Another Great Saturday Ride

It's intriguing how Calgary weather dictates that the working populace of the city is only entitled to one day of respectable weather each weekend. At least it's one and not zero!

Saturday was another mammoth group ride. This time we started at 9, which is unpleasant in some ways, but once we get going I'm happy to see how much we've ridden by early afternoon. Headed out to Bragg, and rode mostly with Jon/Craig/Devin/Geoff/Ed/Mckee/hope I'm not forgetting anyone. Spirited but not ridiculous pace, until the last kilometer where the Green Jersey battle played out.

After a cafe stop, we headed out to do the loop, then down towards Millarville. Unfortunately, according to discussions later in the day, I missed my dad coming into Bragg and talking to Tim Brezsnyak by less than a minute. Would've been a nice chance encounter.

Bragg to Millarville turned into an all out hammer ride. I nominate Mckee as the "red number" (in the Tour de France, the rider with the red number is the "most aggressive rider" as determined by some judging routine) for his repeated hill blast-offs. I can't contribute much to the mass suffering of a bunch of lean and trim lightweights on the hills, so I do my best to add a little tempo over the top and down the other side so the light in the loafers types can't have too much rest.

Eventually this caught up with me big time as we turned eastbound on 549 toward Millarville. After leading out around the intersection corner, I got dropped like a bad habit on the first hill. This meant chasing back onto the speeding group on the long-ish downhill that followed. My first question to self was "can it be done?" (yes), second question was "do I want to suffer for it?" (sure, it's a hammer ride), and finally "will I pay for this later?" (uhh, probably. But we'll worry about that when the time comes). So I chase away and burn a few of my remaining matches. As I get nearer, I see that in the group rotation, Nutbrown is giving it his all on his two pulls just to make it hard for me. In some circumstances I'd likely find that irritating. Here, I found it amusing. Bikes are our adult playthings, and he's just playing. By the time I catch up, there's not much left in the tank at all, and my legs are hurting. But just for the hell of it, I can't let myself latch onto the back in the draft, I do my best attempt at a blowby just to let everyone know I'm back. I'm sure the gang saw right through the charade as it fizzled within 30 seconds, but it was fun regardless.

We stopped in Millarville for a refuel, then proceeded north. A random decision at a particular corner left me riding with Jon back to Bragg allong Plumbers/Priddis/762, whereas the other guys took a different route. There was a little fate in this decision, as Jon had to babysit me back into Bragg... penance for our chasing game that burned me out a half hour earlier. I tried to eat what I had that was the simplest of calories and fluids, stomach wasn't digesting overly well today, I could feel that the calories I had consumed weren't making it to my legs all that well.

We found Stappler on the way back into Bragg, which was fortunate since we'd lost him earlier. Stopped again at the "neighbourhood dealer" - the Cinnamon Spoon. They've got the product I need on weekends. Saw Devin/Geoff/Ed cruise through Bragg while we were caffienating. We rode back to Calgary slowly, it'd been a big day for all of us.

185km total when all was said an done on my computer. I downloaded the data from my SRM, and through someone's mathematical genius a TSS number was calculated, which is a "Training Stress Score". The higher the number, the harder the ride. This was my hardest ride of the year, and funny thing was, I could have told you that without several thousand dollars of extra bicycle and computer gadgetry.

But was it the hardest ride of the year? I wasn't frozen through and through, trying to hammer home to generate enough body heat to prevent freezing. I had company the whole ride. It was light out the whole time. There wasn't snow and ice on the roads. TSS can't measure winter training!

The Alpha Goat

Just like a wolf pack, the 'goats also have an Alpha. By a committee of one (me) I hereby state that Devin Erfle is the Alpha Goat - Road.

I think there's a fair body of evidence to justify this title. First, there's the last two weeks of Bragg Creek sprints. Some guys just have what it takes for sprints - doesn't matter if you're riding 35mm 'cross tires or if you're riding aero road wheels. If you can sort your way through the first 300m of jockeying for position, that leaves most of us gasping for breath and falling by the wayside, THEN turn it on for the last 100m as if they were totally fresh and just leave everyone in the dust, you're a sprinter.

This is the 6th gear I keep telling everyone that Devin keeps hidden till when it counts. Things start to heat up, and once the pack speeds up to about 7,000RPM in 4th gear, some it's time for part of the field to drop out and coast in to the finish. A selection is made, and the 5th gear shift happens. Over the next 12-20 seconds, the 5th gear acceleration from 4,000 to 7,000RPM plays itself out, leaving but two riders in this case. Most cars, and most riders, only have 5 gears to start with, and redline in 5th is the end of the show. But everyone knows, there's a few out there that have 6 gears. They come with high price tags, and look fast sitting still. And they aren't worried at all about all that 5 speed crud on the road, cause they know where the finish line is. Once 7,000RPM is passed in 5th, what do they mercilessly do to the 5 speed crowd? Put it in 6th and leave them in the dust. From behind, with legs burning and lungs searing, knowing that you had NOTHING left in you to produce anymore speed, you wonder "how the hell did he just do that

The picture above warrants some discussion. Zoom in and have a look. Let's revisit last season. Devin is the first Cat 2 deadgoat, and the points for the upgrade were awarded upon his victory at the Pigeon Lake Road Race, 2006. The above photo captures this moment quite nicely I feel. Note the basics - a field of 30-40 riders. A straight view of the finish line from a little over a kilometer out, where we come onto the straightaway from the intersection that can be seen in the distance. And it's an uphill finish on a long mild grade, which makes the power to weight ratio an unescapable truth.

Maybe it's just the angle, but take a quick look at the faces involved. I see a lot of grimaces, a lot of sucking wind. But one face doesn't have that grimace. That's what earns you the right to put your arm in the air. Winning road races isn't easy. Mathematically, you've got a 1/40 chance, or 1 over however many participants there are. Those aren't good odds. But it's harder than that. You need strength, endurance, and cunning. Road races are seldomly won by brute force. The last 1 minute can play out a thousand ways, and split second decisions can mean the difference between podium or 15th spot.

4th place, by some divine luck, is me. I was just close enough to see the real action unfolding in front. In 3rd place, is Spence Smitheman. Spence is a "young buck" by the standards of the guys around him, and he's an "up and comer" by virtue of being a national level track kid, going to 'cross worlds in Belgium, etc. I think the remainder of the top 4 had 10 years on him each. Rider number 2 is Jason Lapierre, who put a lot of heart into the sport, and into his ski coaching career, and into everything he did. Jason was never afraid to work on the front of a race. And his riding style is what bonded us. That's the last ride I ever did with Jason. He's always in my memory when I'm riding a bike. The details of ABA insurance policies are all for naught when you meet your fate with a few tonnes of steel. If you're riding home from Cochrane on the 1A, and see the cross made of some skis and garnished with a ski boot, crank it up at least three notches for the ride home, just because you still can.

Not that we want to burn out Devin for the race season, but if anyone disagrees with the above assessment, bring out ALL your game for the last 1km into Bragg, and see where it get's you. Then don't be upset when your game gets shoved right back down your throat in the last 100m. Having kids apparently isn't an excuse for being any slower on the bike.

Notice how I've left other categories open by only designating a roadie Alpha? That means there's room out there for YOU to fill another unique position. Maybe we can take votes later in the year on some of the other ones... and sorry for all you hopefulls, but I think the Single Speed position is already spoken for, if you know what I mean.

Still Re-Living Sunday

My one regret from Sunday was that I didn't have a camera with me. In all my years of riding I'd never seen my bike ice up like that.

Fortunately, Per Strom had his camera out. I'm glad I saw his blog post, looks like we experienced the exact same brown ice crud. I had more ice on my front spokes, and my front hub was entirely encased as well. Further, my BB area which gets road spray coming out from below my fenders (same fenders as Per), had about 3cm thick of ice, plus icicles hanging down. Ridiculous! Took me forever to chip off enough with my multi-tool to be able to use a couple of gears.

Interestingly enough his Powertap worked fine as well. I've had far too many "issues" with my original Powertap SL... as in I purchased it over 18 months ago, and I've probably had 4 months of functional use out of it since then. I've recently received a new computer for it, new wiring harness, and all new hub internals, apparently all of which have been upgraded.

My intention was to immediately sell the brand new setup on eBay to cut my losses, but all the online user reviews I've read suggest that the new parts have addressed all the issues. So I decided to bite the bullet and give it another go... and it worked fine for the first ride. We'll see how it holds up.

You take the good, you take the bad...

The Good: After returning from a week in sunny Tucson, I was more than a little bummed to see the March snow earlier in the week. I "relaxed" for a couple of days, knowing that my base wouldn't erode that quick. But two days into relaxation, I knew that was BS. I don't care about the base eroding, that's just heresay. I just wanna ride my bike!

Braved some dodgy weather on Wednesday evening, snow and cold isn't fun now that I've had a taste of the sun. But the Saturday morning forecast was looking great.

With a flurry of ride planning emails coming from all angles late in the week, I was super happy to see that all turned out with about 30 riders meeting up on Saturday morning. Awesome! I really wish this could be more typical around Calgary. We headed west to Bragg Creek to loiter at the Cinnamon Spoon for a half hour. A large portion of the group then headed south at a pace that was faster than my bagel with peanut butter and jam really wanted, but I made do for the most part. Eventually we divided in half once more... those heading back and those searching for more. 5 of us went south near Millarville. By the time we were at the 130km mark, I felt in the mood to jam some of the hills. Really, what that means is I felt like trying to sort of keep up to the guys who were really jamming the hills (Jon Nutbrown, Shawn Bunnin, Craig Stappler, and Dave Ford put in a hard pace on at least one hill).

We made it into town on some rough pavement, and parted ways. Jon and I switched over to mountain bikes for the last errand of the day. His hadn't been touched by anything more than a hose since La Ruta, and it showed. I suspect Jon's "to do" list now has mountain bike maintenance featured more prominently here in the next few weeks.

All told, it was 100 miles on the day. Felt good, it didn't wipe me out too bad. Still had enough energy left to polish up my Cervelo that looked a little bit Paris-Roubaix-ish with all the mud, and picked up a giant couch from Tori's work at night with Dallas' assistance.

The Bad: I took it easy Sunday morning, doing some bike maintenance, organization. It was 1C all day on my home thermometer, and hadn't moved. I listed some stuff on eBay, still trying to "recycle" money into my bike exploits a little more this year rather than continually dumping "new" money into the game. Dropped by my parent's house briefly then started riding NW of the city. Good news is I got about 2.5 hours of decent base riding in. Bad news is it started to rain about 1.5 hours in, and the worst news is that the surface air temperature was like -7C. My jacket instantly had an ice glaze on it, as well as my pants, gloves and booties. I was actually still warm, everything froze so fast that I didn't even get wet. My bike looked ridiculous. It probably gained 10lbs in 10 minutes. Every spoke became quadrouple diameter with ice. Fenders caked, frame caked, fork caked, BB are a total mess. Cassette, other than gear I was using, was totally solid, you couldn't even see any cogs. Derailleur was frozen solid.

I actually didn't mind for a while... but I should have clued in sooner. I was climbing a small grade, and my rear wheel was slipping as I pedalled while in the saddle. That's some slippery pavement. But I tuned it out, I was warm and happy, and the weather was neat to see. Finally, on a descent right near the top of the Cochrane hill, I realized all was not well. I could feel the wind blowing me from the side, and watched my front wheel slide a few centimeters across the road... now that's NO TRACTION. I rode over to the gravel shoulder, and once I felt some grip, applied my brakes. That did absolutely nothing. I lean my bike up against a mailbox, feeling fairly warm when I was stopped, and pulled out my multitool. I spent 20 minutes chipping enough ice off my bike that my brakes sort of worked, and that I could pick at least 3 gears. I continued to ride cautiously toward home.

After I barely made it up a moderate hill due to lack of traction, I decided I couldn't ride home and phoned Tori. The roads were glazed with ice, it was hard to walk without slipping. I was concerned about crashing or being hit by a sliding car. Studded tires would have been much better than my road tires no doubt.

I walked and did a couple minutes of riding for a half hour before she got me. Interestingly enough, not a single one of a dozen cars even slowed or asked me if I was OK. I'm sure I could have flagged someone down, but it was worth noting that people certainly didn't seem to care. I'd suggest that with the weather, the crappy roads, and a guy walking his bike along the side that far from town, that maybe it would have crossed some do-gooder's mind to offer some assistance.

As I got closer to town, traffic increased. I started walking in the ditch. I was scared to walk on the road, since cars weren't slowing down, yet the road was so slippery I could hardly walk. Didn't seem like a good combo. People pulling onto the road off rural driveways would hit the gas and fishtail out of control all over both lanes.

It felt good to finally see my ride. All in, I saw 6 cars in the ditch, and 3 cars involved in a smash up. I'm sure there were and will be many more. Total crap weather is an understatement.

It sure is hard to get good training in at this time of year. I did some weights at home and called it quits for the day. We'll see what this week brings... looks like it'll be busy at work.

Travel Pains

So the bad news for Sunday is that we needed to be out of the house Saturday afternoon rather than Sunday morning. A hassle caused by a slight miscommunication with the rental people. Oh well, I've had worse. Didn't really phase me, and the girl was helpful. At least we got to sit around the house for quite a while that afternoon.

We stayed in a functional hotel down closer to the city, and the hotel shuttle did 2 trips to pick us and our gear up. Their computers were down, must have been using the same system as the airline, and it took a while to get a room. We walked across the street for some grub at the Waffle House, and I had a pepper decaf coffee since the pepper shaker fell into my cup. We went back to the room and watched Cops for almost two hours. I could feel my brain rotting away. I can't even believe half that stuff, made me feel good to be hanging around a group of self motivated cyclists.

We went out for dinner at Michis el Norte. We had two large pitchers of strong Margeurita and plateful's of Mexican goodness. Listened to live music, then headed home. I was feeling dead tired. Called the executive car service Mckee used, but they didn't have anything available. Called a cab company and booked a minivan for the morning.

I got up at 5:45, took a quick shower, and headed down with my luggage. Didn't see a cab, so I called the company. "Oh, we don't have a minivan this morning.". Well what did I reserve last night then? Taxis in Tucson are pathetic. Slow, unreliable and expensive. We should have had a rental all week. The hotel shuttle is parked out front, but no driver. We start calling cabs. I talk to some kids at the adjacent hotel who were just starting up a big Nike cube van to go to work, but they said they slept in already and were probably late. No cabs ever showed up for us despite calling a bunch. Eventually a cab showed up to the hotel next to us, I managed to coax him over for Gerry and Trish to take as their flight was 20 minutes earlier, Devin and I got to stress for a few more minutes. We finally got the Mexican night staff/cleaning lady to call Manuel and ask about the shuttle, which was reaffirmed as a no-go. She finally got to understanding that we really, really needed to get going, and I said we'd pay. Manuel got out of bed and came to the hotel in his own truck to drive us, heater and Spanish music blasting. I bet we paid him 2 days of minimum wages, tax free of course. And I was happy to do so, it's nice to see when someone actually understands what a little initiative can earn, rather than those deadbeat cab companies.

Manuel got us there on time, and lineups were pleasantly small. I'm tired and need some sleep on the next flight, and I've got a weird Idahoan sitting next to me.

We stop in Salt Lake, and head straight over to Quizznos for a sub. Unfortunately the toaster is broken, so it's not as good as a usual Quizzno's sub. After that we get into the Starbucks lineup, and hear "last boarding call, are passengers Bakke and Erfle here?"

We're totally surprised and hustle over, while we were eating we heard calls for Eugene, Oregon, Bakersfield, California

Shootout!

When my alarm went off at 5:45, I didn't rally feel like waking up. We had set up the coffee maker the night before, so Dallas had it going early.

We hit the road a 6:30am sharp to get down to Euclid and University by 7. I nearly hit a small Toyota on the driveway to our community. Lady was on our side of the road, and pinned it once she saw me to get over to the other side of the road. I was definitely awake after that. Dallas grabs a coffee down at Starbucks, we hit the washroom, and get ready to go. The oldsters head out 10 minutes early.

7am everyone heads out. We ride calmly through the city, probably 100 people. Easy pace off the start, conversational. Saw a few Albertans, a few guys who were just characters were fun to listen to, fast looking guys were talking about recent races. A guy looked over at me and said "Canadian, right?". Yup. "How long you down here for?" Just this week, it's been great. "Careful man, the Shootout is habit forming." I sort of liked the sound of that.

We get out of town, and things start heating up. With 30 hours in my legs, I'm riding consevatively. Devin is hanging back too. I'm trying to drink a bit more than I otherwise would, my legs feel ok and my lungs aren't doing too bad. I realize it's getting heated up when I see Gord Frasier going by on the outside of the peloton. Old Motorola shorts, a little cycling cap, and a gleaming old steel Peugeot with downtube shifters, a white leather saddle, and gleaming silver 32 spoke wheels. I have no idea who makes gold colored derailleurs, but it was a gleaming work of art. I think bikes only nead to be cleaned once a year down here, and this thing was beautiful. This is the bike as rumored, everyone had been talking around town that "Gord brought some old 10 speed out to the shootout and won the sprint."

It's a gentle grade to the peak, and the pace started picking up. I see around up a bend up to the front, and see an Alberta jersey off the front with Dallas hammering away. II was eating, and next thing I knew there's a gap opening up in front me. Hammer time to keep up. My legs are burning, and I'm still about 1/3 pack and wondering if this gets fast enough to break up the group. Time to hammer a bit. Next thing I know, a guy behind me is yelling KOM, 1km. I see Devin blow by on the right, and realize this is the "big climb". I see what looks like a crest, and pull out to the left and go for it. What's different on this ride vs. the cabin jam is that everyone regroups and coasts at the top. Some Canadian national team kid with a baseball cap and huge legs took the sprint... Buck maybe? (Earlier in the week Dallas met Buck. I'm Dallas. "Hi, I'm Buck." Is that short for Buck-wheat? I understand the conversation ended about there.)

This is the top, and I'm not spent too bad. It's all downhill home, 50k or so. We make the left for the short loop, which I think was about 100k, there's an option to go right and do 180k. That'd be the one to do for some real training, but would need more than a 1 week early season training primer to hold on. I'm not afraid to waste energy and pull now as we head back, I'm better at downhill pulling anyway. I start chasing Dallas, and we've got a 6 person group going. We're going fast, and as I pull through on a rotation Gord pulls through in front of me. We've got a good rotation going, about 8 guys, including some of the bigger guys who do down better than up.

Dallas does a few of his sprintervals to keep the pace up, and I didn't have my camera ready unfortunately for the effort that put him off the front with Gord reeling him back in. As we get closer to town, the pace picks up, with more guys launching off the front. I'm having fun wasting energy on chasing and bridging up. I close the gap down on one guy, but the next guy that pulls through doesn't cut in front of me to give me any draft, sorta uncool. So I peter out and drift back. Takes me a minute to regroup and get on, then I make my way forward again.

There was some big sprint but I didn't see it. After that we coast the final few blocks back to the coutyard of coffee shops by the university. Time to shoot the shit, relive the glory days and all that good stuff. The short version of the ride really wasn't all that hard. It's obviously hard to be at the front of the sprints with such a deep field, but it's nowhere near as cut throat as the Cabin Jam where you blow and are off for good. And it's easy to draft in a huge pack rather than wheelsucking two people on a windy Calgary day. Anyone who is a cyclist would have a place in the ride, and would enjoy it. Self selecting out of the ride and not showing up because it's called "the Shootout" is a mistake.

Recovery Ride

After waking from a 3 hour delerious nap the other afternoon, I was supplied with some ibuprofen and dinner, and felt pretty respectable by bed time. Just the lack of spine and overall muscle ache, and no more headache was a huge relief.

I felt decent in morning, but not fantastic. We started cruising, and my heart rate and power were lining up, so physically I was a bit better, but I had no appetite or intention to push.

We did 110k relatively easy base mile ride, and stopped for a nice lunch that nobody felt like getting up from, it was so nice to sit in the sun.

Mckee was hammering into the wind on the way home, Devin, Jerry and I were fine drafting. Maybe we should have all had Red Bull smoothies for lunch.

Good dinner from BBQ master Gerry, a little freezing pool dip, and things were looking up.

We decided to make an effort to get out to the shootout, with the painful 7am start time for all of us who were getting used to sleeping in this week. 5:45 wakeup set for a hammer ride on vacation!