And that was my pit bike

Yesterday's picture was of the rear wheel from my pit bike, but more on that in a bit...

Despite nailing the registration hole shot, my sucktastic season to date and the inability to go to Glawstah meant that I was first guy called to the 4th row Saturday in Providence. I hit the start hard and got what I'll call an acceptable start especially for me. First lap was great... racing angry, banging elbows, blowing by 6 guys going up the stairs, fighting for every spot. I finally felt like I was in the race. Lap 2, more of the same... gauging where I was to the leaders, seeing that I was reeling in teammates, starting to settle in a bit. I figure I had moved up to about 30th or so and was still going in the right direction and then...

For anyone who knows what seems to be the typical Providence course, you ride a short section of pavement down by a pond, then take a right turn onto the grass/dirt to go up a short little hill and around a tree. As I hit the dirt and went to hit it up the hill, I was peddling air... dammit, chain off. But wait, I've got a chain guard and a third eye that's literally about 2mm away from the chain ring... how the falafel is my chain now under the third eye and sitting on the bottom bracket? Now before you jump to the obvious that the thing is at the wrong height, a number of bad experiences last year and some quality time with a mechanic have me 99.9% sure that it's in a safe spot to do what it does. Somehow though, I pulled a Houdini and dropped it down there. Of course that also means that I now have to kill the paint job on my frame while I twist the thing back out of the way to get the chain out. About 20-25 lost spots later, I have it back on, but now I'm basically asking to drop it again.

Coming up the road to see 3 to go, I had to decide if I wanted to roll the dice or grab the Surly out of the pits. The ANT is sooooooooooooo much better that I rolled right by pit 1 and tried to get some fire back. Of course this meant that about a minute later I dropped my chain again. Ok, to the pits it is. Not being pro, I'm in there fumbling bikes on and off the rack myself and dropping further back, basically putting myself out of any respectable contention and losing interest fast. But I soldiered on because it was a nice day and a nice course and maybe I could get a beer handup. About half a lap later on one of the many short steep uphills, I felt an unmistakeable pop from the rear end and looked down to see the rear wheel wobbling like parade watcher in Southie on St. Patty's day. Later I discovered that what I figured was an ordinary broken spoke was a broken hub (see yesterday's picture). Nice, my massive watts had pulled the damn thing apart. Did I mention I was about 30 seconds past pit 1 when this happened? Ok... any sense of motivation pretty much gone now... but hey, it will be fun to try and not get lapped.

I hacked around half a lap on wobble wheel and picked up the ANT again, figuring a chance of chain drops was at least less dangerous than a wheel which was coming apart. My lone goal now was to not get lapped (and maybe find that beer), but I was honestly hoping I didn't have to work too hard for it. Fast forward to the bell and they don't whistle me off so now it's just a parade. I made sure to wrap up DFL on the lead lap and then as I came onto the pavement I dropped down 2 or 3 gears and put in a all out sprint up the road like I was going for the win which garnered some sympathy cheers from the crowd at least. Did I mention I did have another chain drop in there somewhere? Yah, it was pretty much irrelevant and not unexpected.

So let's review... 3 dropped chains, one destroyed hub, 2 bike changes, zero beers. Yah, it was about as fun as it sounds. Got to hang for a while afterwards, chill with the guys, and heckle the fast people. It was a nice enough day to salvage some sense of fun...

Hey Rich, how was Providence?

Story tomorrow...

Drink the Kool-Aid

If you race cross, you must have tubulars. Don't ask questions, just believe it. Fortunately for you, I can help you out. You're welcome.

Sorry folks... should have drank it quicker.

Too many thoughts, too little time

Too much going on in my head right now to get it all down without taking a Gewilli-esque blog dump all over this place. Disney was awesome. Work is a mess. I'll skip that bike racer thing. Updates pending on my very stale other site that will involve terms like structural engineer and architect. I'll link up vaca pics when they are available. Back to the mess...

Remember that softball thing?

Last night we capped off what has to be the longest softball season ever conceived. We are now the B-division champs. Yay. Yours truly was 3 for 3 last night with one RBI (I think it was only 1). I still am not a softball/bat sports player, but it was pretty fun. It also gave me more motivation to work on that upper body strength thing I threw out a while back there. We'll just skip the status on how that's going...

And now that we're the champions, I'm going to Disney World! No really... in a comical bit of convenient timing, we're leaving later today for Disney. The kids have no idea they're going. We're even sending them to school for the morning to keep the secret rolling. Stay tuned to You Tube for surprised child reaction video...

Taking the suck show on the road

Yesterday I was in Vermont to race. I signed up for both the 1/2/3 Masters and the 3' figuring if I was going to drive 7 hours round trip I'd make it worthwhile. In the masters I didn't technically get lapped because I was never passed, but I did get whistled off with 1 to go because they didn't want to wait around for me and the leaders were only about 20-30 seconds back. Pretty lame that that counts as lapped. I made sure I'd suck real bad by going down on a pile of sharp rocks on a hard left-hander at the bottom of a high-speed hill. I now have a hole in my hip. I lined up for the 3's immediately after the masters debacle. I'll sum it up by saying I took the gentelman's DNF by riding into the pits with 2 to go and getting out of the way of the guys who hadn't lost the desire to race.

Right now, I am simply just not good.

In case you were wondering

You cannot miss most of your intense workouts over the course of the past month and actually do well in a cross race. Lets hope a couple days of opening things up this week make this Saturday suck less... I'm somewhat doubtful.

For the sake of posting

Not a whole lot going on, but I figured I'd keep you all from thinking/hoping I'd given up on this. Didn't race this weekend... too many conflicts. Boys won by a ton on Sunday and the oldest had another 50 yard TD run. Left side of the line was like a brick wall with his brother over there :) Didn't get to ride Sunday because I was rebuilding the drivetrain on my road bike... somehow managed to shred/bend 3 teeth on the 53 on Sunday. Must be the massive wattage... yah, that's it. Vermont this coming weekend. Can't wait!!! I'll put some more rambling up here if I think of any before the weekend. Bet you're glad you stopped by.

The balance between aggressive and reckless

DNF'ing yesterday doesn't really bother me so much because I asked for it. What is grating on me a little though is the guy who yelled at me for being (what I thought was) aggressive. After a terrible start and a guy laying down in front of me, I was way back in the crowd and trying to fight forward. We hit the barriers on lap 1 in heavy traffic and the expected happened... there was a bottleneck. The way it was set up, it was a slow approach to the barriers, then 10 feet after there was a u-turn, then a very short flat before you had to go up a steep-ish little hill in the woods that was pretty loose and chewed up. It was the type of setup that made you think... do I do a quick remount and get going before the hill? Do I just run the whole thing? How does it change in traffic? A teammate had mentioned to me before the race that he just ran it in traffic because it was faster so that was my plan. So we get to the hill and I'm running and, predictably, someone who had tried to ride it failed and it caused a pileup.

When pileups like this happen, especially early in a race, I'll admit to being the jerk who tries to squeeze around the side, push by people, or just generally do whatever short of whacking someone with my bike to move forward and not just stand there waiting for people to get out of the way. If I bobbled in the middle of a hill or turn and 3 guys ran me over, I expect it and my fault for sucking. So when our well intentioned or poor planning racers stacked it up on the hill and I was already in full run, I first yelled "C'mon move!", then tried to squeeze around the left side and I'm sure I bumped at least one person. At this point some guy yells at me "Easy big man, you're going to kill someone!" And this is what's bugging me. IMHO, I wasn't throwing elbows or making lots of contact, but I was definitely being aggressive and, last time I checked, this was a race where the goal was to finish quickly and ahead of other people.

So who was right and who was wrong? There's probably no way to find out and maybe it doesn't matter. It still has me wondering though where the balance is... When you squeeze your way onto the front row between two guys who barely left enough space, you get a little heckling, but you're positioning yourself well. When you squeeze a guy in a corner with your elbows out you're racing Euro-style and protecting your position. So when you try to bull rush around the side of a pileup have you crossed the line and now you're a toolbag? Maybe it's a circumstance of the fact that when I do it, there's a whole shitload of arms, legs, and bike pushing through there. Sorry folks, can't apologize for the genetics. I dunno... maybe I did cross the line and bumped the guy with my bike. Seems to be price of admission to me seeing that I remember tire burn in some weird places from shouldered bikes being carried by the guys near me. I'm actually surprised at this point if I don't come home from a race with a reminder that I was there.

Shouldn't have bothered

You can't go out for your best friend's bachelor party until 2:45 a.m., then get up at 6:15 to go coach youth football, and legitimately expect a bike race later in the day to go well. Terrible godawful start which just put me in a position for all sorts of BS starting with the guy who laid his bike down in front of me in turn 1. Rode off the course after 2.5 laps and went home where I probably should have been in the first place.

Maybe I'll get my shit together before driving 4 hours to Vermont.

Oh, and nice work by RMM who killed it and took home second.

Todd is a Sadist

Todd: Ok guys and gals, we're going to do a 2 lap race.
note that a 2 lap race is short enough that you'll ride so hard you want to throw up

after 5 minute or so break

Todd: Ok, 2.5 lap race now kids

yes, 2.5 laps is still short enough to enter the self-hatred zone

after 5 minute or so break

Todd: Ok, 1 lap race now... 1 lap folks

Yah, I'm sure I can hang with Manny Goguen... that's a good plan... oh wait, I don't feel so good

after 5 minute or so break

Todd: Ok, 2 laps everybody...

You get the picture...

And yes, it was really damn fun.

He could... Go... All... The... Way...

My boys make me proud. Saturday's opener was a good solid beating put on by the Hudson Junior Mitey Mites Team 1 (yes, we have almost 40 7 and 8 year olds who play). Here's a link to some vids including my oldest breaking one for 40+ yards. I'll tell ya though, being on the sidelines is stressful... going to have to work on that.

And yes, I'm filling the racing void with kid stories right now. Starting Wednesday with the MRC Training Series it's on. Can't wait! See you there.

Oh yah, it's football season

With apologies for crappy cell phone pic...

Talent Skips a Generation

Alternate title: To Be Young and Fearless

Someone is getting old

And it's not just me. Today my middle boy turns 7. At some point it appears that I became a full-fledged grownup with an 8, 7, and 4 year old. The time has truly flown by. Birthday boy really does make me proud (as they all do)... kid has a heart of gold and is a total prankster all at the same time. He's also about the most photogenic person I've ever met... period. Our prediction is that he'll be that guy who somehow convinces the ladies to ask him out before they know what hit them. The other day he told me he's going to Boston College some day to play basketball... I told him I'd be deliriously happy if he did and make sure to get me tickets. Happy birthday kid!

Insert Cross Race Report Here

I think I was supposed to have contributed to the blogosphere overload last night as the cross season got up and running again. Unfortunately the efforts of that first race coupled with lots and lots of time spent wrangling some energetic children this weekend meant I was good for nothing other than watching the track and field worlds and drinking a glass of wine.

So the ultra-short review: Eh. I expected and hoped for more and I've found myself trying to decide how much of my disappointment to tone down with the reality that this is not a good course for me and I've done next to nothing in terms of riding in 2 weeks. I think it's that I've reached the point where I've worked hard enough that I just expect more. Got a horrendously non-aggressive start so I was in the hole from the first turn. I ended up beating all but two of the guys I could see, but there were too many that were way out of sight by the end of lap 1. Pretty sure the paper results said I was down 3 minutes to the winner in 11th (out of 25ish). The low point was planting myself into the ground about 45 seconds before the finish because I basically pulled my front wheel out from under myself. Figures I landed right on the elbow and it swelled back up like crazy. Just a new bruise on some not-quite-healed tissue, but enough to be uncomfortable. Still waiting for the full results and the full on Reuter analysis before I make a final judgement, but even without that I can't say I'm thrilled. Oh well, at least I know where I am and how far that puts me from where I want to be.

The Proper GG Report

This won't be the ultra long version because if I got going on the what did I wear and when did I take a dump version of the report, we'd be here all day. Instead you get the mid length and fragmented version of the report. Obviously, it's taken me almost two weeks to do this so the super long one never even would have been done. Saddle up...

Pre-race:
The race sort of snuck up on both of us. 10 days out I realized it was close. Monday of that week when I emailed Brad about meeting at my house, he said "That's this week?!" or something to that effect. Fortunately we both got our heads in the game, loaded up the truckster, and headed up North. Two funny things from the way up: 1) We saw the biggest moose I've seen in person up along route 16. You knew there was something because there were random cars stopped randomly at random spot on the side of the road. After that, every time we saw a parked car one of us mumbled "Moose" under our breath. Hey, it was funny then. 2) We hit a bit of rain on the last 10 miles into Great Glen and there was a motorcycle in front of us. At first we're like "Sucks to be them." Then when it started to pour we're like "Really sucks to be them, man that chick on the back looks miserable". Then when they got behind a dump truck and had the pouring rain plus the truck spray we just laughed at them. Hey, I find humor in my own misery too.

So when we arrived, Senor Bauer and Pre had scoped out the primo camping spot and we got about setting up the MRC city for the weekend. Grabbed some grub and more firewood in town, drank beers by the fire, called Colin to find out he was thrilled to be in traffic, and then hit the sleeping bags for that last dose of sleep.

Race Day(s):
Race morning was a trip to DnD, scarfing down loads of fat-laden food, riders meeting, and nerves. Did I bring everything? Too late if I didn't. Am I going to self destruct? Hope not. Is Brad going to self destruct and I'll be doing the last 6 hours solo? Man I really hope not. Will I get lucky and have zero mechanicals for the second straight year? That would be super, but I won't hold my breath.

The plan going in was we'd do doubles till the real dark hours, bang out a three pack each so we could sleep for a few minutes, then switch to singles when we were good and wasted at the end. I got the run leg (of course) and set out to be as chill as I could for the first two. Chill+Adreneline of course equals sub 50's (I'll spoil the surprise, I wasn't dropping sub 40's like some guys) and the race was on. I didn't even bother checking the real time results (way cool timing system for bike nerds by the way) for a while because too many things were going to happen, but I was very aware of the fact that through the first 6 or 8 laps we were in a near dead heat with the MRC 4-man team. I thought to myself at one point "If this lasts until midnight or so, we're in trouble because then we're going to start thinking WE MUST BEAT THEM." Fortunately, the boys were riding strong enough that they slowly began to gap us just in time to save us from ourselves.

I checked the results several hours in and found that we were in a fairly tight battle for the podium... sweet! There was even a rumor that we had snuck into first at one point, but it must have been brief because I never saw it. Somehow by the next time I checked after dark the teams in the top 3 had gotten all twisted around, but we were still one of them. The ultimate winners of the 2 man seemingly came out of nowhere, but the results show them as just being consistent the whole time and slowing down very little to not at all at night. By the middle of the night we seemed to be locked in a battle with the Springs for #2 and with the arrival of morning, we seemed to be pulling away... or so we thought. Fast forward to the end of lap 24. Going into it our lead had shrunk to 7 minutes. Brad then proceeded to break his chain and he came into the tent with one of his slower laps asking me "Where are they?" I look up and they are standing right behind him doing the handoff thing... oh crap... gotta go. So now I'm on course for lucky number 13, in a dead tie, and needing to do something special... oh goody. The other variable is that I knew I was riding against "Junior", but I had failed to check whether it was Junior or Senior that had been turning the faster of the laps for them. Heading up through the blueberry patch I started to open a gap and then by the turnaround at the very top by the house, I had maybe 10-15 seconds and the kid was suffering. I kept hammering and looking back regularly waiting to see if I was going to get smoked on the technical stuff, but I never saw him again. Turns out he had been flying early in the race, but the distance took its toll on him. I was ultimately able to send Brad out with a 7 minute gap and crossed my fingers that his Macivered chain held (it did). I got some time to chat with the Springs near the end there and they were really good people. The kid is only 16 so he's going to be one to watch out for in the coming years.

The aftermath:
We had the sweet hookup of a cabin to crash at Sunday night so we broke camp, grabbed some food, got a hot shower, and were in bed by 7. We slept for 13 hours and then got to enjoy a late Monday morning drive home rather than fighting the traffic Sunday while falling asleep.

Other thoughts:
Things went way better than all logic would tell you they should have. We only had one of the top 20 fastest laps in the 2 man division, yet finished second. Brad's average lap time was 58:19 with a low of 46:59 and a high of 1:16. My average was 53:20 with a low of 48:04 and a high of 1:03. Hooray for consistency.

With all due respect to those who put on this unbelievable event, the prize structure is a joke. First place in the 2-man got $250. For second place we each got a medal and the team got one trophy. We had to flip a damn coin to decide who kept the trophy. Clearly I'm not in this for the money or I'd be a poor man. The all-or-nothing payouts though are a bit overboard. Someone was even saying to me, if nothing else, take some of the 50 pairs of socks they raffled off and give them to the 2nd and 3rd place teams. I go through lots of socks... anyways, now I sound like I'm bitching...

Would I do GG again... definitely. Would I do 2-man again... maybe. I say maybe partially because it was just hard, plain and simple. I also say it because there's no way we get that lucky/coordinated again so who even knows what could go wrong. I also told several people during this year's glorious weather that if it ever was going to rain for the duration at GG, I'd just let them keep my entry fee and stay home. That would suck mightily if it rained even a large portion of the time.

Ok... this is probably making you very happy I didn't try for the longer version. I'll stop now.

The hookup, take 3

First off: I have a proper GG report in draft right now, but the general level of mayhem has kept me from finishing yet. Maybe tonight...

We had a momentus day at the Tall Guy household yesterday as the youngest (4) buzzed the neighborhood on 2 wheels solo with Dad just standing back and watching. I think the key ingredient was the knee pads I finally found for him to wear... nothing like a little plastic confidence. Being a bright kid and remembering the deal all the boys got from their overly generous dad, he made sure he got his:

Fortunately, I have made it clear that the first one is on me and future bikes will be at least half their own problem. And the half is only if I haven't already spent that money on a bike for myself :)

24 HOGG Report

If drinking 4 gallons of liquid, using half a jar of Eurostyle, and sleeping 1 hour out of 36 is your idea of fun then you may have been at the 24 Hours of Great Glen. Really short race report: 26 laps total, second place men's pair for me and Bad Brad. Except for a broken chain that he fixed in record time, basically everything went right. With 2 laps to go we were in a dead tie with the third place team and managed to ride a strong final 2 to bring it home. We each slept about 12 hours last night. One of the best lines said during the race: "I just rode the plunge like it was my job."

More later...

idonotcoachfootball

Adding to my list of never-have-I-evers and being a tough guy vicariously through my kids, I've gotten pulled in to help coach 7&8 year old football. I 58 sweep on 2... ready... break!