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Halloween CX in Colorado

 

The snow melted into a thick soup of mud for the Blue Sky Velo Cup 2009.  Saturday marked the kickoff of a 2-day UCI sanctioned cyclocross race weekend here in Colorado. 

Sunday its my turn at the Boulder Cup 2009.

 

 

 

 

Cyclocross in Frisco

2 races this past weekend, saturday and sunday.  Weather was amazing in the Colorado high country (35 degrees and not a cloud in the sky).  Racing at altitude is tough.  Getting a flat at the bottom of the steep run up and running all the way to the pits to swap a front tire adds another dimension of hard.

1st CX race weekend of the 2009 season

Drove ~2hrs down to Colorado Springs on Saturday morning to hit the Pike Peak Supercross #1.  Chilly but it stayed dry.  The course had a couple of killer run-ups including the one below (that Greg made look easy).

Sunday was a lot more of a technical course at the Velodrome here in Boulder.  A couple of fast straights right into tight switchbacks, railroad crossings, and a gnarly little mud crossing/run-up.  They even ran us inside and through an obstacle course at the indoor track wich was cool.  I think the twisty and technical courses suit me better.  I hung on for 13th which wasn’t too bad given a fast Boulder 35+/4 field of about 60.  Super-fun first weekend of racing for the season.

Firecracker 50 - - 2009 edition

Last weekend I rode the Firecracker 50 in Breckenridge.  As a friend put it: had they pre-ridden the course before they registered, they never would have registered.  The site even says that there is a strict time-limit and the DNF rate is in the 25% range.

         

Even more, people that I ride with that are way stronger and faster than me said it was over-the-top hard (and fun).  Below is the course profile, which pretty much tells you why he gave the sage advice..

Best advice I got was from Beeker (aka Greg Keller): ride the first lap and then, if you feel good, race the second lap.

My first lap, I took his advice and just settled in.  Warm-up was the climb out of town and up Boreas Pass road.  Result: I had a freekin’ blast!  Riding it like a fast, fun ride was clearly the way to go.  Never pushing the limit avoided a potential blow up.  Moreover – no mechanicals, no flats, just steady riding.  The only major near-miss, was a crazy sliding “almost” crash I somehow made it through on a long and steep descent.  Still not exactly sure how I stayed upright, but thankfully I pulled it off at 30+ mph!  Too bad no one was around to see it.  I must’ve looked pretty funny flailing at that speed and somehow keeping the rubber side down.

Riding within myself on the first lap was definitely the key to a fun rest of the day.  My first lap time was 2:39.  Slightly slower than I wanted, but a decent time for a rookie.

Next lap I tried to turn up the pace, but also kept within myself.  I finished strong with a total time on my computer of 5:30 – a full 30 mins faster than my goal going into the race.  I’m certainly not claiming that it was a blistering pace (I came in 23rd in my category and I think the winning pro time was just under 4 hours) but fast enough to finish feeling good and whooped at the same time.

Next year? Absolutely!

Hunterberg ‘09 – cyclocross around Boulder

Greg already did a bang up job of recounting most of the ride at Mud and Cowbells.  I like the video below ‘cause its probably the only time you’ll see me crest a hill in front of he and pete webber..!  No matter that he rode the Koppenberg climb (17% grade) one handed and filming the whole time.

 

My friend Hunter leads a couple of these CX treks around the dirt roads and trails throughout Boulder County a couple times each year.  Rides are 3.5 – 4.5 hours and always finish with beer and brats.  A great way to get in great base miles with a fantastic group of folks.

Cycling Blogs I Like

One of the interesting things about Lijit is that it gives me a bunch of cool stats about the people that come to my blog, what they read, search for, and ultimately click on.

I've noticed that people search me (a lot) for: "cycling blogs" and no results are returned from my blog, because I've never written about cycling blogs.  I have most of them book-marked in Del.icio.us so the results do show up in my Lijit search, albeit on the "my content" tab.

Here are the ones I like and read from time to time.  Not all are "blogs" per-se, others are cycling-specific sites that have great cycling content and/or good RSS feeds (like VeloNews).

Belgium Knee Warmers

Fat Cyclist

Mud and Cowbells

VeloNews

VeloBIOS

Bike Radar

Time-trialing

A few days back I raced my first time-trial.  The Haystack Mountain TT just outside Boulder.

The course was about 3 miles longer than last year's and had a long, slightly uphill, into-the-wind finish.

I may have been one of the only guys on a regular road bike..  What was I thinking?  This is Boulder dammit! Doesn't everyone have a TT-specific bike, skin-suit, and a tear-drop helmet for weekend-warrior activities?

The coolest thing about doing a TT is getting to compare my time vs. the Pros on exactly the same course with exactly the same advantages/disadvantages.

Koppenberg Colorado 2008

Ouch.  This past Sunday marked the start of race season for me.  I raced the Koppenberg Circuit race in Superior, CO.  How hard can 4 laps be?

Friends that had done it before gave me good advice: "make sure you ride the course several times before the race".  They were right, that hill is a killer.  It must be a 17% grade.  Short, but very steep.  The race flyer even says: "... don't be fooled, this race is hard, you will suffer."  Great marketing.

I staged at the front, rode in the main part of the pack on the first stretch of dirt, then moved up towards the front just before the hill.  That's basically when all hell broke loose.  50 guys riding together on a narrow, steep, rutted stretch of dirt road, at speed.

It just takes one... One rider bumps another on a climb like that and people start stopping, spinning out, falling over.  I made the top of the hill still on my bike, but I missed staying with the front group of maybe 15 riders. 

Here's where my true road racing inexperience kicks in.

I've done plenty of mountain bike races and Cyclocross races, I've even done a few road race hill climbs.  I'm (supposedly) smart enough to know how NOT to get caught out in no mans land, but that's exactly what I did.  Lost the main pack, tried to bridge up to them by myself, and in the process, completely blew myself up. 

The bright side: good training ride..

Can you pass the test?

Its that time of the year, again.

Every year (at least for the past 4 or 5) on or about Memorial day weekend, the razor comes out and another summer begins..  In Boulder, I have a hunch that more guys shave their legs than do girls.  Must be something in the water.

I made the transition, about the same time my road riding started outpacing my mountain biking.

Inevitably, I get the question: why? 

I've concluded that leg shaving and cycling is, more than anything, a cultural thing.  I found this really funny article recently from the Fat Cyclist.  It's sort of an advice column for the aspiring leg-shaver.

My favorite quote from the story:

Whatever answer you give, however, do not, under any circumstances, tell the truth: you shave your legs so that other cyclists will take you seriously as a cyclist. If you admit that, you may as well follow up with, "and I tend to exhibit sheep-like behavior in other aspects of my life, too."