"Just a Bike Race, You Say?"

The New York Times comments on the difficulty of the Tour de France.

Reading reminded me of when people--pretty ill-informed people--ask me if I'd ever like to race in the Tour. This line from the article is pretty much what I tell these people:

“The difference between people who think they’re good athletes and really good athletes is fantastic."

The curse of my life has been to have enough appreciation of whatever I'm into, whether it be recreational or professional, to know how poorly I stack up to those who really are good, and to rather be good than mediocre. It is a kind of damnation.

update

Saturday, July 7, another mountain bike race. I finished a disappointing third in Sport 30-34 (a total of 14 riders, though I also beat all the 35-39s).

So, I have to take back what I said earlier about these races being hilly time trials with scenery. This race I lost in the turns. I could crank up the hills fine, but I got burned through the serpentine downhill sections. Through nearly every turn I felt like I went in leaning the wrong direction. No "technical" sections as I generally think of the term, but clearly I lost this race for lack of technique through these winding downhill sections.

...

Monday, July 9, I went riding with Mark and one of his friends on some lovely, but dusty, trails up American Fork Canyon. On the way down I took a jump, watched the trail turn out from under me, and cracked up on the downward side of the side-hill trail. I came up with a clean break to my left clavicle.

My vacation has been decidedly less fun since.

the promised pics

These pictures really aren't that great. One, I've forgotten how to take pictures. Two, it was a bright sunny day and I with no polarizing filter. Three, it was a bright sunny day and I thought it a good idea to take shots into the sun. Four, I think this lens (the free one) is a little boogered up.

The setting:


The sunlight:


The stupid little hill that did in my chain:


The finishing chute:


The post-race "Huffy Toss":


The Huffy Toss winner got a case of beer.

wydaho racing

Yesterday I rode the WYDAHO Mountain Bike Race at Grand Targhee. My second career mountain bike race, I opted for the intermediate category (there was also a beginner and expert), two laps around a fast, single/double track seven-mile course.

A half mile into the race after a clumsy downshift and subsequent chaindrop, I managed to get my chain all cockeye tied up between frame and small chainring and in my frantic move to fix it, snapped a link in my chain. Oh the fury. I had such a good feeling about this race. Just a half mile into it and I knew this race was mine to lose. And I lost it. Because I can't adjust a front derailleur. (Though, to be fair, this had never happened before.)

Out of frustration I picked up my bike and hurled it off into the woods, stomping around muttering bad words and feeling sorry for myself. Finally, I retrieved my bike and started walking back to the start/finish. Then I noticed my computer had fallen off. Thinking (correctly) that it must have come off in the frustration toss, I went back and rooted around in the underbrush for a while until I found it.

When I got back down to the start/finish they asked me if I needed help and I held up my chain. I hadn't at all expected there to be support for this kind of thing, otherwise I wouldn't have wasted time hurling bikes and stomping bad words. But this dude opens up his little box of tricks and pulls out a new chain which he proceeds to trim down to size and install on my bike. A Shimano chain too, so popping it on took a few minutes.

Anyway, after probably 10-12 minutes of pooping around with all that, I was back on the trail. Way, way behind everyone. But I rode fast, passed well, and despite dropping my chain two more time--drops which required a dismount to correct--ended the race in sixth place (~20 starters), only ten minutes behind the leader, and six minutes off the podium. Frustrating. I could have so easily won.

After the race I stuck around for a prize raffle and won a fuzzy Michelin visor and a really nice Cloudveil windbreaker. There is some solace in materialism.

I also spent some time playing with my new camera. Pictures to follow.

goatish summer road trip '07

The Great Goat Summer Road Trip '07 began midday Wednesday, June 27th.

Wednesday

Our great friends the Nagels were finishing up their grand summer adventure, had stayed with us the prior few days, and we were planning to do something of a caravan back west--for them home, for us vacation. Their vacation is documented here.

A rest stop along the Ohio Turnpike:

(Bonus rant: What's the deal with turnpikes? I mean, I understand toll roads, bridges, tunnels, etc. But the PA-OH-IN turnpike is not only terribly inconvenient--too few exits, and exits in weird, inconvenient places--but the road conditions are horrible. And it's crowded. Super crowded. And not only do you pay, you pay up the wahzoo. Shippensburg to the Ohio state line, over ten dollars.)

We stayed Wednesday night in Bowling Green, Ohio with old Nagel friends. The Nagels stayed in Toledo some 20 miles to the north. We stopped outside of Cleveland for dinner and took pictures.

Thursday

The next morning we leapfrogged our way on to Chicago. We stopped in South Bend to watch them dig big holes to push the old buildings into (probably) and plot our next move.

The Nagels veered into Chicago for the night while we pressed on to Omaha. We tarried in Davenport for a while. A shop owner there has been selling Valerie's wares and she wanted to check it out. I wanted to get in a ride. We rendezvoused here, at the self-proclaimed world's largest truck stop:


Also, in Iowa, there are sunsets.


Friday

Friday we spent with Justin and Meghan and boys. I got a nice little ride in on some of the vast network of Omaha bicycle trails. We also ate delicious food. That night Meghan's mom was coming in, so we scurried back to Des Moines to hang with Devn and Abby.

Saturday

On Saturday we did lots of stuff (can you tell I'm losing steam), some of which included swimming, riding, art festival going, lawn game playing, and--when the Nagels caught back up with us--Guitar Hero.

You can read more about this here.

Sunday/Monday am

The long slog in to Idaho Falls--1,176 miles. We rolled in just after 5:30 am. We slept until the pm.

...

A million thanks to Justin, Meghan, Issac, Ian, Devn, Abby, Ellee, and the Nagel's LA friends for hosting us, feeding us, playing with us, talking to us, and all of that. Also a million thanks to Harper, Owen, Miles, and their parents for enduring our nonsense and being our friends.

Also of note, Devn, in his typical Devn-ish way, wouldn't let me leave his house without unloading some piece of expensive electronic something or other, and this time I walked out with a new (to me) digital SLR. Cannon D30, so I can swap lenses with my Elan 7. Yesterday, I bought a new battery and flash card so look for some exciting new photography to come. It's going to be fun to start taking real pictures again.

the new ride (complete build)

The build is complete:

I've been on it five times. Nearly twelve hours, 216 miles. I like it.

The fork has kind of weird feel that I'm not sure what to make of yet. When I'm going over bumps at slow speeds it feels really soft, like more is bending than I would like it bend. However, at high speeds--down hills, around corners, etc.--it feels solid, stiff, comfortable. I keep checking to make sure my steerer tube is tightly locked up in there, and it appears to be, so I don't know what to make of the low-speed softness.

But the most important thing is that this bike feels fast! Granted, anything new would likely feel fast, but it's gratifying (and a bit of a relief) that this one does. The Double Tap shifting works flawlessly. The rival brakes feel solid and comfortable. The frame feels strong and stiff when climbing and sprinting. So far, I'm completely satisfied.

exploring the tuscarora state forest

Did my riding on the other side of the valley today along roads that looked mostly like this:

I'd been up here before and rode two roads until they sort of turned into rough single track, then disappeared. But according to a dude from the DCNR (PA Dept. of Conservation & Natural Resources) who I ran into today, the "trail" at the end of one of those roads is marked with red blazes which, if I follow them, will connect me with a whole network of remote roads and trails in the older part of the state forest.

It turns out that I'd been entering the forest from a swath of land purchased by the state just five years ago, and that's why the roads and trails didn't seem to go anywhere--old logging roads that hadn't yet been hooked up with the rest of the forest.

Anyway, I followed his advice, and after what seemed like about an hour of finding and losing the "trail" while shouldering my bike across acres of tree fall, I found my way across. Then I rode here:

From this overview you can see just about the whole valley. Those mountains on the other side, about twenty miles away, are where I usually do my riding.

...a self-portrait. Looks like the shrubbery could use a bit of trimming.

On my way back, I found this:

Interesting. Reminds me of the crash site on Timpanogos. But there, presumably because of the remoteness of the location, you can still walk around and inspect the fragments of engine, fuselage, and wing scattered about the mountainside. I didn't actually find this crash site, but my guess is all that's been cleared away.

Also, this:

Audrey was a little incredulous that I would take such a picture. "You don't like butterflies, do you?"

...

Components didn't arrive today. I'm steaming. I won't be able to get on my old front dérailleur, but I'm thinking of just throwing on the rest of the old stuff and racing all the same. Who needs a little ring anyway?

bike building...

Progress:

(Audrey wanted her turn.)


Building up a bike seems like such an easy thing to do, but stuff always comes up that makes it a chore.

The first major complication is that, like an idiot, I ordered the wrong size stem for my handlebars. Unbelievably moronic. So I had to drive to Mechanicsburg (the closest competent bike shop--shhh, don't tell, but I'm not fond of Coles) to sort through their collection of toss-offs and find a stem that would work. (I should also add here that by "competent" I mean more a shop with competent help AND higher-end shmiz. I'm comfortable bringing any mechanical problem to Merv's on Firehouse, but they don't carry much of a selection of road stems.)

The second major complication is that the last person to mess around with my bottom bracket put the bearing cups on so tight that it took a three-foot lever to get them off. (I know who it was, but to protect the guilty I won't tell.) Fortunately, I discovered that last night so I could bring the old rig along today on the stem errand and let the boys at World Cup--and their three-foot lever--help me out.

The third major complication is that my new Rival groupset isn't here yet. If it doesn't come tomorrow then it looks like I'm screwed for Saturday's race. It better come tomorrow.

One thing that wasn't near as complicated as I was afraid it might be was putting my headset together and cutting the steerer tube down to length. I got a little instruction from two sources and then just went at it. I think it turned out nicely. And you've got to cut your steerer tubes...nothing says ghetto like an inch or more of spacers above or below that stem. Man, that's an easy way to ugly-up a sweet ride.

And to answer a question asked earlier, the fork I also ordered from Fetish. Carbon steerer tube.

Frame, fork & headset weigh in at about 4.2 lbs. (It's a 60 cm frame that's really more like 58.5 cm.) For comparison's sake, the Specialized Allez Epic that I bought new in 1990 weighs, frame, fork & headset, about 5 1/4 lbs. I'll weigh the Giant when I get everything off.

Anyway, things seem generally to be falling in place. I scooted around the funeral home parking lot next door pretending to do this and that (without a chain you can really only pretend) and everything held together nicely. I'm super excited to get it finished.

frame drama

A couple of weeks ago I discovered what I would describe as a catastrophic frame failure--a crack on my Giant TCR. The crack runs about 3/4 the way around the drive side chainstay, about two inches from the bottom bracket shell. I took the rear wheel off and gave the drive side rear triangle a little tug outward. It bent out way too far way too easily.

So while I've been hemming and hawing about how to replace the frame, then waiting for my new frame to arrive, I've been on the mountain bike a lot. Last week I logged over 12 hours riding the trails of Michaux and some of the double track in the mountains on the other side of the valley. Today my new frame arrived:

More pictures to come.

a ride in the woods

A twenty-mile walk in the woods with the Boy Scouts left me with a map of Michaux that revealed all kinds of trails I didn't know existed. Yesterday I went to try out a few.

I put in three hours riding a 31 mile loop. Single-track, double-track, and dirt road. Some really great riding.

Can you feel the joy?

TT "fun"

Had a nice little ITT run yesterday, 24:53 on a 10-mile, hilly, out-and-back course. Local cross junkie Mark Laser puts on the series. Series...that's really too official sounding for what it is. It's free, it's friends, it's fun...sort of. Time trails aren't really "fun." They're...something. But not fun.

Anyway, props to Mark for putting these things together. For more info and email updates, click this.

edgar soto - stage 4

Man, it's taken me a long time to get this up. Two issues, most likely, have contributed to my procrastination: (1) I was disappointed with Monday's result and (2) so much steady blogging got me bogged down, dampening my enthusiasm.

Anyway, Stage 4 was a quality event. Seventy-seven miles of up-and-down along rural Tennessee roads ending in a 5K climb up the Cumberland Plateau. I predicted before that everything would come down to that climb. About that, at least, I was right. What I wasn't right about was my prediction about how well how many people would be riding once we got there, and how well I wouldn't be riding against them.

I played it casual through the whole race. I kept my nose out of the wind and moved up near the front before the bigger hills and the long downhill section. I stayed watered, fed, and for the 20 miles or so before the finishing climb felt increasingly good. I mean, I felt good, but I also felt good in comparison with how I perceived those around me to be feeling. It seemed like with each roller I was riding stronger and the field was losing steam.

A long two-man break was finally reeled in maybe 15 miles from the finish. When we hit the climb there was one rider off the front, but I assume he was reabsorbed on the climb. Anyway, I hit the climb in perfect position--about 10th wheel. The pace was steady, no one was attacking, and all seemed well. Except that all seemed well for too many riders. About 1/3 the way up the climb the lead group still had about forty riders together en masse riding tempo. The wild attrition that I had expected didn't materialize, the pace stayed high, and ultimately I couldn't hang on. I'd slip a rider or two, then another few positions, and finally there I was at the tail end of this lead group trying desperately to hang on, but knowing I'm just not going to be able to pull it off.

I finished the day 32nd, 1:44 off the pace of the stage winner. With that result several riders jumped me in the GC, and I finished in 21st place. Fat. Old. Slow.

One has to put these things in perspective, of course. I'm not the flyweight climber I was in high school...and as I pulled across the finish line and took a look at those that finished in front of me I couldn't help but notice that many of them looked much more like that--long legs and narrow torsos, skin so thin you can see the veins across their ribs. I'm a good 10 lbs lighter than the last time I finished this race, but my ribs would still make much better eating. The biggest disappointment is that what for me was a sensational TT result feels squandered. After that TT I felt like a finish in the money (Soto paid out 15 places) was guaranteed; a top 10 finish highly likely.

Anyway, now that some time has past I feel better about the result. And motivated. Which is good, I suppose. An overall satisfying effort, but just dissatisfying enough to work a little harder.

I've only finished in the money once since upgrading to Cat 3. That needs to be corrected.

edgar soto - stage 3

Today went well.

Today's stage was a 50-minute crit on a L-shaped course in downtown Nashville. The course had a bit of a climb, but nothing too steep, and a long downhill straightaway.

The race started off at a sprint, which is actually nice because with a field of 80+ riders you want things to get strung out right away. It keeps things safe and under control.

I started near the back which is about standard protocol for me, but after a couple of quick laps I was warmed up enough to easily move up to a more comfortable position. I found I could move in the field with ease, moving up four or five riders on the downhill back stretch, picking off a rider or two on the outside of the fast turns, sometimes taking a few positions on the climb... Anyway, I felt great. Much better than yesterday.

Twenty minutes into the race I was hovering in the 15-25th position just chilling along. Things would get dicey when the pace would slow, but there were enough attacks that for the most part things stayed stretched out and safe.

My goal for the race was just to finish with the field, not taking any chances and finishing with the same time as the leaders. However, I felt so good that with 3.25 laps to go I jumped off the front and made a go of it. The initial effort gave me a gap of a few bike lengths, but the field soon caught back up. I made two more efforts of it while on the front, leading the field for about 1.5 laps--twice through the start/finish, rewarded by getting my sponsor's name over the loudspeaker, which is cool--but I couldn't get a gap so I slipped back in the field to about eighth position coming into the final lap. The effort took some precious seconds out of the two-man break up the road, but they still finished with ~10 seconds on the field. Unfortunately, the dude who won was just one place behind me on the GC, so I've slipped back at least one more spot, unless any of the 10 riders in front of me had any trouble. I don't think the race leader gained any time on me, though, so I should be in the same position relative to him going into tomorrow as I was today. (Results will be posted later.)

Some drama on the last lap: on a turn in the final lap I was hit from the inside and sent sailing towards the outside curb leaving rubber and heal plastic on the road in my wake. No one clobbered me from behind, fortunately, so I was able to stay upright and finished at the tail end of a much reduced field. Safe.

Tomorrow is the make-it-or-break-it stage. If I feel as good tomorrow as I did today I'd say I've got a chance to do some damage on that final climb. Stay tuned...

edgar soto - stage 2

I finally checked the results...and bad news. The five riders we let slip away and finished only 53 seconds in front of what was left of the field all leapfrogged me in GC. Which puts me at 11th overall, and, incidentally, 53 seconds behind the leader (there were time bonuses afforded to the podium finishers, which I believe accounts for that oddity).

Anyway, the race was this: Four laps around an eleven mile course with several descent little risers. It's not a terribly tough course, but there were plenty of opportunities for riders to get away. And they did. And it usually came back together.

A couple of miles into the second lap there was a big wreck in the middle of the field. Tires skidded. Riders flew heels over handlebars into ditches. That sort of thing. I was far enough behind to see it all and not get caught up in it. But with the slowing down, shifting down, weaving in and out of the bicycles and bodies strewn about the road, I came through a few hundred yards behind the tail end of the front part of the field and had to chase back on. But with the help of one other rider (#302) we pulled it off. In about three miles. Maybe four. We caught on just at the bottom of the steepest of the rollers and I fell off the back again as the field charged up. Once over, chasing again.

That bit of effort took it out of me for a while, but I was able to keep on fine for the final two laps and stay out of trouble at the finish (and there was trouble--a few riders went over the finish line with the wrong side down).

But that pesky little break that got away I'm not sure when managed to stay away until the end and took 53 seconds out of the leader. So now we have a new race leader and somehow I'm ten seconds further back on GC than I was yesterday. A development about which I can't say I'm excited. Still, though, it's all going to come down to the final 5k on Monday. To those that ride strong up that hill will go the spoils.

edgar soto - stage 1

Stage one was a seven-mile time trial over moderately hilly terrain. Last year I finished in 17:24, which was good enough for 11th place in the Cat 4 field. My goal was to shave a minute off that time today.

And I got a minute nineteen.

I pulled in today with a time of 16:05. Forty-three and one half seconds off the Cat 3 leader and good enough for sixth place. My time would have put me in the leader's jersey had I been racing Cat 4; 17th (of 98) in the masters field; 42nd (of 96) in the P/1/2/3 field.

I feel great about the ride, but there's a tight bunch right behind me. Fifth through ninth place are separated by less than two seconds, and I beat the three riders behind me by less than a second. That's close stuff.

Which makes you wonder... My coach was nice enough to loan me a rear disc wheel, a deep section carbon front wheel, and a TT helmet. How much time is all that stuff worth? Ten seconds? Thirty seconds? Had I rode 30 seconds slower I'd be in 28th place. It may all be worth the money... Thanks, Coach.