The Last

Well, that's it the last class of the term. After spending a the majority of this week finishing up classwork and attending the last sessions of class I'm ready to head into a weekend of bike riding and sitting back.

Since my last ride was a brief spin on the trainer Monday night, Saturday's cross race in Easthampton, MA may be spent in a domestique role, if you can do that in cross.

Friday, is the last Friday of the month, and that means critical mass in New Haven, if you're in the area meet at the flagpole on the green at 5:30pm for a real easy, social ride.

A few pictures from past Critical Mass rides in the slide show.

Ride it!

Slide Show

The greatest new addition to the blog is the slide show. If I can divert your attention to the right sidebar area, you'll notice some photos circulating. The photos come from one of my picasa albums and should continually change on their own. Clicking on the slide show will actually take you to that photo album on picasa where you can see the pictures in a much bigger format.

I will try to keep the slide show related to one of the more recent posts so as you're looking over the page you can get a sneak preview, or a reminder of what has recently happened. They say, a picture is worth a thousand words. This might help bring my story telling to life just a little bit more.

Currently it is showing pictures from the season opening cross race at Gloucester since it's really the only cross race where I got a substantial set of pictures.

Turkeys on Vacation

Thanksgiving, a time for turkey, stuffing, potatoes, family, friends, and of course travel. Thanksgiving took me back to the home town for a week. It had been a year since I'd taken Route 17/I-86 back and there were a couple new things on the way. For one, upon passing through Elmira, traffic no longer stops at traffic lights, a welcome change. Also on the other side of Elmira, at the airport, the building that I suspected to be Sikorsky's new facility, was in fact, that. The building was finished, with a big 'Winged S' on the side.

Traveling slightly North and towards the great lakes also meant something else that I had yet to see this season, snow. There wasn't a significant amount falling, though heavy enough to make you feel as if you were staring at that flying through the stars screen saver while driving. I woke Sunday morning to find everything covered in a light layer of snow. By the end of the day though, everything had melted, and by Wednesday it was 60°. But it was down to 30° by Thanksgiving night. The cold temperatures made for a heck of a ride on Friday.

Monday and Tuesday found me at PAHS observing classes to fulfill requirements for my degree. Thursday was Thanksgiving, so my time was filled up rather easily for the week, throw on top of that some visiting with family and friends and some bike rides and I'm booked. One thing is for sure, I certainly appreciate the slower nature of the town a lot more now, and the extreme ease with which I moved around town via bicycle. No need for a car, in fact, a majority of my trips involved no other cars on the road, just me and the bike. Some think I'm nuts though.

3000

"So never mind the darkness
We still can find a way
'Cause nothin' lasts forever
Even cold November rain."
- Guns 'N' Roses

I set out about 7:30 pm for a ride, deciding to head towards Lillibridge with the cross bike, unsure whether I'd go for the top or not. About halfway up the paved road it started to rain, it was settled I was going to the top of the hill now. The rain only secured my dedication. It was nearly 60° out and I was certainly a little overdressed, so I got rid of the gloves and glasses and unzipped my top layers as I hit the dirt road. On the way back down my head light went into flash mode and took me by surprise for a second, then I realized it was warning me the battery was about to die, which it did shortly there after. It's mighty dark in the woods, but my eyes adjusted and I was able to make out the dirt road as I crept down the hill. As I approached town I encountered more lights and it became easier to see.

I also surpassed 3000 miles of riding for the year. At least as far as the mileage I've marked into my bikelog diary. Many warm-up rides before races and other miscellaneous mileage doesn't get recorded.

At the top of Lillibridge - it's dark in the woods.

Cheshire results update #2

I had emailed Taylor about this and he replied, there were definitely 30+ people there for our race, for whatever reason they only entered the top 20. Despite the non-desire to have a low finish and have the world see, it still is a disservice to those that paid their money and raced not to post their respective result. How much extra effort does it take to type a few more names? Gloucester had nearly 100 people in multiple races throughout the day, for 2 days, yet they listed everyone when posting their results.

I've also had to show my USA cycling license at each race, and have yet to see any results posted to USA cycling. Not that I have any upgrade points, but what if I did? USA Cycling has no official record of this to reference if I were to apply for the upgrade. So I become curious as to why I would need a license for these races. I have the license anyway from Cross Country racing, but I still wonder...

Cheshire results update

Well the organizers sent out an email that the results are posted. Also included in the message are links to photos and a link to a youtube playlist of videos of the hill people. Guess what? They're the videos I took and posted! My career in film has begun!
Back to the results though. I'm listed as 11th of 20. I figured was around 10th or 11th, but I'm pretty sure there were more than 20 guys in our field though, there were 29 preregistered, and Taylor doesn't show up in the results. So I finished in about the same position as in Dayville, but I think the field was bigger at Cheshire, so percentage-wise I did better. Anyways, a pretty good result.

Cheshire Cross 2007

It had been a few weeks since the last race and I was quite ready to get back on a cross course. Cheshire was about as home field as it's been this season. Bonus #2, our race was at noon instead of 9am. I met Taylor there and we got a course pre-ride in followed by warm up while the women's field was racing, Taylor rolling circles in the grass, I on the trainer.

At start time I rolled up to find that plenty of guys had already gathered, but somehow I managed to get myself a front row starting position. I've learned that a front row start is critical, because getting caught in traffic costs critical time. At the whistle I jumped into a sprint, then we hit a complete u-turn, it was a little dicey, but I jumped into another sprint coming out of it. So far so good, I had good position. A short bit later we hit a short right into another left u-turn. I got one guy on the inside and accelerated hard out of the turn. Now the course opened up slightly and we started to drop into line, cutting through a small ravine. Then I heard some cheers from atop the bank on my left. Lee, Rob, and Omar had come to cheer Taylor and I on. At the end of the ravine was yet another u-turn and we cut back through. More cheers!

Into the first run up. I was definitely faster than a few guys running up the hill but everyone was still close enough together I couldn't get around all the swinging bikes. Unfortunate, because I was also held up a little by these guys on the following single track, but as soon as the course opened for a bit I jumped to pass. Finally, room to move a little, and we were diving back into another little bit of single track which I could take at pace I liked.

Pain! The worst run up I've been on all year, run up #2 of this course. The organizers had strewn a log across the bottom of this hill, to which only a few guys were able to get over while still on their bikes. The rest of us dismounted, and ran up this torturous hill. (There was actually a prize for anyone that could ride the hill at least twice.) Then I heard more cheers, Jason and Lauren were there too. Oh joy, they get to watch me run up the hill in pain. Actually it was more like a slow shuffle, not a run.

So now that I was fully beyond the red zone it was off to the more open sections of the lap. Of course we hurdled a set of barriers and rode through some sand, then hit some pretty sketchy off camber corners. The last couple hundred yards were flat through a field Allowing for some steady pedaling and recovery. At the end of the first lap, I counted myself to be in about 6th position. I was pretty ecstatic about this, it was my best position all year!

Over the next few laps I passed a few guys and a few guys passed me, sometimes trading positions depending upon what section of course we were on. One thing was consistent, the pain of run up #2. Every lap I was pushed farther into the red zone, and recovered less. At one point I think I had drool hanging from my mouth because I was trying so hard to suck in what ever oxygen I could that closing my mouth or swallowing was not on my list of functional abilities. Basically, I think I found a new section of my lungs that had never been used before.

Going into the 4th and final lap, I noticed that there was a large gap behind me until the next group of guys. Now I really shouldn't have looked back, because as I was told once, the race is in front of me. So knowing I had a little space, I eased off just a little because I knew I had space. Bad idea, with about a third of a lap to go I realized they'd made up some ground on me. Now I struggled to get whatever I could out of my legs so that the pursuing guys couldn't make up anymore ground. Coming into the final straight I knew I had them, but I stood up and sprinted just to put the nail in it.

All in all, definitely my best cross race thus far. The biggest difference from the other races, a great start and not contending with traffic. I'm not sure how Taylor and I finished as of yet, I didn't check any results at the race. I'll post an update when I find them online. For now, the pictures Lee took while I was racing and a few I took of the race following us can be found here.

You can find some videos at the following Youtube links and check out the heckling from Santa Cross below.
Video 1
Video 2
Video 3
Video 4
Video 5
Video 6

Don't forget your speakers