Halfway There

I hadn't mentioned it, but one reason I haven't blogged lately is that my wife is riding the Pac Tour Northern Transcon. Think of it as the Pony Express for bicycles. She tells me that riding 100+ miles every day for a few weeks really changes your metabolic engine. She can now move along at a crisp pace without pushing her heartrate up much at all. Gives you a nice base to stand on.

You can watch their progress here. Anyway, now I'm cooking for a seventeen year old eating machine and trying to care for a pair of oddball cats and remember to water the flowers. While on the road the tour organizers ran out of Hammer Perpetuum which I find about as appetizing as soylent green, but my wife can pretty much live on it. None of the local shops had single servings, so I bought a can and sealed water-bottle sized (2.4 oz, for those who need to know) servings in plastic sealed with small strips of duct tape. Then a quick trip to the UPS Store.

If you've never done it, go to Fedex or UPS and overnight a dozen bags of white powder. You get interesting looks. Not wanting the feds opening this on the way I explained my situation to the guy behind the counter and showed him the transcon itinerary telling him all about my wife's great adventure. He only asked one question: "Why?" Some people just don't get it. For me it's enough that she wants to do it. Since I've looked into my own soul and found a crit monkey I don't empathize completely, but just think that sometimes we have to do difficult things because (to paraphrase JFK) they are difficult.

I'm just looking forward to next week.

Adrenaline Junky

I admit it. Can't do without it. No matter how hard I try I can barely crack the old lactate threshold riding alone. In a pack I can rev way past that on a moment's notice. The Tuesday night crits are now the mainstay of my training, I can spend 40 minutes above lactate and feel fine. Better than fine, now I'm good for days as long as I remember to ice the knees after. Here's the deal, if you're waiting to get in better shape before you start racing, don't. Just race, you'll get in shape. If you're DFL, so what? Everyone (almost) gets an ass-handing the first time, everyone improves.

For the record, the fork is in. It turns out that the extra clearance on the brake boss is intentional. It's there to push the brake pads forward so you can remove the wheel. The result is that the pin on the caliper barely reaches into the receiving hole. It just looks wrong, and every mechanic I showed it to agrees. I'm either going to get a machinist to make a shim, or switch to V-brakes, which don't rely on the pin.

Day 23, Performancebike Holding Out

I guess once they've got your money there's no sense of responsibility toward the customer. If they want to be the Walmart of bike shops it's okay by me.

The Eldorado Tuesday night 40+ race had a weird vibe. In the last two I've shown for the Elite (I,II, &III) pack passed us with less than ten minutes to go. Now people are not supposed to improve their positions when the pack is neutralized and passed by other competitors, but somehow my position seems to get worse while I just follow the guy in front of me. In addition, riders who might have been blown out get a rest and figure that somehow they've magically become more fit as they find themselves still in it at the end. Unfortunately, many mis-measure the final sprint and sit up with about 200m to go. While I'm trying to find room, nitwits are flying back toward me at a high relative rate and I have to try to dodge them.

If that wasn't enough, some dude who must weigh in at 220+ found that he could make space for himself by riding up next to people and poking his elbows outward. I saw him do this between two riders and was sure a crash would ensue, but luckily did not. At one point he did this to me, but was lagging a little and I just felt some extra weight on my hip. Look, I can see this kind of thing if there's $1000 bucks witing for the winner at the line, but it ain't.

FrankenBike held Hostage, Day 22

Ain't it fun dealing with discount bicycle outlets? On July second I recounted my experience with ordering a cyclocross frame and fork from Performance. So here's the sequence:

• After hours of work I figure out that the fork is defective*.
• (7/2) Return fork to Performance shop where I picked it up after a "red phone" order .
• (7/7) Call back to check on things, response: "we're working on it".
• (7/12) I drop in to ask, they need to know what size frame. Why? The frame and fork are a set and Performance will only send both in replacement. So I tell the nice lady with the ring in her nose the frame size (one wonders why they couldn't look up the order).
  
• (7/15) The Performance shop calls me to ask what the frame size was. I KID YOU NOT! Added to that, it appears we'll need to return the original frame.
• (7/16) I call back intending to tell them they'll be dismantling the frame and giving me a refund. Before I can do that the guy on the other end tells me they won't need the old frame back and apologizes for any misunderstanding.
• (7/23) I drop in after my ride, still nothing.

Sometimes I don't blog for a while for lack of anything to say. Now I've got something to say daily until I get my fork. Looks like this could continue for a while, perhaps throughout the cyclocross season. That would be bad luck, because last I looked I wasn't getting any younger. I'd like to hear from others out there who have similar experiences with performancebike.com to recount. Let me know.

*NOT ACTUALLY DEFECTIVE, JUST POOR DESIGN, SEE NEWER POSTS

Unexpected Consequences

The thing about bike racing is that it cuts down on my bicycling time. Huh? After a dense schedule of four races in ten days my knees hurt. Between races I find I need lots of rest. Irony's a real bitch. So I took a week off the hard stuff, actually rode more miles than usual, and now things are better. Nice to get back in the mountains, more in another blog entry since I didn't get to do the intended ride. In any case, it's back to racing this week, two Tuesday night crits followed by the CBR series finale.

Monrovia to Redbox

This took a while. The ride itself (here) is not technically difficult, but quite long. Once you get to Redbox the return route could be one of three I can think of:

1. Angeles Crest,
2. up toward the peak and then go down Chaney Trail, or
3. I always see downhillers take off on the trail which heads west from Redbox (not recommended, I've never done it).

I came back via Chaney and the loop took over seven hours. Out and back could be harder, you dip down to 3100' in the middle and its 4600' at Redbox and the junction of Redbox-Rincon.

Unchain My Heart

If you're like me, you spend way too much time with a heartrate monitor strapped around your chest. It has to impede breathing, even if only a little, and provide the potential for distraction when you might want to be focussed on something else. I did my first Sunday crit yesterday. Let's just say it was a good workout. The nature of the event ($10 to the winner of each 1.3 km lap) were such that I wanted not to have any desire to look at my Polar, but wanted to record something in my computerized workout log. So I set it on Stopwatch and left the heartrate strap at home. The experience was liberating, and I know I was at lactate thresholf for about an hour (two races, no money).

Hypsography

OK, let's suppose that based on the information at hand you buy a Garmin Etrex Vista CX to keep from having your bleached bones discovered months after an adventurous mountain biking excursion gone horribly wrong. Works fine, and you figure that you'll get some maps and plug them in, it'll be easy and cheap. Here's the deal. Garmin decided that they never want anyone else on the planet to make a nickel off their hardware, so the map format is proprietary. Jerks.

Well, all right then you figure that Garmin will have the maps you want. Bzzzzzzzzzzt, wrong answer, but thanks for playing. Topo maps come in various resolutions and the one you want (well, I want) is 24k:1 rather than the crude 100k:1. Too bad that the only 24k Garmin topo maps only include national parks, the North America version is 100k. Look, if you're not going to let anyone play in your sandbox, that sandbox ought to be pretty complete. Now since Garmin has basically told their user base to suck it, I'll just have to find another way.

The twisted path this leads down is truly a long one. I haven't gotten to the point where I have a usable map, but there seem to be two main pathways. Interestingly, the middle of both pathways involves something called a "Polish Map Format" (.mp) file. I've downloaded no fewer than six free software packages and I expect there's going to be one I'll even pay money for and it's still not there. Here are the major facts:

• seamless topo maps are free from the USGS
  
• there's even another format available
  
• Garmin's file format ain't so secret any more
• the GPS background map is on the data card in a file called gmapsupp.img
• my opinion is that ultimately it will be better to copy the file directly onto the SD card.
  

For now here are the sites I've found:

1. How to use seamless maps (plus some other stuff)
2. How to with SDTS files
3. They all use cgsmapper (get the free stuff)

As I say, this is a work in progress. This is just the surface, if you go through the websites you'll find that even more software is necessary. Also, I'd like to get this done without editing the registry on my computer. When I figure it all out I'll recommend one method or the other and please leave a comment if you figure it out.

Frankenbike

Most bicycle hobbyists accrue a lot of spare parts over time. Sometimes this amounts to an entire spare bike, or near to that. So there was this cosmic intersection between deciding I didn't much like my TT bike and wanting a cyclocross bike. The TT bike is really just a roadbike with a TT bar setup. So the seat, post and barends were scavenged. The box of old stuff contained some classic bend, shallow drop bars, an FSA Energy compact crankset and stem. My wife had recently sidelined her Mavic Open Pro 32s (click, click click...) which still have some life and of course there were three or four stems to choose from.

I came upon a bargain in the shape of Performance Bike's house brand cross frame/fork combo. Even got to buy it on a "double points" (Team Performance members understand) weekend at half the MSRP. By the way, I'd like to here about Performance ever selling any house brand item at MSRP - ever. I had the BB faced by a local bike shop (ie, the guy I've purchased three roadbikes from) who doesn't really carry cyclocross stuff unless special ordered.

So I ordered cantelevers from Nashbar, noting that there was a difference between front and rear. The diff - "R" stamped on the front is "L" on the rear. Think about it. They got it wrong, by the way, on the "rear" brake. After much effort (mostly by the wife, my favorite mechanic) we couldn't get the front brake to seat. There's a pin which must sit in a blind hole and a small collar was making keeping the brake from nestling on the cantilever post. Turns out, there is no "collar". While putting the frame together, someone neglected to screw the post all the way in. Then they painted the fork.

It seems funny in a way to be as pissed off as I was at the time. They had gotten almost everything right. The frame was straight, the facing revealed good quality workmanship (possibly by a machine), the paint and integrated headset were both nicely done. I was initially amazed at having paid less than $300 for what I was holding when I pulled it out of the box. But now it was 4:30 on Saturday afternoon and the bike which might have been rideable.

When I brought it to the Performance shop in Pasadena, I was immediately referred to the senior mechanic on site. I had time to think about things on the way, so I knew it wasn't his fault and acted accordingly. He was a real pro about it (ask for Sam if you go there) and now the shop will get a new fork, cut it and install the star nut (all things my wife and I had already done). I guess nothing more could be expected.

When this monster comes together I'll post a pic and take it on a ride involving at least one fireroad.

Back in the Saddle

Yeah, no postings for days, much to report. I raced for the first time in over two years, returning to El Dorado Park after crashing there in the spring of 2005. I seem to have gotten into shape the last two years in September (or later) which kind of messes up the road racing season. At age 51 I've finally realized that maybe if I want to do something, I'd better just get to it. So after a springtime full of fairly random riding I went out to the Rosebowl ride for four weeks running and tuned up the anaerobic system, logging more time above lactate threshold than in the past eight months or so.

The Eldo is put on by CBR, AKA Chris and Vera. The level of commitment they show for bike racing is awesome and I, for one, am grateful for it. The personal touch they add to the sport is something special. After I had been out of action for two years, Vera remembered me and noted that they'd gotten my license application and just hadn't printed it up yet. How cool is that, when the organizers recognize you on sight! This is a throwback to the 70s, when it seemed like the racers, organizers and supporters all knew each other.

Oh yeah, the racing. El Dorado is near the coast on the LA/Orange County borderline. Last week's start was at 6:30pm, but it will be moving earlier at some point. Parking is four bucks, so the cheap among us park at WalMart and ride a mile down the San Gabriel River bike trail. Not me, although I'm usually a real skinflint, I'd like a car on hand in case of anything unforeseen. The race costs seven dollars for CBR licensees. Join. There are three packs, 1/2/3, 40+ (the "+" represents Juniors and women, although anyone can ride in their USCF men's category) and 4/5 spaced on a course a little more than two miles in length. There are two points primes three deep and the finish is picked to tenth. Three series of nine races each are run from March to August. There's talk of more in September.

As for me, things went way better than I expected. I entered the 40+ race and was able to get near enough to the front to see the really good sprinters ignite their jets and take off. I have training to do yet, but felt like a top ten finish wouldn't be too outrageous in the final sprint. After the second sprint with about 30 minutes to go four strong riders jumped. I had been observing the competition and felt they had a chance so I bridged the gap (barely) and thus began a five-man TT. It worked, so I eked out fifth place.