.

At our turn for Sedalia, we stopped for a snack and Scoots read a sign at the base. He laughed and as we launched up the gravel road, just three miles from reunification with tarmac, I saw it too, “15% grades ahead” Shit, it was plural.

I tried, I really did. I tried so hard, I wrenched my back and landed on my balls when the rear wheel spun out and my testicles had no where to go but down to meet my top tube. One climb, then another. I walked up one and felt relief when I could see the road leveling to a saner ten percent grade. Then the air went out as we rounded the corner and saw the steepest climb yet.

“Scott, I can’t do it.” For me, this is rock bottom. I’m never the guy that quits, but I am now. I just can’t do it. My water is low, my back throbs and my bike just won’t go up that climb. I suck.

Scoots is good about it. We turn and descend that hard-fought mile of gravel we had just endured and met our road again, the road that seemed to keep us close. We headed the ten miles back to Deckers.

Bonk. The word is peculiar to cycling and for a rider it is the worst thing that can happen short of being smashed in the face by a semi-truck. It’s sneaky, too. Taking advantage of you when you’re being stupid, it makes you stupider. You forget to eat, you forget to drink, you keep pushing until, suddenly you don’t feel right and the bike you’re riding just doesn’t seem to roll anymore. I bonked on the way back to Deckers. I met the man with the hammer and he visited a wallop on my skull. As we rolled in, I said I would just call Janet and have her pick us up. It was three, we’d been on the road for 5 and a half hours and I hadn’t eaten my sandwich yet. It was gone in a flash, along with a large gatorade, a bar, a liter of Pepsi and something else that may or may have not had fur on it.

By three fifteen I felt better and we decided to give the climb to Woodland Park a shot. If we could get there, it was a twelve mile coast to home. By three thirty I knew this wasn’t going to happen. By three thirty three I was pulled over on the side of the road, dizzy and incapable of riding more than twelve miles an hour. We’d gone 88 miles and I was done.

The long and the short of the rest of the story is that we did indeed call Janet, but Scoots had to ride back and forth over a mountain to do so. We then waited for a while before realizing that we’d made a mistake in the directions and she was driving in the wrong direction. This necessitated another ride for both of us over the climb and we nearly made it to Woodland Park before the blessed Scion arrived to take us away.

The rest is a wonderful dream involving Fat Tire Ale, bean burritos and lots of laughs.

Moving in

2009-08-10T20:13:00.001+02:00

The past weeks have been a whirlwind. Closed last Friday, moved in Wednesday, received a sea of cardboard boxes filled with all of our earthly possessions on Thursday morning, unexpectedly early. Toss in a four week summer course in general linguistics, a two week intensive methodology course for a visiting group from Mexico and final grades due TODAY, and one gets the sense that the world is spinning a few degrees faster.

My cycling life has taken a hit of sorts. After initially maintaining my weekly time in the saddle, I got tired. No other way to explain it. Perhaps the altitude acclimation, perhaps the crazy work schedule and stress of moving…

So now we’re a few weeks along in our Colorado experience, half a week in our new Manitou home, and I’m not so tired today, even though our Sunday group did a good, hard climbing ride up to the zoo and through the Garden of the Gods.

Maybe this is starting to feel like home.

Springs Sat Training Ride: Part Deux

2009-07-19T17:22:00.001+02:00

A week into my Colorado life, making the ride in downtown Colorado Springs less fraught with anxiety and anticipation; I knew what was coming. Knowing where I was going and where to park was also reassuring. Less comforting was the tread on my rear tire. Unloading the bike, I noticed the Gatorskin I glued the day before the Quad Cities criterium on Memorial Day was finally showing some threads. Not bad service, I just hoped it would last the ride.

Cruising past the Starbucks on Tejon, no riders are there yet: 9:50am. Looks like the 10am start is an approximation.

The ride starts easy as it heads east. We navigate the city streets, stopping for stop lights and moving in and out of the traffic. A couple of small climbs before we turn south and hit race pace. There are a number of new riders this week: a couple of professional women with aussie accents, a Kelly Benefits rider, a fellow from the Ride Clean squad and the usual squadron of Air Force team guys.

We hit the turn south. There’s a stiff headwind and I’ve been telling myself just to hang in there. The legs don’t feel that great and my head feels like it’s covered in gauze, perhaps the afterglow of the margueritas I had last night at Christi’s? But I’m up in the first six and driving the pace, taking my turn. The road has a slight downhill pitch and the wind takes care of any sweat.

New today: a recumbent blasts by, probably about 32mph. The big sprinter in green kit tries to keep the wheel, but there’s no draft and it’s like pulling on your own. Our pace settles in at about 29mph and we pick up the recumbent on a slight incline. I move over to the inside position, and soon the recumbent sweeps backward through the group, taking the riders sandwiched against the road’s edge with him. Soon he’s back, coming past fast on the outside. We learn to leave him to do his thing.

The first hill sprint comes and I stay in the front of the first group this time, pleased that my acclimation to the altitude is coming along. A tiny girl from the AWB team with that funny accent is right there as well and the big green sprinter is pipped at the line by a smaller rider who comes by in his wake.

I call off the second sprint; it comes right after the nasty railroad crossing and I don’t want to hit the rocks too fast with my dicey rear tread. Half the group takes off and I do an easy pace. We’ll meet up when they do the turn-around.

Sunday is for riding

2009-07-13T05:29:00.001+02:00

“meet at Vindicator and Centennial, just north of the Walgreens.” so said the email from Ed King this week, organizer of a local ride near Ute Park and fellow poster on Roadbikereview.com. A twelve mile ride down from our friends’ home across the interstate from the Air Force Academy, passing through suburban, urban and beautiful red rock country, led me to the Walgreen’s parking lot.

A bit early. Forty five minutes early. A ubiquitous Starbucks beckoned at the end of Allegheny Rd and a tall skinny late later, I was only twenty minutes early, but feeling much better about it. A Toyota Land Cruiser rolls into the parking lot with a Merlin attached. I go over to say ‘hi’ and meet Carl, who helps folks visualize their mountain cabin dreams by rendering said dreams on the computer, complete with virtual walk-through rooms. I ask if there was a way to render the reality of forest fires in his mockups and he laughs, ‘Don’t think that would sell well with the vendors.’

Soon a group of eight riders has gathered. Dominic and Elaine own a local restaurant that has been written up in Zagat’s guides; Eric owns a furniture store that having a going out of business sale, ‘couldn’t resist selling the building’; Amy is a DoD contracter and an avid cyclist with a good sense of humor. Eric and I chat as we head south and asks how I’m adapting to the elevation. ‘Fine except for the climbs.’ He asks if he can call me Thor and soon we’re heading out to do some climbs.

The sign for Seven Falls says that it is three miles away, but twenty minutes down, or actually up, the road, I know this is a lie. There isn’t any Seven Falls; there’s just this road that keeps ascending. Alternating thrusts of 12 percent then 7 percent, then 14 percent, prevent a rhythm from developing. It’s just about staring at the road a few feet in front of the wheel. I glance at the wattage numbers and we’re staying constant in the upper 300’s, sometimes jumping to 500 on a steep ramp, or sprinting up to 6 mph to get around a dead deer that is only half there (the other half in the belly of a mountain lion) but smells like a herd of dead deer.

It’s just Dominic and I suffering together. Eric is up the road a few hundred feet and I try to cross up to him, but succeed in only burning that last match. A cool rock beckons and I totter over to it to get my breath. Twenty minutes later, Dominic is a few hundred feet away and I get back on the bike to catch him. We’re near the top and Eric is coming back down. Screw it, I turn the bike and pull up with him and we hurtle down the narrow road, between the red rocks, the creek and probably under the gaze of some very stuffed mountain lion.

Later I ask Carl if the Seven Falls climb was a regular feature of their rides. ‘No,’ he says, ‘we’ve never ridden up there.’

Thanks a lot for that Eric!

A Saturday morning ride

2009-07-12T06:28:00.001+02:00

I was as nervous coming to my first training ride in Colorado Springs as I’ll be meeting my first UCCS class on Monday. Was I fit enough, would the altitude be too much for me, and, most critically, would I fit in? In the end, I share the same anxieties about finding friends, fitting in with the group and being accepted as my ten year old.

The old stoic, Epictetus, comes to my aid. “Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens.”

That, and a couple shots of espresso, and I’m good to go.

We meet at the Starbucks on Tejon, in downtown Colorado Springs. I decide that the goal of the ride is to not get dropped, and if that is not a worry, to stay near the front. A group of about 35 riders pedals off at 10:15 and I also make a note to find a good wheel. Two guys I talk to before the ride starts are likely candidates. Steve is a retired Air Force vet now doing Christian ministry and doesn’t have more than a few grams of fat on him. Wiry with chiseled features and a good smile (I make a special note to avoid religion at all costs). The other fellow is also new to ride but is the new Air Force team’s coach and is a Cat 1 rider from New Mexico. His wheel does turn out to be the one to follow.

Now, hours later, other riders also come to mind. A surly guy, built like myself, a nice woman, rail thin, a rider dressed in dark blue US Postal kit and a camelback strapped on (mental note to avoid). We sort ourselves into a peloton and navigate the city streets of the Springs, heading east. The pace is easy for the first 8 miles or so, until we turn south and suddenly I’m sprinting out of the turn to close a gap.

The group strings out into a long paceline and I move up through the pack to take one of the front wheels. I don’t know where we’re going, so I can’t be on the front, but I can be upfront and avoid the riders falling off the back. We’re cruising along at a constant 29 mph with surges into the low 30’s, but I’m pleased that I’m breathing well and not under too much stress. We’re in the flats and I feel like I’ve got power to spare yet. The first spring comes about twenty miles in. It’s up a hill and I get the first hint that I’m not 100 percent when I’m winded half way up. I gapped the field, can’t hold it and fade right through to the back chasing on with the other slow guys.

We head south to another sprint and then back track north to Ft. Carson, cross it (bring your ID) and head north back towards the Springs. The group splits and I opt to take the flatter route to town and finish with about 55 miles in. Good miles and the body feels stressed. One of the guys slaps me on the back and says I rode well today. ‘How long have you been in Colorado?’

‘One day.’

‘Shit, you’re going to kick our asses in two months.’ Probably not, but I would like to do better in those sprints…

No longer an Iowan: Day 1

2009-07-09T16:56:00.001+02:00

Kearney, Nebraska: Just past Grandpa’s Steakhouse, across I-80, W Road heads west along the Platte River.

To say it’s flat here is an understatement. After a quick twist in the road, W continues to the horizon, a lean, smooth ribbon slicing through endless green fields of green corn stalks, a testament to American monoculture. Most of the world’s religions seem to have grown from flat, featureless landscapes like this. Will the next be some type of corn worshiper sect? These random thoughts flit in and out of my head, with nothing outside of myself pushing in, everything is leaking out.

Yesterday was an emotional day. Packing the house, moving a lifetime of things onto an auctioneer’s moving van, layers of our life together peeling away. After loading a sink we never installed, the planer and table saw that helped rebuild our old farm house and sorting through the detritus of our honey business, it didn’t take much to let hot tears stream down. What it took was seeing my ten year old son cry as I prepared to hit the road. How did I help create this being who loves me so much? He fought to hold back the emotion, struggling to be manly, to be brave, and it all occurred to me at once, a strange combination of leaving, loss and the promise of something new, yet unknown. I cried till my eyes hurt.

The wind is from the south and, at 32 minutes I turn around on a non-descript point on the infinite line that is W Road. I’ve climbed 42 feet in 9 miles. Half of that must have been the overpass. My legs are gummy; I can feel the blood pushing through the muscles stiff from sitting yesterday in a Japanese car seat, and it’s uncomfortable. A couple of sprints (but where is the sprint point?) and the feeling goes away for awhile.

Tuesday, Janet and I rode as a couple on the Tuesday morning ride for the last time. Amidst the green waste I ride through, it occurs to me that a good friend is someone I can disagree with openly without feeling a threat to our friendship. I haven’t met many folks like that in my life; we tend to gravitate towards people we are unlikely to have disagreement. I’ve made some real friends on my rides with the local club…

And the ride ends and it’s time to reload. Four bikes on the roof, loads of boxes stuffed in the car and a crucial box of wine from France, stuff we’re saving…

A mind at 28mph

2009-04-21T19:40:00.001+02:00

Sunday morning was our club's annual Eagle Point Criterium. The forecast's call for thunderstorms earlier in the week had softened to showers beginning at 2pm, so things were looking up for my Masters race at 10:30.

Driving into town, the fog was lifting and the air still felt warm from the day before. My task before the racing started was to mark the cracks, holes and large oak trees on the course. At 7:20 the gates were open and David and Bruce were already wrestling with the finish line banner.

There are trees growing in the road at Eagle Point park. No one has ever run into one yet during an event, but just to be sure, I wrap each oak with orange tape at eye level and string it off to the side of the road. The other obstacles are familiar now, the grate with slots that could grab a wheel (hasn't happened), the curb that offers some air to a rider riding too far to the right or left, the garbage can holder (a steel pipe) sans garbage can, offering to skewer an unsuspecting rider. On some there is residual orange paint from last year. One can does the mile-long course and, as I finish, the whine of the leaf blowers dies away as well and the course is ready.

The Masters 40+ is a small group, just twelve riders. This is deceptive as the other eleven riders are top riders, some category one or two, some with many miles spent in southern climes training this winter. At other races, the field is often packed with 'fodder', guys just starting out, guys curious about what a Masters race is like. There is no fat in this field, and this is typical for most Iowa races; just the lean field of good riders.

So, our group is like the eschappe that escapes from the larger field at Super Week. We start hard, pushing a bit towards the first corner. No one really wants to be on the front, but no one wants to be relegated to the rear either and we're all thinking the same question: who is the Guy? Soon, the accelerations happen and we quickly learn who the favorites are. Each time, Tracey with his bright green bar tape accelerates off the front and then looks around to see what he did. Chris E. covers and I follow, dragging the whole group because I'm not accelerating fast enough to get a gap. This happens over and over for the first five laps.

Time slows down under effort. I realize that if my life was spent doing this, I could live forever. But it's only been five laps, eleven more to go. The acceleration comes again and I decide that I will not drag the group along again, someone else should.

But no one does and that is the winning move. Six of us are left to argue over fifth place.

Quick Pic

2009-04-08T22:47:00.001+02:00

Getting for first club ride of the season and got this picture in the mail from the folks that take photos for the Birkie.

Snow really isn't so bad.

Blown Clean

2009-04-04T02:50:00.001+02:00

Coming home from work, it was time to pay for the northwest tailwind of the morning. With interest, as the wind was pushing 17mph with gusts up to 25, still from the northwest.

The sun was shining, though, and the legs felt fresh, finding a rhythm. I watched my shadow dancing on the side of the road as I stood on a climb on Prier Rd.

Halfway to Petersburg, my mind blown clean of the day’s anxiety, the stress streaming out in cold rivulets on my back, image snippets float in memory. The Harley rider putting chapstick on in front of the Detour Tap in Petersburg. He smiles and signals to the passenger seat on his ‘bike’. I smile and point down the road.

Into the wind.

An Amish afternoon

2009-03-22T14:40:00.001+01:00

The day is warmer than expected and for the first time this season I actually feel fast on my bicycle. Perhaps it’s the shedding of the layers of clothes (I am the Michelin Man sans tires); perhaps all of the training I’m doing is having an effect; or, maybe, warm air is less dense than the frigid 33 degrees and rain I’ve been dealing during this purgatory of a month. March is purgatory. I’ve survived the cold brutality of life in an Iowa winter, only to be forced to pay for my sins with cold and rain during an Iowa spring.

Today is a respite. The sun is up, the wind is under twenty miles an hour, and there are tinges of green in the silver and brown landscape.

My plan is simple; do a hilly loop to Littleport and come back through Garber and Colesburg. Hills and a bit of distance. From my house, Highway 3 dips into a canyon for a couple of miles. This is an old road, built over a creek. On each side the road does little to scrub the climb’s pitch. Climbing out is a great warmup, but the descent with cold legs just makes everything a bit colder. I’m sure I creak and grown like an old floorboard as my speed drops into the low thirties and I pick up the pedalling again on the flat past the park and stand as the pitch arrives. Walls of limestone on the right, the curving brown of Elk Creek on the left and in a mile the rollers heading west to Edgewood.

Wind is out of the southwest, a bit stiff at 14 or so, but the sun makes up for it. After Edgewood, it’s a left on Littleport Rd., named after the town cleverly built between the bluffs on the Turkey River. In 1998 the town was under 23 feet of water. A friend and I canoed it a few days after the crest. One clear memory of a dead cow in a tree high above the river.

The road climbs coyly in a series of false flats, making it’s way to the ridges before the river. The wind is out of the southwest and I feel a slight push on the slower uphills. Fields of corn stubble stretch out and roll to the horizons all around me and in some moments I feel my pinpoint of perspective losing itself in the landscape. A long downhill to the river and town, with a step in between where pedalling is needed again. I remember the joints on either side of the bridge, the jolting sense memory of my first ride here seven or eight years ago (did I really live here for five years without riding this road?). And then the river is past, the stinking wrecks of houses underwater ten years ago but still lingering, past, the old church moved high up the bluff, past (but much more slowly; I’m in my lowest gear, standing now) and in too short a time I’m at the turn to Garber.

There isn’t much to recommend the road to Garber here, outside of the slight tailwind. It’s flat and new, cheaply built homes litter the sides of the road. Vinyl over plywood, yards filled with recreational toys made of cheap vinyl and plastic. One place takes the cake. Behind a modern two story home that would look swell in a suburb of Milwaukee, sits a man in a canoe in a farm pond. Docked to his left, about 20 feet away, is a pontoon boat. Ah, the dream.

Elkport also sits in a valley squashed between the bluffs of the Turkey. It’s twin, Garber, lies to the east a bit and the river runs down the middle. A road closed sign tells me that I might soon have to add a couple of serious climbs to my ride plan. Sure enough, the bridge over the Turkey, my path to Colesburg, is completely gone. In it’s place a pile of wood and concrete and two imposing cranes. Something is sure going to happen here, but not today, and I turn towards a beautiful hilly climb through Amish country.

View Full Album

Happy St Patrick's Day

2009-03-18T03:01:00.001+01:00

Gaelic Gallop to Petersburg, Saturday, March 14th, 2009

Wild rivers, giant strawberries and other wonders of northern Iowa

2009-03-15T16:40:00.001+01:00

Thirty five miles an hour on a downhill descent, past the quarry before Osterdock, the cold knocks against my ears like bags of marbles. I almost look forward to climbing past the Turkey river and warming up again. Sun glints off lingering ice and chunks of the concrete Osterdock bridge are missing.

Fatigue, stress, the worries of several weeks of life's turmoil since the Birkie, I seek to lose these in the rhythm of climbing. North to Garber road, west to Elkader, south to Strawberry Point and east home. Six thousand five hundred and forty five feet of climbing (so says my Garmin) and four hours of measured pain and freedom inducing endorphins. The wind is out of the south, southwest and I stick my nose into it above the climb. No speed records today, just a lot of time in zones 2 and 3, well below my lactate threshold. Ploughman's Barn appears on my left, closed for the season, the collection of classic pioneer and early century buildings sit together in a kind of historical ghetto. Then the descent into Garber.

'Where Rivers Run Wild!' declares the sign for Garber. I can almost see the water stains on the sign from the last flood in '98 that nearly washed the town away. Should they brag they have problems with flooding? Another long climb and I notice the wisdom of the century old house perched above the new construction in the flood plain below.

The wind picks up on the ridge and my speed slows. No matter, what's important are the watts, power, I'm producing

. With a tailwind I'd be sailing along at 25 right now, instead I'm satisfied with 13. Right turn for Elkader and a beautiful descent into the wind. The land stretches out in waving series of hills and valleys. The Volga meets the Turkey here and, like the interlocking waves of several stones dropped into the pond, the hills from the Mississippi intersect with the rippling ridges of the other two rivers.

Full headwind going southwest towards Strawberry Point on Highway 13. Twelve miles. The speed drops to 12, but a curious thing happens; I'm passed by a

Caterpillar backhoe, a moving wall of steel 12 feet high. Perfect, I slot in behind and cozy up in the warmth

of the engine. The wall maintains a nice 17.5 up the climbs and screams along at 27 on the downhills. Heaven until six miles later and he turns off. Is he upset with me for following, interested or indifferent? One more climb into the wind that reminds me of the small col north of Perpignan, radio tower and all.

Strawberry Point is a collection of antique homes, a drugstore that still has a real, working soda fountain and the world's largest strawberry.

The road flattens and I head east through Edgewood, tailwind in hand, maintaining a nice 22. Home is reached with 66 miles on the odometer and I'm feeling the body hum.

Our Birkie Week

2009-03-03T15:42:00.001+01:00

Tuesday: Bags are packed with ski clothes, skis, boots, poles are located and loaded, the skis only after another look at weather.com and pondering of the weather forecast. 9 degrees and cloudy at 9am Saturday. Both cars are packed and I wonder if we'll need a trailer next year.

Wednesday: After my last class with the French students, I glance again at the weather (0 degrees and cloudy) and head to Portage to pick up mom, our designated helper and kid-sitter during our races.

Wednesday night I enjoy a late dinner of fries and a grilled chicken sandwich with mom at the Opera House Restaurant in New Lisbon. It's starting to snow as we head north on I94, not heavy, but I'm starting to think the trails are going to be a bit slow tomorrow.

It's 11:30 and pitch black at our rental cabin outside of Minong. Janet and the kids were supposed to be here already; our last phone call had her about 40 miles north when we were clearing Eau Claire. There's just time enough to worriedly try her cell phone, no answer, when the headllights illuminate the trees and the red Scion rolls up. 'Hi Dad!' Relief. We made it up in one piece for another year.

Thursday: The Barnebirkie is at 12:30! Unfortunately the wind has picked up and the wind chills are down in the negative range. At the church in Hayward, we learn that the 5k race has been shortened to three blocks. Groans from the kids. Karl and Johann go skiing off onto the lake, oblivious to the wind. Again the automatic reflex of fatherly pride as Johann laughs off our admonition to turn around and come back and Karl is already gliding off.

As each year passes it becomes more clear that the boys are becoming more independent. Normally, turning them loose on a ski trail would be very safe, no real chance to lose them. Throw in 1300 other kids, though, and the three adults were scrambling to figure out how to keep track.

Mom and I are sent to the finish line ahead of the first wave containing Karl and Johann. We run, dodge parents with cameras and make our way up Main St.

The kids are led by the Hayward ski team carrying flags from the nations in the Worldloppet circuit. And then the mad rush of youngsters. Karl has managed to line up near the front and finishes in the same spot three weeks later. 'Is that it?' Well, yes, but we'll go over to Fish Hatchery to ski for an hour. Johann comes up a few minutes later, skiing classic technique, a huge smile and taking in the milieu of the finishing area. Each gets a medal hung on his neck and we shepherd them over to the Backwoods coffee shop for hot chocolate and espresso.

I check the weather forecast: 0 deg and partly cloudy. Do I commit to the cold wax yet?

Thursday night is Karl's birthday. Not exactly, but for seven of the last eight years we've celebrated with friends and family the birth of our youngest on the night of the Barnebirkie. Normally our birthdays are about the cake and grandma didn't disappoint with a classic chocolate cake. This year also had a big surprise: a new racing bike to replace the 24" Giant TCR Junior we purchased in France two years ago. It is amazing how fast these guys grow. We'll be stopping by Free Flight to size up a red Trek 2.1 WSD (still trying to figure out another acronym that will be 10yr old boy friendly).

Friday: Tomorrow's the big day and the butterflies are starting to appear. First, though, is the Junior Birkie, which will be a new experience for Karl. It's limited to 10 to 13 year olds and promises to be a real spring at just 3.5k. We leave early, just the two of us, and find the registration tent behind the Telemark Lodge.

Karl is having second thoughts, not sure that this will be too fun. I don't want to force him to race, but I encourage him to go through the motions and share some of my anxieties before races I've been in. He's surprised. Dad has anxieties?

We find ourselves sitting in the hallway next to a family of skiers getting ready for the Junior race. Dad is the wax tech and we share a laugh; I only had two kids and wife to wax for and he had seven. He noticed Karl was upset and came over to make him feel better. Later, 'Ok, dad, I'm going to race.'

The course winds on a 1.7k loop into the woods on a rolling course before returning and making a sharp climb to the finish line. Karl sets up in the holding pen and creeps into the second row for the start. The start and a mad rush and they're in the woods; my son off on his own with a hundred other boys.

Anxious parents wait on the other side of the loop, snapping pictures as the leaders from Spooner shoot over the crest. Five seconds. Fifteen seconds. Thirty seconds and then the rest of the group start coming through. After thirty or so come through, most not as good as Karl, he pops over, sees me and declares he's quitting. Something's happened in that mysterious part of the course outside of my parental sight.

'You have to quit at the finish area.' I hope he'll recover and reconsider, but I find him behind the start area, staring at the snow. Flashback to my childhood failures, the fear of condemnation by my father who had such high hopes for my basketball career, unspoken but present. I put my arm around him and say nothing.

Later I learn that he was forced into the woods on a turn by another skier and this through him way off. 'Next year, I need to start at the front.' Again that chronic fatherly pride.

Later in the lodge, after I pick up the bib packet, and departure for the cabin is approaching, one last stop at the Fast Wax booth for the latest recommendation. 15 deg and cloudy. 'We're still saying to wax cold, the snow is dry and the clouds will keep the moisture down. White over Teal. No Flouro.'

Early morning spin-ups

2009-02-13T17:51:00.001+01:00

The alarm gently pushes into a technicolor dream; the waxing moon is still high in the sky at 5am and the room is fairly bright, bright enough to find the watch and kill the sound. Janet is exhausted and immune to both the moonlight and the watch alarm's chirping and to the various old-guy sounds that my body makes as I swing the carcass out of the bed. There's time for a latte and I justify the need for some calories before a workout on the rollers.

I'm stiff and sore. Pain is usually delayed two days after an activity. Sunday's marathon was followed by difficulty with stairs on Tuesday and Wednesday's basketball game against the students (we won! Check out the video) has resulted in an generally achy sensation everywhere. I have faith that the latte will fix that. If it doesn't, my strategy is to put my training clothes on. I agree with my self that if I put my clothes on and get the bike ready and still don't feel like working out, then I don't have to.

Of course, I'm lying to myself, but that's OK; it's early and I'm not quick enough to catch on to the deception.

I cue up a video distraction on the computer, noting that the Tour of California will be shown on Cycling.tv. My bottle is full, the workout selected. Today will be a set of spin-ups to work on leg speed. Not overly taxing on my old, recovering body, but important to keep developing the sprint. After a fifteen minute warmup with some accelerations, I hit it hard in an easy gear for 30seconds. Cadence hits 140, stays there, starts to drift down to 135 and then comes back up and the 30 seconds is over. Four and a half minutes to spin easy, same gear. I'm pleased. The legs feel better than I thought, I successfully tricked myself into riding early again and I thought my form wasn't too bad in that effort. Now, just seven more times.

Winter Spring

2009-02-11T17:45:00.001+01:00

Today a small window opened and fifty five degrees of warmth blew in (at 20-25mph from the southwest). The snow, so carefully layered on the ground over the past three months, flowed into storm drains, pooled in low spots on the road and generally disappeared in a whoosh of springtime euphoria.

Still a bit sore from my morning ski two days ago, I jumped through the opening into spring as well, tweaking my rear derailleur cable tension (just installed some new, semi-sealed cables last week) at 6am, digging through the drawers for my springtime gear and spare tire, and loading the bicycle into the car. With skis on top of me, and my bike in back, I was set for whatever silent sport the weather forecast offered.

After a winter of cold slate skies, there was something both glorious and sad about the warm tailwind pushing me along Old Highway 20 east towards Dubuque. About 48 hours earlier I was skiing in 9 degrees of crystaline magic, thinking about cold toes and wondering if I waxed too cold for the day. Now I was descending the line of Sundown Hill, thinking of past experience of potholes on fast corners, listening for traffic and feeling like this was just too easy.

The snow was completely gone now. The wind had dried most of the roads and, at the bridge just west of Graf, the ice was a jumbled mess of slabs hung up on the rocks. Bittersweet thoughts: it would likely be another nine months before I would ski again in Iowa. That's the beauty of winter sports, be it skiing or snowshoeing or skating; we learn to look forward to the cold, the snow; the approaching cold front from the Rockies and the moisture pushing up from the Gulf aren't threats but promises, chances to touch the feeling of flying through the forest without effort or sound.

I climb the hill past the bridge. It pitches at first, forcing me into the lowest gear for a bit. A glance at the computer tells me I'm putting out a good effort, around 350watts. 'Duh' my quads say. I can feel a tiny bit of ache in the legs yet, but it's sandwiched between strong feelings of euphoria. I'm back outside on the bike, I'm riding up the climb. Life is pretty darned good.

Mornings in the sun

2009-02-10T16:38:00.002+01:00

The first ten kilometers glided by in a pleasant blend of sunlight, a blue for colorful skin suits, heavy breathing and smiles. The skis were fast, so fast the expected resistance of ski-on-snow was not there and more forward lean was needed to avoid falling backwards. Fastwax recommended two layers of highly flourinated salmon over a layer of blue with a topcoat of pure flouo, and I had a set wasxed that way, but today it was 10 degrees andthere wasnno new snow, so the other skis with the finer base structure were the choice and they were flying.

We looped north on the 58k trail, splitting from teh 35k skiers (about half of the field), riding the light tailwind and feeling the sun on our backs. I wasn't looking for a personal best today; this was a day to build more base miles in the legs to prepare for the Birkie in two weeks. 'Ski with joy.' was my mantra. I smiled as I thought my Karl and Johann racing the day before in the 7k Miniloppet.

They were both successful. Johann, coming off of a Strep infection, still on antibiotics and skiing with swollen legs that would have sidelined most people, deciding to forgothe 4k course in favor of the longer 7k course and crossing the finish line in downtown Mora with a huge smile on his face. Karl, lining up in the front at the start and getting into a five person pack, reduced to three at the trail split and then getting fourth for the 7k race. Character, confidence, and the joy of skiing beaming in their faces.

I needed that memory at the halfway point as the trail softened and the my legs started feeling weariness from the relentlessly flat trail. Smile, ski with joy and have a highly caffeinated Gu shot. Much better. How many left? Mth gets difficult, dividing 30k by 4 Gu packs... 2 kilometers later the answer pops through the gauze.

The trail snakes through the private land of hundreds of land owners on a trail that, for the most part, is only groomed for skiing once a year. Each crossing is manned by groups of local volunteers shoveling snow onto the road, holding back traffic and ringing the cowbells that create the unique background noise of ski events.

For some reason, the ten kilometer marks are significant for some reason. 50k comes very quickly, a quick note to take it easy; 40k, will the whole race go this fast? A comment from a skier behind from Thunder Bay "We're doing a sub 3hr pace!" 30k, I get passed by a JV skier on a climb and my legs are getting into trouble. 20k, another hill? I thought this was a flat race. 10k and now the push for the line, my body is not my own, the legs aren't listening to me and I eat my last Gu, circle behind the Mora ski center and head towards the bell ringing at the edge of town, up the incline onto the soft snow of Main St. around the corner...

'And there's number 477, Chris Sauer from Colesburg, another Iowa finisher!'

A beautiful day

2009-01-22T21:32:00.001+01:00

Woke up to a black sky leaking pink at its eastern edges. Janet wisely set the alarm for 6am and a quick snuggle later, the La Pavoni is steaming two cups of milk in the kitchen. Karl comes down after laying in bed for a few minutes; he's on the top bunk now and is confident enough at nine years of age to head down stairs without repeatedly asking Johann if he's awake until Johann is actually awake. Johann is probably going through a growth spurt right now and sleeps hard onto 7am, late for our family.

A skinny latte and a bowl of grapenuts, two sandwiches made and lunch bags loaded, and I'm filling waterbottles for my morning ride. Riding to school actually crossed my mind when I learned the high today would be near freezing, but our road is still a mixture of ice and snow melded with the gravel and Janet is meeting with teachers in Galena and I'm picking up the kids after school, so my time to spin is now. Such is our daily dance.

Ten minutes into the warmup, Johann and Karl come in to say good-bye, they don't want to hug the sweating guy on the bike, but smile and wave and I'll see them again in a few hours. Today's workout is alternating spin-ups and sprints, each 30s with five minutes spin in between. The first set of six, I spin in level 1 (>165 watts, 135bpm) and the second set has me 'recover' with a bit higher pace (175-195watts, 136-145bpm). I'm always a bit leery of this workout, the fifth or sixth all out sprint can leave me feeling a bit woozy.

Today went well. Instead of having the third stage of the Tour Down Under on (internet connection to cycling.tv was down), I watched Marco Pantani put the wood to Jan Ulrich in the Alpes during the 1998 Tour de France. My focus alternates between the beautiful countryside, the village storefronts, the riders' faces under stress, and my stress as the computer ticks down to my next interval. Time slows: Was the last interval a spin-up or sprint? Sprint. Whew, still six more minutes till the next max effort. What cadence did I maintain last time? 140. Still 30 seconds to go... grab a drink and glace at the screen, "Jan Ulrich's face is a mask of pain." Glance down, 12 seconds. Keep the gear the same and glance at the average watts for the rest interval, 158, still within the Active Recovery zone. Three, two, one and the watts shoot up to 330 and the cadence hits 130, 135 and finally sticks at 145.

30 seconds takes at least 10 minutes and a beep and I'm spinning easily again. Alpe d'Huez is behind me and Marco is comfortably in the Tour lead an American (not THAT American) Bobby Julich in second. Jan has slipped to third; I wonder what's going to happen next?

Climbing hills while standing still

2009-01-21T21:32:00.001+01:00

I've been doing the rolling/hilly workout from Dirk Friel's menu of trainer workouts once a week or so since mid November. At first the low cadence of 65rpm really taxed the hip flexors, leaving me stiff and hardly able to walk (yes, you can do that to yourself on rollers). A month and a half later, the workout leaves me with a sensation of having pleasantly taxed my muscles. Amazing what this training stuff can do for fitness...

The big change today was the addition of my new power meter to the workout. I figured my FTP (functional threshold power) last week, but Dirk Friel's numbers for his workout book use a slightly different number based on the normalized power for the threshold test. That number he calls the CP30, or the power one can handle for thirty minutes. For the rolling/hilly workout (E1 in the text), he sets the power goal for the first set of intervals at CP180, or 12.5% of the CP30 number. For me that would be 260 watts for the first set of 2 min intervals and then 270 watts for the second set of 3min low cadence efforts. As a newbie to powertraining, it's fascinating to see how the wattage numbers correspond to the heart rate numbers I've been using for the past nine years.

There is a correspondence but the HR drift during long workouts on the rollers is readily apparent as well. The exact same wattage efforts would result in slightly increasing HR numbers over each set of six intervals. Strictly following the heart rate limits for the workout would have resulted in a less productive workout, with lower quality efforts as the workout progressed.

This must all seem like a lot of gibberish to some folks. I remember someone saying once, back when I first started training for racing bikes. "You have to be really fit to suck" at bike racing. To do well, requires something extra. For some, the extra is a physical gift, really high VO2Max (the ability to take in oxygen), extremely high power to weight ratios, freakish builds. But for others, we have to accomplish our potential through harder and better work and that's where the power meter and HR monitor come in. A friend of mine, an accomplished rider and someone I consider a mentor, told me that there wasn't a need for these training toys; I just needed to get more miles in. I agree; I need to get more miles in, but with a family, job and life outside of cycling, those miles have to be the best miles possible and these are tools to help make them so.

They're also a motivator to get my carcass on the bike and workout on a cold, dark morning in the middle of winter...

A weekend at the Mines

2009-01-21T14:03:00.001+01:00

There's nothing that swells this father's chest with pride like seeing his sons out skiing.

Karl and Johann (and their parents, too) are getting ready for their ski races in Mora, Minnesota and Hayward, Wisconsin.

The Mora Vasaloppet is the first weekend in February. At 58k for the big people, the freestyle race is a grueling effort. The distance isn't the biggest challenge; it's the lack of hills, maybe three in total as the course crosses small river valley. Three hours of field skating will cause cramps in anyone! By the time we reach the sharp hill at the foot of Main St. in Mora, the body can be locked up pretty good.

Besides the unrelenting terrain, another unique feature of the race is the blueberry soup. What is it? I don't really know. It comes in packages from Sweden and it's served hot at the aid stations along the trail. Serving it up is the most amazing feature of the race: the host of volunteers from Mora. The entire town gets out for the race, though very few actually ski it. Our family is hosted by the Bangmas each year and Jeff is out there in the morning at 6am, getting to his post at the race start to serve blueberry soup.

The racers line up, over a thousand, self-organized by our expected finish time. I usually choose 3:30 as a realistic goal. And we wait for the start signal; a stick of dynamite that follows the national anthem. Last year no one took their hat off during the anthem. I think the -7 degree temps froze it to my scalp...

Saturday at the Mines was our friend's first day on cross country skis!

A test or two...

2009-01-17T15:29:00.001+01:00

Today is the first day this week I've woken up and the temperature was significantly above zero. Yesterday? -33. And that isn't the wimpy euro thermometer (I'm thinking of all of those guys at RoadCyclingUK crying when the temps hit -7 C), no, this is -33 Fahrenheit. It's so cold outside that if I cried about it, it could become a life-threatening situation.

Since our return from vacation up north, our pattern has been to ski on the weekends and bike on the rollers during the week. This keeps the cycling fitness at a basic level and works with our teaching and family life as well. Even the little guys get on the rollers , albeit with the fork stand and a tempting video on the computer (listen closely and you can hear the Dutch narrator of 'Stars and Water Carriers)...

The new year also sees the addition of a new tool to my training quiver, a Power Tap Pro+ wireless hub to measure power. Exciting stuff. Basically cost me my track bike that I built last year and rode a few times on the rollers during last winter. The hub takes up a lot less space and might actually help me train smarter.

So last week, nursing a head cold and grasping my spoke wrench in one hand, a Velocity tubular rim in another and a bundle of super short 280mm DT Competition spokes in yet another, I built my new wheel, glued on a tire and prepared for my inaugural ride into the land of power training. Hmm, kind of felt the same, except there was a new number on my computer monitor. Just a shake down ride to get used to the numbers, and shake out the pesky cold in my chest.

Tuesday came and I attempted a threshold test, cold and all. Threshold testing is important, whether training with a heart rate monitor or power meter; it gives you zones around which to plan your workouts. Most cyclists go way to hard during their recovery rides and not hard enough in their training efforts to force their body to make training adaptations. A few minutes into the test, I coughed up what appeared to be a sea cucumber and Janet looked up in alarm. Test aborted.

After two more rides and some sprints to get a baseline for my power in 15 second, 1 minute and 5 minute sprints, it's Friday! I take the bike off of the fork stand and turn on the computer, select 'threshold test' and away we go. A twenty minute spin in an easy warm-up zone (less than 165 watts), a few spin-ups to 100 rpm for a minute each and I'm ready to go.

The test starts with a 5 min maximum effort. This doesn't mean an all-out sprint. Do that and you'll find you have jelly in your legs after a minute or so (amazing how time slows down during a sprint). Five minutes feels good and I increase the power right up to the end. Ten minutes of much easier endurance zone spinning and this is where the power meter is interesting. My heart rate is at 165 bpm, just nudging into my anaerobic zone, and even though I know I'm spinning easily, my heart takes a few minutes to come down. The average power for this lap, though, is instantly right there and I adjust my effort to keep it in the lower zone.

Ten minutes passes so quickly, especially when anticipating a twenty minute maximum effort. Again, the key is start gradually, ramping up to what I think is an effort I can maintain. It's hard not to look at the numbers blinking back at me on the monitor, but I try to focus on the Vuelta Ciclista al País Vasco. I've got stage five on the computer screen and there's a break of four, including eventual winner Alberto Contador, making a hard effort to the finish. Perfect! Half way through, less than ten minutes left and I need to gear down one cog. I can feel the effort in my muscles, my ankles, I move around on the saddle, focus on the sprint for the line on the computer and notice only 28 seconds have passed since I last looked at the numbers. I begin breaking down the effort into two minute parts. I notice my average power for the interval has dropped a tad, from 320 w at the beginning to 305 sixteen minutes later. Shifting into a higher gear, I nudge the number up to 309 and sprint for the line.

Two weeks of snowy dreams

2009-01-04T19:55:00.001+01:00

The Family Sauer just returned from time away from Iowa. First a journey to Milwaukee for Christmas and skiing and then north to Munising, Marquette, Kenton and Eagle River, seeing old friends, making new ones and searching for our ski legs, missing since last season. Now it's a day after a last ski in in Eagle River and we have all of these pictures (and achy body parts)...

The Mines are Open

2008-12-21T15:31:00.001+01:00

A few days off the bike, in the throes of a head cold that won't leave me alone (one of the ancillary risks of having children, right up there with being sent to a nursing home when you're 80 and you accidentally pee your pants), the Sudafeds did their job and the kids and I made the trek to the Mines of Spain in Dubuque for our first real ski of the season.

This is kind of late for me to get some ski miles in, the transitional time between rideable roads and skiable trails can be a long one here in northeastern Iowa; we are often sandwiched between glowing ski reports at St. Mary's in Winona and temps in the 50's in southern Iowa. As we get closer to the American Birkebeiner, skiers get more and more agitated when they get quality snow time in. Now, that doesn't seem to be a problem, with daily blizzard and winter storm warnings, the trails seem to be guaranteed snow and cold for the foreseeable future.

Janet left for her friends' doctoral ceremonies at the University of Northern Iowa last night, so it was me and the boys getting our skis waxed this morning. Karl has a pair of combi skis that can go either way, classic or skate, and we had them waxed for classic skiing last week in our abortive attempt to ski the Colesburg Golf course in high winds and 10 degree temps. Trying to skate with grip wax is a terrible, awful thing, so dad soaked the base with Fast Wax purple a couple of times and did warm scrapes to clear all of the grippy stuff out. Ski waxing is even more of a process than gluing tubulars, especially if cleaning the base is in the cards, so an hour later I emerged from the basement workshop with two pairs of skis in hand, freshly waxed with Fast Wax blue, a good training wax for middle temps and cheap enough when bought in large bricks.

The first ski also means installing the old ski rack on Janet's new xD (she took the Element with the ski box to Cedar Falls). Often the first ski of the year includes a scramble to find clothes, ski racks, wax, skis, matching poles that haven't been used since the previous February. By noon we were ready, checked the Iowa Ski Blog for trail news, and out the door for the drive to the Mines.

Karl and Johann are dressed in stylish orange and red tops with matching hats so they don't get shot by hunters also using the park. As I write that it seems ridiculous that being shot would creep into the realm of possibilities for a ski experience, but there you have it, the strange result of modern farming, elimination of predators, scarcity non-farmed pieces of land in Iowa, our infatuation with meat, the American mythos of the frontiersman providing for his family, and our love of guns and cars above all else. Ah, America!

We didn't get shot, in fact didn't even hear a gunshot; the deep snow must have discouraged would-be hunters on the second last day of the season. The worst of non-skiing related interlopers we encountered was a woman walking her dog on the trail, an activity almost as disconcerting as men dressed in orange hunting Bambi.

Johann plied his classic trade, tearing up the new classic trails running parallel to the skate trail on the north loop. Wayne, the groomer, had outdone himself, the skate trail was wide and smooth, a bit soft but that's typical for this time of year. Gone were the classic trails bisecting the uphill skate sections, gone were

some small pines on the northern section that had created a narrow, icy lane with limbs hanging at head level. Karl skated and I moved between the two as we negotiated the trail. After a bit, we were greeted by ski and bike buddy Bruce, who we've run into many times over the years in far-flung locales such as Mora and Minocqua.

We skied for almost two hours and, when Karl was struggling to stand, we decided it was time to call it a day, a great day out at the Mines of Spain.

It's not snowing yet

2008-12-19T03:47:00.003+01:00

but the forecast is saying we'll have 10 inches of snow on the ground when we wake up tomorrow. That's fine, but for now I spin on my trusty Kreitler rollers, watching A Sunday in Hell, a great film about the 1976 Paris-Roubaix.

An easy spin and the legs are fresh from a few days completely off, a perfect storm of final grades and a bad cold conspired to give me a break. I glance down and my heart rate is twenty beats higher than it should be. Could be the Sudafed, could just be my body's reaction to the bug. I gear down and relax a bit as there's no sense in pushing myself and risk getting more sick.

The race starts in Chantilly, a town I'm now familiar with and Merckx rides down to the start line in the town center, past the chateau that marked the turn-around for the Selle en Selle ride I did with Jean-Manuel at the end of September. Chantilly hasn't really changed much in 30 years and I half expect to see the guys from the Houilles club cheering the riders as they leave the start.

An easy hour, my legs would like some more, but my heart tells me better. Sleep and tomorrow might be a day to play in the snow.

Early Morning Thoughts

2008-12-11T17:31:00.001+01:00

Woke up this morning a tad earlier than usual, 4:50, and decided post-latte to get a spin on the rollers in before the rest of the family woke up. Today being the last day of my ancient philosophy support class, thoughts of Epictetus blended with Phil, Paul and Bob's commentary on the last stage of the Tour of California (on the computer, but turned down very low). While I was bummed that Zirbel couldn't make his break from the breakway group stick, watching him smoothly persist in the cold California winter rain was inspiring.

"Thus when aiming at such great things remember that securing them requires more than a modest effort: some things you will have to give up altogether, and others you will have to put aside for the time being."

Ah, those stoics, they certainly have an understanding of bike racing. Worrying about the things that we can control, and forget about those we cannot. Of course, they include the body with things that we should not worry about (it's not ours after all; it's owned by the gods). But things like our appetites, rational and irrational are definitely spot on. My irrational appetites include those chocolate chip cookies Karl baked yesterday...

"With respect to any of those things you find attractive or useful or have a fondness for (toll house cookie, let's say), recall to mind what kind of thing it is, beginning with the most trifling. So if you are fond of a [chocolate chip cookie], say, 'I am fond of a [chocolate chip cookie]'. Then you will not be upset if [someone else eats it]."

Really, the name of the game seems to be brings things to mind, consciously making decisions with our rational self. Once we bring the cookie to mind, the rational self decides what is best. 'Hmm, eating this will cause me to fail in reaching my goal of losing weight. If I lose weight, I won't look so silly in that lycra outfit I wear in front of strangers at races. I think I'll let someone else eat that cookie.' One tool the stoics didn't have is the new LabPixies Calorie Counter for iGoogle. The simple act of writing down what you eat during the day, everything you eat, makes each act of eating a rational choice; something that Epictetus and his buddies would have loved. Try it for a week and see if it doesn't change your eating habits.

Put Me Back on My Bike: Review

2008-12-10T21:55:00.001+01:00

Winter's here. And while that means more trainer miles and less road time, it also means more time to catch up on reading. I just finished Fotheringham's exploration of the life of British cyclist Tom Simpson, Put Me Back on My Bike: In Search of Tom Simpson. Simpson, infamous for his death on Mt Ventoux during the 1967 Tour de France, is somewhat of an enigma to this younger American cyclist, so I was happy to find out more.

The author never met Simpson, but pieces together the details of his life through interviews with former teammates, friends, his wife and business partners. A rider that is now, in retrospect, seen as a warning against doping in professional cycling, Fotheringham paints a more complex portrait of a competitor driven to use amphetamines by not only his ambition to be the best, but also by the cold realities of professional cycling in the 60's for someone trying to break into the European peloton and maintain a foothold. Despite having won the World Championship the previous year, Simpson was being pushed by his agent to podium at the Tour and was facing the loss of lucrative post-Tour contracts if he didn't achieve a podium finish.

Highpoints include: a poignant interview with the Tour doctor who is seen in many photos of the moment attempting to revive Simpson as he lies prone on the roadside; a chat with the Belgian bar owner who was a business partner with Simpson and now owner of an overgrown piece of land that was to be a housing development; and an interview with his widow, who married one of Simpson's teammates, Barry Hoban, soon after his death.

Though the book has some faults (information is repeated verbatim in subsequent chapters), it was an informative look into the life of one of cycling's icons and the first Anglo to break into the ranks of the highest level of the sport.

Iced In

2008-12-10T16:47:00.001+01:00

When you have two boys pestering you to check the school closings at 6am every morning in the winter, it's not hard to have some of that enthusiasm for an unscheduled free day rub off and indulge in the possibility that today might shape up as something completely unexpected.

Yesterday was that kind of day. A half an inch of ice on the Honda, winds blowing snow at 25mph and a whole day stretching out in front of me. My first thought was to strap on the skis, maybe at the Colesburg golf course (yes, of course our small Iowa town of 412 inhabitants has a nine hole golf course). The wind and ice canceled that idea. So it was going to be a good workout on the rollers.

First, though, finish the latte and check in with school and the other cyclists on my daily diet of cycling forums. A current favorite is www.RoadcyclingUK.com where my cycling mate from Rousillion is a regular poster, blending Cockney, a bit of wit and a veteran competitor's deep urge to make other people hurt just a little bit. Old Sog Smith's latest post, Bike Test Dummies, has gotten the dander up among the site's regulars. After a good chuckle, I give him a call and we laugh about the forum and folk's reactions to his language.

Giving Geoff a call brings back the memories of our four months in southern France two years ago. Our family's time there was important. Karl and Johann still talk about learning to ride a bike through the vineyards and groves of cork trees on our mountainside, hiking up to see the Romanian monks living at the top of our road in their building built on top of a Roman shrine to Dionysus and the Canigou peak looming over the Perpignan plains.

Geoff and I laugh as we talk about folks we rode with, his new club in Le Boulou, the rain pouring down in the Languedoc and the ice coating northeastern Iowa, and he says, "That was a good time, wasn't it?"

That ain't a Porkie Pie.

Books for Christmas

2008-12-05T21:29:00.001+01:00

Visit this link to shop Amazon.com and support my blog at the same time.

Weekend Ride in Trevor

2008-12-03T17:57:00.002+01:00

With temperatures rising to almost 40, sunny skies and a stiff breeze out of the north, it was too good of a day to miss a post-Thanksgiving ride. There was also the need to compensate somehow for the extra calories of stuffing, turkey, mashed potatoes, sauerkraut (we're a German family), pumpkin pie, wine, and assorted finger foods consumed at my Uncle Orv's farm in central Wisconsin. Even holding back and eating less, much to the consternation of my grandmother--'Is something wrong with you, Chris?'-- I needed some time on the bike.

Eck answered the call with an invite to his place in Trevor for a 2-3 hour jaunt on the rolling roads heading west towards Lake Geneva. Growing up in southern Wisconsin, I loved the oak trees lining small country roads, the rolling hills and lakes with Ojibwa names, Pewaukee, Oconomowoc, Lake Five, and the well-kept, freshly painted towns complete with general stores and a dozen bars.

We suited up, Eck, Addison and myself, and started out with the 15mph wind on our right cheeks out of the northwest. Addison and Eck had spent the morning doing a bike fit, Addison strapped to his bike on a Computrainer and Eck having him accelerate, stand, sit, spin, stand, sit until Addison and he were quite satisfied with the adjustments to the bike and the resulting wattage outputs. The fitting continued on the ride and I took advantage of their need to talk more by staying in the two-rider draft a while.

Other memories of my last ride outside in a week: getting dropped on a climb as the 146 pound Addison accelerated to the crest. Getting a tad bit of payback showing the same Addison a clean wheel in the ride-ending sprint coming into Trevor. The camaraderie of hanging with teammates the day after Thanksgiving. Can't wait for the next season to begin!

A Sunday Ride in November

2008-11-24T14:25:00.001+01:00

Every ride outside now is a bonus ride. Snow is a constant possibility and, after whiffing the endless hours of sitting on a trainer or rollers in a back room, sun and 40 degrees is downright delightful. As I did last week, road in on Hwy 3 to meet the guys from Dubuque in Durango. Nine o'clock on a Sunday morning is pretty uneventful, mostly folks going to church in Luxemborg or Holy Cross, and they offer plenty of room, most of the time an entire lane, as they pass. Is it the Sunday sermon effect? or maybe they're just used to seeing me on the road now. The exception is the evil milk truck driver. He drives a blue milk truck and hurtles down the highway, probably to the Swiss Valley plant in Dubuque, at various and unpredictable days and times. Today he caught me just past Holy Cross, waited impatiently for some churchgoers to make the turn and then passed me. He now gives me plenty of room, but then deftly rides squarely on the gravel shoulder with his right wheels. Over-correction? Naw, he stays there for a good 200 yards, spewing gravel and dust into my face. If that's the worst of it, then I'm OK and I meet my buddies at the crossroads in Durango.

Mike, Spahny, John and Lance, good company on a nice November ride

A Winterish Morning

2008-11-23T14:32:00.001+01:00

One of the pleasures of living in Iowa is waking up to snow flurries, wind and 10 degrees on the thermometer. What to do after downing a bowl of oatmeal and a double shot of espresso? Hop on the bike. But not outside, not today. Today is reserved for the rollers. My setup, an old set of Kreitler Dynolytes, sweat-induced rust pushing through the red paint on the frame, paired with a Headwind fan running off the front roller and a 10 pound weight spinning off the rear drum, this setup has seen me through hundreds of winter hours over the last ten years. Most of the time, the rollers are reserved for fast cadence recovery spins, but sometimes, like this morning, they need to take the place of a real base-building ride.

A great resource for figuring out what to do is Dirk Friel's Workouts book. It's a little binder stuffed with variations of indoor trainer workouts to add some variety to the hours that you should be spending on the rollers if you're one of the poor blokes not living in southern France this winter. Friel separates the into Endurance, Force, Speed Skills, Muscular Endurance, Anaerobic Endurance, Power and Mixed. I'll be highlighting a few that I've incorporated into my routine over the last two years. Oh, and best of all, the pages of the book are sweat proof!

This is low volume week for me. Typically, I've been doing about 15 hours a week of base work with a spinup thrown in for three weeks and then I'll do a week with half the volume. These half-volume weeks typically correspond to bouts of tremendously crappy weather where my MWF commutes to work aren't possible. This frosty morning I'm going to do the strangely named (I'll be riding on rollers afterall) Rolling Hilly workout, E1 in Friel's text (the first exercise of the Endurance section). I also set up Cycling TV on the ol' computer. Today's selection is the 2008 Amstel Gold. My goal is to recognize some of the towns we rode through during our visit in 2007 (our friends live in Rjemerstok).

The goal of the workout (besides avoiding frostbite) is to develop endurance and hip strength by imitating cadence and pedal force encountered on rollers. After a 15m warmup where Friel has me spinning, stand, sit and then do single leg work, we get to the meat of the workout. Two sets. First set is 6 reps, 2m each. Each rep is 2m at 70rpm in Zone 2. The recovery interval is 1m at 100rpm in Zone 1. After a three minute rest interval between sets, the second set expands the low cadence interval to 3m.

This sounds ridiculously easy, but after the first set I realize that my hip flexors are killing me. During the three minute rest interval, my legs feel fantastic, smoothly spinning away at 90ish rpm. The second set finishes me off by the sixth rep. The workout's a success: an hour has passed and no frostbite.

Memories of Versailles Chambord 2008

2008-11-19T15:56:00.001+01:00

Long delayed in posting a report about my ride with Jean-Manuel in the 30th anniversary of the randonnee, Versailles-Chambord, on September 21st. While I was flying in the day before from Iowa, JM drove his car down to Chambord, parking it near a police station to keep it safe. The end of the 140 mile ride was about 10k from a train station and the thought of sitting on a train for two hours after a 6 and a half hour ride and then riding again to get home didn't sit well. Thanks to his effort the day before, we were able to ride home in the comfort of a Peugeot 405 and stop for a decent meal near Orleans.

This fellow followed the riders to each rest stop on the way.

Registration at daybreak in front of the Palais de Versailles didn't dampen these ladies' spirits.

Maybe it was the coffee?

Riding in the early morning light through the Chevreuse Valley, home of the famous Gran Prix des Nations time trials for many years. Our route retraced some of the same roads I first raced back in 2004 in the Versailles-Chartres road race. Memories of being pegged at 31mph in a long line and the Cathedral of Chartres miles ahead on the horizon. This morning was more of a surreal experience as groups of riders faded in and out of fog and light. JM and I leapfrogging from one group to the next in search of the 'just right' tempo for the day.

Rest stops were spaced at about 40k intervals and provided an opportunity for regrouping. JM and I were the only riders from his Houilles club, but we quickly became comrades in wheels with others. This particular stop was at a bakery, and we had our choice of a large croissant or a bun. Next time, take the bun. Nothing like burping up butter in a paceline.

JM in the lunch line. For a six euros we got a bag stuffed with an egg sandwich, couscous, fruit, chips and flan. After the croissant earlier in the day, the chips and flan were gifted to another rider.

Nice hunting shack! And one of the most chaotic profiles of a chateau in France, the Château de Chambord is a must see.

With the sunlight fading and the quads still burning, JM and I wandered around a magical place.

A good ride with a great friend. 140 miles with nearly 6000 feet of climbing helped make jet lag a secondary consideration.


	With over 650 riders participating, the variety of bikes on hand were something special.