Bier en modder

The Rose Festival is this week so it’s gotta be raining, right?  I got a reprieve this morning on the way in – probably because I went out and got a new set of booties (on sale at B.G.) and a backpack cover.  I was determined not to have to go through the ‘No, I didn’t piss my pants’ routine at work.  Once is enough.  More than that and I’m likely to see a pair of Depends anonymously deposited on my desk.

Still plugging along.  Hours and miles are racking up but I still feel pretty solid.  Motivation and energy are good.  I’m liking how this is going so far.  I got a pass for PIR next Monday.  It’s all good.

There was an amusing game we’d play in school, the hour of power, where we’d take a shot of beer every minute for an hour. On the surface it seems pretty easy. Hey, it’s just a teeny sip of beer.

You’d typically start off pretty strong but most everyone bonked around 20-30 minutes. Those who made it past halfway were a pathetic mess. I can’t remember if anyone ever succesfully finshed. It adds up to 5 beers in a hour – pretty staggering by any measurement and a textbook case of binge-drinking at it’s ugliest.

This sprint workout I’ve been doing feels a little like that. It’s an hour of 10 sec. sprints every 3 minutes. In between sprints, you’re supposed to keep a fairly brisk tempo. Doesn’t sound that bad. I mean, come on…it’s 10 seconds.

Like the hour of power, I start of strong; high wattage, tons of snap and a solid effort all the way through. I’m feeling good. The first 30 minutes usually fly by. The second half…not so much. With about 6 or 8 to go, it takes noticeably more effort to keep a tempo pace and I usually start doing the math to count how many I have left. I also start thinking how overrated speed and power is. With a couple left, I’m a mess and the f-bombs are flying.

But when it’s all over it’s strangely euphoric. It’s hard work, at least for me, and I’m hoping it pays off in the long run. While most of my miles are relatively slow right now, I do try to sneak one of these rides in each week.

If you’d like a weather forecast and are interested in knowing when it’ll rain again – check my workout schedule.  I can’t remember the last really dry ride I had.  I feel like Charlie Brown.

I didn’t put my backpack cover on this morning and the rain/backspackle got in my pack a bit, conveniently on may pants and, more specifically, in the crotch area.  Yes, I looked like I pissed my pants for a half hour or so.

Rest day yesterday.  10 min. intervals this morning on the way into work today.  Some sort of short-sprint work tomorrow.  I am such a shitty sprinter.

Tentative plans for PIR on Monday.  It’ll be like a fact-finding race for me.  I’m curious to see at exactly which lap I vomit in my mouth.  I’ll set the over/under at 11.

Doesn’t it feel like the 80’s and 90’s produced a disproportionate number of one-hit wonders?

Before we start, there’s a quick quiz…

Which of these objects is the appropriate tool to enhance the effects of training?

If you selected a AND b, you win!  I’m only serving low-gravity beers in the nitro tap, significantly cutting calories and alcohol while perserving the beer taste we can’t live without.  It’s almost like I’m hydrating and having a beer at the same time.  I can’t lose with this set-up!

After a hectic May, I feel like I’m getting motivation back.  I’m in my second solid week of riding.  With the exception of some craptacular weather, it’s nice.  It rained just enough to get the roads wet but not enough to wash the grime off the road shoulders.

Oh yeah, love the powertap.

I never got a decent chance to build a base last year.  It showed in the races that lasted over 90 minutes last year.  Anything under an hour was easy.  Over that felt like torture.

Probably head down to the Canby Ferry tomorrow.  3-4 hours at a brisk pace.

It’s now May and perhaps, just perhaps, La Nina will let go and give us something resembling spring.

So what’s new…

I’ll most likely be taking May off from racing.  First, my right hand is a long ways from being 100%.  I’m getting it worked on now but I know from the riding I have done that a lot of pressure, like from a sprint, is not possible yet.  Second, we’ve got some work around the house to do that will keep me busy for most, if not all, the weekends in May.  I’d love to be able to sneak out for something like Bear Springs but odds are that I’ll have to pass.

Off-road racing isn’t all that much of an option anyway as my eggbeaters are on their way back to Crank Bros. in CA.  I’ve had them a year and a half so they snuck in under the 2 year warranty.  I’m a little concerned because I don’t thrash them that much and certainly don’t use them on a day to day basis.  I may look into different options for cross.  I hear Time pedals/clips work ok.  We’ll see.

Even though I’m not racing, a smart person would be banking miles for TOE 50.  A smarter person would also be getting their ass to Alpenrose during the week for Track Development.  More on that later.

It’s rags to riches with beer lately.  A slew of brewing in April, a few 2-a-days, have me with a pretty exciting inventory of beer for the summer; ipa, imperial ipa, imperial red, stout, porter, pilsner, and a low-gravity bitter.  More beer, combined with the new nitro creamer tap I picked up last month, will make for a hopalicious summer.

The bitter just finished fermenting under the Pacman yeast from Rogue.  Ideally I’d be repitching this yeast once or twice more because yeast is pretty expensive.  I need to think if I have time to brew.  Not every beer is suitable for the nitro tap so I need to pick a decent style or two.  An ESB and a nut brown ale are sounding good right now.

After the Mudslinger crash, my dad noted “You’re not having that great a start to your season, are you?”.  No.  No I am not.  After May, I do hope that I enter short track season fairly healthy, relatively rested, and motivated for cross training in the heat of the summer.  I have the feeling I’ll be needing to put a little extra time to stay competitive up in Master A’s.  I haven’t set a goal for cross yet except ‘go faster’.  Duh.

One thing to note before I recap…Kenji may be interested. After extensive testing from Portland to Blodgett, I suggest that the official speed rating of OBRA MTB plates be set at 70 mph. 75-80 is not recommended.

That said, with the rain and funky weather of the past week, the course and conditions were bound to be challenging. I packed up the night before to head out by 7 Sunday am.

On the way down, there were near whiteout conditions through Salem. I began to second-guess my clothing approach (legs: shirts under knicker bibs + warming salve. upper: capilene t-shirt beneath racing shirt + wool arm warmers). Heading on Rt 20 up to Blodgett, the snow changed from a dusting to a full inch or so. If I couldn’t see my bike on the back of the car, I would have assumed I was going spring tele skiing.

Got the the course, signed in and warmed up a bit. I was cold, right on the edge of being too cold, particularly with a chilly and wet downhill to the starting line.  I kept telling myself that you should start a race a little cold with the intent that you’ll warm up once the race is underway.

Mike Ripley takes us down to the start.  After a few minutes of doinking around, we (the expert field) are off.  We head up.  And up.  And up some more.  I want to keep our field in sight for as long as I can.  Given it’s an uphill start, I feel pretty confidant about that.

Some of the SS’ers catch up and pass us.  I find maybe half of them walking up the stairstep hills.  By the time we enter the singletrack – maybe 1-2 miles in – the field has thinned out.  I’m around 4 or 5 other experts and we have a fairly decent pace.  I’m guessing we’re in the middle or top third of our group.

We weave our way up and around to the big/small lap split at the top of a hill where they have water and a little bonfire.  It’s around 4 miles in.  I’m warmed up, not working too hard, and feel solid on my bike.  My bike, to it’s credit, is holding up well.

The course noodles around a bit more before we enter a more serious singletrack downhill.  The singletrack was pretty slick, as expected.  Rideable by some, but definitely not all.  There’s movement back and forth within our group as better descenders move to the front.  I’m not too worried.  I go as fast as I can downhill, which isn’t that fast at all.  So I keep telling myself – what goes down must go up.

It was here that I discovered that one of the wings on my Eggbeaters was gone, essentially making half the pedal ineffective.  Clipping in on the left side now took a little more attention than just finding the ball of the foot and pushing down.  I now had to make sure that the 3 remaining wings were pointing up before trying to clip in.

After a short unrideable ascent around mile 9, we head out into a gradual downhill on a gravel logging road.  I vaguely remember coming out ahead of our group so I tried to expand that gap.  Coming up on a 90° turn, I thought to myself ‘ I am coming in way too hot…’ and then I went down.  Hard.

I have a guideline that when I’m racing, I can generally ignore a substantial amount of discomfort or injury for the sake of competing.  I know if I need to take a second (or more) after a crash then it’s likely not good.  After about 10 seconds I got up, picked my bike up (while 6 people passed me), and realized I no longer had the use of my right thumb.  My left shoulder hurt where I went down but the right thumb was useless.  Not good.

I remounted and continued on.  The remaining 2 miles of the lap was mostly downhill through a mossy, muddy singletrack.  I took it with one foot out, straddling the top tube as I braked and made a controlled slide down.  It was actually faster than walking and arguably faster than I could have ridden it.

At the lap point I had to do a mental check.  My lap split was 1:15 and energy-wise, feeling good.  I was a little rattled from the crash but I still wanted to go on.  I was currently unable to shift my rear derailleur with my thumb or grip the handlebar very tightly.  If I was going to drop out, it would have to be here.  I was disappointed by how Horning’s went and felt things were good enough to continue on.

The second lap didn’t go so hot.  The shifting, as expected, was sluggish since I had to use my index finger to push the thumb shifter levers.  I wasn’t able to attack the hills like I normally do, shifting accordingly to keep a strong cadence going.  Downhill I was even more skittish than usual, taking another hard fall after I was unable to react fast enough.  Plus I rode that lap mostly alone.  I honestly thought that I’d get caught by race organizers sweeping the course.

After a painful second lap, I limped up to the finish at 2:58 or so – a lap 2 split of about 1:45.  I had the EMT at the finish take a quick look at my hand.  She strongly recommended an x-ray.  It hurt but only if I used it.  I felt if it was broken, there would have been no way I could have ridden another 13 miles.

Monday I went for x-rays.  The Dr. was convinced the metecarpal was broken but x-rays came back negative.  I’m left with a swollen hand that looks like one of the Simpsons.

Final result?  11th out of 15 or 16.  One broken pedal and a banged up hand that will likely keep me off a bike for a few days.

Got the green light for Mudslinger yesterday and put the registration in the mail. My only hope is that the bike will be put back together. There’s been a number of little things that I’ve noticed that need a little attention. I spent some of the weekend trying to correct a few of them.

First was a wobbly rear cassette. Dismantled the rear hub and took it off to find enough pitting in the cups and play in the freewheel that it was time to go. RCB didn’t have a replacement in stock Sunday so one’s on order and should be here Wednesday.

Second was the rear dropout area. For some reason, the rear wheel axle has been slowly digging into the front of the right side dropout. The result is that the rear wheel tracking is off the midline of the frame. I’m guessing that it’s a result of a few things – 1. an aluminum frame, 2. insufficiently tightened QR skewer, 3. too much play in the dropouts, and 4. a lot of torque rotating the wheel counterclockwise around the left dropout.

I picked up some JB Weld and used it to fill in the pitted area. I’ll work on shaping it tomorrow with the Dremel tool. It would be very nice if the JB Weld stuff held. It’s pretty rock solid but I don’t know what kind of forces it’ll be subjected to.

Last is a pretty beat up bottom bracket / crank area. I didn’t have time to take the cranks off to get a closer look. I may do that later this week, depending on how the hub repacking and dropout shaping goes. The soft metal of the crank arms are in danger of being cross-threaded and stripped by the crank puller.

I just recently read that there’s an outside potential to use a cross bike at Mudslinger. It wouldn’t be my first choice but it’s a backup if need be.

I do also need to keep in mind that I’m trying to coax a 10 year old mountain bike that has been used for winter commuting a few years and marginally maintained during that time into service as a ‘performance’ XC bike. It’s a good bike, not a great one and I’m definitely paying for maintenance sins of the past. However, it’s the only mtb I have now and as long as I feel it’s safe, I’ll race it.

The short of it is that I’m approaching Do Not Resuscitate status with this bike with the intention of upgrading next spring. I don’t want to start looking too hard yet but I’m guessing there’s a 90% chance I’ll go with a 29′er. Gary Fischer has a bunch and Specialized has one too – in an XXL size too.

Had a Brew Crew meeting last night. It was supposed to be at Hopworks but got moved. Hopworks is crazy busy right now and it seemed to me a bit foolish to jam 120+ OBC members in there to stink up the joint. The Prez made a last minute change back to our usual meeting place, Steinbarts. It’s a good thing we don’t have smell-o-vision on the Internets because nearly half the membership soiled their pants when they heard. It was a pretty low-key meeting. I would have skipped it if I didn’t need to pick up free ingredients for a couple batches this weekend.

I’m pretty glad we’re getting a little break from the wet. Wednesday was just about my tipping point. Soaked on the way in. Soaked on my noon lunchtime ride (complete with flat tire). Soaked on the way home. The hot tub heater pump gave up the ghost last week and it’s on it’s way back to CA for warranty repair, so I’ve got no love there either.

But things are looking up though:

I have a Forest Park lunchtime ride planned today, which should be delightful especially with the weather forecast. I’d like to get out to do FR 3. I’ll stop by Fat Tire on the way back in to pick up a middle chainring. I really hope that’s the source of the chain suck I’ve been having in muddy conditions.

I got my nitro regulator and tap in, getting me 2/3’s of the way towards having ales on nitro. A goal for the weekend is to find a tank. There’s an AirGas not too far from my place in SE. I’ll try there first.

Rach’s mom will likely take the kids for a night next weekend, possibly clearing me for Mudslinger that Sunday.

Plus, it’s supposed to be a nice weekend.

And lastly, thanks to YouTube, I’ve finally come across an old favorite commercial of mine: The Coffee Achievers!

Guy 1: “So I caught my daughter’s stomach bug and spent all of Friday night throwing up”
Guy 2: “You still raced on Sunday, right?”
Guy 1: “Oh, sure.”
[Close-up of the bike he's riding, the label reads: BAD IDEA BIKES]

Yeah, so that about sums it up.  Friday night was about as bad as it gets.  Everyone, except Ingrid, was sick in some form that night.  I spent Saturday loafing around not eating.  I finally had come chicken soup, 1 chicken breast, and a baked potato.  I did get some rest that night and felt good enough Sunday morning to at least suit up and give Hornings a try.  The course was in a lap format so if I felt like shit, it would be easier to just drop out.  So I loaded up the car and headed out.

I lined up with the other couple dozen or so pro/semi-pro/experts.  I expected a bigger field this close in to town but I guess not.  Maybe we have more roadies here.  The course was a 4.5 mile figure 8.  I was estimating somewhere around 30 minute laps.  Even sick, I hoped to stay relatively close to the pack.
We started in a quasi-, disorganized neutral up a short 150m hill, down through a little field and into the woods again.  That’s where the mud was waiting.  We wound up and down and around.  Lots of spinouts, toe-dabs, and slideouts.  Pretty sloppy.  If these classes are having issues with the course already, it’s going to make for a sloppy day.

After about 10 minutes of this, I’m laboring hard but I’m somewhere in the middle 3rd of the pack.  I can see a majority of the field maybe 100-200m ahead.  My HR is right at my AT which is completely unsustainable for 2+ hours.  After another few minutes, we pass by the crossing area and eventually head up the road.  My legs felt good as I moved up a few spots.  Ideally I would have picked this area to attack each lap.  But realistically I was running on very low energy reserves.

At the top of the road, the course headed into downhill single track.  It was loose mud and after one or two stretches of it, I remembered that you needed to treat it like loose sand: hit the rear brakes, do NOT use the front, and do a controlled slide down.  Once I handled that, the descents went easy.

Back through the crossing area we headed up through the parking area into the back section.  I was a little rested from the downhill.  I wasn’t thinking about position too much but I think I held ground back there. Downhill is my personal Waterloo.  If I can not lose spots in a downhill, I’m feeling pretty good about myself.

The back section…sucked.  I didn’t measure it but I’d say it was a solid mile of ~200m long sliding descents to unrideable ascents.  A bunch of us would slide down to the bottom, get off, slog up to the top, remount and do it again.  Each uphill run is quickly draining what little energy I have left.

We hit the river crossing where a few photographers were waiting.  Unfortunately the little uphill after the river was also too slick to ride so it didn’t look like much of a photo op there.  After a short uphill, we made it back to the start of the lap by the grandstand.  Total time: 45 min.

At this point, I dropped out.  I saw that I wasn’t racing anymore but barely hanging on.  Some of the sport class had caught me on the last uphill after the river crossing.  My HR was still pegged and I thought 2-3 more laps of this could turn dangerous, especially as my lap times would only get larger.  Plus, it simply ceased being fun with the amount of time I had to spend off the bike.

So what did I take away from this?

First, I need to put any conclusions in perspective.  I was sick, very low on energy reserves, and just slightly on the irritable side.  I’d like to be able to look back and see what it would have been like if I’d been fully healthy and ready to go.

• I can’t say I was crazy about the course.  I feel that the field of pro/semi-pro/expert riders should be highly skilled at riding nearly every terrain.  There were just a little too may sections where no amount of skills or equipment (i.e. mud tires) would have helped.  I don’t think this should be a cross race but I also don’t want to push my bike around.  I’m making this judgment not so much on how I rode but on how most of the people around me were riding.  It wasn’t pretty.  It’s not anyone’s fault but it’s just the way the course conditions played out with the rain we got Friday and Saturday.
• I don’t regret heading out there and racing.  Neither do I regret dropping out.  For my health and safety, it was the wise thing to do.  I’m bummed that I had to because I love competing and absolutely hate quitting (almost to a fault).
• I’d heard later that the pros were putting in 30 minute laps.  Had I been healthy, I could have put in maybe a 35 min. lap at best.  I spent much of the course reacting instead of attacking.  Reaction times were off.  There was no snap in my legs.  I walked where I would have normally jogged.  And areas of the course where I would look to move up, I was content to hold ground.
• In spite of all the sickness, I’m not in bad shape at all.

I’m off workouts until I can get some food back in me.  Tandoor (downtown) has an outstanding Indian buffet.  I’ll be reloading there for lunch today and hopefully should be ready to resume training rides tomorrow.  Mudslinger is a possibility in 2 weeks.  I need to see if I can make the time.

As of 7 am this morning, there was a little squall moving in.  Looking out my window at work now (7:45), it looks like it’s here.  The forecast for the next week on NOAA has better than 50% chance of rain.  For those of you who were considering planting your tomatoes and basil this weekend, I’d reconsider.

Ingrid was barfy the past couple days, so it was my turn to stay home with her.  Apparently a bug has been going around her preschool.  Great.  I think I washed the top 3 layers of skin off my hands throughout the day.  She was mostly better yesterday so with the nice weather we went out to do some errands.

We ended up at River City to look for a tire for this weekend (Hornings).  I checked Fat Tire Farm earlier in the week.  They had a decent selection but nothing just right.  They had plenty of UST (which I don’t have), huge DH tires, and a small selection of 29′ers.  They had a bunch of straight 26″ but like I said, nothing really grabbed my eye.

Bike Gallery had maybe 8-10 tires total for anything resembling XC racing or training.  River City had a fair selection.  After a few minutes of comparing, I ended up with the Michelin A/T.  I was hoping for the Mud but they didn’t carry it.

Kris Schamp noted earlier in the week that the course wasn’t that muddy so I’m hoping the A/T’s work.  With rain in the forecast, who knows.  FR1 in Forest Park was fairly soft and loose on Tuesday.  I’ll bring a couple of my extras.  I’ve got a front Velociraptor lying around.  Not the fastest tire in the world but it works.  I forget the others.  Anyway, I’m going to try to get there early and look at the course.

So to finalize my prep for Sunday, I made sure my excuses were in order:

1. Significant recent component change (switch from grip shifters to new SRAM X.9 trigger shifters): Check
2. Erratic and slightly disorganized early-season training schedule: Check.
3. First race of the year: Check.
4. Upgrade to new category (sport to expert): Check.

I’d say everything is in order.  I’ll check back in Sunday or Monday with the details.