Bier en modder

Fairly quiet here.  Busy but quiet.  I’m a big ‘list’ person.  I like to make lists.  Things to do, etc.  I’ll even add “make a list” on my list just to check it off.  Feels good.  After a few weeks, the list is finally getting smaller instead of growing each day.

Up and down week of riding so far.  Some good workouts, some bad ones.  Trying to stay focused.  It’s near the end of the year so a quantum leap in speed or power isn’t all that likely.  But I do still need to keep working at it.  If I do nothing or go light, I lose what I’ve built up over the summer and fall.  That’d suck.

Still no definiative word from Schwalbe on the Ralph tubular.  I should probably start annoying them with e-mails.  Regardless, I’m not likely to get a replacement or even a repair for that matter in time for this season.  I have a Fango on the way which I’ll get glued up next week.  I probably could have gotten it ready for Barton this week but I figured that it wouldn’t rain, thereby jinxing it.  If it’s delightfully muddy this weekend, you have me to thank.

Ordered my conical fermenter, or unitank, as beer nerds like to call it.  The first 6 of my late fall/early winter beers are planned.  I’ll send my order in when the conical arrives, probably in a couple weeks.  I also need to get a dead chest freezer to the dump and get a replacement upright freezer on craigslist this weekend or next.  Very exciting…all of it.  New beer on tap.  A very convenient fermenter.  Moving back up to 10 gallon batches.  Good stuff.

Should also be ready to press cider next weekend too.  I’ve got the food disposal bought and I need to clean it out and make a mounting plate.  My in-laws have a press which I’ll try to get and clean this weekend.  That should be a fun time with the kids.

As a final reminder, as if you didn’t need one, vote early and vote often.  We got our ballots in early last week and the phone & doorbell have been blissfully quiet.

For a week that was supposed to be an off-week, it sure as hell didn’t feel like it.  Lots of background noise going on that made it hard to feel settled and relaxed; rental property stuff, oodles of work, random family things like people being sick, etc.

Oh yeah, plus I had a non-existent birthday on Tuesday….more like a Happy Un-Birthday if you will.  I hadn’t even had time to catch up on that.

Bought myself a nice treat of Patron Añejo Friday.  That was dumb.  That shit is so good.  Reminds me of the time I talked a Peets barista out of a sample of 100% Kona coffee.  Made everything else taste like Folders for a week after that.

Back to my birthday…like I said, it got a little glossed over.  Rachel had her first neighborhood meeting as president that night.  I had to check out a tenant at 10 pm too.  So we made a quick dinner, I took care of the kids while Rach was out, talked to the fam on the east coast for a bit, and then enjoyed a riveting game of Indiana Jones Lego on the laptop until 10 pm.  I was too busy to recognize it at the time but at the week wore on, I feel a little cheated.

Moving on to ‘cross.

Rest week before the final push to Crusade finals and USGP.  Barton – PIR – Wash. Co.  I’m a fan of Barton.  I’ve always done relatively well there.  I’m looking forward to that.  I hope the run-up in the back of the course is still there.

Finally heard back from Schwalbe.  They’re looking into my warrantly claim but did note that they’re out of the Racing Ralph tubulars until next spring.  In some ways, I’m ok with that.  At least I won’t wait around for it.  I should get Fangos on Monday at the team meeting and can glue them up to the Eastons for the rest of the season.

My dad asked me on Tuesday if, at 38, I’m starting to feel a little old.  Seeing as I regularly get my ass handed to me by 40+ year olds on the cross course, I’d have to say no.  I still feel as excited and energetic about stuff as I did when I was 28.  I just feel a little smarter about how to handle my body in terms of level of exertion and recovery.  I told him to talk to me in 10 years and I may have a different answer.  Seems like 50 is the new 40.

And then there’s beer.

Looking ahead, cross season isn’t all that far away from being done for the winter.  I’m already thinking about the brewing I’ll do over the winter.  I set up another page to put brewing related stuff there; recipes, brewing logs, and whatever else I can think of.

I’m going to order a new 14 gallon fermenter which will allow me to move back up to 10 gallon batches.  It’s something I’ve wanted for years.  Takes the same time as 5 gallons but I double the capacity.  I’ve just never had a stable and sanitary fermenter for that batch size.  So I finally saved enough allowance money to take the plunge.  I’ll order it so I can hopefully get a brew in between Cross finals and USGP.


Rainier yesterday.  Such a nice course.  Would have been nicer if it was a little softer & muddier but that would be splitting hairs.  I’d be a turd if I bitched about it any more than that.

After moving up this year, I’d been wondering where I’d shake out in the results.  Middle of the pack?  Near the top?  Near the bottom?  I had no idea.  After a few races this year, I’d been getting a better sense of my own personal level of effort and where I came out in the results.  So far, I’ve been pretty Steady Eddie:  26th at Alpenrose & 24th last week.  Over the past week, I’ve been feeling pretty strongly that a top 20 or even in the points (top 18) would be a solid accomplishment for my first year in Mst A’s.

With the background noise about the new starting system, I figured it couldn’t possibly hurt me.  I’ve been getting to the start and lining up near the back third, trading start position for a decent warm-up.  As luck would have it, my number (#1) was third in order.  By the time everyone was called up, I was in about the 3rd or 4th row.

Got a decent jump off the start, hanging with the pack until we wound up the hill.  The hill, like for every other category I saw, segregated the group pretty quickly.  By the time we reached the downhill section, I was in the top 20, right where I wanted to be.  I say Jason Crago ahead and Doug Evans about 20 yards ahead, 2 people I knew who consistently finish between 10-20.  I wanted to keep them in sight as long as I could.

Checking in after 1 lap, I feel solid.  I’m cornering probably the sharpest I ever have on a cross bike (thank you Racing Ralphs).  The uphill climb is fair, certainly not spectacular.  With the exception of the hill, it’s not a hard course at all.  All I need to do is to hold on here.

Right.  On lap 2, it thinned out a bit and gaps are opening up between people.  I’m riding caboose on a group of 5 or 6.  I’m noticing that my chain is skipping on gears 2 through 4.  So I’m left with my weenie gear (25) or the 17.  It didn’t show up so much on the 1st lap but now I really need them in the back stretch through the woods and definitely up the hill.  I go with the 25 and I spin way too high and lose speed.  The 17 is too low to turn without really torching my legs.  I decide on the 25 up the hill and end up feeling like I’m hemorrhaging time to the rest of the field.

I contemplate stopping in the pits to check it out but decide against it.  By lap 3 or 4, my group broke up and I’ve lost another spot or two.  I’m on Andrew Reed’s wheel for a couple laps.  We both seem to be at the same pace.  He’d pull away up the hill and I’d get it back throughout the rest of the lap.  I wasn’t sucking his wheel but I wasn’t looking to pass him yet either.

With a few to go, I see Mike Alligood ahead.  Jake Rosenfeld and I are passing each other off and on but he finally pulls away for good.  Greg Talbert is about 15 yards up but I just can’t dig it out to catch up.  Finally got lapped by the A’s with 3 to go.  I’m glad I held them off that long.

Finished out ok, probably somewhere in the 20’s.  (actually 24th)  I reached a bit high in the beginning on a course that is certainly not my strongest.  Of my finishes last year, I did the (relatively) worst here at Rainier.  It’s that f-ing hill.

Some observations.

First, I skipped contacts and went with the sturdy black frame glasses and a nerdy glasses strap (One at a time, ladies!…One at a time!).  Much better.  I was getting a lazy eye or the contact was drying out and I’d get double vision during a race.  I’d go through periods where I”d have no depth perception.  Not good.  Sooner or later, something bad was going to happen.  The glasses fixed that.  Don’t know what the hell I’ll do when it gets rainy or muddy but I’ll cross that bridge later.

Second, I finally put on a third eye chain watcher.  Seeing as my chain did not fall off for once, I’ll call that a success too.  Thanks Jeff Standish and Chris Taucher for the reminder.

Third, given the longer length of the A race, if there’s a mechanical issue that could possibly be corrected – like turning the tension barrel on the rear derailleur, for example – I need to try and think straight and just stop to fix it.  Our team has a couple guys hanging around the pits to help out.  I don’t know how much time I lost on the 8 laps of that race going up that hill and also not attacking through the woods when I felt the freshest of each lap.  Probably more than the 10-30 seconds it would have taken to stop in the pits.  Plus a lot less mental energy wasted on thinking about it.

Rest week this week.  No Astoria either.  I’m glad for the break.  More later.

Homebrew meeting last night, hosted as it is every October at Hair of the Dog brewing.  It’s maybe a mile from my house so I just hopped on the bike and coasted down the hill.

Good times all around.  The OBC is a pretty large club, usually around 150+ members.  It’s a decent club.  Probably my only gripe is that a noticeable percentage of the members are basically there to drink beer and don’t have that much to do with actually brewing it.  A more appropriate title would be ‘beer appreciation club’.

Anyway…Alan Sprints, the brewmaster, is a fantastic host and opens up his taps for us.  Basically everything he currently sells is on tap is there for sampling.  Although I’ve had them all before in bottle, kegged beer is usually better.  So I had a little 4-6 oz taster of each.  Adam, Fred, Blue Dot, Doggie Claws, and Fred from the Wood.  I think that was all of them.  So delicious.

I don’t go to many meetings any more.  Caught up with some guys that I like talking with.  Sold some very old hops to another member who needs them to brew up a lambic. There’s a limit to how much you can talk about beer though, so I took off after a couple hours.

On the way out I talked to another member, Dan, who is heading up to Hood River to pick up a bin of apples to press in to cider.  Apparently the bins are $150 for 600# of apples.  He said his yield is about 50 or so gallons, or roughly $3 a gallon.  Some he ferments, the rest the family drinks as cider.  Sounds pretty good to me.  I was interested because I’ve got around 100# or so of apples to press pretty soon.  I’m skipping Astoria so maybe next weekend.

Pretty quiet on the cycling front.  I’ve got a call into Schwalbe on the Racing Ralph tubular that popped last weekend.  The casing got separated from the base tape.  I’m not sure if that cause the pop or was a result of it.  With only 10 miles on it, I figured I’ve give them a shout.

Been gluing up a Grifo on the Ultegra/Reflex rear wheel for this weekend until I hear back from Schwalbe.  Apparently the team also has Fangos coming in.  If I read the e-mails correctly, our original order of Grifos is backordered so they offered Fangos as a replacement.  Hmm, let me think that over for a sec…(wait for it)…(wait for it)…well, ok.  I suppose I can settle for Fangos.  I will be starting rain dance practice next week, weather permitting.

Didn’t get a buzz on last night but it is the end of a 3 week cycle for me.  I went to bed and woke up pretty pooped, so I skipped the early morning ride.  Sets of 20, 30, 45, and 60 second sprints didn’t seem like it would sit well today.

Perusing through the photos Rachel took at Wilsonville.  Mostly of the Kiddie Cross.  Only one or 2 of me.  it must have been because I was moving so fast.  Yeah…that’s it.

One caught my eye that needed a closer look…Do you see it yet?

No?  How about a little closer…

Almost there…

Bingo.

At the end of the final gunfight of Clint Eastwood’s The Unforgiven, William Munny (Eastwood) stands over a wounded Little Bill (Gene Hackman) getting ready to end it.  “I don’t deserve this”, begs Little Bill.  “Deserve’s got nothin’ to do with it”, mumbles Munny, pulling the trigger.

A lot of shit happens during races, a lot of which feels like it’s way beyond our control; flats, crashes, mechanicals, weather, course conditions, the list goes on.  How much of this do we ‘deserve’?  I’m don’t know.  Most of it for sure.  We certainly make a choice to line up for it week in and week out.  No one’s paying me to get out there.  So in a way we’re severely compromising our right to bitch about it.

Did we deserve Wilsonville?  I’d say yes.  It’s good to get kicked in the ass once in a while.  I didn’t like the course at all but I’ll race it just the same if it shows up on the schedule next year.

Rough course this week.  Wilsonville will probably divide people the same way Barton does – you either like it or you don’t.  Less than 24 hours later, I’ve read and heard of enough comparisons to a MTB short track course.  I can agree with that.  Technical.  Very punishing.  Minimal passing room.  Relentless.  Yeah, that fits; relentless.

I got there in time to get the kids to the Kiddie Cross.  That’s always fun.  Just on the edge of chaos but the kids love it.  I’d like to start lobbying for a ribbon when I finish but I’ll just let it go for now.  While we were waiting for the kids race to start, the B/SS race was finishing up.  Hmm, there’s a lot of people carrying their bikes.

Didn’t get a pre-ride in.  I haven’t pre-ridden in 5 years – why start now?  Set up the trainer instead and got a great warmup in, hearing about the course from Kurt and Rich.  Once that was done, I decided on adding another 5# to the tires, moving them up to 40-41 psi.

Lined up and shortly after that, the race started.  Wow, this is like singletrack.  In a fairly short amount of time, the field strung out.  I picked my spots to pass (the short, bouncy uphills) and waited them out.  Many of the corners were dicey and had only one line.  Not too many places to pass.  I found myself waiting in traffic a few times until I could pass.

Dropped a chain twice, especially after the barriers, both times cost me about 5-7 spots.  I must be putting my bike down too hard.  Anyway, the first time it took about a lap to get those spots back.  The second time I only recovered one, maybe 2 spots.  That sucked.

With a couple laps to go, the course was wearing me down.  A little less snap out of the corners.  I’m sitting back on the bumpy uphills and getting thrown around.  My hands are raw and slightly numb.  I finish the race out and find the rear wheel is slowly getting flat.  Crap.  A brand new tubular.

Preliminary results have me at 23rd out of 72.  A slight improvement from last week but a little disappointing because of the lost spots getting my chain back on.  I don’t even want to talk about the tubular.

Got home and cleaned up.  Picked out Hair of the Dog – Fred From The Wood as a post-race beer.  Seemed to be appropriate.

Got an easy hour spin into work this morning.  I feel it in my legs and especially my shoulders.  Ouch.  Could be a day or so until this wears off.

Little brisk out there in the early AM these days.  I really like fall.

Got a great break Tuesday night to shut the garden down.  With the forecasts calling for overnight temps in the low 40’s, any summer veggies needed to go.  So I picked what was left and into the compost the plants went.  Despite the cool start to the summer, we managed to get a decent harvest this year, the crown jewel being the 25# pumpkin.  I’ll try to snap a picture & post it later.  That’s a fine lookin’ pumpkin.

So with the cover crops planted and the garlic (130 heads) in, we’re pretty much done for the year.  The only thing left is the apples.

Felt pretty good after the race Sunday.  Still had a lingering feeling that I could have pushed it harder.  I also remember violating the Cardinal Sin of Alpenrose by getting a poor start position.  There’s only so many spots you can make up over the whole course.  Anyway, I had some solid workouts over the week, leaving me with a warm & fuzzy feeling that I’m still getting faster.

I’m mostly an AM workout person.  Up at 6, add a 90 minute workout of some type in before work, and I’m good to go.  A couple of days a week I tack on a 60 min. spin class for a second workout.

I’m not exactly sure what the general consensus on spin classes are among ’serious’ cyclists.  I can’t say I’d care but I never hear about it much.   I’m not sure if others do spin classes or care to admit it.  But if I can spend an hour on a bike at or near race intensity and get off feeling completely worked, I’m ok with that.

I tend to approach them as Fartlek or over/under workouts.  After a quick warm-up, I try to spend as much of the class in, about, or around threshold effort.  You can stand & climb, play with resistance/cadence, sprint a bit, whatever, as long as I’m pushing myself near race-pace, it’s all good.

My only issue with the classes are the instructors.  Like anything, some are good, some not so good.  I think it’s all about a) how you present the work to the class, b) keeping people motivated, and c) having a realistic workout planned.  Finding one(s) that you are comfortable with takes a little experimentation and trial & error.  Some motivate me.  Some don’t.  Some have a clear plan for how the class will go.  Some don’t.  Everyone’s different.

Wilsonville this weekend.  Alpenrose wore the rear brake pads down to the metal so those need to go.  The drivetrain needs to be super-cleaned of all the grass bits still in there.  Double-check the tire glue job and we should be good to go.

Few blog issues earlier today.  Did an upgrade.  Hopefully it’ll stick.  Might have been issues with the posts I pasted in from Word.  I’ll try to keep an eye on it.

Some days I feel like Unfrozen Caveman Blogger.  Oh no – did the Internets eat my blog?  I don’t know.  Because I’m a caveman, that’s just the way I think.

What started off as a relatively quiet and restful weekend slowly and gradually built up to a crazy pace by race time Sunday. Took off for the coast this weekend. The in-laws took the kids a day early in the MoHo which left Rach and I free until Saturday. The ride out was great, especially at rush hour. Rach drove for a change which gave me a little time to zone out on the road to Tillamook. Once we got there, we just sat around and read for the rest of the night.

Saturday we got up and headed over to Cape Lookout where Dan and I were going to take Owen crabbing. The weather was iffy but luckily it held out for the 3 hours we were out there. Took an hour or so to find out where the crabs were but once we did, we caught our limit. Owen was ridiculously excited about it. Good fun. We ate a few that night and I stripped the rest for crab cakes tonight. I can’t wait.

Sunday I wanted to leave the coast by 11 to get back in town by 1-ish. If I left for the race by then, I’d have enough pre-race time to take care of everything.

Well, that didn’t happen. We left a little later and I felt rushed the whole way back. By the time I dropped everyone off at home and got to the course, I had barely 25 minutes to warm-up. Crap.

Squeezed in an abbreviated warm-up in and headed over to the start. Found myself about 8 rows back (each about 7 wide). Slight drizzle at the start and it was starting to get a little colder. I’m glad I kept the arm warmers on.

Don’t need to get into a ton of details here. The course was slick, especially the downhill sections. You didn’t so much ride it but held on for a controlled slide down the hill. The back stretch by the parking area was bumpy as hell. You could have either picked your way through the ruts or just held on tight and powered through. The velodrome…ugh. Lets say I’m glad I grew up on the east coast where I learned to ride my bike on ice.

With this course, the field gets strung out pretty fast. Start position is huge for this race. Passing isn’t impossible but the course is narrow so you usually need to burn a little energy taking a less than ideal line to do it. I felt I was in the front half of the pack by the time we got to the velodrome.

I felt pretty good. The bike held up. The wheels were the shit. I’m sold on the Racing Ralphs. At 35 psi, they hardly slipped at all. Got a little chain suck on the last lap but it held off.

I spent most of the race slowly moving up. I had a pattern where I’d see a group up ahead, catch up, stick with them for a quarter lap or so and then eventually pass. I was working hard but not killing myself. Had I been up in the pack a little more around faster riders, I would have been able to hold a higher pace. But I wasn’t.

Got caught by the A’s with about a lap to go. That’s going to be a minor goal of mine this year: don’t get caught.

Still, I’m settling in to the 60 minute race. I ended up 26th out of 73 or so. Not bad but not great either. Nice to know I still have a little bit left in the tank.

Did the usual post-race stuff at home; cleaned up, etc. There was grass everywhere.  Went for a nice hour spin ride this morning on the way into work which felt great. Got the kinks out and I’ll be ready to get back to it tomorrow morning.

As a postscript – there were hecklers by the pits, somewhere around or in between the Ironclad group and the bicycleattorney.com tents. You should go back to heckling school. Better yet, stay in the shallow end by heckling the beginners or the C’s. You have no business trying to work the A race. Really. It was embarrassing listening to you

Excerpts from today’s NOAA forecast:

AN ACTIVE WEATHER PATTERN WILL DOMINATE THE LATTER HALF OF THE WEEK
AND THE WEEKEND AS A SERIES OF PACIFIC FRONTS MOVE INLAND.

What a wonderful sentence.

It’s been a while since we’ve had a wet Alpenrose race.  I’m having a hard time remembering when it was.

With the exception of Barlow, last year started out (and stayed) dry until mid-November.  Granted, it went out with a bang but when 6 out of 8 race weekends are dry, it’s a little bit of a letdown.

The year before was dry too.  Same with the Stumptown race in ‘05.  I think 2004 was the last really good wet one we had there.

I raced Beginner that year.  A big fat DNF (busted chain) at Blue Lake and in the 20’s at Barton.  That was my first year racing cross.  Talk about fun.

Back to the mud…