cycling rocks

“I mean,you either love spinning the pedals and watching scenery whiz by, or you don’t. And if you love it, not much can sour you on the idea of riding your bike.” -Keith Mills

Saturday was Portland Velo’s First Annual Club Century. As to expected, the comraderie and the routes were superb. Let me say before I forget that I shouldn’t have left the finish so early. I went to run some errands, got tired and went home for a nap.

I had forgotten to go back to the barbeque. My bad. I was not so focused as I automatically made my way home from the bike shop.

All season long, I had escaped flat tires. Saturday, I had a double. Leaving Hagg Lake I ran over one of those industrial strength staples. I was out of CO2, but Gary stayed with me and lent me his frame pump. Easy. But, later (I still don’t think I had seated the tire correctly) I had another flat. The tire was blown off the rim. Weird looking. What the heck? The valve was damaged after close inspection. At any rate, Doug let me borrow his pump and we are back in business. Thanks for the pump, guys.

Only the wheel made a click sound every revolution. We stopped and looked. We fiddled with the brakes. We checked if the wheel was out of true. It would only do it under load; only when I was in the saddle. Strange.

I later took the wheel to Lakeside Bicycles. Chuck is one of the best wrenches in the area.

“Hi, Lee. How’s it goin’?”

I told him that I had double flats and now my wheel is clicking under load.

“I think I know what that is. It might be the stem.” Chuck fashioned a rubberband across the spokes and around the stem to hold it in place. This happened to be a non-threaded stem.

“Try this out. If it gets rid of the noise. Great. If not, we’ll go plan B.”

I was pretty much dumbfounded that it worked. I bought two more tubes and a couple CO2 cartridges for my next ride. It’s embarassing to have to borrow tools on the road.

Thanks for everyone at Portland Velo for an awesome event. Thanks to everyone who volunteered and participated. Thanks to Chuck for his wisdom with all things bike. He and Peter there at Lakeside have solved a bunch of different problems for me. Thanks to Mike’s friend who gave me a spare tube that I ended needing.

Thanks everyone for making Saturday’s ride one of the best.

* Average Speed - 18.3
* Climbing Elevation - 3,594
* Total Miles - 64.60
* Riding Time - 3:31:47

Mid-Summer’s Night Criterium in Hillsboro. Great course. My first crit. DNF. I spent the entire time above LT. The race was supposed to be 30 minutes + 2 laps (1.4 miles)

Once I fell off the back, there was no catching up. I figure I may as well finish, but again .. I was above LT and I was plain toast after twenty minutes.

I need a bunch of training to keep up with these guys. There’s always next season. I think I’m done.

edit: I was just looking at the speed chart. There were two 180 degree turns at each end of the course. We were goin zero to 25+ each time. That’s what got me. Whew.

This guy was Off the Back in the CAT 1/2/3 race. That’s pretty much what happened to me in the CAT 5 race earlier that day. I was hoping to pull most of the way and did for four laps. It’s much easier for me to keep pace up front rather than battle the incessant accordian effect in mid-field or in the back. Alas, I got cooked and the lead group left without me on the last two laps.

I was far from last; but the fifteen or so riders in the front break placed. I didn’t. I was a good minute behind them.

No stats today since my Garmin was out of juice. If was to estimate our average speed, I’d say it was definitely 24 mph. We were haulin’.

“Competition is painful and wonderful and insane and ugly and beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Forget magazines and how-to books. The fastest, best way to get in touch with pure physical exhilaration and hardship of this sport is to race. The fastest way to go faster is to race.” - Dan Koeppel

D.N.H. -That means “Did Not Hang”.

I had felt strong after last week’s efforts at STP, so I thought I’d give Hammer and Nails a try; Portland Velo’s A+ group of racers. Described as “Sometimes you’re the Hammer, Sometimes you’re the Nail” the ride from my perspective was much like my first race. Do all you can to stay with the group; no matter what.

I kept up for sixteen miles until the first climb at Cedar Canyon. The climb is only a quarter mile long at maybe an 6-8% grade, however the pace was a little much. As I geared down and lead up the climb, I actually thought there was a car back; only to discover it was the whoosh-whoosh of everybody’s wheel getting ready to pass. I yielded and that was the end of the group ride for me.

“I have a map,” was all I could think of at the time.

Then, “You’re not gonna make up any time on these guys. Keep your pace and you’ll still finish strong. Keep this rhythm.”

It felt like March again. Being last up the hill. It felt like my first race again. Getting lapped by the field. Struggling. And I’m glad. When I used to play guitar, we’d call intense practice “Woodshedding”; locking yourself up in the wood shed to work on scales, timing, technique.

It’s been some time since I’ve had an hour or two with Carmichael’s DVD’s. It’s time to wood shed yet again. Intervals, climbing repeats, hill accelerations.

Then hit PIR in a couple weeks to go race.

That was a great ride. Thanks to all.

* Ave Speed 19.3 mph
* Time 2:10:06
* Distance 41.90 miles
* Elevation Gain 1,832 ft