Bier en modder

It’s been an enjoyable weather week.  For February, temperatures in the mid to upper 50’s while staying mostly dry, is pretty sweet.  The spring bulbs are coming up, the chickens have started laying eggs after taking the winter off, and it’s been nice to open up the windows and air the house out.  After this, I may go take a long walk on the beach…

After cleaning out the cross bike, I’ve been taking it to work all week which felt…strange.  Since cross ended, I got the fixie out and have been riding it non-stop for the past three months.

First, it was weird going fast again.  Second, I’d nearly forgotten how to shift and coast.  Third, brakes are a beautiful thing.  And fourth, I am still amazed at what a beautiful, solid, and huge bike it is.  It really is dreamy to ride around on it.

What this bike transition also told me is that after trying to punch it up a little hill, I feel like I have the lungs of a 70-year old emphysema patient.  Good God.  Interestingly enough, I was just reading in Bicycling in their training article where now that the winter of strength training is done, it’s time to get the legs used to firing faster.  While my strength went up considerably, my legs and lungs are clearly not ready for fast twitch and endurance work.

So what’s next.

Horning’s Hustle is 5 very short weeks away.  Given the fact that I’ll also be racing Expert (6 laps or about 24 miles), I need to be realistic about how it’ll go.  I made a choice to concentrate on strength over the winter instead of maintaining the fitness I built up for cross.  Sacrificing early season results for longer-term goals is an unfortunate consequence.

The short of this is that I anticipate sucking wind for the next 4 to 6 weeks until I can get some semblance of endurance back.  I’ll obviously need to mix some speed and hill work in there but the bulk of the riding will either be aerobic or sub-threshold work.  This all sounds very fun.

February has been a bit of an odd month. Rachel and I got the crud that was (and still is) going around. It laid Rach out for a strong 2 weeks. I was about 8 days, start to finish, before I felt normal. I’m typically good for one cold/illness a year and that should be it. Oddly enough, I was looking through my workout log from last winter and got sick just about the exact same time last year. Weird. I’m considering preemptively taking Sudafed in late January next year. Not that useless shit we sell in Oregon but the real stuff you need to go over the state line to Van-cooter for.

During this month, I had plenty of time to relax and lay around the house. Part of my recovery process was hitting the sauna at 24Hr fitness. I have a stack of Bicycling and Mountain Bike magazines at my desk that I take over to read in the sauna. A few days of sweating profusely and reading about bikes, racing, and gear did an excellent job of starting to motivate me for this season.

Late last week I found myself perusing around on my online Crack website (eBay). I missed a low bid on some Sram X.9 trigger shifters which subconsciously tripped some OCD reaction. I can’t stop thinking about getting ready for the race season. I was wondering when that would happen.

So what’s the plan?

1. Over last weekend, I broke down the Guerciotti, cleaned the bearings (nasty), and got it ready for spring, wet weather riding. The mud from the Hillsboro race got everywhere.

2. Get the Cannondale drivetrain upgraded. X.9 trigger shifters & rear derailleur (not sure if it’ll be ‘07 or ‘08), new chain and cassette. I’d like to think that I can get this for under $225. The rear disc brake is on my wish list as I need a disc hub to go with it. I just don’t have the cash for that yet. Maybe, just maybe later this spring.

3. Finalize a race & training schedule. I have the MTB race schedule put in my Outlook calendar. I need to go over the locations & times with Rach to pick out 4-5 of the 8 races in the Oregon XC Series. There’s a couple that are automatically out like the one on Mothers Day.  Odd as it sounds, I happen to enjoy being married more than racing.  Spring Fling in Ashland, fun as it is, is a ridiculously long drive (5+ hours).  The others will depend on travel and other stuff we have going on.

4. Start riding. This weekend. That’s right. I gotta get my shit together for Hornings Hustle in 6 weeks.

The UConn-Syracuse game was on last night.  It was a close and exciting game all the way up until the end.  Did I watch it?  No.  I was watching Care Bears II - A New Generation…in Hi-Def.  Ingrid was sick, grumpy from just waking up from a nap and being left behind when Owen went to karate, and wanted nothing more than to tune out to Care Bears.  I spend most of the game cooking and watching the GameCast on ESPN every 30 seconds.  It’s just like being there.  Really.

Nature abhors a vacuum and after 2 months of nothing, cycling is slowly creeping back in.

I finally got around to sending out my OBRA renewal stuff.  $20 to OBRA plus another $30 for whatever.  Even at $50 a year, it’s still a pretty good bargain.

So what else does that mean?  Well, maybe I’ll start tuning race bikes to start the year.  The Lemon(d) needs a pretty good overhaul.  I have cables, housing, and bar wrap set to go.  If I remember correctly, the chain and gears were in good shape.

I also want to get one of the Salsa Short n Shallow bars for it like I have on the cross bike.  I have Michael Sylvester to thank for that.  It’s comfortable and luckily one of the few bars wide enough for me.

I really don’t know what direction to head in with the Cannondale mtb.  It’s old - about 9 years now, but still in serviceable shape.  If I do more mtb races, like I hope to, I need to take a closer look at it.  The rear dropouts look and feel funny to me.  I wonder if the alignment is off.  I’ve dished the rear wheel near perfect and it still doesn’t sit well in there.

The drivetrain is a huge POS.  I need a new rear derailluer and front shifters.

So like I said, I need to think about what kind of cash I want to sink into it.

The cross bike, being new, is fine.  I just need to get into the bearings and give them a cleaning and fresh lube.

It’s not much but it’s a start.

I’ve looked at the race schedule and I’m still trying to develop some sort of plan for the year.  Nothing obvious has jumped out at me yet.  I hope for a couple decent mini-seasons; an early one in the spring/summer at 75% or so and a second, full-out one for cross in Oct/Nov.  I once thought that Mt. Hood would work as a 4/5 but that race has been scrapped.  I could go in as a 35+.  We’ll see.

The talk of the demise of mtb racing is hopefully just that - talk.   The more I think about it, the more I’m more interested in racing off road than road this year.  PIR bores the snot out of me.  Even some of the other road races I’ve done feel like everyone is just noodling around for 90 minutes and then races for real the last couple miles.  I like road riding, I’m just not sure how much I like racing it.