His head looks like Jack Nicholson - Don't smile like that, it will stay that way

Matt just sent me some photos from the weekend. I think they capture how oblivious I was prior to the race and how shattered I was post race pretty well. I was struck by how much I have come to resemble my childhood hero Jet-Jaguar (when I smile in a bizarre way). It is possible that by thinking about Jet Jaguar, I was able to alter my facial features to look like his. This is a concept detailed in the Talking Heads song "Seen and Not Seen". I went ahead and found some photos of Jet-Jaguar on the interweb.
I had never really noticed his resemblance to Jack Nicholson. I then stumbled upon a Youtube video where the Mystery Science Theater 3000 guys had "translated" the lyrics to the Jet- Jaguar theme song. "His head looks like Jack Nicholson" was part of the silly "translation".
Then I turned on the TV and there was a show on The History Channel About how Jack Nicholson had hired a mad Japanese scientist to create an army of Super-Mecha-Jet-Jack Nicholsons in his image in the late 60's. They ended up escaping and wreaking havoc which forced the Japanese Military to hire a giant space turtle who loves children to destroy the rogue, crazy-smiling robots. All but two Jet-Jack's were terminated, one was reprogrammed and re-branded as "Jet-Jaguar" while another escaped to the U.S. where he would impregnate my mom.

Isn't it funny how things come in threes? OK, everything after the part about the Youtube video is mostly made up, there was no show on the history channel, but no one can prove that an escaped Jet-Jaguar isn't my dad...unless they use science.

Yeah! Riding bikes is fun! Woo!

What? 4400 feet of climbing in less than 20 miles. How bad can that be?

John Burns was nice enough to hand my ass back to me after the race.

Wait...you didn't cut your own appendix out and throw in the bushes in a desperate act to shave weight during the race? You don't say.

This ain't cuttin' it, I need a recovery drink that replenishes bone marrow, blood, and viscera.

NMBS #5
East Coast National, Windam, Mt.

Kracked

I was on the fence about this one. The original plan was to hit the NMBS race on Saturday, which is about three and a half hours from home, then head up to New Hampshire and do the EFTA Pinnacle race on Sunday at 10AM (which is wicked, but we wouldn't end up doing it). This plan started to mess with my head and I thought of scrapping the whole deal, didn’t want to dash all hopes of having good rides at Nationals in VT the following week. by biting off more than I could chew. After a bit if encouragement from carpool mate Mo the bestest bike racer I know, I decided to stop being a god damn sally and do this thing.

The camping area was mighty dope.

Friday I tried unsuccessfully to sleep in, drank a metric butt load of coffee, and watched The Tour, waiting from Matt and Mo to pick me up. We got out there in time to pick up our packets and pre-ride the course. What struck me most about the course was how well built and maintained it was compared to Mt. Snow. It had more climbing and descending but the way it was broken it up made it seem easier in a way. There were lots of man made wooden bridges, flagstones, berms, fly over bridges with chicken wire laid down for traction, and super steep, dusty, loose downhills. The soil was odd as well, very red in hue, so different from anything I’ve seen on the east coast, I really felt like I was somewhere out west.

Matt and Mo's base camp set up. Their tent was actually larger than the hotel down the road.

I’m not a very strong camper, sleep ran from me like a kitten pursued by a four year old boy with a can of kerosene and a match. I awoke at 2AM and looked at my phone hoping it was just slightly before when my alarm would be going off, no sir, it was three hours until that time. It was still dark and cold at 5AM. I fired up the camp stove and made up the oats as I chugged my cold can of Starbucks coffee. After breakfast I spun down to the convenience store looking for hot coffee and water. The only other person up and alive at that time was a man jogging in Aqua Socks and white collared shirt. If I ran in that outfit, I would probably do it when most sane people were still sleeping too.

Sunrise spin to the convenience store.

Being a four minute bike ride from the race venue was pretty cool, although as usual I botched my warm up, riding up and down the road in front of the mountain for about fifteen minutes before the race start. I knew a few guys on the line, but most were strangers to me…they looked scary and incredibly strong. Things went off, straight into an uphill start, up and around a corner into a bottleneck entering the singletrack, some of us were off and running. I wasn’t too stressed, I knew from racing Mt. Snow a couple weeks ago that I have to ride these ski area type races at my own pace. On the first lap I did a lot of passing on the climbs, a lot of getting stuck behind people riding a little slower than I wanted to, I thought about all the energy I was saving for later and stayed mellow.
I think it was lap two when super-fast junior Seamus Powell came up behind me, I thought if I could stay on him, he would deliver me into the top ten in my race. It went OK for a while, then I realized that I was just standing and staring at his rear wheel, rocking and gasping along in my red zone. Progress was made and I moved up into the low teens with many of the top ten guys just up the steep, hot, gravel road. Early on in the race a few riders passed me on the descent, but later on I would hold my own or even close down on other riders, spinning like mad on the grassy traverses between the singletrack sections. My only real mishap involved a lowside slide out on a silly grass corner near the bottom, I went right into a 180 on one of the least exciting and technical sections of the course, it was awesome. Later I would fall victim to the same slick grass situation while walking down to the car, completely busting my ass.

The Windam "Fartfest", preceded by the Annual Windham Chili Cook Off.

Third lap the backward slide began, my legs feeling like they really only had three laps in them. I’d struggle to jam my entrails back into my mouth before each successive climb. John Burns and Michael Bartlett and some other dudes gapped up to me at some point. I tried to hang on, but I was cracking. The only thing that got me through the last lap was the quote from Jens Voigt bouncing around my brain. He was talking about he Individual Time Trial in an interview during the Tour coverage the other day, he said sometimes your mind has to tell your body “Shut up and do what I tell you to do!”. I tried it, it kind of worked, at least it kept me from walking my bike. I would come up to a steep pitch and my mind would tell my body “Ride up that thing!”. I was losing spots though, sliding down into the twenties.

Matt is Mo's team mechanic, he is wicked pro.

Last lap I rallied a bit, the caffeine and sugar from Coke Matt had so deftly handed me at the feedzone coursing through my system. I made a couple passes and saw some riders sidelined with flats or mechanicals. That’s why we don’t give up, anything can happen. I passed my friend Dan from IBC on the final approach to the top of the climb. He had driven up at 3AM to do the Expert race (He didn’t want to ask for Friday off from work to do the Sport race). His goal was to place top fifteen and qualify for Nationals. He would accomplish his goal and earn major tough guy points. One really nice thing about this course compared to Mt. Snow was that once you started going down, you kept going down. Mt. Snow throws a few climbs at you even in the middle of the descent, the bastard.
I would roll across the line in 16th place out of forty or so starters. Not super-psyched with my performance but not crushed either. Hopefully I can put something better together for Nationals Friday…and Saturday…and Sunday. I’m doing the Semi-Pro race at 9AM Friday, Single Speed race at 8AM Saturday, and the Semi-Pro short track Sunday at 2. I plan on being entirely destroyed by the end of Saturday’s event. The short track is really just to put on a show for my niece and nephew who can only come up Sunday. The XC is kind of whack as far as spectating goes, especially if you are three or five years old. “There goes Uncle Thom (that’s right, Uncle Thom, and I once lived in a cabin, literally)…
And we’ll see him again in like half an hour”. “Half an hour? That’s more than a year!”.
Anyway, I’ll wrap this uninspired piece of crap up here, take it out back of the barn and put it down like a baby with a broken leg.

Post race swimming hole adventure, really the best part of my day.

Recovery spin sunday on the Varsity.

Recovery beverages at Charlie's er...Gatorade garden with Seth and Sophie.

Lost

The 4th of July; a time to drink all day, get a lawn dart lodged in your neck, eat products containing raw eggs which have been sitting unrefrigerated for hours, pass out in the sun and get a third degree sun burn on your arm pits, then wake up just in time to blow your thumb off with a malfunctioning bottle rocket OR a time to prepare for an event where you'll wake up at 3AM, the next morning having not eaten any barbecue or imbibed any alcohol, don a neoprene halter top (only if you're a man), have someone scrawl numbers on your body with a sharpie, go for a swim with hundreds of other people, get kicked in the head several times, jump out of the water with a wedgie from Hell, get on an oddly fitting bicycle which may already have your shoes strapped to it, try to pedal it up a hill in your 53 X 11, then get back off the bike and run, I can't say anything more about running to make it seem more horrible and insane than, well...running.


So that's where I was on the 4th and 5th of July, supporting the Patriot Half Ironman. After the race wrapped up on saturday I drove the anonymous, white, Timothy McVeigh Special, box truck across town (Freetown that is) to Freetown State Forest. EFTA used to do a race there years ago, in fact I broke my hand doing that race. I wanted to go out and kick the forest's ass. I tried to retrace the course, got lost almost immediately, came to a sign that said "ORV Trail Parking Lot 5 Miles". That's about all I wanted to ride that day, five miles, so I went down the trail. You might think I'm being a slightly hyperbolic here when I say I did not sit down for a collective minute during those five miles, but I'm really not. It was five solid miles of rocks and rocks and rocks...and some roots to fill in the gaps. I stood for five miles, getting the hardware on the rods in my back rattled out. I came out at the parking lot - it wasn't the right one. I asked some very Road Warrior looking Motocross dudes how top get back to the Ranger Station; "F- me! How long did it take you to get here? We don't even ride that trail, it's too rough!". I guess the gayness of my pink helmet, pink cages, and pink SSWC07 arm band was eclipsed by my hardcoreness. They didn't kill me dead, I was glad.

Miriam hammering on the SS

From there I headed over to The Cape to hang with my family. I can't relax without having first thoroughly flagellating myself so Miriam and I went over to Barnstable to check out Trail of Tears. First impression was that it wasn't really all that scary despite the name. Lots of buff as all hell fast, rolling, undulating singletrack, with sweeping bermed out corners. Very nice. After about an hour Miriam and I parted ways with the plan of meeting up in about half an hour at the car. I went out and started absolutely hammering the remainder of the red loop. When it was about time to begin heading back things took a turn for the worse. This area is finite, yet I found myself hopelessly lost. A short while later I was out of water, dehydrated, feeling the hunger knock, and ultimately bonking out big time. Ridiculous to end up in this state considering the stuff I get away with out there week after week.

In the end it would take me over an hour and a half past the meeting time to make my way back to the car in a horribly diminished capacity.
I'm just kind of going to trail off here, because I have to get up and head out to Windham in the AM, check back soon.

Cleaning one of the "Incredibly technical" sections of Trail of Tears.

The Trial

The Dover Wednesday Night Time Trial that is...not the book by Kafka where jurors stand stooped in a cramped loft above the court proceedings, pillows on their heads to pad them as they bump into the ceiling. Not the Album by Verbal Assault either for that matter. Just wanted to clear that up, I know it's confusing. I'm confused anyway. So another month another Dover TT, although it wasn't just any Dover TT, we had ourselves some drama, oh yeah. I headed down there from IBC with teammates George Shaw and Colin Reuter. We left with ample enough time that we didn't have to TT to the TT, which was nice. We'd had violent thunder storms just a few hours before, water crashing into the shop like a rogue wave, but that didn't cancel the TT. I was honestly kinda hoping they would cancel it, I was, as they say..."not feelin' it". 

     It was a calm day, not too hot either. My legs still shredded from Mt. Snow, but what I had going for me was acclimation to sufferation. Basically the Dover TT is like doing half a lap of the Mt. Snow course, only way, way easier. After a better than average warm up, I hit the line panting and sweating. I've done away with the ipod by now, too distracting, my inner soundtrack is strong enough. Took me a lot longer than it should have to clip in, my ancient Shimano 600 spd "Road Pedals" are so loose in the bearings they just flip and flop all over the place. 

    My very Greg "The Leg" Montello plan was to go out hard like a mountain bike race, settle in for about eight minutes, then go balls to wall for five minutes or to the end, whichever came first. So I go for it, I try not to fidget too much, try to stay  static in the upper body, knowing every twitch and tick will cost me. John Golden doesn't close on me too fast, in fact while he normally blows past me on the first stretch of Dedham St. he wouldn't get me until after the rollers on Farm Rd. on this particular day. 

    As I took the corner onto Farm, the hairpin, a car in front of me pulls  to the right yet throws it's left blinker on, there's a lot of road between the car and the center line, but I know this trick all too well, the old fake right, then cut left move. I slow slightly, see that there's oncoming traffic (hopefully) preventing them from turning into me as I yell out "I AM GOING BY - ON YOUR LEFT!". I didn't die. Then just after John Golden flew by all resplendent in his Aeroness, there was a weird form of Dover gridlock ahead, cars backed up five deep in both directions. We both coasted, assessing the situation, there was plenty of room down the center line, so we went for it. It only seemed like a wicked differently abled thing to do after the fact. We didn't die. 

      Taking the final corner onto Springdale I see Boston bike icon Scott Chamberlain spectating from the corner and yell "Hey Chame-Bo!". A little ways up the road I draw a bead on IBC customer Anthony Oliva drilling it to the end on his Colnago C-50, he throws out a "Go Tommy!" between anaerobic gasps. As I'm sprinting down over the tracks to the line a guy in a car pulls out, not so much in front of me as into me, I swerve around him and continue up the slight grade to the finish. He's actually behind me to the left and he then tries to drive into me again (he did throw his blinker on at the last second). Defensively I throw a foot out and biff his front fender to let him know I'm there and call out my number to the timers. Here I don't know what got into  me but I looped right into the parking lot and laid into this guy all adrenalized, red-faced, sweaty, and spitting mad. "You know you were wrong - right?". "What?". "You cut me off, almost killed me!". "I had my blinker on". "No, not that, two seconds before that, when you drove out in front of me". "I didn't do that". "Twenty people just saw you do it". "Why're you so mad?". "Sorry, you might not get it rolling around safe in your car, but driving like that, you could kill one of us". "You're not a car". "You're a dipshit". "A dipshit?". "Yeah, a dipshit". IBC teammate George Shaw had rolled up by now, he's not quite as tall as I am but one of his biceps is as big as my waist and he has the bearing of someone you don't want to get on the wrong end of. This probably saved my ass. I did have the satisfaction of rolling away as the dude stood there trying to look tough, I taunted "What? You want me to come back?". His answer was "F%# you!". Original. 

    Oh wait, but that's not all. The cops pull up and ask who's in charge. I sidle up to the car prepared to take the blame for any trouble.  Turns out the guy was pissed about another rider who didn't stop when he had gotten out to direct traffic sometime before John and I threaded the needle between those two rows of stopped cars. Nothing came of it. Altogether a pretty hectic night on the roads of Dover. All that silliness and I beat my best time by fifteen seconds,

with a time of  18:08, for an average of 25.7mph over 7.7 rolling miles. Finally, some improvement. Of course Tony Delogne did come out on a "Non-Aero" bike that was not all that Non-aero and crush the record, setting the bar unattainably high for this aerodynamically challenged guy. 

      I apologize for any stress my antics may have caused the Dover TT organizers, I will try to calm down, I swear. I am the guy who earlier that day audibly heckled a Starbucks customer as he whined about how long his drink was taking and chastised the employees. I told my friend Bryan  in a theatrically loud voice of how I had just heard something on NPR about how people waiting in lines too long at Starbucks is one of the greatest forms of oppression in the world today, that the problems in the southern Sudan relate to it. "Yup, folks in Darfur are waiting too long in lines at Starbucks, just waiting there for their Non-fat Lattes when all of a sudden a Janjaweed Militiamen comes up and WHACK! Chops their head off! Faster service at Starbucks would totally eliminate this problem". 

      Alright, that's it for now, things are going to be kinda quiet for a bit, then they're gonna get real noisy with the NMBS in New York and Nationals coming up, watch out now!

 

Root 66 Mt. Snow Kenda Klassic
West Dover, VT

I am The Captain of My Pain

This weekend went a little better than the last two race weekends. I finished two races in two days, one of them being the hardest race I know of; the Mt. Snow XC race. We (me, Colin, and Linnea) loaded up the car Friday night to head up to Winhall, VT to stay at my friend Teri’s house. A few hours later we were up and on our way down to West Dover where I would spectate as Colin, Linnea, and George took part in the Super D event. I signed up for the Short Track and the hill climb, with nearly no intention of participating in the hill climb. To warm up for the STXC I threw on my 32 X 22 and went out for a pre-ride of Sunday’s XC course (which from what I hear is identical to Nationals). The course was in amazing condition, just a little wet and muddy in spots but much more rideable through the singletrack uphill than I’d ever seen it. That would change overnight, but we’ll get to that a little later.

Why?

The only change from last year’s Nats course was really the opening climb. You do turn right and skip the loop around the pond up near the top, but the big difference is the hole shot. You don’t go up past what was the way too steep feed zone then into the woods before shooting back down to the start/finish. Instead you almost immediately cut right off of the access road and go up an insanely steep ski hill, all wet grass and mud. During my pre-ride I decided I would not be able to ride this thing during the race and looked forward to getting dropped a minute in because I’d be the only sucker walking this bit.
After my pre-ride I went about swapping my gear for the Short Track event from by far the lowest gear I’ve ever run to the largest, a 34 X 16. There was one small climb and a little bump in the course, and not much in the way of corners. Before my race I got to watch the Sport race. There was dogfight going on between Masters Sport rider Wayne Cunningham and Lees McRae roadie Gonzo. Gonzo was on a single speed borrowed from Ben Corablis, it had a 34 X 18 gear on it, i..e; very small. He was riding smart and savvy though, sitting in and tucking behind Wayne whenever possible, spinning like a centrifuge. It took a while but he wore Wayne down and created a gap. My money was on Gonzo the whole time, I instantly became a fan, yelling out “I love this kid!” at one point. He used the same gear for the hill climb, apparently it was “wronger” for that event than for the short track…and that’s pretty damn wrong. Suffice it to say he had a nice walk. Glad I skipped it.
By now I know to watch Greg Carpenter at the start of any race and especially a short track, so I lined up behind him. Most of the other guys I didn’t know so when things went off I just tried to stay near the front and not kill myself too much. After a few laps I was thinking “this is horrible, is it almost over?”. I looked at my watch, we were four minutes in with over twenty to go, oh no. Somewhere in the middle I settled in as the gaps opened up in front, I would battle most of the race with Carpenter as he was coughing up a lung on the little climb. A guy from Lees McRae with the nickname “Lobster”and a Canadian Pro dude established an insurmountable lead and I began to get bored with the short, entirely non-technical course (and all the pain, heat, and drooling on my bike). Luckily it was over shortly thereafter, I got 3rd, then I spun down 100 to 7-Eleven in the sun to get a chocolate milk for my trouble and recover for the big event Sunday AM.

Cooldown to 7-Eleven. 34 X 16 into a headwind, not so much a cooldown.

That night we (Me, Colin, Linnea, and new additions to the crew Ben and Gonzo) went back up to Teri’s to cook up a small pasta feast. I threw the water on for pasta and dumped two cans of sauce into a pot and put the burner on it’s lowest setting, then proceeded to sit on the couch and entirely space out for ten minutes. Someone said “Hey what’s that noise?”. It was kind of weird, dull, popping sound. Colin deduced that it was the dog gnawing on a bone in the kitchen, I went back to spacing out entirely. Then it became apparent that this was not, in fact the dog, it was the pasta sauce overboiling and exploding all over the kitchen like something out of a Discovery Channel show on volcanic eruptions. Teri wasn’t home yet, but her arrival was imminent, not so imminent that I didn’t go get my camera to document the event. That’s how I roll. It took the five of us longer to clean up the mess than it took to eat the food and I’m sure Teri’s going to be finding globs of red sauce on her ceiling, cabinets, and dogs for weeks to come.

Chloe and her Grandfather. Leaving Teri's in the AM.

The Chloe and Gonzo Show. Eruption! Bedtime for Gonzo.

The night’s entertainment consisted of Teri’s four year old daughter Chloe putting on a hilarious show which mostly involved harassing Gonzo. Aside from his ability to win races while averaging 180RPM’s Gonzo is also a stand up comedian for children, seriously he should have a show on Nick Jr., he is way funnier than the wiggles and not nearly as annoying. I believe he would have to change his name though or risk getting sued by the Muppet people.
Ten hours in bed later we were up eating stuff and filling bottles with a rainbow assortment of energy beverage weirdness. Got to the mountain nice and early to warm up and gear up. After spinning around for a while I took a crack at the opening climb…and got it, I was surprised, these were not the useless appendages which I’d had underneath me at Putney, thank frickin’ god. I came to line hot only to find that we’d had our start delayed by fifteen minutes, I had another Gu and stretched, watching the start line. Here I don’t know what happened but I looked down at my watch while I was back at the car for some reason and realized that it was four minutes to start. Yikes. I roll up to see a sea of dudes, three rows deep and barrier to barrier. Etiquette would dictate that I go to the back of the back of the line, but that wasn’t physically possible with the throngs of racers packed in behind my field. So I did the dick move and backed my bike into the front row muttering something about “Series leader, blah, blah”. No one seemed to care anyway, but I felt like a douche. I was next to John Foley who I knew I had to cover to retain the series lead and Greg “The Sure Whole Shot” Carpenter, as I mentioned earlier, always the guy to follow.

32 X 22 is a climbing gear, not a getting to the climb in front of guys who can’t ride a geared bike up a climb to save their lives gear, ah such is my lot in bike racing I suppose. I tacked and track…stood up the thing behind guys in their grannies. Then the few guys I did pass and a few I didn’t blew by me pedaling down the slightly graded descent back through the start/finish area. Time to go fishing, cast that line waaay out and start reeling. Luckily the way the course is set up the second climb before the real hole shot is a great place to make up some spots, you can see the whole race strung out in front of you. Then it’s up the hike more than bike section of muddy singeltrack. That’s right, forgot to mention the torrential, non-stop rain which fell all night long. That civilized course I rode Saturday…ransacked and ruined. It was now a semi-vertical bog. Here I was behind wicked fast Masters ‘Cross guy Kevin Hines, I expected him to dismount and run up the climb like a mountain goat with it’s ass afire, but no, he did the bonehead mountain biker thing “I can clean this…oops,…no I can’t…I guess I’ll get off now…awkwardly on the wrong side of my bike… and run…sort of”. I did what I thought he was going to do and it paid big dividends, I ran passed as many people as I got passed by on the first downhill, maybe more. The portions of that section that I could actually ride became slimmer as the race went on. Wasn’t I supposed to start running in preparation for Nationals? Afraid that’s on the list right after my elective penis amputation.

If my only my disc rotor had teeth. Goodbye to white socks. Big gear.

I’ve pretty much described the first part of the course so for those of you who don’t know it and for those of me who will forget everything about it in the next three weeks before Nationals I will now describe it as best I can. So yes, STUPID grassy opening climb, back down, zig-zag up some little thing, up the extended access road grade, bit of mud, back down, hard right! Up into virtually unrideable singletrack, run, run, walk, stagger, give up die, oh wait it’s first lap, must go on, back on bike for three feet, off bike, on again, over bridge, off the frickin’ bike again? What is this a god damn adventure race? Where’s my Kayak? I feel like I have one in my jersey pocket for chrissakes! Back on bike just in time to slog through ever grosser, boggier grass crap section, then into the woods over roots, up a rooty corner thing, making you go anaerobic which is great preparation for when you come out of the woods onto a an insanely steep access road (for what a Uni-Mog?) and get completely pinned for like five minutes as gravel spits out from under your rear tire as you bake in the very direct sunlight, hateful, evil thing you bastard access road, grrr! Then what? Back down a muddy rocky thing, kinda fun here, doesn’t last, more grass ski hill, up a roller which on any other course would be climb in and of itself, not here, this is a mole hill, an ant hill, traverse back into woods, then you enter hell on earth, a thing I call “The Stair Step Climb”, you crest each successive roller, knees popping, wheel slipping out from under you, it snakes to infinity in front of you, like riding into a thirty mile per hour headwind down highway 50 in Nevada, this could takes days, weeks, you come out by the retention pond thingy, on this course we cut right going directly up the next climb, during Nationals we went around the pond which feels like a detour, like forestalling the inevitable ouchiness right around the corner, this climb marks the end of the official climbing for the lap, this does not mean you are coasting down the hill stretching out your hamstrings, you are still going to climb some more before you get to the bottom, like it or not, so drink up buddy, it ain’t over yet, here there are couple cool, rocky descents into rocky small climbs, but they’re so fun you don’t care that it hurts, then it’s one last little access road grade before the entrance to the real descent, you gotta be ready here, first lap I wasn’t, it was scary, for real, say goodbye to your front brake, grab a fistful of rear, and hang on for dear life, from here just about to the bottom it’s all slippery-ass rocks, slipperier-ass roots, I mean oceans of them, expanses of them, off-camber, gnarly, deadly roots as far as you can see, slip and slide, nowhere to hide, yes there are flattish sections but they don’t add up to much, basically that describes everything from the top down, except for two small climbs that are really kind of one climb I call “The kick in the nuts climb” because you just want to get to the bottom and until you’ve ridden this bloodlcot course as many times as I have you forget that even when you are going down you still have to go up some more, the last part of the downhill after this is the trickiest, all the rain pools here, all the mud gets deeper, it’s nuts, you don’t find the line you close your eyes and point the bike downhill and eat whatever the trail throws at you, then it’s spin down to the start/finish (and yes it goes ever so slightly up once more even here) shaking it off, drinking and eating, getting ready to purposefully slam your own hand in a car door three more times.
Wow, I’m a blabbermouth. Anyway, the race, after the first lap there wasn’t a huge amount of back and forth, I battled with a Canadian guy for a while, got him in the end. I guess Brett Racine had a bad crash and slowed down after that, ultimately dropping out, which is too bad. I’d chase Greg Carpenter up the hill only to have him put time on me on the descent, lots of time. This is the kid who on Saturday finished the Super D just tenths of a second behind a Pro on an eight inch travel bike…he was on his cross country bike. He was hurting so I thought I would get him eventually, being a hard guy is an old man’s game, these young guns, they’re soft right? Right? Wrong. This is a tough kid, he can ride a bike like a ninja, and someday I think I’ll be able to say “Ya, I used to (almost) hang with that guy before he was killing the World Cup circuit”.
3rd lap I was still feeling good, I saw John Foley up ahead, I clocked him at three minutes, I started to ride harder, I passed Greg, then he passed me back on the downhill, I tried to follow his line, I ate it, a pattern seems to emerging with that business. I thought I’d see him again on the uphill but he went out of sight going into lap four…then I cracked. He went forward, I went backward for a bit. I had made the grassy opening climb every other lap but here I slipped up, my rear tire spun a full rotation as I smashed my sternum on the stem. Michael Mooradian was up there cheering me on, he asked if I needed a GU, I begged for water, he ran to a cooler and busted out a bottle of ice cold spring water, it saved my ass 100%. I drank most of it, pouring the rest on my head and neck. Thanks Michael.
I languished during the beginning of that lap, the hike-a-bike taking the remaining wind out of my sails, I didn’t know if I’d be able to pedal my bike when I got back on the climb. Thankfully I was able to and with the bottle of coke Gonzo had handed me and the added hydration from Michael I was cooking with curry again. I reminded myself that this was just going to make me faster for Nationals and that the weekend before I literally could not ride a bike to save my life. That and I felt great on the downhill, trying to play Adam Craig with it, make it feel like an Alpine Slide. Although my last act of awesomeness was calling out “Rider up!” to the leading Pro woman, then immediately flipping over my bars as I looked for a line. Rider down!


I rolled up to the line in sixth place right next to Chris Logan, part of the husband and wife team who put these races on. Instead of spinning past him like a moron, I gave him a clap on the back (or maybe I just held on to him like a tugboat because I was tired of flailing my 32 X 22 on flat ground) Not only does he organize a great race he can also hold his own on a bike with a 3rd place in the Expert 50-59 field. Foley ended up finishing two places ahead of me leaving me holding onto the series lead by the skin of my teeth with a five point advantage. The leader’s jersey might as well have a target painted on it with the words “Please Beat me” written on it (thanks Richard Hell).

Chris Logan outsprints me to the line.

Thanks to Teri, Gonzo, all the Root 66 folks, and IBC for letting me take weekends off to do this stuff.

Below: Post-race interview by Gonzalo Escobar

Le Burrito...Le

On the way home the other night I stopped at Chipotle in Davis Square for a quick meal. I was in my full cycling get up which prompted the manager to inform me about the upcoming Tour De France "Le Burrito" promotion. Similar to Taco Bell's ill-fated "El Foie Gras Gordita" in it's fusion of French and Mexican cuisine (Yes, technically I should have made fun of an imaginary promotion by a French-themed fast food chain here, but I couldn't think of one for some reason). Speaking of Taco Bell, I came upon this Greg Lemond Taco Bell Ad while "researching" this piece. Anyway, the manager's information on the featured Burrito was kind of spotty, he touted that it would contain "everything a rider needs nutritionally during a stage of The Tour De France". Interesting, in that case I can only surmise that it must contain between six and eight THOUSAND calories. Picco De Testosterone-O included, Guaca-EPO-a-mole fifty cents extra.

Root 66 Putney

Flat

Above: George, During, After, and long enough after to begin looking back and laughing

Not my tire this time…me. I’ve experienced some new highs this season in my training and racing, but I suppose there can’t be highs without lows. This was a low point of the season. I pulled a bonehead move last season, going way too hard and running too much at the EFTA Bradbury race leaving my illiotibial bands torn to shreds for the Wilderness 101 the next weekend. That was the only time all year where I literally could not ride my bike up a hill or around a rock, it wasn’t a matter of suffering more or being a tough guy, it just wasn’t happening. This weekend it was the same deal. Funny because I didn’t feel any more terrible than usual when I woke up Sunday morning, it wasn’t until the pre-ride with Jeff Whittingham that I began to get some negative feedback from my body. My heart rate was high, I think this was due to the fact that I was trying to spin more to ease the load on my bugged out lower appendages. By the end of that warm up lap I was sweating profusely and I felt like crap and felt like I looked like crap, bags under my eyes, maybe a hairy superfluous nipple growing out of the side of my face.

Jorge (Pronounced "George") is a merry prankster. Yes, that's a $12 kickstand on a Pegoretti.

Here a schism began between the cynically realistic back of my mind and the delusionaly optimistic front of my mind. Front says “You just need to lower your gear slightly, you’ll be fine”. Back says “Hey dumb ass, you felt those legs, they are frickin’ wasted, you got nothing today, NOTHING! You think changing one little tooth is going to make a damn bit of difference? Keep smokin’ kid…keep smokin’!”. The back of mind is a Somerville Townie, I think it drives a Grand National. So I sweat and struggle to get my gear swapped as Colin puts the number on my bike, George, picks up the entire tool box worth of tools I dumped on the ground, and Mo tells me to “Remember to keep breathing”. Thanks guys, for real.

Back when I enjoyed riding my bike, seems like yesterday, or the day before yesterday which it was. I'm lucky to have this place in my backyard.

I line up behind Jeff, he tells me “There’s only one guy in this race…YOU! I don’t care if I’m second to last as long as you’re last!”. With friends like that who needs Tobasco Enemas. The start wasn’t too, too bad, then I made up some spots on the first incline, me and Michael Mooradian just dangling off the front group by a few seconds, business as usual. Michael says “C’mon this our race”. Nice of him, but it was more his race than mine as it turned out (think he nabbed fifth). He was behind me as I unclipped my right foot on the super-fast off-camber downhill, all over the bike like a bucking bronco for a few seconds before getting back on the saddle and not dying. I Was standing a lot more than usual, especially for such a low gear, my breathing was out of check, and my heart rate was through the roof. When I came through the start/finish Jill from USA Cycling said “Hang in there Thom” or something like that, but she was laughing when she said it. She could tell this was obviously not my day.

Jeff in recovery mode.

My 32 X 18 was fine for the open sections between the climbs, I wasn’t getting dropped there, but the first time we went up Heartbreak hill it all went to hell. My legs all twingy, my upper body slumping, I was working too hard. The front of my mind was saying “You can work through this, just drink, just eat, you’ll be OK, you’ll bounce back, just ride your bike”. The back was going “Yeah right! What, were you born last night? You could strap two bags of wet linguini to your ass and pedal a bike better ya pickle smoker!”. God, the back of my mind is a dick, but it does help me out when I have to berate drivers on my commute sometimes.
After one lap I was at the back of my group, after two laps I was getting caught by guys from other categories including James Harmon, winner of the Single Speed category, he offered words of encouragement as he passed. His time would have put him in the better half of the Pro/Semi-Pro category, watch out. The downward spiral became more rapid after that. Every pedal stroke where I had to apply any pressure became nearly impossible, I played “just stay on the bike”, but at that point it did no good, my legs had staged a mutiny, my pride was getting keel-hauled and my self-respect was walking the plank.

I damn near ran this little guy over before he woke up from his sun nap and skedaddled.

Before lap four (which would turn out to be the last for the Pros due to a thunder storm, although the Sports including a top ten finishing George Shaw of IBC would ride through an outright deluge just a little while later) I stopped at the feed zone and stood talking with George who was handing me bottles. I felt bad, I could tell I looked worse, the bags under my eyes now as big as luggage. I whined and made excuses: “fifty hour work week, no sleep, stupid training, not enough recovery, blah, blah, blah”. This would mark the first time I’d dropped out of a race because I just couldn’t do it since my ill-fated first attempt at racing a single speed in late 2002. There have been many times when I’ve finished races even though I was sucking horribly just because I like riding my bike. Here I couldn’t even ride my bike to save my life. Seriously, if I were being chased by a charging pack of Three-Toed Sloths I would have been run down and slowly gnawed and clawed and Slothed to death over a period of hours or days for certain.

My recovery drink did me no good this week and Swayze wasn't there when I needed him.

That was it, I dropped out, DNF, I hobbled off the course, took my helmet off, dropped my two wheeled Loser Cruiser in the Poison Ivy and sat down to wait a few minutes to see who wasn’t sucking as bad as me that day. Turned out it was John Foley spinning happily up the finishing climb with Ethan Gilmour breathing down his neck. Seemed like John had kind of a frustrating start to the season, he disappeared for a little while, apparently started riding his bike to work, and now he’s back In the business of ripping people’s legs off and beating them with ‘em. Carpool mates Mo and Colin had good results with a 1st and a 3rd respectively.
It was a rough day, but the sandwiches at the Putney Co-Op were awesome, worth running through a wall of blinding rain to get them, the coffee was killer as well, and I’m going into a rest week. My legs and I aren’t even speaking to each other until maybe Thursday. Ah, the bright side.

Determined to deliver Jeff's clothes to him despite not having a bag to carry them home in...I made one. About as ingenious as my Bottle Stand and as well executed.

Hit

I Commute just about every day, things usually go well, I avoid a few hairy situations, sometimes I get away with something that makes me go "man, I gotta chill out". But most days are uneventful, not yesterday. I was coming home on Route 60 between Belmont and Arlington Centers, spinning out at about 22mph with a nice tailwind at my back. A car in front of me faked left, left blinker on, actually began turning the wheels...then blam! The guy turns hard right into a gas station. I lock 'em up, who knows what happens in the middle of one of these things really, it's a blur, total instinct and mayhem. I'm gliding, skidding sideways, turning with him, then he stops dead. I slide down the side of the car, finally slamming the meat of my left quad into his right rear view mirror, it pops off and hits the ground, only wires connecting it to the car. I drop the bike, and wind up standing, screaming profanity. I believe the term "Jackass" was the theme of the rant. I was loud, I drew attention, guys from the gas station and elsewhere came out and gathered around.
The kid was spooked, I was acting like a madman, he thought he really hurt me, he was holding his cell phone..."you weren't on your phone were you?" I spat. "No, I was gonna call 911 for an ambulance" the kid stammered. I eventually calmed, I realized this was a good kid, he was trying to do the right thing, and I had really freaked him out in every way. He apologized, said that the important thing was that I was OK, I said I was sorry about his mirror and rolled away to ice my leg and watch the Celtics with my pops. Could have been worse.

I found that the backing nut for the EBB expander wedge would back out due to the angle the allen wrench was entering the bolt head, so I had to file a bit of the end of the crank arm. Now it works great.

Earlier that that day (can't figure out why the font just changed on it's own, oh well) I went out for a race pace ride of the NEMBA MTB loop in The Fells. I wanted to set a marker in a certain gear and see if I'm faster in lower or higher gears. I chose a gear higher than anything I've used before, a 33 X 16. I have to say it felt good, grindy on the hills but no so much so that I wouldn't do it again. The power and control you have in technical singletrack running a higer gear is awesome. The Loop felt like a road crit, the extra speed smoothing out even the most technical spots. My time from where the loop begins at the cross roads near Governor's Ave, heading in a clockwise direction was 28:45. We'll see if I can beat that in a spinnier gear next week.

My staging area, so glad my girlfriend puts up with this crap week after week.

Do What You Can Do (With What You Got)

That’s my new motto, taken from a Constantines song lyric. My old motto was “You Can Do It (Put Your Back Into it)” taken from an Ice Cube Song Lyric. It was either that or “You can try to smoke an ounce to this while I pronounce this shit”. It was a toss up. The new motto is more appropriate for a single speeder. You got one gear, do what you can do with what you got. It only applies for me once the race starts, seeing as I spend countless hours deliberating over what gear to use at a certain course.

Not a bad week on the bike. Monday, rode Dover, talked about that already. Tuesday, took it off and saw Bill Peterson. Wednesday hit the Dover TT. It was a humid, windy, hot day. On the first hill I went slightly anaerobic and felt like I had bronchitis. A crazy rattling coursing through my respiratory system. I’d kind of been dealing with this feeling all week, but somehow not feeling too bad otherwise. Felt totally miserable during the TT but was only 8 seconds slower than last time. Not exactly forward progress but I’ll take it. Dave Donato was out there again taking photos, he is pretty damn good. The photo above is one of his.

Thursday I did a truncated version of The Danish Pastry House Ride with Matt O’Keefe, not CCB Matt O’Keefe but Seven Cycles Matt O’Keefe. Always a good guy to ride with. He floats over the trail like a butterfly and spins like a bee. That sort of makes sense. The ride was shorter than usual because I had to do a racer-dork workout on Wright’s Tower, throwing myself up the thing twelve times to simulate hard starts, or to stimulate heart stops, or something. Matt has a brain so he skipped this portion and left me to the self-flagellation-fest.

Can't quite take an hour on the tower of power...yet.

Friday I spun easy as usual on the Road bike, Saturday Miriam met me at work and we rolled out to Cutler Park from the shop, me on a Demo Fisher Hi-Fi. I need to do a couple more rides on the thing to formulate a proper opinion. At this point I’m useless on a geared bike and freaked out by little wheels, there’s way too much going on for me to process all at once. It does feel like a vacation for me though, although sitting comfortably and spinning small gears over rough terrain, the five inches of travel smoothing it all out. Going down hill all that travel cries out “Hey! Do really stupid stuff, like hopping off that huge thing right…THERE!”. That’s pretty fun. More on the Hi-Fi later.

Uri holding down the fort. Steve Branfman of Team Kermit. Rainy Rodeo.

Sunday I worked the Kid’s Pan Mass Challenge for IBC with teammate/Co-Worker Uri. Just as we arrived to set up the tent the skies opened up and a deluge began. The little kids ride went off regardless, the little guys more impervious or oblivious to the rain than adults. I went hypothermic just watching. I hopped in the follow car for the 17 mile Teen Ride. We were in a Chevy Tahoe Hybrid, a huge, honkin’ SUV from Muzi Motors. Don’t think I didn’t derive just a massive amount of pleasure out of watching through the rear window as irate Dover Motorists laid on the horn…at a bunch of tough as nails kids out on a charity ride for MS research in the rain, every beep putting another brick in their pathway to hell. I ride these roads a lot, I catch a lot of flack from these people, but honestly…where ARE you in a rush to get to at 9:30 on a Sunday morning? C’mon! You’re not going to die if you lay off the Dick Pills for one day.

Ride leader Matt McGinty of Fitness Together ."I decided not to ride fixed today". Awesome.

After the ride which went off without a hitch, I shot down to Wrentham to do the big Wrentham-Foxborough route out of Gramma’s house. I wanted to put a bigger gear on but had forgotten my tool box so I was stuck with my 33 X 18 for the super-flat ride, Do what you can do…yup. Recent rampant use of ATVs and Motorbikes (you’d think that the price of gas would chill these guys out…how do they still afford all that crappy lite beer?) had put a lot more ROUGH in Foxborough. The trails were churned up as hell. Made for a challenging day, but a good day. Got back to Gramma’s house covered head to toe in mud and ready to eat the weight of John Goodman in Strawberry Shortcake, grilled Tofu, and corn on the cob. That’s right, grilled tofu, but washed down by real beer.

Escape from F.Gilbert Hills. Kinda spooky out here. Let there be rocks.

Heading up to Putney this weekend for the Root 66 so check back Monday for something actually worth reading.

Drop Dead Legs by Eddie Vein-Halen

The shots below should have gone with the previous post. The shots above are from my trip down for a check up with Orthopedic Cycle fit Guru Bill Peterson of We Do Feet in Middletown Rhode Island. He comes up from Tucson a few times a year to get freaks like me all sorted out. I'd been to see him in January and the improvements in my riding since then have been significant. When I had questions about whether my left leg was working at 100% (it's always been a wonky slacker compared to my right) I emailed him for a touch up on my fit. After less than an hour he had me feeling a whole lot better on the bike. If you have orthopedic issues and have experienced the "Am I talking to a stoned cat" feeling of trying to explain your problems to a normal Orthopod just bag it and go talk to Bill, he is the man. He even stretched my new Shimano M225's so they're all wide like the M225-E's...bonus.

Team Mechanics. "Dealing well with the 100° heat". Pollen count 8 Gazillion and rising.

Been getting a lot of comments lately about the veininess of my legs. "Hey Thom, get some more veins in your legs", "Jesus, that thing looks like a Rollo", "You're so Veiny, you probably think this song is about you, don't you, don't you" etc. Ya, I guess they are kinda weird and veiny, they look like sort of like Marty Nothstein's...wrists.