Perception is everything. It is key in many aspects of life, especially sports. If you perceive that you have prepared and have good form, you normally will have a pretty good race. If you miss a nights sleep or loose your bike for a few days traveling and you have a bad mindset, you tend to do worse that you might have done otherwise, even if you needed a couple days rest before the event. Mind over matter or something like that.
I’ve been sleeping pretty short the last week and a half. Probably because I have this roofing project on my plate and my mind keeps working through things subconsciously when I’m not up there working. I figure out perplexing problems when I’m not directly thinking of them. I’m not sure how that works, but it does for sure.
I think the same works for advertising. Advertising gets to you in a subconscious state and is just sitting there. Somewhere I was reading about aerodynamics in road frames and it got under my skin. I think the numbers probably come from a random number generator, but the frames are said to save you somewhere between 10-30 watts at 40kph in effort through their aerodynamic tubing. Cervelo is saying their S5 is saving around 10 watts. The guys at Scott are claiming closer to 20 watts for their Foil, depending where the wind is coming from. 20 watts is pretty substantial.
Honestly, intellectually, I think the numbers are not real and there isn’t much going on here. Tony Rominger rode 55.291 km during his hour record on a standard Colnago track bike. This was a different era, so the number is going to be inflated, but you can’t tell me he could have went that much faster on a aero frame. That being said, I can’t get it out of the back of my mind. And if, by chance, I happen to get an aerodynamic frame, I know that my perception is going to be that I am saving those 20 watts and going that much faster.
It’s the same with the tire width thing. How much difference is 1 mm. It’s hardly much more than the thickness of your fingernail. There are 25.4 mm in an inch. Volume is super important in cross, but that one millimeter isn’t going to do much. That being said, I want to be riding 33 mm tires and not 32. When I’m going through my mental checklist, tread is really important, but the width/tire volume is there too. It’s never going to be a check off the list unless it’s 33.
We won’t even go into wheel technology. Claimed weights and wheel speed advertising are insane. I have no idea what to believe there. But if you’re not racing on $2000 carbon fiber wheels, you’re definitely in the minority. I’d probably do just as well riding 32 spoke Mavic GP4′s from the ’80s in cross, but that’s not happening.
This all is one of the fun parts of the sport of cycling. I think it is one of the reasons that cyclo-x has become more popular here in the US. All real cyclists love to get a new bike. Especially a new bike that fills a void and does something substantially different than their other bikes. And a cross bike does that. So riders are always looking for an excuse to go out and get something new. No matter how silly those excuses are. And a lot of the advertising is pretty silly.
Tony Rominger on his Colnago track bike, adding over 2 kms to the current hour record of the time.
I’ve been spending most of the daylight hours either on my knees or on a roof, so I haven’t had too much time to ride. I actually took two days straight off, which is pretty unusual for me. Yesterday I decided to go out for a ride at dusk. I’m still riding my cross bike with a gravel road tubleless setup. I was surprised how tired I was all day and how great I felt pedaling. I can tell when I’m going okay, mainly by how easily my legs go around. I know that sounds pretty basic. It is.
I was enjoying riding under the crescent moon. The sunsets this time of the year are surreal. Anyway, I was thinking a bunch and was trying to figure out, some, how I got to where I am. And how I’m still enjoying something so much after doing it for so long. I’m not sure that most people figure it out, bicycle racing, but it takes a long time to master. Not master, like win everything, but master like be the best you can and be able to ride up to your potential on a weekly basis. Cycling is a slowly progressive sport. You make micro, incremental improvements. And once you have made those improvements, they stay with you for a long time.
One of the things I enjoy most is when a new guy starts riding. The first couple months he can barely sit on, sometimes getting dropped on the hills, etc. Then towards the end of the season he is holding his own. You’d think that after taking some of the winter off, the guy would go back to square one, but no. It never happens. He got maybe 3 levels better one season and only regresses one level. And it keeps going like this season after season. I ridden with lots of guys that keep getting better decade after decade. It’s kind of strange. Once you get to a certain level, you never can regress back down to the bottom. It’s like when a retired Pro or Cat. 1 comes back after 10 years off. He starts out at such a high level that it is nearly impossible to tell he took a decade off the bike. It is one of the greatest parts of the sport. You might loose a lot of your physical ability, but all the knowledge and technique sticks with you forever.
I’ve always enjoyed riding at night. When I was a junior, I used to work at a local shop, Gran Sport, and I wouldn’t leave to ride until after 8 pm most nights. Most of the ride was when it was dark. I don’t do it much nowadays because I don’t think it’s so good for training, but it is super fun still. I know that the perception of speed is always exaggerated at night. But, like I said above, I can tell when my legs are going around freely. And they were yesterday.
Well that was just some of my thoughts while riding alone at night. I’d really like to find a race to ride to see if I’m feeling as good as it seems. Then ski some before it all starts all over again. In the meantime, I’m gonna try to finish up with this roofing project the next couple days. This hobby roofing is hard on my hands. And takes up way too much time. Today we’re adhering the rubber to the decking. It shouldn’t take too long, but in construction, in your mind, it all seems so simple and easy, but when you’re actually doing it, it’s way more complicated and time consuming than you’d imagined. Exactly opposite of just riding your bike.
There is no better time to be on your bike than sunset.
I was reading this article at Velonews about Michael Rasmussen’s mindset about being “robbed” of the Tour in 2007. My favorite quote by Michael is “They committed one of the biggest injustices in sport history with me.” He went on to say “I was robbed. According to the rules at the time, they had no reason to take me out of the Tour. The rules that are in place today are different. They applied to me rules that were introduced in January 2009.”
I’ve known Michael Rasummusen for a long time. Way back before he got good racing MTB bikes, then after he got good. I thought he was a pretty nice guy when I was racing with him, but I don’t know. I don’t think guys that take drugs have to be assholes, they just have a flaw in their morals that allow them to cheat their friends. I haven’t spoken to him since he started racing road bikes though, so I don’t have any idea how he is nowadays mentally. But, this guy needs to rethink the time frame and time line of what occurred back in 2007 and he might be a little more at ease with his situation.
What he’s leaving out is the release of the story by Whitney Richards. Whitney is the guy that told Velonews about Michael trying to turn him into a drug mule and carry Hemopure over to Europe to him from Denver. I’m pretty sure that is what got the ball rolling, along with missing the mandatory out of competition tests and probably a multitude of other things that we’ll never be aware of.
Anyway, Michael being pissed off, maybe for the next “30-40 years”, seems a bit excessive considering he was guilty. Let me tell you, when the sport judges you and convicts you, then you have to be guilty. By that I mean, Michael Rasmussen could barely buy his way onto a professional team when his two year suspension finished. Compare that to any of these other guys, like Basso, Valverde, even Ricco etc. that all have jobs before their suspensions were even over. He is in bike race pro team purgatory and now is on the Rock Racing of the European peleton with his Christina Watches team.
It is sort of amazing that he is even racing. He doesn’t seem to be that much into it. Maybe the 5.6 million Euros that he’s looking to get from his lawsuit against Rabobank in the next few months might help with his bitterness. Money seems to do that some.
Yesterday I didn’t spend one second on a bicycle and I am pretty toasted. I’ll say it once again, it is amazing how horrible you can be in any other physical activity when you are supposedly in shape for riding a bike. I really don’t understand it, but it is true.
I spent most of the morning on my knees cutting wood and measuring. By the afternoon, when it came to the real work I was already sore. That being said, it is a good physical workout. More equivalent to weight lifting than anything else. Plus, since it’s winter, the temperature and body temperature regulation is kind of tricky. I got all dressed for standing around at 40 and pretty soon I was down to a T-shirt sweating. Then, later in the afternoon, when the sun had moved further west, we were in the shadows and it was cold again.
The roll of rubber weighs close to 400 lbs. and we had to carry it over to my building to spread it out on the roof, to hopefully, let the creases flatten out. It was rolled into a cumbersome load, so we re-rolled the rubber and put it on a 4 x 4 to carry it. That wasn’t so bad, but I’m sure I’m going to be feeling it tomorrow.
I guess I can call it training for surfing. I still plan to learn how to surf sometime before the meat of the season gets here. I have pretty strong arms already, but they haven’t been in use much recently. Guess they are now.
I like construction because it takes a fair amount of intellect. It is like a puzzle that you have to solve in a specific order. Especially doing renovation. No two guys will do the exact same thing in the same order, but it can turn out nearly the same at the end. Kind of like racing, there are lots of different ways to get to the finish line first depending upon you’re personal abilities.
It is kind of funny, but I always assume that the guys that are working at the roofing company know how to use everything they sell. That is far from the truth. Most the guys behind the counter have never adhered a square inch of rubber to anything, but for some weird reason, it is hard for me to realize that. I think they are experts, but now that I’ve done it a few times, it is apparent that they don’t really have a good idea how to do it or what most the stuff they sell is for. Seems wrong, but I’m sure it’s the case in most businesses.
Man, how about Alberto Contador putting on 7.5 kilos on the off season. That is close to 17 lbs. I guess if your off season is 6 months long, then it’s just a little over a kilo a month. I have no idea how they do it. I would be in complete panic mode if I was anywhere near that much “overweight”. Plus, the guy weighs a lot less than me. Maybe Alberto needs to get some pointers from Valverde, since his last off season was 2 years and he came back firing on all cylinders. Or maybe he should just do a little construction in the off season to stay in shape.
Bill and Trudi checking out the mess I made this morning before they showed up.
We didn't remove the old tar and gravel before covering it with insulatlion.
The insulation partially down. We are running sort of short of the screws and plates to secure it to decking. They are stupid expense with the screws costing close to 75 cents each. I think we are maybe 20 short and they only sell them in 1000 qualities. I'll figure it out tomorrow.
Even Alberto is using the ocean during the off season, a little more buoyant than usually.
I saw these trees a couple days ago coming back from a ride. I thought they were very interesting/pretty being interwoven like they are.
Yesterday was a good day. The weather this winter has been stellar. It was nearly 60 degrees yesterday, but the wind was whipping. Bill, Catherine and I decided to go ride MTB. This was the third day in a row for me on my MTB and I was just finally starting to get my bike handling back. Anyway, we all overdressed and had to start stripping clothing off nearly as soon as we clipped in. When we go over to the trail, the ground had thawed and there was a thin layer of mud on top of the dirt. We decided to go out and do gravel roads instead of slipping around in the woods. I had been feeling pretty tired this past week, but had been good riding MTB bikes. Yesterday was a struggle riding out west in the hills with so much wind in our faces all day.
Then last night, my TradeWind Energy team had a party for me in Lawrence. It was nice. My friend and sponsor, Matt Gilhousen invited us over to his new house, nearly on the KU campus for some homemade pizza and comradery. It was fun. I hadn’t seen most these guys for the past month, so it was nice catching up. Brian is getting all antsy about racing and is talking about going down to Texas to race soon. A month ago he said he was super out of shape, but like I said above, the weather has been great recently, so he must be feeling better, or just more confident. Either way, it was a surprise everyone was so ready to pin on numbers.
It is supposed to be nearly 50 for a high most of this week. I have to finish up putting a rubber roof on a friends porch this week. The limiting factor is the temperature for the glue to flash off to adhere the rubber to the insulation. It looks good for a window sometime mid week, so I need to get on it. There is a ton of lifting and ladder scaling involved, so maybe I’ll just skip trying to get into the gym this week, like I had planned the last month.
Catherine started the peeling of clothing early, but eventually we all shed nearly everything.
Michelle Jensen made a cake with world's stripes.
Matt was busy with pizza dough most of the night.
Photo of our guys in front of a poster sized picture of the finish last week in Louisville.
Matt presented me with this bottle of Johnny Walker Blue Label Scotch Whiskey. I’m not too much into liquor, but this is the about the finest of the fine in whiskey.
Bromont found the dog bed early and spent most of the evening here.
Below is the winning run of Danny Hart at the World Downhill Championships in 2011. The guy is amazing. Watch how well he uses his body to lean into the corners to change direction of his bicycle. Leaning a bicycle is more important than the actually turning of the bars in most situations. He makes it look easy. And how about the announcers. Think they are excited?
I saw a few days ago that Oscar Freire is retiring at the end of this season and is hoping to make the Olympic team this summer for Spain, but he thinks it is going to be a challenge because Alejandro Valverde and defending Olympic champion Samuel Sanchez have already qualified. That seemed strangely weird to me since Valverde had not raced a bike in 2 years and had already been selected to ride the Olympics. Forget about his 2 year suspension for whatever. But, I suppose the Olympics is supposed to be a sprinters race and Valverde can sprint pretty well. At least he could 2+ years ago.
So then yesterday, Valverde won the stage of the Tour Down Under, the first Pro Tour race of the year, and is tied on time for first place overall, with only a curcuit race left. So, Jose Ivan Gutierrez, one of Valverde’s team mates states how great the result was and that their team, Movistar, was not going to contest the race and challenge Gerrans for the overall. Here’s the whole article at Cyclingnews.com. Here’s the quote from the article-
Gutierrez concluded with the assessment that Valverde will not contest Gerrans’ leadership during the final criterium in Adelaide on Sunday. “We’re not a sprinters’ team,” said the Spaniard. “In a one-on-one sprint, Alejandro would beat Gerrans, as he would beat Petacchi, Freire, Boonen etc. Probably the only one he wouldn’t beat is Cavendish. But in the middle of 130 riders, it’s mission impossible. GreenEdge has the perfect riders for criterium racing and they’re used to this kind of cycling in Australia. In Europe, we don’t have any. But that’s ok, we’re happy with what we’ve achieved.”
This is completely wrong on lots of levels. For one, if I were the promoters of the race, I would be pissed that it is announced in the media that one of the guys tied for first in GC wasn’t going to race for the win. Nothing discourages spectators and fans more than a race that has been decided before it happens. I know it is not breaking any rules not to try to win a race, but to me it seems chicken shit not to try when you are tied on time going into the last race. Especially a Pro Tour stage race. But, even if Movistar and Valverde have no intention of trying to win, they could tell Gerrans and GreenEdge that, but where is the upside to announcing it to the general public? There is none. Someone needs to sit down with Jose Ivan Gutierrez and tell him to not speak to the media when he is going to say silly stuff that really detracts from the race and from the sport in general. It is just a bad thing all around.
Okay, here’s my short list of basic knowledge that it takes to race bikes. There are a ton of things that should come naturally to you when you’re racing a bike. Hopefully you’ve ridden a bike long enough to have most of the skills necessary to control the bike. I’m not going to go into simple things like outside pedal down, weight off your seat in a corner, etc. This is more of a basic race tactic list. And this list is off the top of my head, just the tip of the iceberg of knowledge that you need to be more competitive. There are thousands of more things, which I’m sure I’ll hear about soon.
1) Never be in the front pulling for no reason.
2) Always know which direction that the wind is coming from.
3) Know the course, at least in your mind, before the start and picture where the strategic points, hills and wind direction will occur.
4) Constantly ask yourself if you’re in the right position. If you’re not, get there.
5) Know when to do single pace line and when to ride double echelon.
6) Don’t be shouting at other riders telling them what to do. It just pisses them off and makes them want you not to do well.
7) Nearly never look back for what’s going on behind you. If you really need to know, drift back through the field subtly.
Don’t try to show off in races. Races are judged by who crosses the line first.
9) Always observe and rate the guys your racing against. Watching how they pedal, climb, corner, etc.
10) Make sure you know where the finish line is and where you plan to sprint from.
Like I stated above, this is just .1% of the stuff that needs to be going through your mind during a bicycle race. And it needs to be there at all times. Decisions in cycling need to be made instantaneously. And even good decisions can go south on you down the road. But you need to file all those good decisions that went bad away and use them later to make better good decisions. That is one of the things that is so great about the sport, it is a complete morphing, fluid activity at all times. No two races will ever be the same and no outcomes will ever repeat themselves.
If you really want to read about race tactics, I’m sure that this book, written by one of my old Wheaties/Schwinn team mates, Thomas Prehn, has most everything you need to know. I don’t own it, but Thomas is a smart rider, and good writer too, so it is most likely pretty comprehensive. That being said, there is no substitute for on the bike learning through racing.
I saw that I was getting a fair amount of traffic on my website from bikeforum.net and went over there to see what the link was about. It was a link to the post I did yesterday about team tactics. Some guy on the forum posted something about how I’m such a douche bag and goes on and says all the reasons he believes why. I went ahead and signed in and wrote something about how wrong he was with his statements. In retrospect, that was stupid I’m not sure why I did it.
Anyway, I was thinking that a lot of the time I don’t pull punches. I pretty much write what I think and don’t really think too much about what I write until I’m writing it. It isn’t like I do this for a job or something. Most of the time I’m pretty blunt in my observations. Observations about myself and of others also. That is how I am. Pretty black and white.
I was talking to Jimmy Mac, editor of Mt. Bike Action, a little while back and he was asking me how I dealt with all the people giving me shit all the time on my blog. I told him that most of the time it didn’t bother me much. Everyone has their own read on each subject and it is great to open the forum to different opinions. It is a free country, for the most part. He said that it bugs him a ton and he isn’t nearly as controversial as I am. That statement kind of made me think. I never thought of myself as controversial. Unorthodox, outspoken, and lots of other words would probably be accurate, but controversial seems out of place. But, I just guess it is how you define controversial. I have my opinions and express those here. I guess if you don’t agree with my observations, it makes it seem controversial.
I really don’t mind people disagreeing with my take on things. Lots of times I change my stance a little because of the comments. But when people make up stuff about me and get personal, it seems wrong. I have a pretty tough skin in this regard, but it still stings a little. So, when you’re leaving your comments all over the web about me, feel free to disagree with me, call me out, whatever, but remember I have this soft side that doesn’t appreciate the name calling, especially over breakfast.
I was interested in watching Brandon Dwight and Peter Webber race together the last couple weekends. I’ve been following them for the past year or so, from afar, and was interested in watching in person to see how well they worked together. It is weird how many races that they seemed to be riding with each other nearly the whole time. This doesn’t mean any disrespect to either of these guys, but I didn’t see anything that made me think that they were doing much to help each other. They just happen to be on the same team and have about the same amount of ability.
In Madison, the course was sketchy. Brandon was climbing better than Peter, so Peter was always playing catch up the whole day. In Louisville, it was a little different, but not that much different. They weren’t really riding together like you would think that team mates would. Brandon was behind with a lap to go and had to make a big surge to get back up to Peter to get into contention. They did ride nearly identical times on the last lap, but unless I missed something, it really looked like they were racing each other to the finish line at the end. But, it is cross and there isn’t a whole lot that someone can do when it gets down to just you and your team mate.
I was thinking more about team riding, in all aspects of the sport, and I don’t want to burst too many of your bubbles out there, but it really doesn’t apply to the majority of riders. I’d say that if you’re a Cat 2 and lower, maybe just go ahead and forget any type of team tactic discussion before the start of nearly any race. Most the stuff you would discuss is in Bike Racing 101, so it really doesn’t need to be rehashed before the start of every local event.
I think it is so strange listening to guys that are Cat. 4′s, talking about the previous weekends races and they are saying how they buried themselves for a team mate with a lap to go, got shelled, and then the team mate finished 6th or whatever. It is pretty apparent that they have no idea what they are talking about, but everyone (other Cat. 4′s) agrees that it was an honorable sacrifice and good team work. What they don’t realize is that the newer the riders are to the sport, the more unorthodox the tactics are, making them nearly impossible to read.
I’d say that a lot of time, even in the Pro Tour ranks, team work is pretty meaningless. Modern day team work that is, team work that puts your whole team in the wind for kms upon kms. Most of that is really done for TV time I think. There is a ton of team work done by riders wearing the same jerseys that really help each other out. Stuff like letting your team mate out of the wind when it is in the gutter, etc., but the majority of stuff that these guys do as a cohesive unit is usually for naught.
I’m not saying here that all team work in the Pro Tour is wasted, I know they have to do something to try to win races, but many times, ultimately, it comes down to which one guy can sprint faster, climb better or is just that much stronger that usually wins.
But, the Pro Tour and local races are far apart. There is too much diversity in riders abilities in local and regional teams to allow much real team work to happen.
I think that most riders in local races should do their best to try to win each and every race themselves, without chasing down a team mate down in the process. That is probably the most that should be expected from someone wearing your jersey. It’s hard enough trying to keep track of what you’re trying to accomplish, let alone trying to watch out for a bunch of other guys whose race tactics are all over the place. Save most of the interaction with your team mates until after the race, when you talk about it over a few beers.
These guys were never more than a few seconds apart for the last three races of the season.
Oliver Zaugg, here winning Lombardi, after letting Sky and Garmin use all their riders up on the final climb.
Don’t try to show off in races. Races are judged by who crosses the line first. 
