riding around in circles

Farewell

2008-01-16T11:55:00.000-06:00

Everything is packed, and in a few hours I'll get on a plane to fly down to Chile for the next 3 months. Thanks to everyone for their support this year: friends, family, sponsors, training partners, race promoters, directors, hosts, the list goes on and on. Thanks for everything, you made this a great season.

I'll see you in April.

-Brian

The New Ride

2008-01-14T13:04:00.000-06:00

A bit of tweaking to the geometry and a new color, my new frame is in the queue with Tiemeyer. It will be waiting when I get back from Patagonia.

Awesome

Unintended consequence of all this: Come spring, I'll have the hottest commuter around, as the dented Tiemeyer is taking to the streets.

Name This:

2008-01-12T17:50:00.000-06:00

Big Ben is having baby.

So begins the naming contest! I'll be looking for the best male and female names, with the winner getting some sort of prize, sometime. The contest ends Tuesday night, before I skip town to Patagonia on Wednesday.

Here's what you have to work with:

My Rounds

2008-01-10T13:32:00.000-06:00

Here it is: the last installment of my Lap Around series from different track across the world this year.

A lap around Burnaby Velodrome

I think I'm one of the few people who managed to race on all 3 indoor velodromes in North America this year. No one else comes to mind, but I'm sure they're out there.

Burnaby wrap and return to Minnesota

2008-01-08T23:30:00.000-06:00

The last night of racing in Burnaby was huge, as far as spectators go. About 600 came through the doors, and most of them took to the infield and beer garden. It was a good time.

Tuft and Bell of Symmetrics were the overall winners, but the racing was only part of the excitement on night 6.

If the strategy of getting lapped in a fashion that would allow Brad to sprint off against Friedman wasn't enough, things got even goofier. There had been talk of finding a rainbow clown wig. A rubber chicken accompanies Brad everywhere that he travels. And inspired by some highly fashionable teens in Starbucks, we decided that some oversized sunglasses would really complete the look. Inquiring with the barista, we found out that there was a costume shop just a block down the street! How lucky are we?

Andrew Armstrong, who stepped it up from the A's omnium to race with Brad when I had to abandon was warned that there would be some shenanigans going on, but that was it. No specifics. So when Brad pulled the rubber chicken out of his jersey in the first madison and tried to hand it off to Kirk O'Bee (he didn't accept), no one quite knew what to expect. Jeremy Storie, the organizer and announcer, took it all in stride, and actually seemed pleased and amused.

It probably would have been a good idea to clue Andrew in on what Brad was about to do. But where's the fun in that?

Bothered with nagging knee problems, Brad decided to call it a night after the first race. But what to do with the clown wig and giant sunglasses? Serendipity in finding them could not be denied, so despite the possibility of causing further bodily harm, he took the to rail, decked out in all his finery, with the intention of being the first out in the elimination. Well, he actually (and I believe accidently) was the second eliminated, but no one could match his mad style.

Brad taking to to rail for the elimination

This was probably the most educational few hours I've ever had about bike racing. The lesson: Don't take it so seriously. If you stop having fun with it, bike racing just sucks. You work your ass off, don't make squat, live out of a suitcase, and are usually either injured or recovering from an injury. If you can't throw on a rainbow wig and put on a show every now and then, it's probably not worth it.

That's the look of a true champion. And notice how good the wig and glasses look with the LA Lighting jersey. Just like it was meant to be!

I'd go as far as to say this could be applied to most jobs. If I ever have a job where I would be fired for showing up in oversized novelty sunglasses, I probably don't want to be working there. Try it. See what your boss and coworkers say. I'm curious to hear what happens.

Sunday was uneventful travel, save for a painful arm and lost luggage, but everything turned up the following night. I also went to the doctor and had a bunch of blood drained out of my arm. I don't know why the Canadian doctors were so reluctant to do this; the doctor here told me they could have gotten much more out, alleviated almost all of the swelling, and vastly sped up the recovery if they had drained it within the first 24 hours. Thanks for nothing, Canadian health care.

Check out the latest Bike Throw podcast, where I dropped in Tuesday morning to talk about the race. It was pretty fun.

Last day!

2008-01-05T17:11:00.000-06:00

Last night of racing in Burnaby tonight. Last night Andrew Armstrong from Dallas, Texas stepped up from the A's race to partner with Brad. It's great that they let him do this, as I would have really felt bad if my needing to abandon the race would have meant Brad had to quit as well.

Tonight should pack some excitement. Two regular madisons plus a madison elimination. And a rubber chicken. Watch out Colby. Just because we can't win doesn't mean we can't have some fun.

Alex, one member of our homestay crew, cooling down after a night of racing.

Look what I found! It's Der Kruser's old bike, all the way out here in Burnaby.

Burnaby Pics

2008-01-04T16:01:00.000-06:00

Ryan McKenzie: The fanciest of pants. I bet Lindstrom is jealous.

This is never going to be the same, but rumor has it that Tiemeyer can weld in a new seatstay. If not, then I've just gotten myself the most badass commuter frame around.

Hey Timmer, can you fix this trispoke? It's only got 3 rides on it.

Or maybe this blade. It's also hosed.

The damage done. That disc is never going to be the same either.

My elbow, as it looks now. I found out this afternoon that it isn't broken (good) but that the doctors won't drain all the mystery fluid (bad).

End of the line

2008-01-04T13:15:00.000-06:00

I crashed in the first madison last night. Not entirely sure what happened. In any case, I landed on my right elbow and skinned up my right hip. We kept racing, but near the end of the 200 lap madison that closed the night, Brad noticed that my elbow was getting pretty swollen.

After a night of hemming, hawing, and ultimately balking at the $700 it would cost just to get in the door of the ER, I'm done racing here. This is too much, and I don't want to cause any further damage to my arm before leaving for Patagonia in a couple weeks. Oh yeah, I also toasted my frame, denting in the right seat stay in two places, which respaced the rear dropout by adding about 4 mm. Not good.

Sorry everyone, but I'm out.

Floating Target

2008-01-03T13:23:00.000-06:00

After my crash in the first night took us out of any overall contention, Brad and I have had shifting goals for this race. The current goal is to set up for Brad to beat Friedman in every sprint possible. Sometimes this means timing our getting lapped by the leaders so that we can be in a good position for the next sprint. So far, so good.

Burnaby Day 3: Cracked

2008-01-03T02:15:00.000-06:00

Tonight was somewhat uneventful, as far as a night of madison racing can go, so I'll just sum up the highlights.

1. Suffer through the first madison. Everyone is a bit ragged by the third day.
2. Find a splinter in what I had thought was just a cut on my hip. Pull it out. Realize it's disturbingly big to have been in me for 2 days.
3. Be on the receiving end of multiple Dave McCook head-butts. You get these for the simple reason of "You were there."
4. Crack hard with 40-some laps to go in the last madison. Not just crack. Blow sky high.

The splinter I found in my hip tonight, with a pop tab for scale. Sleeping on my side should be more pleasant now.

Brad sheparded me in after I blew in the last race. It was ugly. He was doing doubles, we were letting ourselves drift back to whatever next group was behind us when we got gapped, and I still was wondering which would happen first: Lungs burst, legs cramp and lock up, or pass out. Turns it was none of these, but rather "Race mercifully ends."

Staying warm between races. Super Rookie will be glad to see that his hero Svein Tuft is also pictured here, along with Zach Bell.

Tomorrow is going to really hurt. Especially the 200 lap madison. If anyone out there is wondering, 5 weeks on the rollers is not a particularly good way to prepare for a race like this.

2008-01-02T13:14:00.001-06:00

They keep us in cages at Burnaby. Brad and I are sharing one with Ryan Mackenzie (sitting in the background) and Matt Chater. My bike survived the first day better than I did. The bar tape is barely even torn.

Burnaby Day 2: Back in Action

2008-01-02T12:48:00.001-06:00

After getting knocked silly on the first night, I was back for more on the second. There was a slightly shorter set of races tonight with 2 madisons and an elimination for me, and a points race for Brad. My body seems to have come out of the crash fairly well, and while I still had something of a headache, the only nagging issues on the bike were some pain below my ribs, a bruise under my right knee, and a stiff neck. Considering how hard I went down, it's not too bad.

In the first chase (100 laps, sprints every 10) the power was full on. Symmetrics and Slipstream were still pounding away in the big gears (93+), while most of the rest of us were in either an 88 or a 90. This pretty much set the tone for the rest of the night. I went up to a 90, which seemed to help. Any bigger and I would have gotten bogged down, but it was still an improvement. Brad elected to stay in his 88 and spin like a madman. Seeing as we started yesterday at 15 laps down and in last place, we didn't really have anything we needed to defend. With that in mind, a little cadence work at the expense of race results (which are far gone at this point anyways) seems prudent.

We rode better on the whole last night. Our exchanges were smoother and more powerful, we took some sprint points, and lost few laps. Oh, we didn't crash either, which made me happy. Despite the crash, I felt far better last night than I did on the first night. Traveling and not getting to ride the day before a race really seems to mess me up.

Now my arms are achy from throwing and my legs are tired, but if that's the worst, I consider it lucky. There were a few more crashes last night, and Friedman and Williams took quite the trip to the ground, but they're both back up and riding quickly. There was also a really funny shouting match between a pair of riders after the crash. It lasted a couple laps, and even had them riding next to each other, one hand off the bars gesturing, and all the while cursing a blue streak that would have embarrassed a pirate. I love bike racing. We even managed to climb to 10th (out of 12) in the standings! Time for an amazing comeback.

Burnaby Day 1, or KTFO

2008-01-01T13:58:00.000-06:00

After a few delays, we made it to Vancouver, met up with Brad and our hosts, the Popes, and got settled in. Throughout the day, my right eye started to get pretty messed up. A week ago I blew a blood vessel in it during training, but after a few days it seemed to have gotten better. Then suddenly it was bright red, swollen, and painful. We made a trip to a clinic yesterday, I found out that it had become infected, and now have a regime of anti-inflammatory drops to get it back to normal. Oh yeah, and this means I can't wear my contact lens in that eye for 5 days, which means I can really only see out of my left.

On to the velodrome. The track here in Burnaby is a funny thing. It's construction was started and nearly completed when the builder ran out of money. After some wrangling, it's now owned by a volleyball club who has courts in the middle, leased by the velodrome, and the upper segments (those parts that couldn't be completed the first time around) are plywood, while the lower segments are slats. As such, from approximately the blue line down the track is very smooth. From the blue line up, well, not so much.

The racing began looking very promising. The first event was a team flying 200. I threw Brad in, and despite almost being launched into the rail by the bumps in the track as he reached for my hand, he smoked the effort, turning an 11.31. Our time stood until the last team, Bell and Tuft, turned an 11.1. Second place: not a bad way to start out.

Next up was the elimination, but with a twist. Everyone rode, but there were no exchanges, and if your partner was eliminated, so were you. Or in our case, when I was eliminated, so was Brad. I really wasn't feeling the love, and we finished somewhere mid-pack. Zach Bell won the final sprint, and the pattern for the night was established.

Our third event was a 100 lap madison. I was suffering like never before. More times than I care to remember, I got a repeat taste of lunch, and the blurriness I felt was due to much more than my useless right eye. By the time it finished, we had lost about 3 laps. There was a whole bunch of suffering going on. I thought I was going to cough myself inside-out. Oh yeah, Bell and Tuft won.

The final event of the night was a 160 lap madison. Things were starting to feel a bit better, until the rider in front of me decided it would be a great idea to back pedal and swing up track. Never mind that my front wheel was there. The thing about getting your front wheel crossed up in a turn is like this: If you try to steer away from it, it leans you to far down the track, and will generally make you crash. If you steer into it, your wheel stops, your body keeps going down track, and you crash. The most you can hope for is that who ever is in front of you decides to move slightly down track. That did not happen.

It went a little something like this:
Riding into the turn 2 around the blue line.
Rider ahead dumps his speed and swings up.
10m+ of wheel rubbing.
[scene missing]
Crumpled on the infield surrounded by people.

I've got some burns on my arm and a few smaller cuts and bruises, but the biggest problem was that I got knocked out cold. My helmet even has some nice skid-burns on it to accompany the two big cracks it now has.

Looks like I'm going to be needing a new helmet.

My side between ribs and my hip is really sore, but I think I lucked out in that I've once again managed to avoid any broken bones. Unfortunately I was knocked so silly by the crash that I kept almost falling over when I tried to stand up. There was no way I could get back into the race, which means Brad got the roughest end of this deal. He had to take on 143 laps solo. I can't believe he did it. In the first race I was struggling doing normal exchanges. Doing that much on your own is amazing. Hats off to him for keeping us in the event. I certainly didn't have anything to contribute.

I really hope I can put in a better showing tonight. In one respect, it was a lucky crash in that my head took the most of the impact. The rest of my body is mostly alright. I owe Brad a big ride tonight after his super-human effort yesterday.

Burnaby Plans

2007-12-24T18:38:00.000-06:00

Next Sunday I'm off to Vancouver for the Burnaby 6-day. As has been the case through most of this season, I've had trouble pinning down a partner. It's happened this way in Portland, T-Town (twice), LA, Forest City, and to a lesser extent the planning to go to Europe. That it happened for Burnaby shouldn't have been much of a surprise.

At First Luke Winger and I were going to ride. But he skipped town and went to Argentina. Can't really blame him there. Then a string of others, Cody O'Reilly, Kenny Williams, Vince DeJong, David Byer, and others. Everyone either already had a partner or wasn't able to go.

Finally the race organizer, Jeremy, decided to pair me with a pretty powerful local rider. He has a fair collection of credentials, to put it mildly. A medal from Canadian elite nationals, and a master's world championship in the points race. I may not have ever met him before, but he was clearly a very capable rider.

Then another change. Things have shifted again, and now I'm partnered with Brad Huff.

If this is any indication, Burnaby is going to be awesome.

He's damn fast. I'm going to need to step it up for this one. Especially after seeing the start list. This is going to rock.

Cracked

2007-12-23T12:10:00.001-06:00

The Sunday Skibby Spectacular was well attended this week, with about 8 people meeting at the Stone Arch Bridge and heading out along the Cedar Lake Trail. Skibby was in attendance preaching hate and epicness as expected, the Cullens were hammering the pace, Big Dave brought his promised doughnuts, and Homme even came out to do some on site investigation for BTDC. It didn't last long though, as a few miles into it my left crank arm cracked and started wobbling all over the place.

A bit crippled, I skittered one-footed across the ice and back to downtown, with Big Dave coming along to offer a hand and a ride when we returned to the bridge. I think he was also interested in having a good laugh, as the crank fell off completely before we made it to Washington Ave. and spent the remainder of the ride dangling from the pedal still attached to my foot. He even took a few pictures to document it all.

At least I was riding fixed. That made it a little easier.

It's generally a good idea to have the crank arm/pedal attached to both your foot AND the bike. One and not the other doesn't do you much good.

You should be on my bike, not my desk. Then again, you also should have a giant crack running through you.

I guess this is what I get for riding a clapped out piece of junk cobbled together with as many free parts as I could scrounge up. It was a good run, and now my right leg will be super strong.

As for the rest of the riders, I have no recourse except to assume that they will be found in a frozen, huddled mass sometime in March. Or maybe they'll make it back for coffee. Stay tuned to Jimmer's blog to find out for sure.

Come All Ye Faithful

2007-12-20T15:08:00.000-06:00

The Sunday Skibby Spectacular (formerly the Stone Arch 318 Ride) will be departing at 9:30 again this week from the downtown side of the Stone Arch Bridge. Join in to hear the preachings of El Presidente on the importance of embracing the hate and learning the true meaning of "epic."

Some may call it a bike ride. I call it a religion. Converts welcome.

You!

2007-12-17T14:20:00.001-06:00

If you weren't making me faster, I'd throw you in the river.

The Complete Package

2007-12-17T11:17:00.001-06:00

Bring it on, Burnaby.

318 Ride

2007-12-16T17:33:00.000-06:00

The Sunday morning ride is growing. Balmy temps (relatively) bolstered our numbers, with 7 of us starting out at the Stone Arch Bridge and meeting up with another 5 en route to Hopkins. Not too bad for a ride in the middle of December. I wasn't even the only singlespeed this week.

Ray came along today, and apparently he and I made the ride real. I guess that means that until we got there it had been fake. Ray also found the slippery spot on the railroad tracks near the Hopkins depot. He was polite enough to be warning others about the dangers of slick tracks at the time he went down. What a guy.

Full recovery!

This was Ray when he found out that today's ride was tantamount to exercise.

Who else is going to join us next week? Ray says he'll be back. Quite a vote of confidence, despite his dissatisfaction with the choice of post-ride coffee shop.

Who's Sandbox?

2007-12-12T08:58:00.000-06:00

I hear that after his beating at the Loon State party last week, Don with be changing his blog from donimator.blogspot.com to donimated.blogspot.com

Hi there

2007-12-11T22:53:00.000-06:00

You two are looking good together...

...and you'll probably look even better with two of these joining you.

The Fix is In

2007-12-10T09:13:00.000-06:00

Or at least our kits are. They already look fast.

Get used to the back of this kit. You'll be seeing a lot of it.

With addition of my Speedfix clothes, I'm now up to a skinsuit for every day of the week. Ridiculous? Yes. Awesome? Definitely. I should probably ride in only skinsuits from now on.

Cane Creek also came up big yet again, with a set of Endurance 85 wheels that I'll be using in Burnaby this winter along with a new 110 headset. They looks pretty sweet. They even have blue hubs this time.

On yesterday's single-digit ride with Big Dave, Der Kruser, and El Presidente there were rumors that a certain sprinter from St. Cloud would be showing up at the next Cold Sprints, in full Speedfix regalia, to show everyone how you really go fast on a bike. And of course to crash the Grumpy's/LGR party. Can't let them win every month...

There have also been sightings of the new MCF Prez is sporting a Speedfix cap. Our political ties run deep.

Back on Track

2007-12-08T11:55:00.001-06:00

Photo from www.cyclingnews.com

Things are looking good right now. Mike Friedman wins the scratch race in Beijing, and Mini-Phinney clocks a 4:24.36 qualifier and a 4:26.35 final in the pursuit to take 4th, only 1.03 seconds behind Wiggins' winning time.

Now we just need to get Blaine going this fast.

This is why Minnesota has an off season

2007-12-07T17:19:00.001-06:00

My commuter is named Victor. He was in a sorry state this morning. Snow up to the hubs doesn't do much to encourage training. It's almost as depressing as needing to ride rollers.

Where did I go wrong?

2007-12-07T10:22:00.000-06:00

After a while on the road, I ended up back in Minneapolis. I walked outside this morning to find my bike buried up the hubs in snow.

Adrian, on the other hand, ended up in Nice.

He goes on training rides in Monaco.

Palm trees, riding in shorts, and sunshine.

If I can stay in shape this month, I could wind up racing in sunny. . . Vancouver. How did I get this end of the deal?!

Moving On

2007-12-05T09:10:00.000-06:00

In their ongoing attempt to eschew journalistic credibility, Bikethrow.com and Super-Rookie* have let the cat (or cats) out of the bag, but not without first kicking it around a bit, painting it a different color, and generally confusing the hell out of it.

So with that in mind, here's how things are really going to go down in the next few months:

1. Despite what you may have heard on BTDC, there will be no Tasmanian Xmas Carnivals for me. I do plan on racing the Burnaby 6-day in Vancouver over New Years though. Super-Rookie will be excited to learn that his favorite ex-hobo, Svein Tuft, should be there.

2. Following that, I will be going to sherpa school in Patagonia. 3 months of walking and paddling around one of the wildest places on Earth, the MCF blogosphere not withstanding.

3. When I get back in April, I plan to move out to Colorado Springs to race and train with some of the Cody Racing guys, but just what the team structure will be is unknown. I might even get to stay with Speedfix out there. We'll see.

So there you have it.

*I can't vouch for Homme's journalistic standards. He may well be a mere cog in the mass-media machine Super-Rookie is endeavoring to build.

Cat 1

2007-12-04T18:50:00.000-06:00

I just received what may be the most meaningless yet affirming upgrade in cycling: I moved from category 2 on the track to category 1.

This is a little like a 20th birthday. It's neat, but it doesn't really change anything.

Schooled

2007-12-03T10:00:00.000-06:00

About a month ago Adrian and I found ourselves stumbling around the Schipol Airport in Amsterdam. A few hours later and we were unwillingly thrown into a race at Alkmaar.

We got rocked. We chalked most of it up to jet lag and inexperience with the Euro racing style. Then yesterday I found this. Jens Mouris is the local who got paired up with Tom Murray that night. Tom later said that all through the madison Jens was going to the front and hammering the pace, then telling Tom that he had to go faster. I guess that's what you do when you win World Cups by taking two laps on the field.

Mouris and Schep on their way to winning the madison at the Sydney World Cup this weekend.

The really crazy thing? Tom and Jens didn't win that race. The Australian duo did. Then they went on to crush everyone at the Dortmund Talent Cup.

The Aussies, Miles Oldman and Leigh Howard, on their way to winning the madison at Alkmaar. I think one of them is still a junior, and the other is only 18 or 19. Oh yeah, and they have something like 6 junior world championships between them.

I'd venture a guess that we got blown out that night for far more significant reasons than sleep deprivation.

The History of Bob

2007-11-29T15:37:00.000-06:00

Gent. A wonderful place, and setting for our story.

Bob in front of his humble abode. It doesn't look so bad!

It appears I spoke to soon. A walk around the corner to the right brings you here, to Bob's cage in the basement. For reasons still unknown, every morning the landlady who lived upstairs would come down to the sidewalk and throw a bucket of slop water on the window.

Bob in his natural habitat: The Gent velodrome, where he schmoozes with current, former, and future pros, the director the UIV, riders from his past, attractive girls on student night, Belgian aficionados, Australian ex-pats, and pretty much everyone else. Lurking behind is his former manager, renown for his dastardly conduct, questionable contacts, latching onto all English-speaking riders, and being some sort of a cycling slumlord. Now Bob buys him a drink every year for getting him into races he never could have otherwise.

Now Bob makes an annual pilgrimage to the velodrome in Citadel Park to watch the 6-day. I'm starting to understand why.

Belgian Holidays

2007-11-29T09:55:00.000-06:00

At Andy's request, here's a bit about how the Dutch and Belgians celebrate the holidays. First off, Christmas is reserved as a primarily religious holiday, and St. Nicholas Day is when presents are exchanged. Not that unusual, right?

Santa Clause, on the other hand, is vastly different. Namely, he's the former Bishop of Turkey and lives in Spain rather than the North Pole. No elves or reindeer here, he's accompanied by 6 to 8 black men who used to be his slaves. With an eye towards more progressive racial relations, they're now just referred to as his close friends. This cursory hint at political correctness is incredibly confusing when taken in light of the way the holiday is celebrated.

When we were in Gent a St. Nicholas day parade came marching through the streets, and the first thing we see walking around the corner is a man in black-face dressed up and dancing around. Then several more. And then Santa. No one batted an eye. We were left incredulous. Maybe those half-witted Minnesota college students who keep dressing up in black-face should study abroad in the Benelux...

David Sedaris wrote a hilarious piece about this. Treat yourself and read it here. It's worth it.

The Gent Story

2007-11-28T23:58:00.001-06:00

Time to catch up, it's been a while. Everything worked out leaving Geneva, getting to Brussels, and on to Gent. I met up with a pretty substantial Blaine contingent, including my parents, Bob, Bill Nicholson, Dave Thimeson, Lionel Space and his wife Noel. All in all we numbered 11 spectators with NSC connections. I was surprised.

Let me state without further hesitation just how great it is to be a cyclist in Belgium. You walk out of the train station in Gent and are greeted by a public square that doubles as sea of bicycle parking. Down the boulevards of the streets that radiate from the square is an even more expansive tangle of bikes. Some have clearly been there for years, and won't be removed until they rust through, but the vast majority are ridden regularly. It was a nice way to be welcomed to the city.

As for the racing. Gent was quite a bit different that either Dortmund or Munich. The German 6-days are known for being a huge party, with the racing occasionally taking on a supporting role to the live music, discotheques, light shows, and other acts. The halls are huge, and lighting verges on seizure inducing, and everything is a polished show.

Gent disposes with all that an focuses purely on the racing. No light show. No temporary discotheque, VIP dining on the infield, or teenie-bopper musical acts. Dave Wiswell summed it up pretty well, saying that Gent is more like traditional 6-days, "all bike racing and beer drinking." And it has plenty of those two things. The stadium in Citadel Park is far smaller than Westfallenhallen in Dortmund, or Olympiahalle in Munich, but it is packed. The seats are filled, and the infield is jammed to capacity. Everyone is there to watch the racing, and go crazy for it.

The fanaticism of the Belgian locals was further fueled by the rivalry that immediately developed between the teams of current World Champs Bruno Risi and Franco Marvulli and the local favorite Iljo Keisse riding with Robert Bartko. Perhaps the biggest surprise was the riding of the British team, Bradley Wiggins and Mark Cavendish, who roundly sucked for the first few days. They lost 10 laps in the first day, and landed in second to last. The second night saw them lose another 7+ laps. The pair finally started to come to life as the week wound down, but they were generally lackluster at best, and disappointing at worst.

I had previously set out the goal of keeping track of all the people I met with Bob in Gent. Some of you pointed out the futility of this task. You were right. I abandoned that about half and hour into the first night.

The Talent Cup saw a bit of drama go down on the American side of things. On the second night, East and Carroll got tangled in an exchange, and Austin went down, dislocating something around his shoulder (maybe it was his collarbone) in the process. Guy rode the third night alone, going in and out pretty much whenever he felt like it, and I think he actually came off the track for the final 15 laps or so. Luckily the officials took pity on him, and didn't take him down any more laps. It was pretty funny. In a simultaneously disappointing and convenient twist of fate, Dave Wiswell, who had been racing sick, withdrew after the third night, so Jackie and Guy were paired for the last two nights. The method that is used to settle the laps in this situation was pretty clever: the laps lost by the two teams are averaged, and then another is tacked onto the total to give the standing of the composite team. I'm not sure how the points are dealt with, but the laps system seems like a pretty good one. On the last night Guy and Jackie made the right move at the right time, taking a lap early in the race while the top three teams shadow boxed with one another. A flurry of attacks in the second half put them on the rivet, but they gutted it out, stuck the good wheels, bridged when they had to, and retained their lead to win the night. It was awesome, and a really good way for the two of them to end what had initially looked to be a disappointing and ill-fated start to the race.

In the pro field it was the local star who triumphed, as Keisse and Bartko took a last-minute lap on Risi and Marvulli to vault into the lead. The crowd went crazy. I'm convinced that there's no place like Gent for this. Everyone was on the feet, cheering and clapping. Bill and Dave remarked that they've never seen any sporting event where the crowd was so enthralled with what was going on, and I completely agree with them. The intensity didn't end with the racing though. The majority of the fans stayed around to watch the awards ceremony afterwards, and the party was still going strong at the bar owned by Iljo's father a full 8 hours later, and went long into the night. If he wasn't before, Iljo Keisse can now be confirmed as Belgian royalty.

Again, there's no better place to be a bike racer than Belgium. When I arrived in Brussels, the immigration official who processed me asked where I was going, and when I replied "Gent," he immediately knew why. He started asking me questions about racing, if I had met Keisse, and commented that Cavendish had come through just 15 minutes earlier. The guy working next to him jumped into the conversation too, and were content to talk about the 6's with me for a good 5 minutes while the line behind me (and the one next to be, consequently) were left waiting. What a great place.

Photo Catch-up

2007-11-19T06:35:00.001-06:00

Adrian throwing me in at Dortmund

Me being unwillingly thrown in for more suffering in Munich

Finally, some recovery

The spectacle in Munich

Derny racing in Geneva. It was much more of an event for the racers here than in Munich or Dortmund, where the spectators clearly came first.

I'm at the Geneva Airport now, waiting to fly to Brussels. From there it's up to Gent. My racing is done for a while, and I'm looking forward to getting the opportunity to take in a 6-day as a spectator instead of a racer, and to follow Bob around and see him in his true element. It's going to be awesome. Stay tuned for updates on the racing and a running list of all the people Bob knows.

3 Jours d'Genéve: Final Wrap

2007-11-19T06:32:00.000-06:00

The other Americans had a mixed time with the derny racing. None of us had ever done it before. Wiswell had a painful time at the hands of an inexperienced driver who wasn't very smooth and kept dropping him by surging the pace. Realizing how important the driver was, he went up to Jean-Jacque after his race and insisted that he drive for Jackie. Adrian and Jackie hung at the front for most of their race, but eventually one of the other leaders, Bruno Menzi attacked off the front and gained a lap. At the finish, another rider came around them, putting Jackie and Adrian in 3rd and 4th respectively.

I was pretty blown after the derny racing. Not surprisingly, a long 60 km/h motorpacing session is not a good way to start a set of races. My points race was an picture of suffering, and did us little good in points. The Swiss riders were beginning to team up against David and I, so we joined forces and did what we could while severely down on numbers. Adrian rocked out in his race though, and took a lap with a small group in addition to picking up a bunch of sprint points.

The elimination saw me pip Jackie, and David in turn pip me. Confusion ensued, as our numbers and colors were called out in French, and David thought that they had called him out. He was protesting, and I was trying to tell him that I had been eliminated, and that that was what the officials had said. A moment later it all made sense, we realized that he was still in the race, and I did what little I could to push him back towards the dwindling pack. The good thing is that by being at the rail and a little ways back, David had a sweet run at the back of the pack and parlayed it into a 3rd or 4th place finish.

The final madison of the 3-day had its share of confusion as well. No one bothered to tell us that there were no sprints in this race. The madison on day 2 had 3 sprints; day 3 had only the finish. In a manner reminiscent of the start of the derny race, we rolled off the rail, and I was left wondering why the neutral lap was so fast. Then I was wondering why there were 2 teams half a lap up. I guess it's acceptable here to forego a neutral lap if someone wants to attack off rail. Personally, I think it's crap. In every other race the officials were sticklers about the group being together before the race was allowed to start. Why would they change it now, without so much as telling us?

We ultimately brought the escapees back, no one managed to take a lap, and Wiswell and I went one two in the nonexistent sprint at 60 to go. Somewhere near the end, I glanced behind me, got caught under and exchange, which forced me under a second exchange that happened a moment later, just ahead in the line. It was ugly. There was a fair dose of bumping, the sound of bikes colliding, and some sliding around on the apron, but no one crashed. It was amazing. Jackie summed it up perfectly in describing it as "the super-submarine." Embarrassing... Coming to the finish, Jackie put in a perfect attack that was reminiscent of his scratch race win on the first night to take 3rd on the line.

When everything was tallied up, our two teams were tied. We were both two laps down, and both had 296 points. The decider? The final sprint in the madison. Simes and Wiswell took 4th, Adrian and I pulled in 5th. Not bad, and it was one hell of a race.

Derny Action

2007-11-19T06:31:00.000-06:00

It turns out derny racing isn't so hard. Or at least the concept is simple. It's like drafting Big Ben, but not quite as effective. I'll give you the quick run-down on strategy:

1. Drink lots of espresso. Way more than you think is reasonable. I'm beginning to realize this applies to most forms of bike racing in Europe.
2. Put on the largest gear you've ever raced. In this case, a 52 x 14. Quite a shock to the legs after racing a 49 x 15 for everything else.
3. Stand on the homestretch until someone rambling on in French points to you, then points to a spot on the fence. Go there.
4. Try to get your massive gear turning, and get behind your respective derny driver in the line.
5. Hold on for dear life, occassionally shouting "Allez!"
6. 90 laps laters, try to figure out what just happened.

In my case, what happened was that I had fortune on my side. I got one of the more rotund drivers, who also happens to drive in the pro 6-days. Not a bad draw. Going against my luck was that I started second to last, which means that when everyone is rolling onto the track, with 10+ riders and motors, you're more than half a lap down on the leader. This is not where you want to start on a 167 meter track. Almost immediately I could see across the turns that a separation was happening, but a few allez's later, Jean-Jacque had me across the gap. From then on, he just did his thing, and I did mine. His thing was navigating through the other riders, picking the speed, and deciding the strategy. My thing was counting down the laps and wondering at what he was doing. I'm still not entirely sure, but I do know we lapped the field, and I think the number of fingers he would occasionally show me had something to do with how much he was going to speed up to pass someone.

Another thing about derny racing is that on a track this small, the fastest line isn't in the pole lane, but somewhere just below the blue. This means the riders who are going slower, getting gapped by their drivers, or just generally suffering end up at the bottom, tempo goes on in the middle, and those of us unfortunate enough to have a driver intent on passing are doing motor-paced hill repeats at the rail.

When we finally finished, Jean-Jacque was clearly pleased. Physical state not withstanding, I was pretty happy too. We had passed a bunch of people, and more than that, I was still alive. It turns out I took second, which made me even happier. Jean-Jacque, on the other hand, was suddenly pissed. He thought we had won. Rene Shibely, one of the riders who had started at the front attacked while the race was still neutral and bridged the 50 or so meters to the back forming field and taking a lap, which the officials (rather dubiously) awarded to him. The more I think about it, the more I feel robbed. I took a lap from the tail end of the group, passed everyone a second time, and finished at the front, while Shibely snuck a lap before the race actually started, lapped again behind me, then started to blow at the finish and drop off the pack while I was accelerating away. Not cool. I missed out on picking up my first Euro win because of that. Granted that a derny race is a bit of an anomaly, a win is a win, and I'll take it.

3 Jours d'Geneve: Day 2 Wrap, or Think Like A Monkey

2007-11-17T10:51:00.000-06:00

Racing really came around for me today, and I think I know why. Adrian passed on a bit of sage advice before my points race. To summarize: Think like a monkey. Don't take any shit, be the one to throw it. Not only is the mental image priceless, but it seems pretty apt as well.

Day 2 finished out strong with the madison. Things blew apart early. The race was only 15 km long, so it was full-on from the gun. The first attack came from Jackie only a few laps into the race, and there wasn't a real pack again until about the halfway point. Even then, it only lasted maybe 10 laps before it all splintered again.

Things got so messy that I honestly don't know what happened, except that we picked up third place in the second sprint (of 3) and won the finish. We took a bunch of laps on a lot of the teams, and from what I can tell, only one team took a lap on us. As it turns out, we lost two laps to the leaders, and 3 teams when up laps on us. It was a surprise to me. The funny thing is that there is one team that finished behind us on points, but equal on laps that I am certain we lapped more than once. Perhaps the exchange rate is coming into play here too.

The final scoring put Adrian and I in fourth for the madison, with Simes and Wiswell right behind us in fifth. On the day, we took fourth, landing in fifth in the overall classification, and Jackie and Dave are just ahead of us in fourth overall.

Tomorrow we have derny racing. Awesome? Wait. No, terrifying is more like it. All I know is that I need a huge gear and to yell either "allez" or "ho" for faster and slower, respectively. Do anyone out there have any more derny racing advice for me?

3 Jours d'Geneve: Points and Keirin

2007-11-17T08:14:00.000-06:00

By the lunch break, Simes and Wiswell had moved up the standings into 3rd, while Adrian and I picked it up and moved into 5th. Our afternoon session started out with a points race for Dave and I, and it seems like I've finally gotten my racing to come around. I won the first couple sprints, and factored into all but one, finishing up in second. Someone powered off the front after a sprint midway through the race, and managed to take a lap, pushing me out for the win. Oh well, it's still an improvement.

The keirins here are a mess. Maybe it's that Europeans just don't know how they work, or maybe they just don't really care at this event, but it was nothing like it should be. First off, you don't have holders, and you don't draw for starting position. Rather, they assign you a start spot, and have you hold onto the fence in the infield, in the order they want you to roll of in. After that the derny pulls around, and everyone rides up onto it, but this is done at or above the red line. Another thing I should mention is that you don't necessarily ride up to the wheel of the derny right away. The Donimator would love it here: apparently it's kosher to take the motor, then half a lap later fade off by 30 meters, jockey for position, then sprint back up to it. Once you hit 500 meters to go, the motors pulls off. Except that it pulls off going 38 km/h rather than 50 km/h. Little bit of a discrepancy there.

However weird the keirins are here, Adrian, Jackie and I all finished third in our respective heats, with Dave managing a second place finish in his.

The last event of the day is the madison, coming up soon.

3 Jours d'Geneve: Catch Up

2007-11-17T05:21:00.000-06:00

Things finished up late last night, and racing started again early this morning, so I passed on the post-elimination update. Suffice to say I rode a spectacularly poor race, got swallowed up and spit out the back, and pulled early. Oops. Adrian faired pretty well, but again the night for the Americans was topped by Simes pulling off 6th. He rode a very respectable set of races, and definitely put in the best results of the Americans. Simes and Wiswell ended the night in 4th, while Adrian and I dropped to a tie for 6th, 1 point behind 5th.

Adrian and I are CouchSurfing with a really nice guy named Florent who lives only 2 km from the track, and not only is it convenient, but he's a masseur, and offered to give us free massages last night. Awesome. He says that if he wasn't working this weekend, he would come to the track with us and give us massages between races. What a great guy. Yet again, CouchSurfing comes up with the best.

Back to racing. After a breakfast at the track of bread, croissants, and triple shots of espresso that are also used for degreasing engines and stripping the paint off boat hulls, the racing got under way. Adrian pulled off a very nice ride in the points race (red numbers only) taking 4th, only finishing behind the 3 riders who gained a lap. Simes looked a bit toasted from his stellar performance yesterday, but still pulled out a respectable finish. Wiswell and I needed to wait for a couple hours until our first race: an elimination with all rider competing.

Adrian wasn't really feeling it, nor were Wiswell and Simes, but I finally pulled myself together for a decent ride, finishing 5th. Not great, but at least it garnered up some good points against the other teams around us in the standings. We've got a lunch break now, then it's back to racing, with Wiswell and I (and the other black numbers) taking our shot at a points race, followed by a set of keirins, and finally ending the day with a madison.

A funny thing about the lunch. The organizers provided sandwiches and Coke for only 2 Francs (about $1:75. Cheap!) but gave them to us Americans on the house. I imagine their thinking went something like this (only in French):

You know those dirt-bagging Americans, the ones who are living in the bike cage and sleeping on a stranger's couch rather than the bomb shelter dorms to save 10 Francs per night? I bet they could use a cheap lunch.

And we were more than happy to eat it.

3 Jours d'Geneve Live Update: Scratch Race

2007-11-16T14:43:00.000-06:00

Our second night of the race was a 36 lap scratch race, all riders together (12 teams, so 24 total). Things started out quick and strung out, with Adrian and I rotating at the front, chopping back down into the line the way we learned in Dortmund and Munich. People seem to be a lot less aggressive here, so it was a bit easier to force your way back in. Anyway, Adrian attacked, and I was on his wheel, so I just sat at the front and blocked things up for a few laps. Picture, if you will, the "Great Wall of LGR" that has become a fixture of Blaine cat. 1/2 racing. Now picture me trying to do that all on my own. Not too successful. Someone caught on, and it was only a matter of time until Adrian was swept up. Things were nearing the end, so there were a handful of more futile stabs, but ultimately it came down to the final sprint.

I had drifted towards the back, but found Jackie Simes' wheel there, and knowing his pack sprinting prowess, figured it would be a good one to tack onto. He was picking his way over the top, so I felt pretty good about my choice. True to form, he attacked over the top at the perfect time (about 3 to go, I believe), right as things bunched up. I was pinched off his wheel, and while Jackie went on to win, all I could scrape together was 6th. Not too bad. Not too good. Jackie, reached for comment after the race, was rather passe about the whole thing, like he does it all the time. The consummate professional...

Next up: Elimination

3 Jours d'Geneve Live Updates: Points Race

2007-11-16T12:55:00.000-06:00

Alright, we survived the first 24 hours in Geneva. Not only that, we started racing. Unlike the UIV Cups, where we were the first event, finished up, and then the pros were on, here we're racing in the Open Category, and are interspersed, along with juniors, cadets, and women, among the pro schedule. So this means we have lots of down time. Our first race was finished by 6:45. We don't go on again until 9:30 for a short scratch race, and then again at 10:30 for an elimination. This is going to be a long night, so here come some live updates to fill the time.

Vel d'Hiv is only 167 meters, so they split our 80 lap points opener into two groups. Adrian had the first 40, then a few neutral laps to change, and I took the second 40. We both got into breakaways in our respective races, with Adrian taking second twice and fourth once (he almost lapped the field, but was gapped off by the rider in front of him throwing in the towel) and I won a sprint while in the break, but didn't take any more points. As it stacks out, we're sitting in fifth right now, just behind the other American team of Simes and Wiswell.

The dry air is seriously compounding my cold and cough, so we'll see how the rest of the night plays out. Stay tuned for the scratch race update to follow.

Geneva

2007-11-15T11:53:00.000-06:00

Winter hit Tübingen with a vengeance last night. We got out just in time.

Sub-par training weather.

Snow, ice, everything. Fortunately, we were off to the train station, and as of 8:02 this morning, on our way to Geneva. It was snowy all through Germany, and a bit past Zurich. By the time we hit Laussane, it looked downright balmy outside. Lake Geneva to our left, with terraced vineyards stretching down to the water. In actuality, it's still cold, but it looks like. I wouldn't mind spending some time in Laussane. It looks like quite the inviting place. Maybe some summer training...

We hit Geneva, got off the train, rounded up a few Swiss Francs, got ripped off by a lazy cab driver (there was no way they would let us on the bus with all our gear) and made it to the track. On that note, here's a video from an lap around Vel d'Hiv this afternoon:

The management at this track is about as helpful as we could hope for, and then some. The director offered to let us keep our bikes in his locker, and when we asked if there was a place to store our cases as well, he went and got a key for the storage area to give us for the weekend. Pretty sweet. If nothing else pans out for housing, Adrian and I have come to the conclusion that we would be content just sleeping with the bikes. The location is unbeatable.

Perhaps it would make us bike hobos to live here. On the other hands, there are showers just down the hall...

Now it's off to find some food and meet our CouchSurf for the night. Racing starts tomorrow evening. Maybe I'll find something fun in Geneva tomorrow to talk about. If not, you'll need to wait until later for a distraction from work.

I'm Czech?

2007-11-14T08:47:00.000-06:00

I've only raced in two 6-days so far, so I'll admit my experience is pretty limited, but Munich really doesn't seem like they had it together, especially not compared to Dortmund. Case and point: If you look at the results on CyclingNews, they have me listed as being Czech. I'm not sure how this came about, particularly when you consider that we were invited as Team USA. Adrian is still from the US, even though he also has Hungarian citizenship. How did that happen? Also, all the points we earned over the three days of racing seem to have disappeared. It's not that we have zero listed as our total, there's simply a blank where there should be a number. Maybe Adrian was on to something when he postulated that there is a points exchange rate screwing us in a manner similar to what the Euro is doing to the Dollar.

One problem with racing in Europe, however, is the exchange rate. Not just the half-again Dollar to Euro exchange rate, but the way foreign riders are scored during the race. For instance, if a foreign team, let's just hypothetically say two handsome young lads from the US on the red team from the 2007 Munich 6 Day, were to score 10 points and finish at 2 laps on the final night of racing, in the results they will show up with 7 points and at 3 laps. Got it? The same exchange rate is also applied to all other non-German teams, even those on the Euro.
-Adrian

In other news, I woke up this morning with a cold. It was about 33 degrees outside, and going between snow and rain. I think it finally settled on sleet. These elements combined to give me approximately 90 of the most unpleasant minutes I've ever spent on a bicycle. You're probably familiar with the phase "That really chaps my ass." Today's ride gave me a whole new appreciation for those words.

Müllermilch

2007-11-13T13:03:00.000-06:00

Perhaps the single greatest revelation of this trip has been Müllermilch.

My new religion?

Every now and then you hear about how chocolate milk is the perfect recovery drink. I never really went for it, but then again, I don't like drinking milk, and making it chocolaty only helped a little.

Enter Müllermilch. This is some sort of chocolaty, malty, dairy-based godsend. My German is shaky at best, but I think one of the ingredients is buttermilk. Maybe that's what does it.

Whatever they put in it, Adrian and I have been drinking this stuff like it's our job.

As of noon today, our trashcan contained nothing but 5 empty bottles of Müllermilch. We went back to the grocery store this afternoon to restock. We only bought Müllermilch.

I also went on a ride this afternoon with a local cyclist names Andreas who I had met on CouchSurfing. The weather was still cold, with a high of 36 today, but he was still willing to meet, and we put in about 2 hours along the Neckar River. At the end was a nice long climb, where it was snowing at the top, and cold enough that it was accumulating on the ground and buildings. It was still fairly nice when I left Minnesota, and outright warm when I was in Canada, and somehow the idea that I would be in Europe, in winter, riding my bike, has only begun to dawn on me. Tomorrow is supposed to be colder. I'm glad I brought my shoe covers...

Riding through small German towns is fun, even when the weather is cold and dreary.

Me and Andreas back in Tübingen in front of his favorite beirgarten.

Exploring Tübingen

2007-11-12T15:11:00.000-06:00

Today was our first full day in Tübingen, and offered our first chance to really look around. The weather cooperated as well, and for the first time in nearly a week the rain subsided and the sun came out.

The view from the balcony of Csaba and Emese's flat. You can see some of the University buildings on the ridge across the valley.

Adrian has a cold, so I put my bike together and struck out on my own to investigate the city. The downtown is at the bottom of the valley, on the Neckar River, and there are other pockets of buildings scattered around the on the hills, at the top, and in various little draws.

Another balcony view, looking in the direction of the downtown. It may appear idyllic, but it's actually damn cold. The sun is a welcome change though.

Csaba and Emese live nearly at the top of the hill, which makes for a brutally steep ride back up after forays into the city. Probably the most fun in Tübingen is hopping from one little area of the city to another. One part will look very new and industrial, but turn a corner, and you find a handful of roads like this:

Winding, cobblestone, and confusing. At least they almost all dump out onto a few main roads.

Fun to ride on, albeit challenging.

Adrian opted not to bring a road bike on the trip, instead just bringing some training wheels and a front brake. Up to this point, it seems like a great plan, as traveling with just one bike is a lot easier than two. But now that 45 x 20 gear combination is going to be tough. I guess we'll see just how tough he really is. To his credit, one afternoon in Munich when we went to train at the track, he forgot shorts. Not one to be sidelined by such problems, he safety-pinned his leg warmers to the bottoms of his underwear and took to the track. A bit of thigh flashing ensued, but by and large it worked out. It takes a real man to ride a velodrome, in a stadium, in Europe, in your underwear.

This makes me proud to be an American.

A (6) Day in the Life of Brian

2007-11-11T13:11:00.001-06:00

8:00 AM

Wake up, roll out of bed

8:05 AM
Wander out in search of breakfast. Try to figure out where you are. Something about a rowing center...

8:06 AM
They look like they know where they're going. Follow them to food.

8:07 AM
Success. Breakfast is in here.

8:20 AM
Look out the window at this thing. Turns out this was the venue for the rowing portion of the 1972 Olympic Games. The summer games. Maybe that's why it's so damn cold in the dorms.

10:00 AM
Round up every warm piece of cycling clothing you own. Dawdle because you don't want to go ride in the cold.

10:15 AM
2 km of canal, with smooth, flat service roads on either side. Perfect to spin out on.

10:30 AM
Remember the cold? Well now it's raining too. Shouldn't have waited so long to ride, moron.

10:45 AM
It's still raining, and you're still riding.

11:00 AM
Lap after lap after lap.

11:10 AM

Back to the compound. Quite a step down from the Hilton in Dortmund, but at least they give us all our meals.

11:15 AM
Survived the ride. Take a shower, and go find lunch.

12:05 PM
Lunch. Didn't I say something about mystery meat before?

12:45 PM

Sit around. Get used to this, as you'll be doing a lot of it on race days.

3:30 PM
Arrive at the track

4:00 PM
Have a look at the track itself. Still not open. Consider the possibility of warming up in the metal sphere those motorcycle nutcases ride in.

5:00 PM
Hang out in the room they give the UIV Talent Cup racers before the riders' meeting. This meeting will mean almost nothing to you, as 75-80% of the speaking will be in German, with the English translation making up the remaining 20-25%. Spend these 30 minutes wondering what else you didn't hear. On thing you do pick up: They've decided to make the race U-26 rather than U-25. Someone who was too old must have wanted to race. Yeah, rules, whatever.

5:45 PM
Warm up on the track. Wear the TROY jersey so that Super-Rookie can't complain. Try to be enthusiatic about this. 240 laps of all out madison looms in your immediate future. It will hurt. Reconcile yourself with this fact.

8:15 PM
Eat in the Fahrraderkantina after the race. You don't have any say in what you get, but it's free, and you're hungry. Eat it anyways, burned soup or not.

9:15 PM
Load up the van for the trip back to the compound.

9:25 PM
Distract the person driving your van down the Autobahn with flash photography. Fall asleep shortly after.

A Fresh Start

2007-11-11T12:16:00.000-06:00

A lap around the velodrome in Munich

Today we left Munich and went to Tübingen, parting ways with David, who plans to stay in Munich for remainder of the pro racing before returning to the US.

After a remarkably pleasant train journey, we arrived and were picked up by Adrian's cousin. He's a research scientist at the local university, working on how hearing works, but more pertinent to our immediate existence, he lives at the top of a really long, steep hill. I'm glad I brought my road bike. Adrian opted to just bring his track bike, with a front brake a 45 x 20 as
his lowest gear combination. Ouch. Tübingen looks like a nice place, very picturesque, set on a river in the valley surrounded by some good sized hills. There are two national parks nearby, so there should be plenty of options for riding. I also met a guy named Andreas on CouchSurfing who lives here and is an active cyclist, and he offered to show us the good places to ride, as well as give me a place to stay for the week if I need.

I should probably repeat just how awesome CouchSurfing is.

We're here in Tübingen until Thursday, then we're off to Geneva for a 3-day. It looks like it's going to be an awesome week.

If you want to read something truly epic, check out Adrian's tales of his time racing for a pro track team in Hungary last year and all the drama that ensued. It's quite a tale. A sort of Iliad of the cycling world.

This is how we traveled for the first 12 or so days. Crammed in the back of a cargo van, with only a little window into the cab for light.

If this is my alternative, I'll stick with the trains from now on. They're comfy, quiet, spacious, well-lit, ventilated, cheap, and fast. Let's list off how many of those things the van is:

Adrian and I exchanging at Dortmund

I was in the hurt box in no small way.

The concourse/staging area in Munich was more like something out of a poorly done sci-fi movie. The Star Wars-esqe exterior of the Olympiahalle doesn't help either.

I kept track of the distance I rode while we were in Munich. Over three days, between warming up and racing, the total came to almost exactly 200 km. I wouldn't have guessed it was that much.

In every race..

2007-11-10T19:23:00.000-06:00

...someone has to finish last.

Munich is done. Adrian and and I managed to scrape ourselves together tonight and actually race rather than merely survive. Things didn't look promising at the start of the evening. Neither of us brought rollers on the trip, as they're simply too heavy and massive to haul around. Today was the first time it looked to be an issue. There was some sort of concert going on in the track when we arrived to warm up, so we weren't allowed to ride. No big deal, it was only 5:00, and we didn't need to race until 6:40. Concert ends. Tear down begins. Everyone jumps on rollers in the hallway outside of the staging room.

Everyone except us, of course. So we wait. Eat a gel. Drink some water. Stretch a little bit. 6:00 rolls around, we grab our bikes and wander up to the infield. The service door (same kind as in Dortmund) is open in turns 3 and 4. So we sit some more.

6:20 comes around, and we're getting nervous, so we start to roll around the apron. The door finally comes down just before 6:30. Nothing like a sub-15 minute warm-up to clear out the legs after two hard days of racing. And it's not like things start out casually here. Even the neutral lap is full on.

Whatever. We take to the line and rail, roll off, and suffer like it's going out of style for the first 15 laps of so. Funny thing happened then. I started to feel good. So did Adrian. He made a big move over the top of the pack, got us some prime position at the front of the pack, and before you know it, we picked up some points in a sprint. Then we stayed at the front. No more tail-gunning for us. We continued to pick up a few points here and there, in one case actually exchanging as we crossed the finish line at the head of the pack (one team was off the front). Perfect timing. Things got back to suffering soon after that, but we managed to regain our composure and actually race like we belonged here.

When it was all tallied at the end, there was still something amiss. Munich isn't using chip timing the way that Dortmund did, and the scoring shows it. Last night there were people scored ahead of us that we lapped, and tonight was no different. Even our sprint points didn't add up the way they were supposed to. We were placed 12th, but should have been somewhere around 7th or 8th. Thanks once again to omnium scoring, this means we're last. 15th out of 15.

There was some redemption though. Even if we netted a big old DFL for our resumés, we picked up some compliments on a very good race from the coaches and riders of some very solid teams. While the absolute standouts like the Australians weren't here, the level of the field on whole was probably better, with national team riders from Austria, Switzerland, Denmark, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, and the US as well. If you're going to lose, you might as well lose to the best.

On to Munich

2007-11-09T16:58:00.000-06:00

Alright, things have been a bit crazy since leaving Dortmund. We had a great time hanging out with Vio and her friends, and they took us all around the city. It was great to get to look around without needing to stress over racing for a couple days. On Wednesday we piled back into the van and set out for Munich. We didn't ride the day before in order to recover from solid week of intensity on the bike, and planned to hit the track when we reached the Olympic Stadium.

No luck. We got in on Wednesday afternoon to find that the track was still being painted. By the time we got to where we're staying, it was about 10:00 PM. No riding. So two days off, and racing beginning the next night. Not exactly an optimal riding plan.

But first a little about where we're staying. It's a considerable notch down from the Hilton they put us up in at the Dortmund race. We're at a rowing center some 10 km outside of town that was built for the 1972 Summer Olympics. Some interesting things about this place:

--The 2 km long canal in the middle of nowhere.

--The building looks like a cross between a horse stable and a bomb shelter.

--The lights are all on timers, so you hallways are almost constantly dark, and when the are lit, they go dark at random.

--There are vents in the bathroom that open automatically when the lights go off (timers again) and let what would be hot, steamy air from the showers escape into the warm summer surroundings. In this case, it just lets even colder, winter air (it snowed today) into an already cold building, with extremely cold toilet seats.

--The doors creak severely, and the place generally just smells like a hog farm.

On to the racing. We finished night two today, and are, in short, getting worked over. Last night only one team took a lap, and we stayed on lap, even though Adrian's legs weren't feeling to hot and I felt like I was bonking. They don't feed us before the race here like they did in Dortmund, so I ate about 6 hours before race time, and didn't have anything with me when we went to the track. Again, poor planning. Tonight was longer than the previous racing, at 48 km instead of 40 km, but it hurt an awful lot less thanks to the track being much smoother than Dortmund. I think that really redefined my standard for discomfort on the bike. It just sucked. In any case, things got shattered, and while my legs were doing better today, Adrian felt even worse than yesterday, and we made some stupid mistakes, like a missed exchange on my part, and some messy ones where I had to slam on the brakes to get to Adrian. Not too good. There are a few strange things though, namely in the scoring. We're listed in dead last right now, but I know we beat several teams last night, and there were a handful of teams that went down more laps than we did tonight. So something is screwy here. They don't have transmitters on our bikes the way they did in Dortmund, and that can't help.

The show here is generally a lot smaller. There was almost no one in the stands either night. Last night it was chalked up to a Bayern soccer game here in town, but tonight was nearly as vacant. To their credit, they do have fireworks, but the practice of setting them off on a freshly painted wood track is bit dubious...

Tomorrow we'll try to scrape ourselves together and put in a real race. After that, we're off to Tübingen, where Adrian will be based with his cousin for the remainder of the season before going to Geneva on Thursday for a 3-day.

Pictures and video will go up when I'm somewhere that lets me get on Blogger.

12000

2007-11-06T08:33:00.001-06:00

Check out this bit from a newspaper Adrian and I found on the U-Bahn last night.

12000 fans for came to Westfallenhallen for Sunday's racing. And this was only day 4 of the pro race. The close seats were nearly all filled, as was the infield, and spectators were starting to fill the upper deck, too. The finale is tonight. This should be amazing to watch.

Dortmund Day 3

2007-11-05T12:03:00.000-06:00

Well it ended last night for us, as Adrian and I concluded our 3 nights of racing in Dortmund. After out lackluster performance on day 2, we scrapped back together for a decent ride on day 3. Still not quite up to par with our first night, but not too bad. We lost one lap to the field, and the Dutch team took a lap on everyone else, so we ended the night officially at 2 laps down. The Aussies won, and no one was surprised.

Hanging out before the start of day 3.

When the points from each night were tallied up, Adrian and I pulled off 10th. Again, not to good, but really not that bad for my first try. One unfortunate thing is that even though we had such a terrible day on day 2, we would have actually finished one spot higher had the race been scored normally, with laps and points carrying over from one night to the next. As it happened, we finished a lap ahead of the 9th place team. Oh well, rules are rules.

Tom and Adrian.

Despite a few close calls, we managed to avoid hitting the ground this weekend. For example, last night the Polish team decided to chop down and go under an exchange, and to take my front wheel with them, but somehow it all stayed upright. A few other teams weren't so lucky, but at least Adrian and I didn't crash.

Average speed for the races was 52-53 km/h. 40 km per night, covered in between 46.5 and 48 minutes. All in a 49x15 gear. Bob and Bill, thanks for all the motor pacing this fall. It certainly paid off here.

The pros going at it.

Now for some lowlights, and the lessons learned:
1. After night 1, I ate a mystery meat burger/sandwich/??? at the track while we watched the pros race. Sometime around 1:00 AM, said meal woke me up, and I spent a good while giving my offerings at the porcelain alter.
Lesson Learned: If it's cheap and unidentifiable food, don't eat it. Especially before a race.

2. Temporary tracks can be bumpy, and even if you have a saddle that fits and is comfy in most situations, if it isn't padded, it will still feel like someone is kicking you in the ass 5 times per lap. If the saddle fits well, it will just feel like their kicking the bones. Not much better.
Lesson Learned: Bring a more padded saddle next time.
(This lesson and similar justification also applies to bar tape)

3. Dave Wiswell was unfortunate enough to have his saddle literally snap off during the third night of racing due to the bumps in the track. First the rails on one side broke, then a while later, the other side went, leaving him teetering dangerously and uncomfortably on a shell perched on top of the post.
Lesson Learned: Look at my saddle tomorrow, and figure out what the creaking that got louder each night was.
Alternate Lesson: Buy a downhill saddle.

For now, Adrian and I are staying with a really cool woman in Dortmund named Violeta who we meet through CouchSurfing. If you don't know about CouchSurfing, sign up and get on the boat, it's great. We met up with her last night, met her friend Mathias, and spent the evening wandering around Dortmund. It's like having instant friends. Today we had an easy spin around town, but backed out early in our 2-3 planned hours, as it's getting cold here, and we figured we felt "good enough." We have a few more days in Dortmund before heading to Munich to start racing again on Thursday.

Cruising around Dortmund this afternoon.

Check out BF-One to brush up on your Dutch and see some pictures of Adrian and I racing at Alkmaar, and a shot of us traveling in the back of the van (no seats, just two folding chairs and a bunch of bike gear).

Dortmund: Day 2

2007-11-03T14:19:00.000-05:00

"...I'm the one that looks like I'm breathing out of my arse!"

Neil Campbell told me this in an email this summer, pointing out how to find the picture from the Madison Cup at T-Town. It could pretty much be used to sum up how tonight's racing went for Adrian and me. If yesterday was a promising start to 6-day racing, today was a slap in the face with the realities of inexperience. We were swarmed at the start, ended up at the back, and in short, spent the whole race either there, or somewhere behind there. It was a whole lot of chasing, catching on, chasing, realizing we were screwed, giving up the lap, chasing, catching on, and getting gapped again. All in all, I think we lost two laps on what was left of the field. There were a handful of other teams in our same position, but that doesn't really make you feel any better when you're actually racing. We missed a few exchanges at inopportune times (there really aren't any good times to miss a lap, but these were exceptionally bad), and were getting dropped like it was going out of style.

All I can say now is that I'm glad the director is running this race as an omnium, with the results of each night netting you points. Laps gained and lost don't carry from night to night. You simply finish each night, get points based on the standings, and start the next night with a clean slate. We had better scrape things together for tomorrow, because today's racing was over before it started.

Dortmund: Day 1

2007-11-03T05:27:00.000-05:00

This is a whole different world. Everything I thought I knew about track racing was turned on its head last night. The racing is still premier, but what's so amazing is the racing itself, but the spectacle that gets created around it. Pictures will sum it up better than any description I can give.

First, a lap around Dortmund during warm-ups this afternoon.

At the conclusion of the first pro madison of the night. The light shows they put on are more like something from a rock concert of a discotheque.

Erik Zabel and Leif Lampater won the madison, but both were out early in the barely contested eliminations that followed. There were some riders who looked crestfallen to not be the first or second eliminated, as that meant they had to go a few more laps before resting in preparation for the next madison.

One thing that makes racing here seem even more surreal is that they have the lights on the track set very bright, but the everywhere else, in the stands and on the infield, is comparatively dark. It has the effect of making the track look like it's glowing.

The service door that opens in turn 2 to provide access to the infield, and let a German rendition of the Blues Brother drive a mock-up police car around the track a few times. It may be good for the spectators, but the seams it creates in the track can really hurt if you hit them and aren't expecting it.

What race would be complete without a beer garden, VIP dinner, mini-blimp, and German Blues Brothers act? We need some of this action in Blaine.

Adrian and I managed a pretty solid race for my first time in a 6-day. Beforehand he had been giving me some advice on how to position in the group, and the importance of staying at the front. The sprints here rarely have people going for it 4 or 5 wide, shoulder to shoulder. Instead, the pace ramps up, and if you're at the front, you'll probably get some points. The tricky part is maintaining your position at the head of a line of 14 teams, which means swinging up and chopping straight back down about 3 or 4 wheels later, hooking whatever hapless team may be there to the apron, and taking his spot. This would never fly in the US, but it's just what's expected here. People know it's going to happen, and it's never done maliciously. You simply make the move with conviction, and they let you in. If you don't, and just drift down (like I was doing at Alkmaar) not only do you not get back in until you reach the end of the line, but people will think you're a pansy.

I got the positioning thing down pretty quickly, but the wind-up to the sprint is still giving me trouble. About 10 laps out, teams start swarming over the top, and I would tend to get caught under the wave. Tonight I'll try to force my way into the line and keep from getting spit out on the back of the pack.

One thing that surprised me is how many American teams got into the race. We have 3 teams here: myself and Adrian, Dave Wiswell and Jackie Simes, and the USAC team of Guy East and Austin Carroll. The only country more represented is Germany, with 4 teams.

Dortmund

2007-11-02T17:43:00.001-05:00

We made it to Dortmund this afternoon, warmed up, ate, found the hotel, and took to the track to race. This place is incredible, and the racing is brutal. Here's a short list to sum things up, I'll put together a real post in the morning:

-The track has a door in it that raises the whole surface in turn 2 enough to drive a car into.
-Said door opened to allow a Blues Brothers act to come on during the pro event.
-200 laps on a 200 meter track against these guys is really hard.
-We did pretty well, didn't crash, and even scored some sprint points.
-The announcer loves to yell "Erik ZAAABEEEEELLLLLLLL!!!"
-A temporary track means harsh vertical seams in the turns, that make it feel like someone is punching you in the groin 5+ times per lap.
-The seams don't bother you as much during the race, or at least you don't notice them as much.

Time for bed. Pictures and video to come tomorrow.

Orange

2007-11-01T09:35:00.000-05:00

We were invited to train with the Dutch national team this morning. All the pursuiters and the women sprinters were out on the track and showing us how it's done. Yesterday it was training with Matt Gilmore and the Aussie pair (also scary fast), and today the Dutch team. It's amazing to see how many top level riders a country this small can produce. Really goes to show what a strong development program can do. Not only are the talented riders identified and encouraged, but a consistent national team trains together regularly, unlike the piecemeal teams the US throws together. I'm left wondering how many incredibly talented potential riders there are in the US who never even consider getting on a bike, much less racing on it.

A lap around the track at the Alkmaar Sportpaleis. 250 meters around, but with very broad turns, relatively shallow banking, and short straightaways. Very smooth transitions though, and comfortable to ride, both slowly and at top speed.

Super Rookie, I wore my TROY jersey today, so it's getting exposure on this side of the pond as well as in Canada. Sorry to say that I had clashing U of M shorts on though. We didn't really fit in with the Dutch, all riding full orange team kits.

I met a guy named Maas (I think I got that right...) who was out training yesterday with the bike he uses for hour record attempts. He was riding a 68x12 gear, with 200 mm cranks. For the record he set last year in the 50+ age group, he rode a smaller gear, a paltry 68x15, to notch a distance of just under 45 km. I bet Hanz and Franz can't turn a gear that big, much less ride it for an hour straight! The Dutch are clearly insane.

This afternoon we went to the seashore in Egmond for a stroll on the beach and some coffee. It's nice to get out. I've now made it to the Pacific Ocean and both sides of the Atlantic this summer. Thank you cycling.

Tomorrow morning we leave Holland and drive to Dortmund for the first of 3 nights of racing. The pros start today, but the UIV Talent Cup only runs for nights 2-4.

Does anyone know about a cheap way to get from Geneva to Gent? I doubt I'll be racing in Gent, but I plan on watching with Bob and Bill, and now it looks like my parents will come over and have a look at the racing too.

Blogger doesn't seem to let me upload photos here, as the internet connection is pay per use, and seems to interfer with both this and my email program. I'll try to catch up on all that when I get the chance.

Wake Up

2007-10-31T10:53:00.000-05:00

Time to catch up. Things have been crazy the last few days.

Day 5 at Forest City started to pick up the pace in the madison, and had attacks being thrown left and right in the madisons. In the end, the status quo was maintained, and the leader board didn't shift much: Ontario held onto their lead, and Garnett and I widened our gap on Quebec by a few points.

Day 6 was where the shake ups happened. In the first madison, after the first príme sprint, we attacked the gapped Quebec team. A little bit of conservation in the sprint paid off, as Garnett and I drove the attack all the way around, and while we had to pull Ontario with us, we cracked Quebec, putting them down a lap. After the intermediate sprints, we did it again. They were done. We passed the 100 point barrier, putting them down another lap. By the time the first madison was finished, we suddenly had a 3 lap lead on third place, and they were needing to start fighting off challenges from Delhi, who had been trying to take back the laps they lost earlier, and a complacent field had let them, not feeling threatened. Suddenly the found themselves on even footing with Quebec.

Things were pretty standard in the miss-and-out, and I took second to Daniele (again!). Life got exciting again in the final madison, when with about 5 minutes left to race, I threw Garnett into the race, and the tire rolled off my rear wheel. It rotated around, and since it didn't blow out, jammed between the side of the rim and my right chainstay. This locked up my rear wheel, and sent me skidding from the finish line on the homestretch all the way through turn 1. Fishtailing like crazy, I somehow managed to keep it upright through the 50 degree banking before coming to a rest on the apron and tipping over rather gently. All in all, about a 40 meter skid, from 40 km/h to 0. I took a little of the blue band with on my rim, and left a nice track of rubber on the track. Kind of like my way of saying "Brian was here.'

Rob gave me his bike to get back into the race, but it was a bit too small, with a small gear, and I was terrified to ride it, so after doing one tenuous pull, told Garnett to finish off on his own. We managed to not lose a lap, and finished off the 6-day in second overall. I was pretty pleased.

That night I tore down my bikes, packed things up, glued a tire onto my Zipp, slept briefly, glued a tire onto my Cane Creek wheel, and headed off to the airport in Buffalo. Flew to Chicago, met up with Adrian, flew to Amsterdam, got picked up by Butterworth, and learned at breakfast that he had signed us up for a race that night. Awesome, Adrian and I both felt like death, and now we had to build our bikes, try to rest and rehydrate, and then jump into a race.

We headed to the Alkmaar velodrome, loosened up a bit, got lunch, checked into a hostel, and went back for the race. Suffice to day, I was happy with my not-quite-last place in the first couple of races, as was Adrian in his early races, and we were mercifully placed in the "B" madison at the end of the night. At this point we were coming around a little, and scraped together a second place finish among 10 teams (the lowest 10 placed teams after the initial individual races, but we won't linger on that). We came away pretty satisfied, for our first ride together, and considering the circumstances, it wasn't too shabby.

Time to go back to the track. Happy Halloween!

Day 4: Attacks

2007-10-26T23:05:00.000-05:00

If the first three days started off with some manner of control, the final three days dispensed with the niceties. First off, Daniele was on hand, but without a bike, as it was in transit with Dave, and summarily stuck in traffic. We started a few minutes late to let him throw his wheels on, but after the thrashing Daniele dished out to us last weekend, we declined to let him warm up, and plunged into the first scratch race. He still took second, behind Quebec. That fast jerk.

The first madison didn't mess around, either. The first half of a lap was at a painfully slow roll, so I went to the front to tempo things up a bit. I guess this caught a few people unaware, so Garnett and I parleyed it into an attack. I'd like to think we made some people work, and hurt some legs, but ultimately the group came back together. The attacks didn't stop there, though. Coming into the last sprint, I had a gap on the field and threw Garnett into the race with about 4.5 laps to go. Unfortunately, I was overzealous, and threw him right into my bars, which picked the front end of my bike up, turned the wheel, and set me back down somewhere near 40 km/h. I thought I was going to hit the deck, but somehow rode away from it. It's lucky we had that gap so that no one else was around to feel my wobbly wrath. Anyway, my pedal released, and I had to skip the last exchange, spelling disaster for poor Garnett, who hit the wall with half a lap to go and was swept over by our most immediate competition, Quebec.

Somewhere in the second half of this race, Team Delhi snuck off the front and took back a lap. Ontario, Quebec, and ourselves were content to let Team London do the chasing, as they had the most at stack, but by the time they took the front, Delhi had 3/4 of a lap, and came around to rejoin the group.

In the miss-and-out I managed a third place finish, again behind Daniele, but both of us behind the surprise winner of Mike Renneboog of Team Delhi. I was bemoaning stomach cramps the whole night, but it turns out Mike was straight up vomiting during the session (several times) and even more afterwards. So I'll just keep my mouth shut there.

Things were equally fast in the last madison of the night, but for all the attacking, Garnett and I just couldn't seem to crack Team Quebec and put them down a lap. We did have success in the sprints though, and kept our lead on them to 24 points. The final standings for the night have Team Ontario in first, and they moved up a lap by reaching 100 points, while at one lap down is Team Can-Am (us) in second, followed by Team Quebec. The battle for fourth and fifth has Team Delhi leading Team London, both at 4 laps down. With more attacks in the final two days, Garnett and I will be trying to crack some legs, and gain a lap or two.

3 Jours de Genéve

2007-10-25T09:30:00.000-05:00

Vel d'Hiv, in Geneva, Switzerland

The other day we got the official confirmation that we will be riding the 3 Jours de Genéve. So now Switzerland has been added to the racing plans. The 3-Days of Geneva isn't part of the UIV Talent Cup, so there isn't a U-25 category like the other races I'll be doing. The upside is that by racing the pro/elite field, we'll get to do everything. Most of sixes only have the U-25 riders doing a 200 or 250 lap madison each night. But in Geneva we'll get to do the whole show: madison, points, keirin, and even derny racing. I have no idea how that's going to work out. Should be exciting though.

I hope I get a fat derny driver.

Also, when I say "we," I'm referring to myself and my partner for the European 6-days, Adrian Hegyvary. I haven't met him yet, but in talking to him, he seems really nice, and had some good advice as to what to bring, etc. Last season he won a day at the Coppenhagen 6-day with Kevin LaCombe, so he's plenty fast as well.

Vel d'Hiv is the velodrome we'll be racing on in Geneva. It looks like they've been into derny racing since the 1920's, at least.

First Ride

2007-10-24T22:11:00.000-05:00

Well, the wheels lived up to expectations. While the tires may be conspicuously not Tufos, the Cane Creek wheels worked out beautifully. On a track this small, stiffness is everything, as you get slammed pretty hard going through the turns at 60+km/h. I've never had tied and soldered wheels before, but the guys here swear by them, so there's probably something to it. All I did was train with the new wheels tonight, but they're noticeably stiffer than my training wheels, and felt about on par with my 808's in terms of stiffness, but being as they're quite a bit lighter, they tend to spin up faster.

Racing on Friday, with the (slightly) bigger gears and higher speeds will be a more realistic test. First impressions are highly favorable though. More to come on that.

Some of you have expressed doubt as to the actual existence of David Butterworth, the promoter who's coordinating my racing in Europe this year. He was here for the first 3 days of racing, but had to leave this week to go manage a British team at the Amsterdam 6-day. So as proof of his existence, I submit this picture, taken by me, of a one Mr. David Butterworth, live, in person, on a bike, and on a velodrome no less.

This photo is even more rare than a photo of a leprechaun riding on Big Foot's shoulder.

Coffee, Cycling, and New Wheels

2007-10-23T14:18:00.000-05:00

Coffee and cycling just seem to go together. Bianchi has a bike they describe as a "Cafe Racer," anywhere you go you can find a "coffee shop ride," and most riders I know like to kick start their systems with a cup or two before a race. If Euro-pro is the style, coffee is the must-have accessory. But try as I may, I just don't like the stuff. I tried all summer to ween myself onto it, working up with iced mochas, and other sugary drinks filled with enough milk, sugar, and chocolate mask the coffee itself. No luck.

Last Saturday, when everyone was showing up for Day 2 of racing, Daniele walked in cradling an enormous coffee maker in his arms. Vince showed up with another one. They trotted down the infield, plugged the in, pulled out some cups, and starting kicking out espressos. Now the ties between cycling and coffee were getting even more explicit. Jet Fuel beans were poured into a Saeco coffee maker (Which was an impressive machine. Put in whole beans, push a button, and a few seconds later it spit out a fresh, hot double shot of espresso.) sitting on the infield of a velodrome during a 6-day.

Some of you may have heard that I'll be joining Speedfix Racing for next season. Sponsors and riders are still being finalized, but one company that's been on board for a while is Cane Creek. When Der Kruser told them about the racing I was going to be doing this fall, they decided to hook me up with some new wheels to race on.
They were even good enough to send ones that had been tied and soldered, and had tires already glued on. And they shipped the to me here in Canada. I'm pretty pumped to try them out at training tomorrow night.

Taking these factors into account, here's my 10 step plan for the final 3 days of the Forest City 6-day:
1. Arrive at the track
2. Drink an espresso
3. Change into riding clothes
4. Drink an espresso
5. Put on fast new wheels
6. Drink an espresso
7. Warm up
8. Drink an espresso
9. ???
10. Win

There's a good chance that step 9 will either be "Develop heart condition," or "Vomit." In either case, I figure the combination of new wheels and scary amounts of coffee is the only way I'll be able to stop Daniele from winning all the sprints at will. I'll let you know what happens.

Oh Canada

2007-10-22T13:56:00.000-05:00

This country is drunk on hockey and Tim Horton's.

-Garnett

Day 3: Blow Outs

2007-10-21T22:10:00.001-05:00

A funny thing has happened over the first 3 days of racing. Despite spending several hours a day racing, not getting as much sleep as I would like, and habitually neglecting to cool down, I've felt better each day. Maybe it's getting used to the track and being able to relax. Maybe it's the small gears. Whatever it is, I like it.

While being called over to the rider meeting today, everyone turned to hear the distinctive pop and hiss of a tubular blow out and going flat. To be precise, my tubular, on my rear race wheel. A decidedly inauspicious start to the day. I put on my training wheel, and went for it. Better on the infield than when racing, I suppose.

Things improved from there, though. Garnett and I taking third and second, respectively, in the opening scratch race. Grabbed some more cash in the primes during the first madison, before I proceeded to ride like an idiot at take last in my sprint. Garnett did pretty well though, and picked up some points for us. A few more primes, a good finish in the final sprint, and we were on to the miss-and-out.

Garnett throwing me onto Scott's wheel (London). Scott would go down today, his partner, Brandon, going down yesterday.

Somewhere in the first two events, our primary opponent, Team Quebec, dropped from third to fourth, and Team Delhi overtook them with by picking up consistent points, though never winning the sprints. One of the Quebec riders has been suffering these last two days, and it was starting to show. Garnett and I, on the other hand, consolidate our grip on second, but gained only modestly on the first place team, Ontario.

Given my questionable early elimination in the miss-and-out last night, I wanted to leave no doubt today. I still played the devil, as usual, but made sure everyone I picked off was clearly out, even if it meant taking one or two additional hard pedal strokes. As on the first day, the final 3 riders were me and Team Ontario, but this time I only successfully dispatched of Vince, and was unable to come around Daniele, taking second.

Despite Hanz's prediction, my luck has held out, as well as the fabric on my shorts. They have not (yet) been torn off by a particularly fierce throw.

The fourth madison involved some real racing. Things started out fast by manageable, and we took more cash in the primes. We both placed well in our intermediate sprints, as well as the primes that followed. Following one prime sprint, we found ourselves off the front with Team Ontario, but after a few laps, eased up for reasons that I'm still not sure of (even though I was part of it...) and the race came back together. Team London had attacked to try to take a lap yesterday, but crashed themselves out with only about 20 meters to go before catching us. They're sitting in last, so no one was too concerned about them going around, as 100 points racing becomes a lap, and they were too far back in the points to be a long-term threat. A $100 prime to the first team that lapped the field provided them plenty of motivation, though. They tried again today, and being even further back on points that the day before, the pack gave them some distance. We made them work in the middle of it, but eventually the succeeded in coming around. Then the somehow managed to crash themselves out, again. Earlier we had joked that we could just let them go, that they would take themselves out before getting the lap. Well, it was close. They went down only shortly after taking the lap.

Strung out in turn 4, with London leading, Can-Am (me) in second, Ontario in third, Quebec in fourth, and Delhi in fifth.

After this, the racing started to really get interesting. I won a prime sprint, and then we took second to Ontario in the next one. At that point, I was felling pretty spent, and I think Garnett was too. Daniele took that opportunity, and put the hammer down. We chased, and things blew apart. Teams London and Delhi both lost laps, Delhi going down 2, London 3. We held strong, somewhere ahead of Quebec, but about half a lap behind Ontario. With only a few minutes left to race, the lap cards went up for the final sprint: only 10 to go. A lap or two later, I noticed a rider behind me. I threw Garnett in, believing Quebec was our wheel, but it turned out to be Ontario, having successfully gone everyone now, with Quebec another 30 meters back. Ontario beat us out for the sprint, and we took second place points, thinking we had gone down a lap.

Me throwing in Garnett, pursued by Team Delhi.

Somewhere in all of this, controversy was brewing. The officials decided not to give Ontario the lap on us and Quebec, citing a rule that they posted stating that no team can lose a lap in the final 10 lap sprint. I think this is pretty lame. Ontario made a smart attack, and gained the lap. What's more, the rule is in place to prevent a blown team that has hung in the race until the end from going down a lap because the leaders come around them in the final sprint, needing to only cover 138 meters on them. No one went down a lap like this. Rather, Ontario went up a lap. While it will strengthen their lead, I still think that Ontario should be granted the lap. The call is still in discussion, so we don't know just what the final scoring will be, but in any case, it won't change the standings of the teams at all.

Oh yeah, all photos today are stolen from www.rememberwhenimages.com. You can see others from the first two days of racing here. Scroll down to the bottom to find them.

Day 2: The Taste of Success

2007-10-20T23:51:00.000-05:00

Very briefly, we just got back (it's going on 1:00 AM, and we leave for the track tomorrow at 10:00 AM) from a much more successful night of racing.

My legs felt absolutely ruined during warm-ups, and my hopes were down. But things came around once the racing started. I got in a break during the initial scratch race, and took third. In the first madison, I took second in my sprint, and Garnett did the same in his. We messed up the last sprint yet again, but did manage place in one of the primes, netting a bit of cash.

I was robbed in the miss-and-out. I came over the top, once again playing the devil, and was called out. I maintain I nipped Byer at the line, and many fans corroborated my claim, but the officials didn't go for it. Oh well.

In the second madison, I was feeling good. All the twitchiness and tension of yesterday's racing was out of my system, my top speeds were about 4 or 5 km/h faster, and my legs were feeling better as well. Garnett and I won a prime, took second in another (The primes here go to more than just the first team. It's pretty sweet). I won my sprint, Garnett took second in his, and we reclaimed second place. When the final sprint came around, I threw Garnett in with 5 to go, and he punched it with everything he had. It turned out to be enough, because when he threw me in with 2 to go, I inherited about a 10 meter advantage. I came past the Quebec team's relief rider, (these guys have been pulling some dangerous, illegal stunts these last few days) just before they lived up to their reputation, and in some manner or another, stopped up all the chasers. I crossed the line with 15 or 20 meters, netting first place in the double points for the final, and Garnett and I strengthened our hold on second.

I'll be glad if tomorrow goes as well as today did, and really happy if it continues to improve like this as I get more comfortable with the track and Garnett and I improve at racing together.

Day 1: Acclimation

2007-10-19T22:57:00.000-05:00

First night of racing in the Forest City 6-Day was tonight. Things didn't start off too well. The program began with a 30 lap scratch race, with all riders in, and I just felt twitchy and out of control. The sprint came, and while I could hold the speed, I couldn't come around anyone for the life of me. I finished somewhere in the middle, right behind Garnett. In any case, it was points enough to put us into second.

Next up was a 30 minute madison. While most madisons are done like points races, with a handful of sprints thrown into the process of the slings, Forest City does it a bit differently. There is only one sprint during the course of the race, with a second sprint at the finish. The mid-race sprint isn't quite normal either. First of all, racing on time, there aren't any lap cards counting down until there are 10 laps to go before a sprint, and this is announced with a whistle. Then on rider from each team comes off the track, and the remaining riders have a 10 lap sprint race, then they leave the track, their partners come on and do the same, and finally everyone gets back on, with the first group now becoming the field. Convoluted? You bet. This is another idiosyncrasy I'm not keen on. It seriously detracts from the flow of the race, and doesn't for you to be prepared to make an exchange right after a sprint, and either cover an attack of make one yourself. Immediately after the sprint is the prime time to attack! Why would you remove that from the race? At least the final sprint is still run with all riders in the race, but you can't attack after that one.

One upside of the one rider on/one rider off sprints is that it lets you grab a drink halfway through a 45 minute race.

In any case, I rode pretty poorly in my sprint in the first madison, but Garnett won his, keeping us in second, and lending our team a hint of credibility.

Winding it up...

Next up was the miss-and-out. I like these races, but wasn't sure how my standard technique of playing the devil and riding from the back would work out. After all, in the first two races, I had either no or very limited success is coming over riders in the sprint. Heedless to common sense of adapting my plan, I rode from the back. The funny this is that it worked. The final three riders were the pair of Team Ontario (Daniele DeFranceschi and Vince DeJong) and myself. I came over Daniele, and he was out. I jumped on Vince's wheel when he attacked, but he seemed to be tiring, and coming out of turn four, I picked him off for the win. This was quite a moral boost, as I my riding was longer hapless, Vince is considered one of the track's most promising young riders, and Daniele had won the Canadian national omnium title a few weeks ago. Things were looking up.

...and throwing down.

The last event was a 45 minute madison. Bolstered by the miss-and-out, I rode more aggressively and took second in my sprint, and believe Garnett did the same in his. Unfortunately, my legs started to load up with about 10 minutes to go. Garnett and I had decided to try taking the last sprint by attacking at 10 to go. He threw me in just as the cards came out, I made a dash over the field, strung it out, and started sucking wind. I got Garnett back in the race just I was hitting the wall, and while he held off the most of the field, when he threw me in at 3 or 4 to go, I was toast. I dropped anchor. We finished the sprint in last, and with double points, dropped to third. Oh well, now we know what we can do, and I'm finally getting more comfortable racing on this track, so I can only imagine tomorrow will be smoother.

Perimeter Institute

2007-10-19T12:22:00.000-05:00

Here is Waterloo is something I never expected, and that, in some ways, seems terribly out of place. It's called the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. Rob pointed out the building on the first night I arrived, and summed it up as a place where they bring people to let them sit around and think for a while. He's pretty much right. The Perimeter Institute is similar to Washington think tank, but devoted entirely to theoretical physics.

For a physics and astrophysics student, stumbling upon this, in a small city in Ontario, is like striking gold. I wandered in yesterday, talked the guy working at the desk, and asked if I could sit in on some of their seminars while I'm in town. He says that generally the lectures are just for those who are working at the Institute, but that seeing as I have a physics background, that I would be welcome to attend. I neglected to mention that I've only had two years of cursory instruction in the field, but in any case, it should provide something to nurture my nerdy side next week. It looks like I'm in well over my head, too.

Maybe I'll get to stop by CERN and have a look when we're in Geneva next month. I could make this my velodrome racing and theoretical physics world tour. Awesome.

The Anatomy of a Pocket Sling

2007-10-18T19:16:00.000-05:00

The track itself aside, there is one crucial difference between a madison at the Forest City Velodrome, and a madison at every other track I've raced.

The pocket sling. No hand slings here. Rather than the riders locking hands to exchange into the race, the relief rider keeps both hands on the bars and drops down like normal. The rider in the race, meanwhile, draws up along side their partner, puts his left hand on the tops, but now pushes his partner in the lower back to get make the switch. A mere push is only the most rudimentary form, though. A true pocket sling requires, as its name alludes to, a pocket. And the shorts you wear are no normal riding shorts. They're made with a more static material around the waist, which comes a bit higher than normal, have padding around the hips (apparently predicting the worst) and a tall, narrow pocket sewn on the inside of the short, running vertically along the left hip.

The specialization doesn't end there, though. You also have what's called a "jamming tool." In my rather improvised case, it's a rolled up paper town, wrapped in duct tape until it's about 6 inches long, and 1.25 inches in diameter. This goes into the aforementioned pocket, and give your partner something to grab onto when throwing you in. At this point, it's clear to see that the pocket sling is considerably more than just a push. You grab this lump attached to your partner's hip, and thanks to the more static material, hurl them for all you're worth.

Here's the back view of the shorts. That wad on the left is my jamming tool. Garnett wasn't quite satisfied, so he may make one more to his specifications, seeing as it matters more for him than I. The white line shows where the inside pocket is, so that your partner knows what to aim for in the race.

After one night of practice, I'm still not entirely sold on the pocket sling, but am starting to see it's virtues. The relief rider never comes behind their partner, making the new wheel easier to follow for the other racers. It's also a lot simpler, technically speaking, to pull off than a hand sling. At slow speeds, and pocket sling can be as simple and just putting your hand on the back of your partner, matching their speed to that of the pack, and then slowing down yourself. When things aren't on the rivet, it's much more natural than a hand sling.

I still have my reservations, though. Namely, I don't like dropping into the race and getting thrown in with no control of how hard the throw is. If the line stacks up in front of you, you had better hope your partner notices and holds back, rather than hurling you into the wheel ahead of you. Maybe I'm a control freak, but I like being able to attenuate my throw if traffic is getting iffy up the track. The other thing I don't like as much is that you can't come in with as great of a speed differential when you're on relief. You need to pretty much match the speed on your own by virtue of the banking, and your partner can just provide and extra boost from there. All in all, it means you need to spend more energy on the act of entering the race, which no one really likes, especially when they're already in the box.

I still have some hand sling habits to get over by race time, like finishing my throw downtrack to put my partner into the lane. Garnett explained this to me (with remarkable composure) after I threw him in, pushing him downtrack to the point where our bars collided. We rode out of it just fine, but without that arm extending backwards, you don't have as much space. Lesson learned. I hope the learning curve isn't that steep when racing starts tomorrow night.

138 meters

2007-10-17T22:34:00.000-05:00

Imagine riding your bike around the inside of a barrel.

That about sums up my introduction to the Forest City Velodrome this afternoon. 138 meters long, with 17 degree straight aways and 50 degree turns. You enter the turn, drop your shoulder, and without trying, pick up speed thanks to the trusty ol' conservation of angular momentum. What's more, you're forced down into the saddle, and feel like you're going much, much faster than you really are. Sprint laps take about 9 to 10 seconds. It literally verges on dizzying. On the upside, being that the turn radius is so short, you can go pretty much as slowly as you like at the bottom of the track, and you won't slide off. Not the case higher up, though. I tried pushing my luck (not a good idea, given my record this season) and found that between the blue line and the rail, you'll start to slide somewhere around 23 km/h. I recovered from the slide though, and now I know.

Time for some pictures!

They built the track in an old ice arena. The original plans called for it to be 142 meters in length, but the realized that wouldn't fit, and had to make a last minute change to 138. They say it's the shortest velodrome in the world.

The view looking down the home straight.

The entrance and exits of the turns create a strange optical illusion. When you're riding, it looks like the track is slightly bowed up near the blue line, and curves down as you go towards the floor and rail. Rob assures me it is just an illusion, but I have my doubts.

The masters riders here are pretty awesome. Take our masters riders, and then imagine the guys that were masters riders when they were born. Those who are still alive and nimble enough to get on a bike are up here in London. There's only about five of them left, but with that many track riders in their 80's, it's pretty impressive. One is 89, and doesn't show any sign of quiting. How many 90 year-olds are riding anywhere else, let alone on 50 degree banking?

This is my partner for the 6-Day, Garnett Abbey. He's pretty awesome, and I was tipped off to that fact when we were introduced, and first thing he says is "Ha! Our money is worth more than yours! By 2 cents! This hasn't happened since, like, 1976. You probably weren't even born then!" Needless to say, I like Garnett, and like icing on the cake, he's fast too.

The Forest City Velodrome even has bunks for the A-riders, just like the European 6-Days. This is where Garnett and I will be living throughout the race. Being the first ones there today, we got first pick, and chose the one with the best view of the finish line.

Me and track director (and my host) Rob Good. We may look like zombies, but I assure you, we are both very much alive.

Racing starts this Friday. So far, my legs have felt good on this trip, so hopefully that will prove to be the case in the races. I'll keep you posted on what happens.

Welcome to Canada

2007-10-15T22:01:00.000-05:00

After two flight cancellations, a rescheduling, placement on a different airline, a rerouting, and a late plane, I've made it to Canada. I'm staying in Waterloo with Rob Good, the director of the Forest City Velodrome. It may have been some hellish travel, but we did get to take a short diversion on the way from Buffalo to Waterloo and see Niagara Falls, complete with the miniature Canadian equivalent of Las Vegas, the EPCOT Center, and State Fair Midway all rolled into one. There were at least 3 wax museums (famous villains, rocks stars, and normal--in that wax museum sort of normal), an indoor amusement park, a casino, and an animatronic guy climbing a rope outside the Guinness Book of Records Museum. Oh yeah, and the whole place is covered, top to bottom, in neon lights. Nothing like letting the majesty of nature shine through.

It looks like the bikes and wheels survived the trip, but the TSA did open up my backpack, and spill H.E.E.D. powder everywhere. Now nearly everything I have with me is covered in the residue of a sticky powder that smells and tastes like lime dish soap.

It Official!

2007-10-12T11:23:00.000-05:00

After a season of traveling, more racing than I've ever done, and several months of not getting any certain confirmations, I've been confirmed to start the Dortmund 6-Day this year. I leave on Monday for 2 weeks of training and racing at the Forest City Velodrome in London, Ontario, and depart directly from there for Amsterdam. On November 1, I'll get to test my legs in the European 6-day scene.

If I'm lucky, we'll be able to leverage the Dortmund start into an invite to the Munich 6-day the next week. After that I'll be racing a 3-day in Geneva before moving on to Gent. If I get to race there, that would be amazing. Otherwise I'll stick around, meet up with Bob Williams and Bill Nicholson, and take it in as a spectator.

Tentatively, after coming back to the US for a couple weeks, I'll be off to the Burnaby Velodrome in Vancouver, British Columbia for a 6-day that runs from December 30 to January 4. Forget the cross season as being epic, the 6-day scene is where the real action is!

One last nationals note...

2007-10-11T22:02:00.000-05:00

It's a while past, and you may have already heard, but the final day of nationals was a bit of a disappointment. Hanz, Franz, and DGC rode a good team sprint, but came up with 6th, one spot out of the medals (This is familiar; Ferris, Richter, and I finished in 6th in this event two years ago). They had done considerably faster before, so I think they were a bit down about this one. Regardless, they had a solid ride.

Ferris and DGC also raced the kierin, and put in a pretty decent showing. Ferris set the new nationals fashion trend by wearing not only padded Japanese kierin shorts, but a full set of BMX chest, shoulder and arm pads. Keep an eye out for this one to crop up all over the National Track Racing Calendar next year. Neither qualified through their first rounds, and they both ended up in the same rep. You had to win to advance, but they both came up short. Oh well, they rode well, and both stayed upright.

My luck on the day didn't improve from the rest of the week. In fact, it got considerably worse. I pumped up my rear wheel before warming up, only to find that it had gone flat. Fortunately, DGC was willing to let me ride his disc in the madison, which was conveniently at the end of the session. On to that... I started in the race. My partner, Steen, was beginning on relief. I made the first few laps, and didn't see him. At first I thought he had just hesitated in leaving the rail, so that he could position himself in an open part of the track. But I still didn't see him. So I started to think I had missed him. By now we were about 6 laps into the race, and I was getting confused. About 8 laps in, I saw him walking along the apron, his bike being carried by someone else. So he crashed. Maybe he would get back in... I kept riding. By 12 laps into the race, it was clear he wasn't coming back. I dropped out. We didn't even get in a single exchange. Lame.

I walked down the stairs to the infield, and encountered a half-frantic Ferris, carrying Steen's jersey, with the other set of madison numbers still pinned to it. Apparently he had seen Steen crash, and when he realized Steen wasn't able to keep riding, ran up, told him to give him the jersey, and implored the officials to let Chris race with me. They would have none of it though. Bummer, but a nice try on Chris's part. It would have been awesome to get to race, at least in some capacity. It turns out some other relief rider, riding too slowly through turn 4, slid out, and hit Steen and Mike Friedman on the way down. Steen got the worst of the deal, landing on the first guy's handlebars, and getting some deep-tissue bruising on his hip and back. He's out for the season.

Now I've had some pretty raw luck all season. It definitely didn't go unnoticed, though. Earlier in the week, Scott from Fixed Gear Fever had told me to make sure to stick around after the madison awards, that he had some special award for me. I was a bit nervous about just what this would entail, but hung around regardless. It turns out I was awarded the jersey for the "Unluckiest Rider" on the National Track Racing Calendar. No kidding, they actually made up a special jersey, and presented it to me along with the other--and in most cases, more legitimate-- awards.
What's really amazing is that I managed to garner the award prior to the madison failure at Nationals. So I guess it's only fitting that my luck, bad as it may be, continue unabated through my last American race of the season.

Points Race Disappointments

2007-10-05T23:46:00.000-05:00

The points races and the conclusion of the sprint tournaments were on the schedule today. Things didn't feel very good for me, right from the start. All through warm-ups, I felt just alright. Nothing more, not bad, but just alright. The biggest concern was that I couldn't get my heart rate up to anywhere near my LT. Efforts on the track, sprints on the rollers, I just couldn't get it within 10-15 beats per minute of where it should have been. Some serious rest in order when I get back to Minnesota.

My heat did not go well. It was a similar story to how I felt in the scratch race yesterday. My legs didn't hurt, they weren't loading up, and my lungs weren't burning. I just couldn't go fast. To sum it up quickly, I didn't qualify. The race was fast, but I should have been in it. I guess this is what happens when you try to train through Elite Nationals. You get taken to task for not being absolutely on top of your game.

DGC didn't have a particular lot of luck in his heat, either. At least his was a lot more like a points race, with lots of attacks and good sprints, the pace going up and down. Mine pretty much just stayed strung out, more like a scratch race. Not that exciting...

Probably the coolest thing to watch was the final of the men's sprint tournament. Michael Blatchford took the jersey this year, beating Ben Barczewski in two rides. Blatchford's speed is amazing, but the really stunning thing is how powerful his jump his. When the two jumped side by side, Blatchford just pulled away. All the more amazing, considering that Ben has no lack of jump himself.

Tomorrow we round out Nationals for this year. I'll have the madison with Steen Rose, Ferris and DGC will be racing the keirin, and Hanz, Franz, and the DGC will be chasing hardware in the team sprint. It looks like the last day of racing holds the best possibility for the Minnesota contingent this year. One last shot.

On the boards

2007-10-05T01:08:00.001-05:00

Today was the second day of racing out here. Yesterday Hanz, Franz, DGC, and Captain Midnight took to the track, the first 3 competing in the 250 m standing lap time trial, and the latter 2 doing the kilo. The starting gate was none too friendly to Hanz and Franz, one jumping it, the other hesitating as to avoid just that issue. DGC seems to have it nailed though, and in the end, they all ended up with times within 5 hundredths of a second, in the neighborhood of 20.2 seconds. Ferris overcame his kilo demons of last year, and pulled off a 1:11.7, while DGC came up a bit short of his goal of going under 1:10, with a 1:11.1. All in all, not a bad day.

The session today was a massive one. Unlike past years, which have usually had a morning and an afternoon session, everything is being done in one fell swoop. And I don't really like it. We arrived at the track at 10:00 AM, got ready, and warmed up for a noon start. First was the men's pursuit. Then the women's pursuit. Then some women's kierin rounds. Finally we came around to men's flying 200 sprint qualification. Nevermind that this was at 3:00 PM, over 3 hours after warm-ups on the track had ended. DGC turned an 11.89 (I think), Franz was disappointed with a time that was in the low 12's, and Ferris was less than thrilled with his high 11. Was there any redemption, you ask? Quite. Hanz (aka Taylor) threw down an 11.4 and qualified in the top 10. That's more like it. He didn't fare so well in the heats, being dispatched by Ryan Nelman, but still, he made it into the rounds, and with a very respectable time at that.

After a few rounds of match sprinting, we finally got to the scratch race heats. While all sorts of reasonable logic would have the scratch race heats go early in the program, with the final at the end, but USA Cycling has forsaken that sort of thing. So the first heat took to the track just before 5:00 PM. Being in the third heat, I had to wait through 2 40 lap races before I would take to the track. DGC was in the second heat, and perhaps the rigorous slate of racing he made up for himself was taking its toll, as he left the race partway through. When my heat came around, my head just wasn't in it. My legs felt stale, and I had anything but a killer instinct going. I actually felt kind of drowsy. Not the state you want to be in at nationals. In any case, I made a few feeble attempts to get into breaks that would hopefully lap the field, but all came up fruitless. Only one rider made it around to take a lap, an in the mean time, I sat at the rear of the pack wondering what was wrong with my legs. The sprint came, I didn't have it in me to shove my wheel to the front (they were only take 8 of the 20+ riders in each heat) and I missed out on qualifying for the final. Oddly, I'm not too upset about it. The average speed was just below 50 km/h, and I hung in without much trouble. The problem is, I should have been doing much more than just hanging in. I know I can ride far better than I did today. Oh well, it's only the scratch race. The points race is tomorrow, and the madison is on Sunday, both of which I enjoy more than the scratch. Hopefully I can get my scheduling worked out, and not spend more than 8 hours at the track this time.

On the road again

2007-10-02T10:21:00.001-05:00

I've had about month back in Minnesota, and now it's time to keep moving.

Next stop: Elite Track National Championships in Los Angeles.

I'll be racing the scratch race on Thursday, points race on Friday, and the madison on Saturday. The first two races are important, but what I really want to do is rock the madison. But yet again, I'll be riding it with someone I've never met, this time with a racer out of Texas named Steen Rose. He seems like a nice guy, and has some good results, so hopefully everything will come together.

Also going out this year from Blaine are Captain Midnight, Hanz, Franz, and DGC. It should be a fun week.

Bob and Bill have been doing a ton of work driving the motor for me, and plenty of other riders have come out to help me train as well (Sickboy and Dubay especially). It would be awesome if I could transfer some of that training into decent results this year at Nat's. Time will tell.

My two cents

2007-09-18T21:04:00.000-05:00

Apparently the hot topic of the week is the kickoff of the annual debate: Is the track collapsing, how quickly, and what are we going to do about it?

I don't have a solution. Bob and Dave have a fix that will hold us over for some time more. $10 million will get us a new track, with a roof to boot.

So what is this all about? I just wanted to clear up two misconceptions I've seen flying around.

1. "We have the best damn facility in the country."
(dis) hit the nail on the head with his response. No we don't. T-Town does. We may have a smoother track, but they have far better facilities. A locker room with showers, a full cafe, manicured grounds, a press box, permanent stands, storage buildings, the list keeps going. We have a cluster of port-a-potties, two big brown containers, and bleachers I wouldn't want to be within 100 meters of when lightning starts up. And don't say that the NSC has dorms, showers, etc, because we can't use them, so they may as well not be there.

2. "We have the best track in the country."
Sorry again, but that belongs to the ADT Center. They may have superior facilities, too, despite all the gripes about how they could have done so much better.

Does this mean I don't think Blaine is awesome? Not in the least. But we need to actually look at what we do have going for us. When it comes right down to it, we do have an exceptional track that we can use any time, on little more than a whim. We're never left fighting for space on the boards or time to schedule training.

Even if we did end up getting a facility like the ADT Center, would we really want everything that comes along with it? Take a look at their fees for riding. $20 per session?! Even if you get the 10 ride pack for the bargain price of $160, that's still more than we pay for an entire night of racing! Having a roof over the velodrome would be brilliant in the winter, and would certainly save a lot of headaches when the weather turns foul in the summer, but come on, there's something to be said for the appeal of having an outdoor track on a pristine June night.

The NSC has a ton going for it, and the program keeps growing. We should keep enjoying what we have, and doing everything we can to maintain it for as long as possible. All the while we should be keeping one eye to the future, but not at the cost of worrying to the point that it ruins the pleasure of what we have now. And as we plan for what will eventually replace the NSC Velodrome, don't try to force it into the mold of being the next T-Town or ADT Center. Let it be a track that fits with the character of the Twin Cities, and with the people who make riding here great.

Briefly, by request

2007-09-15T22:57:00.000-05:00

This week was the last night of racing at the track for the season. Some clown races, odd kits, and the shortest possible Black Jack Points Race (less than 15 laps!). If ending it quickly wasn't enough, it also pissed off Super-Rookie. Double plus! I crashed in a track-stand competition trying to ride circles around an armoured Chris Ferris. I guess that's fitting. Two wins, one funny crash, and I tied up the TROY competition. Pretty successful.

Also in racing this month...

Ferris and I teamed up and won the state madison, taking the race on points from Sickboy
Kruse and Ben Dubay, the latter having stepped in to take the place of a shoeless Ben Richter. The next night it was the Big German and I up rode together in the first ever Friday Night Grind madison races and walked away with wins in every event of the evening. Sweet. It wasn't until the next week that I realized I had raced both nights in an 86 inch gear. This made Sickboy mad (or at least frustrated). With two nights of wins, does that make this a triple plus? I think so.

Track repairs tomorrow, then back to training. Rumors abound that I may get to race the madison at Elite Nat's with Adam Bergman. That would be awesome. We'll see what happens.

Back to MN

2007-08-29T11:31:00.001-05:00

Saturday was an uneventful drive out of Pennsylvania, as we had been kicked out of the apartment that morning. Made it to somewhere just across the Illinois-Wisconsin border, and went to sleep, with plans to wake up and leave early enough to get to Blaine for the District timed events Sunday afternoon at 2:00.

Left as planned Sunday, dropped things off at home, and went straight to the track. It was a bit like having an out of body experience. I would ride, but not feel anything in my legs. They didn't hurt. They didn't feel good. They didn't feel responsive. They didn't feel stale. Nothing. I put on the new fork I got from Soupy, jumped on my rollers, and waited for my kilo heat.

If there was any lack of sensation in my legs earlier, the kilo solved that problem. Coming down the backstretch, all I could think of was Art announcing in T-Town, yelling, "And the bear is on his back now!" There was definitely a bear on my back. Maybe the same one that attacked Ed. It ended, Dan Currell won, Chris Ferris was second, and I took third. Not too bad, but not very fast, either.

The individual pursuit was after that. Thinking back, I don't believe I've ever actually done a 4 km pursuit before. So I guess at a schedule, aimed for 5:00 minutes, and took off. Well, I didn't hit 5:00. I would up with a 5:07 and change, but that was enough to win. Now, when I say "win," I need to qualify that. I won for the category 1/2 riders. But Timmer won it all, going under 5 minutes with a 4:59 as a cat. 3, and Joe Johnson turned a 5:05 and change in the cat. 4/5. So it was a dubious win. Oh well, it got me the endurance qualification I needed for Elite Nationals, so I guess it worked.

In the team sprint, Hans, Franz, and Dan Currell ripped off an amazing ride, with a time in the 49 second range, setting new district record. These guys are targeting Elite Nat's this year, and I think they have a very decent shot. There aren't many people who can produce a ride like that, much less in their first year of racing on the track. Keep an eye on these guys. They may look more like linemen than bicycle racers, but they can sprint with the best of them.

Dan, Timmer, Cullen and I pulled together a team pursuit at the end of the event, and while we went fast enough to win, we only beat Timmer's individual time by less than 3 seconds. More practice is in order...

When it was all said and done, I had spent nearly 6 hours at the track on Sunday, came home, and crashed. Since then, I've pretty much just been sleeping and eating. I'm glad to be back.

Madison Cup, evening session

2007-08-29T11:12:00.000-05:00

Alright, it's been a few days...

Friday night saw the duration of the Madison Cup in T-Town. The racing was absolutely amazing. It was definitely some of the fasting riding I've ever done. I ended up racing with Josh Brown from New Zealand, while Soupy and Simon paired together to made a Kiwi Sprint Madison Team. Things were hard from the gun, with the Italians taking control. Josh and I missed two exchanged, and that subsequently went to losing two laps. With opponents this strong, there was no room for us to make any errors, because we couldn't just suffer through a double when we needed to. The opening race was only 60 laps, and the field immediately blew apart, with a select group staying together at the front, and the rest of us scattered around the track, off the back. While Josh and I weren't feeling too hot about having lost two laps, we faired better than Soupy and Simon, who went down five laps and were pulled from the race. They didn't seem too upset about it though... Soupy got to ride the invitiational keirin later in the night, and made a gutsy early move, though nothing ultimately came of it.

Next up we had a pair of individual events. A quick round of rock-paper-scissors determined that, against my desires, I would ride the miss-and-out, while Josh would get the scratch race. My race can only be described as "boneheaded." There's just no other word that does it justice. I couldn't hear the officials while we were at the rail, and was confused as to whether people were being pulled every lap or every other. The first guy gets called out, and I drift to the rear. Someone is still behind me. We go another lap, and no one gets pulled. Must be every other... Another guy behind me. I think I hear my name, and drift to the back. I guess I'm out. Wait. No I'm not. Not yet. The guy drifting back was no longer in the race. He had been pulled, but they had mispronounced his name, he hadn't realized it, the race had been neutralized for a lap, then restarted, and I got pulled. Oops. I was still confused as to what had happened while coming off the track, so I asked Butterworth on the infield, and he explained it to me. He also said that getting out nearly immediately and saving myself for the final madison was a clever move. At that point, staying on laps was a lot more important than scoring points. I just thought it was boneheaded, but what he said made sense. I guess I was just a luckily clever bonehead...

Josh spent a good portion of the scratch race off the front, first with a group, then on his own. The pack was content to dangle him out there, then come flying by with 2 laps to go. What a terrible feeling. Oh well.

The final 100 lap madison was a blur. More suffering, more chasing. We didn't miss any exchanges, but still lost two laps. My 48x14 gear was alright in the field, but too small the sprint and chase with. Oh yeah, and I was feeling blown. Somewhere in the middle of the race, it struck me just how fun this was. Even though I was suffering like crazy, and nowhere near contention for the win, it was fun. The crowds were huge and excited. People who be cheering for me as I was chasing off the back. Spencer Hanley had come in from Philadelphia to watch, and was yelling at me from the rail. I was getting tossed around by the world's best, and having a great time doing it.

I still don't know where we finished. We were four laps down, and had no points, but there were certainly a few teams that were worse off then we were. In any case, it was amazingly fun. I'm glad I got to do it.

Madison Cup, morning session

2007-08-24T13:30:00.000-05:00

The Madison Cup started off with a bang this morning. The sprinters are duking it out in a match sprint tournament, and most of the endurance riders took to the track for a points race. There are some seriously fast guys in town. The pace was brutal. I managed to snag a single point in the first sprint before suffering off the back. I spent the next several kilometers of the race yo-yoing at the back. Gapped off, then struggling back on. Eventually a move went off the front, the pack surged, and that was it for me. With 42 of 90 laps remaining, I pulled the plug.

The race whittled the field down to probably about 12 guys at the end. Colby Pearce showed his usual tenacity, taking second, while Anibal Borrajo took the win. Holding things down for the locals was Jackie Simes, who must have pulled off a top 10 finish (I'm not certain of all the results). Quite a showing in a UCI class 1 race. Winning today was worth as many UCI points as winning a world cup. Too bad I got smoked.

The madison events start up tonight, and should be blistering. My own plans have been thrown into flux since last night, when I got word from my partner Tom Hanley that he just learned he has mono, so he's going to need to be off the bike for a few weeks. As of right now, I still don't have a partner nailed down, but it looks like there's a good chance I'll be riding with Josh Brown, a junior from New Zealand who has been riding very well over the last few weeks. We'll see how this all unfolds.

An Apology

2007-08-23T11:13:00.000-05:00

I would like to apologize for my last post. What I said was speaking strictly off of rumor. To acknowledge that sort of rumor, from sources who cannot truly know, is at the very least irresponsible. But to publicly broadcast those rumors crosses a line and becomes outright insulting and slanderous.

I never intended to insult anyone, nor to drag their names and accomplishments through the mud. For that, I apologize to everyone involved. To the trainers, coaches, supporters and fans. But most importantly to the athletes. Doing what I did belittles their dedication, talents, and hard work. I am sincerely sorry.

Cycling has had enough trouble with allegations of drug use, and can and should do without my voice on the subject. It is a sad state for our sport when a rider's exceptional performance brings with it suspicions about their ethics. What I did compounded this problem. My statements did more damage to the reputation of the cycling, and that I regret. To those who called me out on my tactless actions, I thank you, and again to all those involved, I am sorry.

-Brian Crosby

Proximity

2007-08-19T17:14:00.001-05:00

No one wants to name names. But there's talk. There's questions about the lack of testing. About a guy who shows up after a long absence, and rides a flying 200 outdoors, on a rough 333, faster than he's ever gone on an indoor 250. A month of UCI events. Several International Sprint Grand Prix's. The best teams and riders from across the globe. Not a single instance of testing.

There's the up and coming American. Up and coming a little too fast, by some accounts. Suddenly he's dishing it out amongst the world's best. He was never in contention before. Now he's showing the internationals a clean set of wheels.

It's easy to read about the doping scandals amongst the European peloton and think that it's so vastly removed from our own racing. Now it looks like I've found myself living right next door to some of it. Sitting 10 feet away from it on the infield. Who knows? I hope I get tested this week. I hope we all do.

Sliding, Suffering, and Flying

2007-08-18T16:01:00.000-05:00

Thursday morning was wet. Dreary weather. We almost didn't go to the track, but after waiting an hour, headed out. A warm-up paceline started just as the drops began to fall. Nothing serious. A shallow concrete track. You can ride in this.

We had been riding in the wet for about 20 minutes. Then I heard the unmistakable sound of wheels slipping and skidding, and spokes pinging. A crash was coming ahead of me. Through the process I also heard a very polite, British voice let out a calm "sorry." Kenny Williams had lost his front wheel. Matt Crampton plowed into the back of him. A woman behind him went down. A Kiwi named Julia hit her. Adam, another Kiwi, and immediately ahead of me in line, hit her. I swung up. That was close.

Then poor Jason Kenny came sliding up the track ahead of me. No luck this time. I hit his back, and go flipping over the top. Nothing too serious. A scrape on my elbow, another on my hip. Two broken spokes. My elbow hurt. I swelled up. This is getting to be routine now. Pack up, head home, shower off, ice, ibuprofen, and sleep.

I faired much better than Adam. He broke his collar bone. And he was planning on leaving from here next week, and going directly to the UCI International Cycling Center in Switzerland. Needless to say, he's pissed. Jason Kenny was very apologetic. I think he felt bad about it. As Hartwell said afterwards, though, no one was going to stop until some slid. Lessons for next time.

Friday racing was a double session. A 24 km points race in the morning, and a 10 mile scratch in the evening. There was a keirin interspersed throughout. The points race was pure suffering. I was stiff and feeling dead, riding on the heels of Thursday's crash. My elbow throbbed with every bump. I scored no points, but refused to let myself drop out. Suffering, suffering, and more suffering.

In the evening I started things off with the qualification heat for the 2 km Dash for Cash race. The field was stacked with sprinters, and only the top 10 from each heat would move on. With 4 laps to go, someone attacked. The field let him go. 2 laps to go. I knew I couldn't compete with the sprinters, so I made my move with about 700 meters to go. I got caught on the backstretch, entering turn 3. Maybe 100 meters left in the race. No dice.

The guy who attacked earlier got 11th. Jack Simes (the elder) came up to me after the race. He chewed me out. Told me that I rode a stupid race. It turns out the guy who got caught was one of the guys he's training. He blamed me for the sprinters catching him. Said I gave them the perfect lead out. Yeah, it was my fault. And not the 10 guys who beat him to the line. I'm not on his team. Simes isn't my coach. Screw them, I don't think I'll be working with him any more this week. Not when it's that obvious he doesn't like me.

The scratch race was fast. An average of 48.5 km/h. For 10 miles. At one point, there were 3 separate groups trying to lap the field. All succeeded. I was in the second one. This was apparently too difficult a task for the UCI Commisaires. They screwed up the results, for the second week in a row. The night ended with everyone standing around the registration windows, saying who got laps, and who didn't. The official was content to just take a pen, and write over the results sheet. You could have told her anything, and it would have gone on the results. Whatever. When it all shook out, I got 13th. Not bad, after a week of hard training and a crash the day before.

An easy week, plenty of rest and recovery, and I should be flying for the Madison Cup next week. I talked with Colby Pierce last night. He says there are going to be enough nations represented to make it a UCI Class 1 event. The Italian Olympic team is coming in. That should be impressive.

Sprint Finale

2007-08-15T20:54:00.000-05:00

Well, my prediction came true. After a battling through a few more rounds, the final came down to Roberto Chiappa and Ryan Bayley. Neither is at a loss for speed, and the rounds were great to watch. Ultimately though, Chiappa just had too much power, coming over Bayley in two straight rounds to win. He left no room for doubt. I talked with Bayley about it afterwards, and he didn't seem surprised (or disappointed) remarking, "the guy qualified two tenths faster than me, so if I beat him, I'm doing something right." No win this time, but a good show, regardless. Watching those two duke it out, bumping elbows and shoulders through turns 3 and 4, at 40+ mph really made me glad that I'm not a sprinter. Those guys are terrifying.

Ryan Nelman got taken to school by Dan Ellis in the 3rd-4th rounds. Nelman may be getting a lot faster, but he still can't top the international field.

On the women's side of things, Anna Meares lived up to her stripes and accolades, beating Jenny Reed in two rides to win. Her sister Kerry, meanwhile, beat out American masters world champion Liz Reap-Carlson for third.

Meares and Reed probably provided the most interesting rides in the finals, as the men's racing was a pretty straight forward affair, with the fastest qualifier winning in both cases. The same held true for the women, but at least Reed and Meares threw in some drama. During their first ride, the went into trackstands, and the standoff was broken when Reed had to grab the rail, forcing a restart. In the re-ride, they did it again, and while neither touched the wall, it was a brilliant display of handling, with Meares hopping her rear wheel and pedaling in the air to get her feet into a better position. That's one gutsy move, but it may have paid off, as she won the ride.

In the second ride, going down the backstretch on the first lap, Reed chopped Meares down onto the apron. Lucy Tyler had always told me that in a match sprint, "one person is in charge, and the other is the bitch." Not one to take to this sort of thing lightly, Meares immediately chops back up, takes Reed all the way to rail, holds her there for a second, and then lets the race progress. It was awesome. Perhaps it's because she was once again "in charge," or maybe it's that she is scary fast, Meares went on to win the ride, and in turn, take the victory in the tournament.

I shot video of the some of the final rides, but they are all too big to post. I'll try to trim them down and compress them, and get them up in the next few days.

Sprint Rounds

2007-08-14T15:36:00.000-05:00

The early rounds in the sprint tournament were this morning. Suffice to say, it's amazing. You needed to ride an 11.1 sec 200 m to qualify, and they took the top 18. It was strange to see Teun Mulder winning his ride. A consolation ride. For 22nd. These guys are fast. I'll let the pictures say the rest.

There were no lack of tight finishes. Here Jason Kenny (UK) beats Adam Duvendeck (Momentum) with a picture prefect bike throw.

Ben Barczewski (T-Town Express) staged the only upset in the first round, eliminating Josiah Ng (Malaysia) in what was probably the closest finish of the morning.

A Mavic 5-spoke rear wheel? You can't buy that...

...but if your bike has a sticker saying "A. Meares" you're not buying wheels. You're getting paid to use them.

(aside: my fastest flying 200 at T-Town was an 11.7 before junior nats a few years ago. Anna Meares qualified with an 11.6 this morning.)

Here's a tactical question for you, (dis): If you're Kasper Jessens (Denmark) and a guy wearing an Australian skinsuit with world champion stripes named Shane Kelly is winding it up a full half-track above you, are you screwed in the sprint?

Answer: Yes

Roberto Chiappa (Italy) has been making it look easy, qualifying first with a 10.41, and here easily dispatching Matt Crampton (UK).

Ryan Nelman (T-Town Express) put on a good show. Here he winds up the sprint, leading out ahead of Matt Crampton (UK), who took an awesome run at him...

...but it wasn't quite enough, and Nelman moved on.

In fact, by beating Jason Kenny here, Nelman eliminated both of the British riders. He has no lack of speed this year.

Stay tuned for more pictures and a full report from the final tonight. I'm predicting an epic showdown between Bailey and Chiappa!

Race and Rewind

2007-08-13T12:26:00.000-05:00

So back to Friday night. I've never seen a keirin like this before. It was absolutely amazing. Almost everyone I talked to was picking Chiappa for the win in the finals, but it was Bailey who came up big. He had to advance through the reps to get there, but that apparently took nothing out of him, as he put on a veritable clinic on how to rock a world class field. Sure, having two teammates with you in the final will help, but he pulled this ride out all on his own. I stood on the bridge over the finish line and watched the race heat up in the final 2 laps, waiting for the Italian to launch his move. When he did, late as it was (that was his style on Friday) it was too little, and too late. Even if he had gone 50 meters earlier, I don't think he could have come around Bailey and Co. Those Aussies can fly. Once again, amazing.

I had felt awful during warm-ups, but my legs came to life in the scratch race, even allowing me to throw in a few attacks and work to cover a couple moves. Admittedly starstruck, I had a fun realization at one point that I was rotating in a chase of three to bring back Colbey Pierce with Bobby Lea and Teun Mulder. As it would turn out, not one of use would find a good result in the race, but it was exciting nonetheless. Ultimately, the pack of about 40 that started was thinned down to about half that, and our pace explains why. Average speed for 15 km: 48.2 km/h. Ouch.

I came back into the infield after the scratch race feeling elated. My legs had been terrible earlier in the night, but now they felt great! The madison was coming up, and I knew that I could ride with best guys there and be competitive. A top three finish was definitely within reach. I was riding with Barry again, the same guy I rode the Madison of the Americas with 2 week prior. He pretty well killed my buzz. He came in looking utterly gassed, and explained in no uncertain terms that he felt the same way. So we took the track, my hopes still high, but now tempered. I could see he was suffering in the first few exchanges, one even riding right by underneath me, oblivious that I had dropped down for the throw. Not a good sign. I made a move in the first sprint that got us second place points and bridged us up to the team of Pierce and Lea, with the Canadians coming across as well. Maybe that top three finish wasn't out of the question. . . I threw in Barry, swung up to recover, and came back into the race to find that we were no longer not only out of the break, but off the back of the field. I chase back on, throw in Barry, and then find us even further off the back. This went on and on, over and over, from about 55 laps to go, to about 14, when we were finally caught and lapped by the field. So much for that top three. . .

There were plenty of other teams that went down more laps that we did, but it was still disappointing to get lapped. What really amazed me is that despite having a full crew of UCI Commissaires officiating, the managed to royally hose the scoring. As such, I don't even know where we finished, but I think we might have screwed out of some prize money. Some good did come out of my 40+ laps of suffering, though. David Butterworth, the promoter interested in sending me to Europe to race some 6-Days this fall, was in attendance. He came up after the race, and said that we needed to find me a stronger partner to race the Madison Cup with at the end of the month. The next day, he had arranged for Tom Hanley to be my partner. This guy has no lack of horsepower, as he finished 4th (I think) in the kilo at Elite Nationals last year, and was the top U-23 rider.

The biggest news of the night also came from Butterworth. He said that he has chosen me to be a rider to start in the 6-Day races this fall, and that he wants me to race as many as I can before I set off to Patagonia in January. So the decision is now official on this continent, but we still need to wait to get the final word on invitations from the 6-Day organizers. In any case, things are looking better and better.

Tuesday night racing this week has been cancelled in favor of holding a UCI elite sprint tournament. All of the international riders are staying here for the rest of the month, and the show should be great. I won't be racing tomorrow (This morning Erin Hartwell asked me if I was planning to race it. I laughed at him, and told him that I wasn't that foolish.) but the show should be amazing.

The plan as of now:
7:30 Wake up
8:00 On the bike
9:00 End ride at the track, watch first sprint rounds, ride home
12:00 Shower, eat, stretch
1:00 Afternoon nap
2:00 Read at the coffee shop downstairs
4:00 On the bike for a hard ride
6:00 Shower, eat, stretch
7:30 Arrive at the track to watch the racing
~10:00 Post-race party and food with the riders
11:30 Sleep

This life is great.

The Big Guns

2007-08-10T15:52:00.000-05:00

A quick overview of the international riders here for the keirin tonight:

The New Zealand team has a few more reinforcements that have flown in
The British brought a handful of riders (with Jason Kenny and Matt Crampton)
10 Australians (8 men, 2 women, including Ryan Bayley, Mark French, Shane Kelly, and the Meares sisters)
Italian Roberto Chiappa
The Dutch, Tim Veldt and Teun Mulder
Josiah Ng of Malaysia
The two guys from Trinidad, Hassim and Jon
Argentinians, some resident riders, and at least one flew in

The US is bringing in its own, too, with the likes of Duvendeck adding to the mix of the T-Town Express Team riders. Every heat this morning was amazing. Even the reps where incredible. These guys can fly, and find (or make) holes where I swear there is nothing but bodies. I just might be more excited to watch the finals tonight than I am to race the madison...

Popped

2007-08-09T12:15:00.000-05:00

Tuesday night I decided to try my hand at the cat 2 racing at the track again. I walked to the window, signed in (comped on the entry fee again! awesome!) and looked at the schedule. Keirin night. I just about walked away then and there. In hindsight, I should have. But if they were willing to let me race for free, I might as well help put on the show.

Warming up was an atrocity. My legs felt awful after the thrashing I gave them in Detroit, and the 8 hours of driving back to T-Town didn't help. I put a 94, did a handful of jumps, and tried to get myself ready to race.

My heat came up, and, no surprise, I drew number 1. Right behind the motor. I can draw that position with uncanny consistency. Thus far into the season, I have only drawn something else a single time. Weird, eh? The good news for me was that someone else wanted the motor, which I gladly relinquished, falling onto second wheel. Somewhere in the first lap, a paunchy junior, clearly of the mindset that if you're in a keirin, you're obligated to hit people, drew along side and started fighting me for the position. I gave him a few good flicks, knocked his arms and bars, then thought better of the situation (does this keirin really matter for me? no.) and let him in. I drifted back to third wheel. The motor drew off, I held my position, leaving space enough to punch over the top when the time was right. We hit the backstretch on bell laps, I jumped out of the saddle, came over the top, and won the heat. Maybe my legs weren't so awful after all.

Turns out that was a very wrong assumption. In the points race after that, I took second in the first sprint, and the proceeded to get dropped for the remainder of the race. Ouch. Take that, pride.

Keirin reps came and went, and we started a win and out, with the first place sprint at 8 to go, second at 4 to go, and the rest being sorted out at the end. In short, I led out first sprint, got beaten to the line by some woman named Laura from Australia, and then did a repeat of my points race performance, popped off the back. The pride took yet another blow.

In the keirin final, I had one strategy, and no aspirations of winning. Game plan: Sit on Matt Deiffenbach, and ride his draft all the way to the finish. Matt took up a position at the back of the pack, content to let me sit on (I had told him about this plan earlier). He made his move later than I would have expected, taking me along, over the top. A huge hook was thrown his way in turn 3, sending me all the way to the rail. I kept it upright, stuck the plan, and rode away with a paltry 5th.

At the end of the night, I had a sole upgrade point to my name, and was convinced that the next two days would be nothing but recovery. Hopefully this works out for Friday, because as Ryan Nelman yelled at me from the stands, as I was suffering off the back "How do you expect to race on Friday night if you're getting beat by the ladies on a Tuesday?!"

Detroit 3-Day Wrap

2007-08-06T21:04:00.000-05:00

So we were sitting in 4th after the first two days. The standings were tight, with only a handful of points separating us from the lead, but a huge gap opening behind that. It looked like things had become a race between the top 4 teams, with the rest fighting it out amongst themselves. Within the top 4, though, things were getting cut throat.

At the end of the last madison on day 2, an attack was made and a group went off the included Luke and I, the Cody Racing team, and the Canadians. I think I mentioned this before. In any case, Team Black (Austin Carol and Dan Vogt), which was leading, didn't make the break, and in turn, didn't gain a lap with us. Everyone figured that they were just being cagey, letting the contenders work like dogs, knowing that regardless of whether or not we succeeded, they would hold their lead, and in the process, conserve some precious energy. The announcer figured that was what was going on. Everyone I talked to who was racing agreed. Team Black went down a lap, the rest of us picked up 15 points, and they retained their lead.

Things got a bit more interesting on the third day. Rain was spitting on the track all morning, and the start of the racing was delayed by 15 minutes. Not knowing how long the break in the weather would hold, the organizers cut the opening (and relatively unpopular) 1 mile scratch races, electing to start off with a 120 lap madison. Luke and I had already decided to try our hand at sprinting in the early races, and then go for broke in the final. And it worked. We won a sprint, factored into everything, and really put the pressure on the other leading teams. After closing the points gap on the 3 teams ahead of us, we took to the combined miss and out. Not my favorite event, much less on a track this crowded, but it was a good chance to pick up some points. I played the devil, and eliminated more than my fair share of the other racers. When it came down to the end, Luke and I were the only team with both riders still in it. I hung on for 5th, Luke took some nice points in 3rd. Conspicuously absent: Team Black. They were out quickly. A first sign of weakness, or a dosed effort, looking ahead to the final madison? It was any one's guess, but while still leading, the gap was shrinking.

The last madison started with a bang. No one was willing to give anything up, and the attacks were nearly constant. I continued to play my so far successful strategy of attacking 4-5 laps before the sprint in an effort to set Luke up to grab points. It came through beautifully for me, and I was feeling strong, so I started throwing in more and more attacks. And then Team Black cracked. They started not contesting the sprints they had earlier dominated. Then they started losing laps. They dropped out of the lead, eventually falling to 4th, and Luke and I moved up into 3rd. Austin Carol then ran into the back of the rider ahead of him during an exchange and crashed. He was back up and in the race briefly, but all the fight was gone. He withdrew with about 20 laps to go, but Dan Vogt made the gutsy decision to finish out the race alone. What a stud. He lost lap after lap, but at the end of 3 days of brutal racing, to have the mental resolve to see things to the conclusion after your partner abandons is damn impressive. Hats off to him.

Ultimately, we got closer to the two leading teams but couldn't overtake them. We finished the weekend in 3rd (the same as last year) while Cody Racing took 2nd, and Canadians vaulted up the standings for the win. Most impressive? This was the first time Luke and I had raced together in well over a month (and the first time he has raced since Nature Valley) and we didn't miss a single exchange. 480 laps of madison racing, with exchanges happening in just under 2 lap intervals means we made over 240 exchanges, and didn't miss any. Now that's a good showing. Most of the officials, along with a fair number of the riders and spectators complimented us on our smooth technique. All I can say is that we learned from the best, and honed our skills spending hours doing high-speed throws behind the motor. Thanks Bob, you made us look good.

Bob's Reputation

2007-08-04T23:43:00.000-05:00

This summer I've seen quite a few tracks, and met more than the normal share of track directors, coaches, announcers, and other mainstays of track culture. And every time they learn I'm from Minnesota, they ask how Bob is. Everyone knows him. From the guy flipping lap cards at Alpenrose, to Des Dickey hanging out on the infield of the 7-11 Velodrome. This weekend alone, not only did Dale Hughes, the director of the Blooomer Park Velodrome ask about Bob, but Roger Young, here from the ADT Center in LA wanted to know how he was doing. What's the most impressive is not that so many people know Bob, or even that they care enough to ask how he's doing, but it's the sly little smiles that creep across their faces as you talk to them about the state of affairs in Blaine (which is, of course, indelibly tied to the state of affairs of Bob). These people know the icon of Bob Williams, track director extraordinaire, and even if they haven't seen him in years, they carry a certain respect for what he does.

Hopefully Bob will be able to keep involved at the track. There are few as committed to the state of cycling as he is. It's hard for me to fathom how much he puts into not only our velodrome, but the riders who embrace it. It takes a special sort of love for the sport to come out on a hot Saturday afternoon and drive a motorcycle in circles for hours while some kid sits in the draft. I can tell you all, first hand, that Bob possess that passion. Even if Bob needs to bow out of the limelight in Blaine, his influence will continue to be felt at tracks across the nation, and I can only imagine, across the world.

Thanks for everything, Bob. You've made riding the track something unbelievable for me and so many others.

Detroit Racing, days 1 and 2

2007-08-04T21:13:00.000-05:00

Coming back to Detroit is no fun. This city is awful. So it's a damn good thing racing on this track is great. The first night went pretty well. Despite baking in temps in the mid 90s, and choking of dry mouth from the super low humidity, the racing was exciting. We rode well in the opening 1 mile sprints, took some decent points in the miss and out (which was crazy, with 18 people racing it on a 200 m track) and rocked the two madisons. Things split up almost immediately in the first 60 lap race, we took several laps on a couple teams, and stayed on with the leaders. One thing that has really improved for us since last year is our ability to position in the sprints and rack up points. Unfortunately, this year they changed the format so that lapping the field only nets you 15 points. Winning a sprint is worth 10. Last year laps took precedence, so we played our hand wisely, took a lap, and held on for 3rd. No such luck this year. In the second madison of the night, a 100 lap affair, the Cody Racing team (formerly Spike) got away from everyone and moved up in the standings to second, leaving Luke and I in 3rd, with the team of Austin Carol and Dan Vogt leading overall. Not a bad way to start out.

were still working out. It's funny, no matter how much I feel like I'm suffering in other events on the track, and I can always seem to scrape my act together enough to throw down a good ride in the Tonight we were both feeling a little sapped. I particularly felt like I had no snap, and the racing showed it. In the individual 1 mile opening race, Luke took 3rd. I took 7th. In the combined miss and out, Luke again took 3rd, and I suffered to take about 12th. It's a good thing he was scoring us some points, because I certainly wasn't. Fortunately the madisonsmadison. We had a 60 lap to start out, and held in pretty well, picking up a few sprint points. In the 12o lap race that closed out the night, we won one sprint, and contested most of the others, but in general didn't seem to be positioning ourselves as well leading into the bell lap. The turns on this track are so tight, and the laps so short, that if you aren't in the top 3 or 4 with 1.5 to go, you may as well count yourself out. Probably the best thing that happened is that we managed to take a lap on the leading team, along with the second and fourth placed teams. This gnawed down their lead a bit, but they still managed to hold onto it at the end of the night. We were beaten in the sprints by the Canadian team that had been sitting in fourth going into the last race, and hence moved down one spot in the overall. This race has been a lot more competitive that last year, and all of the top four teams are within striking distance of the win. Tomorrow is the last day of racing, and has some longer events, including a 200 lap madison to conclude the weekend. This bodes well for Luke and I, as we have so far seemed to be doing better as the races get longer. Looking at how the past two days have gone, and how the scoring is working out, I think we're planning on concentrating on the sprints rather than taking laps. If a move presents itself, we'll be all over it, but with the minimal amount of points being awarded for lapping the field, we'll need to play the sprinter game. It's not our strong suit, but this weekend has shown us that we are capable of winning these sprints, and if the longer race really does play more to our favor, things could work out well. We'll see tomorrow. In any case, the racing out here has been awesome, outweighing the fact that I needed to come to Detroit to do it.

More Argyle

2007-08-01T12:57:00.000-05:00

This is awesome.

Cleaning House

2007-08-01T11:51:00.000-05:00

It's been some hard days of training and racing lately. The Madison of the Americas on Saturday, a crit on Sunday, a long ride in the hills on Monday, and motorpacing session yesterday morning. And then I decided to race the cat. 2 Super Tuesday series last night. I was feeling pretty gassed, but a hard block now, then two days of easy riding, some openers on Friday morning, and I should be flying for the 3-day in Detroit. So I kitted up, registered for the racing, and proceeded to rock the locals. It was sweet.

I attacked with just over a lap to go in the first race (Devil's Scratch Race, eliminate 10, then a 2 km scratch) and catch the poor guy who had attacked with 4 laps to go coming out of turn 4. Crossed the line with plenty of space and hands in the air.

Next was a 5 km points race. Again, I got away on the last lap and handily won the last sprint for second.

In the final omnium event, an absurdly short 2 km scratch. I rolled to the front on the second lap, move up the the rail, and check behind me. Even was just sitting on me wheel. A pack of about 25, and not one of them made a move past me for two slow laps at the rail. Talk about being the marked man. The race was only 6 laps long, and they were content to sit on me, going back in a big wedge, at the rail doing maybe 25 km/h, for two entire laps. Finally I got someone else to come through, started to sprint after a move had gone off, and still took fourth. Not too bad.

Omnium overall: 1st.

There was a 15 km scratch race feature at the end of the night. I lapped the field with 3 other guys, then played the sprint poorly at took third. Oh well, I'd still call this one a success.

No one would give me the time of day at the start of the evening. So I took JT's advice, let my legs do the talking, and made plenty of new friends by the end of the night. Take that, T-Town.

Madison of the Americas Race Report

2007-07-29T12:50:00.000-05:00

Despite dour predictions for the weather, racing got started without a hitch last night. It was so humid it was hard to breathe, but the moisture stayed in the air, and rain held off. I kitted up in a Mike Fraysse Racing skinsuit, and had the assistance of Fraysse himself. All I can say is that he's an odd fellow, doing little more than talking trash about the other teams and riders throughout the night. Maybe it's his form of a motivational speech. Beats me...

In the first race of the night, we got off to a bit of a rough start. I think we missed two exchanges, but fortunately they came at times when the pace was more reasonable, and didn't hurt us. Along with racing together for the first time, both Barry and I had trouble picking one another out in the pack, as there were three other teams with red, white, blue, and black kits. Not good. We did manage to get better as the night went on, though. The first race saw no one successfully gain a lap, but a couple teams went down laps, and we managed to pick up a few points, but rode conservatively. After all, we still had two more 50 lap madisons to race that night. No one crashed, we had some points, we were still on lap with the leaders, and the race ended without incident.

During the second race I started to feel great. My legs opened up, my speed was good, and our exchanges were smooth. Unfortunately, Barry was starting to feel the wear of the racing, and suffered a bit, but still rode well. I took a few more points in the sprints, bridged some gaps to various attacks, and hit my top speed for the night, at 64 km/h. Some more teams went down laps, and the points we gained moved us up a few places in the standings.

I wanted to attack in the third race. I felt awesome in second race, and felt that if I could put in a strong attack and get one of the Argentinian teams to come with me, that we had a solid chance of getting away. But Barry was blown. In his own words, he could hold the pace in the pack, but things got rough when he had to make them happen on his own. So we decided to have him try to position for the sprints, and then I would make the dash for the line. It worked once or twice, but then we started getting boxed in, and would need to try to make up 20-30 meters to the leaders in order to score points. I succeeded in that game once, but it took a lot out of me, and afterwards we settled for just taking scrap points when we could get them. Somewhere around 25 laps to go, the Colavita team went on the attack. There were three Argentinian teams in the race, Colavita, Rite Aid, and a composite team with Pete Fitzpatrick of Australia. From the start, it was clear that they were working together, and true to form, when Colavita went off the front in search of a lap, none of the other Argentinian teams, (who ultimately took the top three spots) went after them. So with nine laps to go, Barry threw me in, and I went on the attack. No one went with us, and at one point we had almost a full straight on the field. The charge came on the last lap though, and the pack swept me up in the sprint. So much for that effort. It was fun to see what I could against these guys, and really make myself suffer for a few laps. When it was all said and done, we finished sixth on the night. Not too bad, with 12 teams taking to the rail. For my first ever Friday (or Saturday, in this case) night race at T-Town, I'm not at all disappointed to finished behind four pro teams and a local powerhouse. My form is where I want it to be, and I feel like I'm just getting faster. And we made $150. Score!

Perhaps the most impressive thing about racing out here is how well T-Town takes care of it's riders. There's more than prize money that attracts top level riders out here. In my case alone, they've given me a place to live with some other riders, don't appear to be charging me any sort of rent, set me up with a group to train with, motorpaced me, gave us dinner after the rain out on Friday, and then an even better dinner after racing last night. It's a pretty awesome place to be. And while the racers all take it very seriously, they aren't nearly the nefarious, plotting, criminals that Lucy made them out to be when I came here for junior nationals a few years ago. In fact, they're pretty nice.

This morning I came out to Bethlehem and did a circuit race against my better judgement. I was tired and blown from all the madisons last night, and to top it off, it was pouring rain. But I started it up anyways, just to get some training in and do something different. The course was nothing particularly interesting, but I put in a ton of attacks. There was one team in particular that overwhelmed with numbers, but I chased down a handful of their attacks, spent plenty of time off the front, attacked on the last lap, was caught, recovered briefly, and still managed to take a top 10 finish. Not too bad, and I stayed upright in the rain. As seems to be the standard out here, they also gave me lunch after the race. Minnesota should really take up that trend.

Now it's time for some well earned rest and recovery. Maybe a movie and nap are in order. Next on the racing schedule is the Detroit 3-day. It would seem that they liked the way Luke and I rode last year, because when they changed the schedule, and I told them we wouldn't be able to make it, they said that they would give us host housing, give me travel money to drive out from T-Town, and fly Luke in from North Carolina. Awesome. Hopefully we can put on a good show again. I know I'm feeling much stronger than last year, and from what I hear, Luke is going well too. This should be fun.

Our home in Kutztown. It looks pretty nice from here...

Things are a little different inside. This picture is level. The stairs, considerably less so.

The window and a colorful sarong from Kate are pretty much the highlights of my room. There is a cable for hooking up a TV strung from corner to corner in the room, apparently for drying laundry on.

This large rodent (muskrat, probably) lives under the building, and is only scared of people to the extent that it's more convenient to not need to deal with us.

The view from one of the fire escapes, along with the creek that the building is apparently falling into.

Something is generally askew in Kutztown...

Yeah, nice try Kutztown. I'm onto you...

Rain

2007-07-27T22:14:00.000-05:00

Rained out tonight. I met my partner though, his name is Barry, and he seems to be pretty good. We got a few throws in before the drops began to fall. All in all, I feel good for tomorrow. The racing has been rescheduled, and having an extra 24 hours to heal up from my crash is sort of a bonus. The thing that's really bothering me now is my neck, the whole thing feels like it's been twisted around 180 degrees, cocked off to one side, and slept on for a week straight. Another day, and a bunch more vitamin I and tomorrow can only be better. On the downside, the weather is supposed to be worse then than it was tonight, and worse on Sunday than tomorrow. We'll just have to wait and see.

JT alluded the partying prowess of the Kiwis earlier, and I think he may be on to something. They're having a going away party for Hassim, despite having gym work and plyometrics tomorrow morning, then an evening of racing. From a floor above, it doesn't sound like that's holding them back at all. It should be interesting to see how they ride tomorrow night...

Race day

2007-07-27T11:20:00.000-05:00

It's warm, humid, and windy. Tonight I'll get my first taste of Friday night racing in T-Town. Should be exciting. Three 50 lap madisons, sprints every 10 laps. With the races being that short, I can only imagine that the pace is going to be wicked. Supposedly a few teams and riders backed out last night, and they had to reshuffle who was racing with who, so we'll see what partner I end up with. The original plan had been to ride with Taylor Brown. He seems to be on good form, and knows what he's doing, so hopefully that will work out. Tonight will tell...

Heading East

2007-07-26T12:05:00.000-05:00

After two days of driving, I arrived in T-Town yesterday afternoon. Butterworth (the 6-day promoter responsible for me coming out here) was out of town, along with the keys for the dorm I'm supposed to stay in. So I stop at the track, met Marty Northstein and Erin Hartwell, heard that they have an apartment in Kutztown for riders to stay in, got a set of keys, and moved on. They told me there were a few sprinters living there now, but that there should be open rooms.

Now, the term "apartment" is a generous way to describe this building. You walk in the front door, past the broken TV in the corner, up the first flight of stairs leaning conspicuously to the left (so much so that they've pulled away from the wall on the right side), across the second similarly uneven floor, up a second set of questionable stairs, down the hall to the left, and into apartment 301. The apartment itself is a long, lumpy hallway with rooms on either side, a barren kitchen and a living room at the end. It could be diplomatically called "spartan." I found my new housemates in the kitchen, and filled them in on the situation. They seemed utterly unphased by my walking in, helped me find a room that had a bed, and offered to help me bring in my things.

There are 4 of us living there now. The other 3 are all sprinters, 2 from Trinidad (Jonathan and Hassim) and on from New Zealand (Nathan). Jon and Hassim are really friendly, with perhaps the biggest, loudest laughs I've ever heard. Never mind that I can't understand half of what they're saying, even though it's some version of English. I haven't really talked much with Nathan, but he says most of the New Zealand track team is living a floor below us. I got some dinner with the guys from Trinidad, Pete Fitzpatrick (Australia), and Ryan Nelman. There isn't a terrible lot to do in Kutztown, and it shows, as they're all well known at the local brewery/restaurant. Hassim is going back to Trinidad on Monday, which will make things less entertaining, but Jon will be here for about 2 more weeks, and I think Nathan will to, so at least not everyone is leaving.

I went and trained on the track this morning. If there is anywhere in the US that has a thriving track scene, this is it. 10:30 on a Thursday morning, and there are 3 motors out pacing separate groups. The sprinters are doing flying 200 motor drops, some enduro guys are doing long, high pace efforts, and I was in with 3 others doing madison work. The caliber of riders is unbelievable too. There's the New Zealand squad, Trinidad, Nelman, Barczewski, Lakatosh (both of them), Wiswell, and yesterday I saw a group of riders from Colavita/Sutter Home riding through Kutztown. This should make racing tomorrow an awesome experience.

Unfortunately, I had yet another run in with the pavement this morning. After a sprint in our madison work, I was right behind Jack Simes III, crossed the line, glanced at my partner (Taylor Brown), who waved off the exchange as expected, and looked ahead again to see Simes shutting it down and swinging up, straight though my front wheel. Maybe the right side of my body was jealous of all the attention the left side has gotten lately. In any case, it deposited some skin on the pavement, and shattered my helmet in the process. So now I'm back to the familiarity of bandages. The plan for the remainder of today is to rest up, work on my road bike, and maybe make my way to track tonight to sit in during the crit across the street and loosen up for racing Friday night.

Life in Bozeman

2007-07-17T17:16:00.000-05:00

As I had thought on Sunday, if I need to be stuck somewhere between Seattle and Minneapolis, Bozeman is a pretty good place. After one night in a hotel, I've ended up staying with friends of my aunts, and they are some of the most gregarious people I've ever met. The car is being repaired, and while tonight was the predicted time for it to be completed, one part (the compressor) didn't arrive. It's in Germany. Fortunately, the mechanic was able to track down an aftermarket one in Billings, MT, but it won't arrive until tonight, so the car won't be ready until sometime tomorrow morning. After that, I'll load it up and hit the road, hopefully making it back to Minnesota by tomorrow night. Here's a list of everything that's been broken and replaced on my car so far on this trip:

Catalytic converter
Headlight bulb
Radiator
Right fan
Left fan
Compressor
Other misc. mechanical parts I can't recall
Most of the front panels and grill (to be fixed in Minneapolis)
Rear bumper (when I get to Minneapolis and call the insurance company of the woman in Seattle)

Ouch. This has been expensive. At least insurance is covering the raccoon mishap, but it still would have been cheaper to fly. Not cool at all.

The only redeeming facet of all this is that Bozeman is a great place to ride. Yesterday I rode up Hyalite Canyon, to the south west of town, then back down and across the city to the north east, and up Bridger Canyon, past Bridger Bowl, and to the top of Battleridge Pass. All in all, I put in almost 85 miles on the day. It was super hot, and I made the mistake of riding in the middle of the day, but it was beautiful nonetheless, and was a great way to clear my head and stop worry about everything that's gone wrong lately. This morning I woke up earlier to beat the rising temperatures and rode really hard up Hyalite again, just as the sun was rising over the eastern ridge of the canyon. I made it to the reservoir at the top, relaxed for a few minutes, and headed back down for a shower and some breakfast. The afternoon was taken up by riding around Bozeman, and I ended up at the same coffee shop as on Sunday, sitting on a comfy couch and watching the Tour with a nice guy named Kurt who's spending his summer here after graduating from college in Atlanta. I'm planning on coming back here tomorrow to watch the stage live, and it sounds like I'll be seeing him again then, too. Considering how it's all played out, I can't be that disappointed, Bozeman is a really nice place to be stuck.

The roads south of Bozeman, with the hills on the edge of the Gallatin Valley.

The reservoir at the top of Hyalite Canyon.

They neglected to add "Being Ed" as one of the things that attracts bears.

The descent from the top of Battleridge Pass

Even though it was hot and sunny in Bridger Canyon, there was a very visible storm going on over Bozeman in the Gallatin Valley. Fortunately, I missed it.

It looks like I'll be in Minneapolis tomorrow night, which means I'll be in town for racing on Thursday. I see there's a madison on the schedule, and I'm looking for a partner. Is anyone brave enough to try racing with me after my crashes?! If you're interested, let me know.

See you at the track.

2007-07-17T16:02:00.001-05:00

This pretty much sums up how awesome Portland really is. Minneapolis is great, but this is a whole different level.

I made it to the Pacific!

The Seattle Public Library. If you're ever in Seattle, it's well worth checking out.

Looking out at Seattle from inside the Library.

Kate relaxing outside the Library.

It took a lock, some rope, and a sturdy rail to keep the Orca from succeeding in its attempt to return to the sea as we took the ferry to Bainbridge Island.

There is something awesome about riding your bike off a ferry before all the cars are allowed to leave.

Back to Seattle...

Kate sets off for Skagway, with 4 days camping on the deck a ferry and watching whales. Sounds like a fun excursion.

Descending Lolo Pass.

Along with a monsterous raccoon, I also decimated the western Montana insect population with the front of my car.

When it rains, it pours

2007-07-15T11:22:00.000-05:00

So a lot has happened since the racing wrapped up in Alpenrose. Let's start off with a list:

Super Awesome:
Portland
The Detroit 3-Day
Japanese cooking
Hugicha tea
The Barlows
Taking ferries
Kate's adventure in Alaska

Pretty Awesome:
Burritos
Seattle
Bozeman, MT
Lolo Pass
Bellingham, WA

Not Awesome:
Central and Eastern Washington
Why I'm in Bozeman
Radiators
107 F temperatures
People who back up without looking

Downright Awful:
Raccoons
Wisdom, MT
Crashing

Abysmal:
My luck

And now for the explainations. I picked up my freshly repaired car on Monday morning in Portland, and proceeded to check out the city with Kate. The initial impressions I had gotten of Portland being a cycling mecca were confirmed. Everyone who rnats and raves about this being the best city to bike in is absolutely correct. Portland is great. And there's a fighting chance that they're going to get public support to build an indoor velodrome. Two tracks in one city, respendent with brilliant riding and beautiful weather. I can see myself living there. We ran into Carrie Higgins again while sitting outside of Powell's Bookstore and eating gelato,
rode around a bit more, met up with Kate's friend Chris from Whitman, ate some awesome burritos in the Hawethorne district, rode some more, swam in the Willamette River, set up a few slacklines, rode home, and went to sleep. The overall Portland verdict: I want to live there. In the past, I've found the Twin Cities to be my favorite metropolitan area for a number of reasons, but Portland has powerfully usurped that spot.

On Tuesday we packed up the car and drove to Seattle to visit one of Kate's best friends from college, Katrina Barlow, and her family. Katrina was still working when we arrived in the afternoon, so we parked the car in downtown, pulled out the bikes, and took to exploring. The waterfront was pretty cool, I got to stand in the Pacific Ocean, we talked with a crazy lady about someone who is making found-object sculpture along the shore, rode through downtown, and then checked out the library. If you ever find yourself in Seattle, make a point to stop and at least walk around the outside of the public library. Rem Koolhas designed a brilliant piece of architecture, and it's inspiring to see it given an entire city block in the heart of downtown. Seattle is pretty great. Perhaps not as cool as Portland, but being on the ocean is a nice change if you're from Minnesota. One thing is does have going for it are a series of really steep streets leading down to the water, and what makes them even more fun is that they're mostly surfaced with some really old paving bricks.

After a few hours of getting acquainted, we met up with Katrina and went to her house, where her family was nice enough to not only let us stay for a few days, but to cook us some delicious Japanese food as well. We helped Katrina and her friend Collin finish building up her first road bike, and called it a day. On Wednesday, Kate and I got up and went for a ride around Lake Washington. The full distance is about 55 miles around, but we got off the beaten path about halfway through, and came back in about the same manner that we rode out. Having left the racing behind me for a few days, I figured I had left my bad luck as well. Not so. Riding down a nice, winding hill, I hit one of those plastic traffic dots that cover the streets in the northwest. If you've never encountered one of these, consider yourself lucky. They're about 3 inches in diameter, and about an 1 inch high in the middle, curving down like a dome to the road at the edges. As you've probably guessed by this point, hitting this ill-placed piece of traffic guidance made me crash. Again. That makes 3 times in 7 days. To put that in perspective, I didn't crash a single time last season. Not cool. I tore up my left arm (again, added some new raw areas to my left hip, and most painfully, tore the blister off of my right hand. I nearly quit riding, forever, right then and there. I was so demoralized that I gave some realistic consideration to picking up my bike, hurling it into the woods, and completely walking away from the sport. Fortunately, Kate managed to intervene with some much needed perspective before I could carry out my intended cylco-cide, and I limped on for the rest of the ride. At least it was a nice day, with nice scenery to boot. Somewhere in the course of this week, Kate decided to go work as a dog handler for a dog sled tour company on the Denver Glacier outside of Skagway, Alaska for a month to make some money and refill the travel funds, so we cleaned up, and headed out with the car to pick up the equipment she would need. A dinner of exquisite sushi later, a painful night of trying to sleep without touching my sides ensued.

On Thursday we rode from Katrina's house into downtown Seattle and took the ferry to Bainbridge Island. The Barlow's had suggested with visit the Japanese tea house that one of their friends runs there. I'm a big tea fan, and looking for anything that might improve my mood, we jumped at the plan. As hoped, it was a great excursion. The weather was the cool and windy sort that is so stereotypical of the Seattle as we boarded the ferry and rode across the sound. We brought our bikes with us, pedalled off the ferry (a cool experience in itself) and rode to Madoka's Tea House. To wrap this up quickly, hugicha is a delicious tea made from the roasted stems of tea plants rather than just the leaves. I've had a bunch of different Chinese, British, Indian, and South Asian teas, but never Japanese. It's much different, but delicious, and worth a try. Like good tourists, when we got back to Seattle, we wandered through Pike Place Market, then got on the bikes and rode home to yet another delicious meal.

Friday was taken up with packing all of Kate's gear and getting her to the ferry in Bellingham that's current taking here up to Skagway. I'd heard traffic in Seattle is bad, but I was not prepared for this. The 1.5 hour trip turned quickly into 3, and the about 25 minutes needed to suffice for check-in time for boarding, a bit less than the 2 hours they suggest. Either way, we got her on the ship, bid farewell, and I turned out to spend some time in Bellingham before returning to Seattle. As of Friday morning, I had planned on racing at Marymoor in the evening, but the traffic was so bad, it was clear that wasn't going to happen. Back in Seattle, I gathered my things up, loaded the car, and prepared to head out in the morning.

Saturday morning I left town. Things seemed promising, no firm schedule I needed to keep, just a drive across Washington, Idaho, and Montana, stopping to ride whenever I saw someplace interesting. Less than 30 miles outside of town, I stopped to get gas and mail a letter to Skagway, to see which arrives first, the 4 day ferry, or the US Postal Service (I think the ferry has a leg up in this competition, as it leaves on Friday and travels all weekend. We'll see.) While stopped at the local gas station, some woman in a huge SUV backs up, ignores my horn (and apparently presence) and runs right into the side of my rear bumper. Yet another car problem. At least it was just superficial, and the car could run just fine. We swapped insurance, I laughed at my luck, and got on my way. Now if western Washington is beautiful and interesting, central and eastern Washington is anything but. It is hot, arid, and boring. Don't go there, if you can avoid it. I made it through there, across the panhandle of Idaho (a welcome relief from Washington) and into Montana. I took a detour south of Missoula so that I could stop and ride Lolo Pass, which was a nice break. 17 miles of straight climbing that ends at the Montana/Idaho border. The climb is a good one, getting increasingly steep as the road progresses, following a stream through tall pine forests, a few open meadows, and striking rock formations. The ride back down is exhilarating, and I finished up at dusk, feeling refreshed and ready to travel. My plan was to drive to Wisdom, Montana, some 80 miles south, and ride over Lost Trail Pass early in the morning before getting on the road again. I should preface this by saying I planned the logistics of these two rides just by looking at a road atlas, seeing what was close to I-90, and picking a nearby town to use as a base.

It turns out Wisdom sucks. This one-block wasteland is comprised of a couple liquor stores (closed), a handful of restaurants/taverns (closed), and a shady looking motel (apparently open). The office was supposed to be in building next door, but the door just led me into someones garage, and a knock on the subsequent inner door brought dogs barking and no answer. Not feeling particularly great at this point, I decided to bag Lost Trail Pass and drive on the Butte. I could stop and ride other places in Montana...

Somewhere on the desolate back highways of rural Montana, I came over a rise onto a bridge, and proceeded to obliterate some mammal with the front of the car. Based on size, I'm guessing it was a raccoon, but based on speed, I doubt there is enough of it left to determine for sure. The car appeared to be running alright, and I was tired and anxious, so I pushed on. Awhile later I made it to Butte, but every motel in town was full. What anyone would ever want to do in Butte is beyond me, but disappointed and exhausted, I holed up in a Safeway parking lot, and managed to a get a few hours of very uncomfortable sleep. When I woke up, I was still tired, but rested enough to go on, spurred by the idea that by the end of the weekend I would be back in Minnesota, getting my stuff together and preparing to head to T-Town for a month. Curious, I decided to see if there was anything left of the poor creature I decimated the night before. As it would turn out, there was none, but it did leave me something before it left, in the form of a bent in and broken radiator, a broken fan shroud, and a crushed in front spoiler. So if my car woes hadn't been enough on this trip, now I was stranded in Butte at 7:00 AM on a Sunday, looking for someone who repairs VWs. This is not a good situation to find yourself in. I wandered around town, and as luck would have it, into a gas station where the attendant was very familiar with VWs, and was able to both confirm my suspicions and give me the number and address of the nearest VW dealer, some 70 miles away, in Bozeman. So I limped down I-90, made it Bozeman without overheating despite the coolant leaking out of my radiator, and all of that brings me to the present, sitting in a coffee shop, writing out an update, and waiting for a motel room to become available. The service department opens at 7:30 tomorrow morning, so I'll be there, bright and early, to plead my case, and hopefully get back on the road in a day or two. Until then, Bozeman isn't the worst place in the world to be stranded. In fact, if I had to pick somewhere along the route, this just might top it. So I guess it could be worse. On the upside, I'm close to Yellowstone, so I think I'll try to ride out there this afternoon and check it out.

Pictures to come later...

2007-07-11T02:50:00.000-05:00

Our campsite in Wyoming, somewhere between Cheyenne and Laramie. We had our hammocks strung between old billboards on the side of I-80 when some guy drove by and told us to get out.

The points race at Alpenrose gets started...

I was feeling good, and even though only about 5 people weren't going to make the cut, I kept driving the pace and mixing it up in sprints.

Anne was nice enough to not only let us stay with her, but to drive us back and forth to the track while my car was getting repaired. Kate must have been feeling exceptionally affectionate towards her big sister here...

Dan Harm made it out for some of the racing, but didn't really do much in terms of results. Mikey wants to think that he was juicing when he won the pursuit, points race, and overall at collegiate nat's last year. The announcer in Alpenrose simply called him "a big strapping lad."

The Aussies were duking it out for the win in the miss and out. Ultimately it was Jeff Hopkins beating compatriot Bradley Paine at the line. Not content to stop there, Hopkins also won the madison with Chad Hartley, and took the kierin from some huge dudes, including the massive Canadian national team rider, Matt Barley. What a stud.

Warming up with Carrie Higgins (America's Dairyland) before the madison. Along with being super friendly, she's brutally fast, winning a bunch of events on the weekend, and taking the women's overall by a comfortable margin. It's even more impressive to realize that she's only been racing for 2 years, and this is her first full season competing on the track.

That's right, this is a picture of me drilling it in the madison, with Jeff Hopkins on my wheel. If you could see his face, you could tell that it's a combination of terror and extreme exertion. Or maybe placidity. I'm not sure.

The average speed of the points race was over 44 km/hour. With a pace like that, a field this big, things were strung out from the start, and never really slowed down. I took my sole point in the first sprint, and proceeded to spend the next 105 laps convincing myself not to drop out. I didn't, and while the combined effects of the two crashes made it a suffer-fest, I'm glad I stuck it out. All I can do is tell myself that it was making me faster.

2007-07-09T18:03:00.001-05:00

The tunnel in Colorado Springs flooded with a couple feet of water and a whole bunch of hail. That's Adam Duvendeck's bike in the background, submerged to the hubs, SRM and all.

An ominous sign, when the sponges are buried in several inches of hail.

This guy pissed off his friends to come race with me. What love...

Kate is a real team player. She's even willing to blind this poor Canadian national team rider with a camera flash so that Mikey can throw me in and stay with the group.

Mikey throwing me onto Bobby Lea's wheel, while the Canadians chase and Slipstream-Chipotle exchanges above.

The Whirlwind

2007-07-09T01:53:00.000-05:00

So it's time for a long recap.

Wednesday, 4 July: Due to the rain the night before, the last session of junior nationals and the second and third sessions of the Independence Day Grand Prix were all going to be combined. Start time was an hour early, the juniors were going to race early in the program so that they could get to Denver and leave on time, and while it would be long, we would get everything in. Unfortunately, they didn't have the schedule finalized on the third, so I showed up just after 8:00 in the morning to start my warm-up for the 10 mile scratch. That goes as planned, and the program moves right along. In all of the schedule shuffling that occurred, the 10 mile got pushed to the last race of session. Not cool. I had already been warming up in the paved desert that is the infield for a couple hours, burning to a delightful stop-sign red as I forgot my sunscreen, and now we had to wait even longer. By 1:30 in the afternoon, we're getting close. All that is left is a women's keirin round, and then we're up. And out of nowhere it starts to rain. Not just a little bit of rain. A ton of it. So after 5.5 hours of warming up, I threw everything in the car, met up with Kate, Noah, and Ryan and went to get some lunch and check out the farmers' market. The session was supposed to start at 5:00 that evening in an attempt to get everything in, so after a short reprieve, I drove back from Manitou Springs to the velodrome. Suddenly the nice afternoon (the rain cleared up after about 45 minutes) it starts to rain. And then hail. I get to the track, and the rain is still coming down. The hail caught up with me about half an hour later, and was absolutely driving. There were piles of hail that looked more like snow drifts, the tunnel flooded, and I ended up spending an hour hanging out with the resident pros as the weather taunted us and Mikey hemmed and hawed on the phone about the rain and his "unenthusiastic friends" that he had dragged along to the race. Finally he showed up, the weather relented (slightly), and we went in search of something to eat. At 7:00 it was decided that the session would not be cancelled, and that it would started 20 minutes after the track dried, and the first rider on the track took a lap. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 8:30, things were back under way. They changed the schedule again, so the madison was up before the 10 mile. After a really hectic, dangerous warm-up, with people throwing randomly, others spinning, and other doing sprints, we were ready to race. But the madison was going to be split, into a 40 lap segment and a 60 lap segment, with the fireworks in between. We couldn't race through them, because the city would fine the velodrome if they didn't turn off the lights. As it turned out, through everything, I was feeling really good. I was bridging gaps, taking pulls, and all around riding great. Mikey kept missing my on exchanges though, and leaving me out to dry for another pull. Not cool. Fortunately, I wasn't having any trouble due to the altitude, but the extra efforts were really taking a toll on me. As we were really starting to struggle, the blissful fireworks break came, and we retreated the infield for 45 dark minutes on the rollers in an attempt to stay loose. Things started up again, and I was feeling even better. I got into a break with the Canadian national team (they ended up winning), and the US team of Colby Pierce and Bobby Lea (they took second). We were ultimately absorbed by the pack, let by Mike Creed and Mike Friedman (they took third), but it was a huge morale booster to realize that I can ride with those guys and hold my own while doing it. When there were about 30 or 40 laps to go, I dropped down on the backstretch for Mikey to throw me in. I put my hand out, and suddenly feel Mikey's wheel against the back of my foot. A moment later I heard the sound of spokes hitting bike parts, and got pulled over to the left, landing on Mikey and skidding along the pavement. Hence ended out madison. No one to blame but ourselves.
Mikey crushed the side of his helmet and lost a lot of skin. I came out a bit better, as landing on him took the majority of the impact, and while I lost a big patch on my left forearm, I really came out wheel. The medics patched me up, I switched wheels, and got ready for the 10 mile. As it was about midnight by now, the race was shorted to 5 miles, a bunch of people left, and we took the track in a group of about 12. I knew I didn't have any snap in my legs to sprint at the finish, and went off in a break with 2 other riders. We stayed away for quite a while, but were eventually caught, and all I could do was hang on and nurse my wounds until the finish. All in all, not a very good showing, in terms of results, but it did show my some very good things. My fitness and speed are very good now, and I can compete with the best in the country in a madison.

Thursday, July 5: So we packed up and left the track, showered at Jane and Ryan's house, got the car loaded, and set out for somewhere in Wyoming, hoping to knock out a few hours of the 18 hour trip to Portland. We made it somewhere between Cheyenne and Laramie just as dawn was beginning to break, and set up our hammocks between abandoned billboards along I-80 to get a little sleep. At 8:00 we kicked out (Apparently it was a private road. We never found any signs, on the way in or out...) and back on the road. Things were pretty uneventful for the rest of the day.
It was going on midnight, and we were about 2 hours outside of Portland when we hit a tire that shredded off of a semi. Spurred by an assortment of terrible noises, we pulled off the road, and I sprawled out on the pavement to have a look under the car. There were some pieces of plastic shielding torn off and dragging, and relieved that it was something so minor, I pulled them out, pushed back those that I couldn't get off, checked over the rest of the car, and fired it back up only to hear what sounded like the car destroying itself, and not in any slow way.

Friday, July 6: After turning off the car, looking underneath again, and not seeing anything apparent, a few groggy phone calls with my dad settled the cause to be something in the exhaust. We decided the best thing to do would be to drive it the rest of the way to Portland, where we would be staying with Kate's sister Anne. The car was so loud when accelerating that we couldn't even talk while going uphill. It really sounded like the thing was killing itself, but we kept going, made it into town somewhere around 2:00 in the morning, and went to sleep with the plan to deal with it in the morning.
I got up a handful of hours later, and started calling around until we found a shop that could take in the car on such short notice, and that would be able to work on it over the weekend. That (barely) taken care of, I went on a ride to check out the track.
As it would turn out, Anne lives less than 4.5 miles away from the track, all on very bike friendly roads. Everything out here has a bike lane. It's incredible. I now know why Portland is tops the list of bike friendly cities in the US. The drivers are courteous, the bike lanes are clean, wide, and well marked. The weather is gorgeous, and everyone at the track is outgoing and laid back. We had the qualifier points race in the evening, and it went wonderfully straight off the gun. The pace was really fast, and I took plenty of points to make sure that I qualified for all the mass start races. I ended up taking fifth without really killing myself, and made $60 to boot. This was pretty cool, I've never heard of a qualifier that had a prize list, but I sure wasn't about to complain.

Saturday, July 7: We dropped the car off at the shop in the morning and headed to the track. The session dragged on an on, and as is starting to become clear to me, the endurance races are generally the last thing on the schedule. After about 3 hours of spinning on the rollers, we started the 10 mile scratch race. A bunch of fast guys turned out, including James' nemesis, Kenny Williams, Jeff Hopkins (Jittery Joes), Dan Harm, and madison national champion Chad Hartley. I wasn't feeling particularly good after everything that had preceded the race, and while I hung without my trouble, didn't really make anything happen, and just finished with the bunch, while Hartely attacked and won solo, with Hopkins leading the sprint home with the field.
After returned to Anne's, resting, and eating, I didn't start the miss and out tonight. There is no way I was going to have any worthwhile results when I'm this tired, and skipping this race will let me rest up a bit more for the madison tomorrow morning. I found a local guy who is apparently very skilled, and is willing to race with me, but with the pros in the field to keep the pace ramped and the attacks coming, it's going to be interesting to see how we do.

Sunday, July 8: The local guy I'm racing with in the madison seems like a good rider. His name is Peter, and is apparently pretty experienced, having won the local 6-day in the past. All the other locals seem to think very highly of his skills, so that's a plus. He's a masters rider, and while he says that he is taking this season easier, he looks fit, and I would rather ride with someone a little slower, who knows what they're doing, than someone who's all motor and no driver. Going into it, things looked promising.s
When the race started, there weren't as many teams as I would have expected, with only about 9 registered. Either way, there was plenty of speed to go around, with teams like Hartley and Hopkins to make the rest of us hurt. Pretty quickly it became apparent that there were three very strong teams, led by Hartley and Hopkins, with Williams and Beardsley and Harm and his Rubicon teammate mixing in as well. Peter was apparently not feeling too great, and was loosing ground on most of his pulls, and occasionally leaving me in to do double efforts (through sprints laps no less) without telling me he was going to. Either way, I spent the majority of the race chasing back onto the lead three teams, and picked up a few points in the process. We managed to stay on even laps with the leaders, while everyone else went down at least one. Things were looking good, with about 2 minutes to race (Madisons are run on time out here, with sprints every 5 minutes. Why they do this, I will never understand.) when I dropped down to be thrown in. Suddenly I feel something pushing on my rear wheel from the left, and the next thing I know, I'm skidding along the homestretch on my side, pissed off and feeling the still raw cuts on my arm getting torn open again.
So that ended my madison once again. Crashed out by my teammate. Apparently Peter had overlapped with the guy in front of him, who chopped up at an inopportune moment, pushing Peter into my wheel and taking the both of us down. My arm is now back to the state it was a few days ago after the Colorado crash, my let hip has a nice big piece of skin missing, and I have this crazy blister on the palm of my right hand. It happened in the crash, and I'm not sure how, but the thing is about 2 cm long, and a little less than 1 cm wide. It puffed up like a balloon, and actually stings more than the other two injuries.
After getting myself patched up (the medics were distracted, so I found some supplies and scrubbed everything out on my own), I was packing to leave when the organizer came up and handed me an envelope with $50 in it. It turns out that since we crashed in the last 5 laps of racing, we kept the points and laps we had, and still placed fourth. Not too bad, so that brings my weekend total thus far to $110 won.
I came back for the points race in the evening session. If there had been any lack of riders in the madison, this made up for it, with 27 taking to the rail. I scored a point in the first sprint, then all of my battered muscles caught up with me, and all I could do was claw my way onto the back of the pack for the remaining 105 laps. On the plus side, while I didn't gain a lap with the handful of riders that got away, I stuck in for the whole thing, and didn't go down a lap. Any I didn't crash, though after the flurry of pavement I've been subjected to in this last week, I wouldn't have been surprised if another one had snuck in at the very end. They ended up giving me an extra $50 at the end of the weekend for being to highest placed omnium rider from Blaine (the best from each track got this) so all in all, I walked away with $160 cash. Pretty sweet for a relatively unsuccessful weekend, at least as far as results are concerned.
Even after another botched madison, I'm just getting more and more confident in the way I'm riding. While I may not have felt that great in the other races, I continue to feel awesome in madisons, today chasing down 3 different national champions, and closing straightaway-length gaps over and over again. Now, following 4 days of hard racing, some rough travel, two bad crashes, and an expensive car mishap, I'm really looking forward to a few days of recovery. Maybe a little time in Portland, a trip up to Seattle, and then a more leisurely drive back to Minnesota, with frequent stops to ride whatever cool roads I come across on the way. If I stumble upon anything great, I'll let you know. For now, some very sound sleep is in order.

Pictures to come soon...

Seriously?!?

2007-07-03T21:27:00.001-05:00

Rain. And lots of it.

The 5:00 PM rain struck with a vengeance today. The weather was great all day, I got in a really nice mid-day ride to loosen up, and took a nap, and woke up with the clouds massing in the mountains to the west. If you've never been to Colorado Springs, it sits right at the eastern edge of the Rockies. From what I hear, the standard summer weather is to have beautiful day until about 4:00, then the clouds roll over the front range, and at 5:00 the rain hits. It's like clockwork, and today was no exception. It begs the question of why they schedule races in the evening here in the summers. I guess it usually dries out quickly, but it seems like quite a gamble. Last year was the same thing, and the weather for tomorrow doesn't look particularly promising either. The races from tonight have been rescheduled for tomorrow morning, so we should get in at least the 10 mile scratch race. But if the madison gets rained out for the second year in a row, I doubt that I'll ever come back to this one.

Everyone took cover in the tunnel to wait for an official communique about racing. Ultimately we
got cancelled for the night, and pushed back to tomorrow morning.

Bummer. I was feeling good, too. Anyway, here are some pictures from Junior Nationals last night. The men's 17-18 sprints was awesome to watch, going to three rides, with photo-finishes each time. Ultimately Shane Kline (Fuji Salamander) took it over Justin Williams (Rock Racing). Some poor kid got carted off on a backboard after a brutal crash in 15-16 scratch race, but word this morning is that he's doing alright, and is out of the hospital. Seeing that brought back all the sore memories of lost skin and massive bruises from my own junior nats experience. Glad I never need to do that again...

Shane Kline (green/white) duking it out with Justin Williams (black/white).

Recognize that glowing pink bike? Shebly Eck is back racing, and going fast, taking second in the 500.

That's it for tonight. Hopefully the weather holds off tomorrow.