happenings...

Well life hasn't been very blogable lately but I'll make an effort to generally catch up with the goings on of the Racing Hickeys. Here's what we've been doing... in pictures:There's been a lot of hiking. Not always in matching shirts mind you. Months of doing nothing but riding bikes have turned us into strangely soft-bodies athletes so we look pretty gimp when we're expected to support our own weight.

There's been a lot of skating. For me, it's been topless skating for obvious reasons. I seriously didn't realize how white I am until I saw this picture. Anyway the situation has improved somewhat since then. And my skating skills are coming back too :-)

Lila is also learning to skate which is awesome. Here she executes a text book beginner emergency stop: run franticly off into the grass; windmill arms for balance and visual appeal. In all seriousness though, she's getting pretty good on the skates. Which is cool because despite the fact that Rollerblades haven't been cool for about a decade now, they are a really good way for cyclists to work their core, especially the obliques.

In other news I leave early Wednesday morning (5:30 flight) for Cancun! I'm going to do a half ironman with Robby's sister which is exciting. I haven't ridden in 3 weeks and the last time I ran more than 13 miles was May 2005 so it should be a nice exercise in pain and humility :-) But mostly I'm excited to see Robby's sister.

post season happenings

There's been lots going on in the way of regaining some semblance of sanity. Last weekend Lila and I climbed Longs... Lila's first 14er. Here we are on the top (14,255')
At this point we were both pretty tired and the Keyhole Route seemed long and tedious so we decided to descend the north face directly. In retrospect this may not have been the smartest thing we've ever done but we made it. It's hard to get perspective but here's a shot of what we came down


There aren't any difficult pitches, but the whole slope is pretty steep so if you slip you're gonna tumble a few hundred feet before you stop. Also there's snow melt running down the rocks so they get slippery and your hands freeze. From here it was a 7 mile hike back to the car, and then an hour drive home, trying not to fall asleep at the wheel. Good off season fun :-)

Season over :-)

Well, my season's done. Niwot crit was yesterday and it was my last race. It's an awesome course but unfortunately I had no legs. Not entirely sure why... I'm mostly chalking it up to end of season burnout. The thing that stood out was how much braking their was for the corners. It was a no-brakes course, but there were two 135 degree corners and people were braking like crazy for them. On numerous occasions I made use of the sidewalks to get around guys who hit their brakes. Alas, my sidewalk shenanigans did me little good since I couldn't hold the wheel on straight aways. I lasted 45 minutes and then I was done.

So... looking on to exciting things coming up:

• Climbing Longs this weekend
  
• Gonna do the Lee's ride... should be fun, not tortuously hard like Worlds
  
• Doing a triathlon on September 9th
  
• Doing a half marathon the next weekend
  
• Doing a half ironman the weekend after that :-)
  
• Nagging Lila to write a post cause my posts are more boring than hers
  

hiding...

I'm getting better at hiding. I am in this picture, but you can hardly see me :-) (right behind the 2nd VC guy from the left, talking to the Rio guy who is visible in the gap between VC riders. Now if only I could maintain that hiding job during the race...

Finally!

I FINALLY won Wednesday Worlds. Admittedly it was a bit of a weak week with only 7 of us showing up, but nobody was less than a 2 and I was 5th in the group in terms of experience and years racing.

Wind out of the south. Not super strong, maybe 8mph? Andy attacked from the beginning just to get things going and I went with him. We only lasted a couple of miles. Then at Owl Canyon I stayed near the front in case there were attacks. There weren't but going up the hill in the tailwind really hurt and I couldn't seem to get recovered. I kept pulling through just hoping I could make it to Buckeye. I was first through the corner onto Buckeye. Dan Porter came around and I jumped on his wheel, then pulled the 2nd half of train tracks hill to make sure I didn't get dropped. Tucker got dropped and I felt kind of bad.

After that all bets were off and there were quite a few attacks. I think I'm the only person who never attacked. I was always ready to make groups but never the aggressor. Once we turned into the headwind I felt good and was able to recover well. I was afraid Porter would attack near the final turn so I kept taking good pulls towards the end. Once people start skipping pulls the attacks come and I would much rather take pulls before a sprint than have to cover moves.

An older guy who I don't know lead the sprint out from the bottom of the hill. I was on his wheel and jumped into the headwind once we were around the left bend. Dan and Andy made runs at me but nobody was able to come around and I won it by a couple of lengths. A small step, but a huge confidence builder!

Superweek

So the big lesson from Superweek this year is that brakes are bad. I'd joked about this before but in all seriousness, brakes are for slowing you down which is bad. So, when riding crits brakes should be considered a last resort. You are much better off not braking and if you can avoid crashing in the process that will also increase your chances of winning :-)

Also, when it's raining and you have an urge to slow down in the corners, please don't.

I didn't get a photo of it but somewhere on I-80 (I think near Des Moines) there is an Adult Super Store. Initially this seemed odd but once I thought about it a bit I realized that lots of chains have "super" versions. One can only assume that in addition to the standard wares peddled by porno outlets this Super Store sells groceries and may even have a Tire and Lube. I wonder if they're open 24 hours?

progress

Lila and I went down and did the Pseudo-Mead crit again on Tuesday. The field was quite a bit deeper than in past weeks with Ian and Timmy, several Vitamin Cottage guys, and a bunch of the Real Aussie kids. There was also a slight wind out of the south.

I managed to contain my enthusiasm long enough to let the right break go before I tried to do anything. Got on Aaron Heun's wheels, he attacked in way too big a gear from second wheel so I stayed with him and then drove it really hard up the false flat to the finish line (tailwind section of the course, so good time to take a pull and set things up for a counter attack). I peeled off as we turned into the crosswind and sat about 6th wheel while a couple of other guys took big pulls. A VC rider attacked and I followed. I couldn't get on his wheel so we both ended up bridging to the break solo.

The break had all the right guys (3 Assuies, Jorge Espinoza, 2 VC, Timmy... can't recall if Ian was there) but it was way too big. I was waiting for an attack to rip it apart but in fact it was very much an issue of attrition. Turns out I didn't have the smarts to last very long up there as I was way too aggressive and worked more than I was able to. Went back to the field and barely latched on to the tail end.

A frustrating day, but probably the best workout I've gotten at any of the Pseudo-Mead races yet.