June | 2013 | Steve Tilford

I decided not to race this afternoon. I kind of tweaked my left hamstring a few days ago mowing and am not sure if all this seated climbing has been hard on it or what, but it doesn’t feel that great. Just another thing. That’s okay, because the riding out here is great.

Yesterday I drove down to the Manhattan Beach area to try to track down my friend, Ed Bauman. He is pretty much one of the pivotal influences on why I started racing bikes back when I was 14. He worked at the local bike shop that imported European bikes and that is eventually where I ended up. Anyway, Ed is an elusive fellow at times. Sometimes he is nearly clairvoyant, happening upon me at the weirdest times. And other times he is like a mountain lion and can’t be found. I was lucky yesterday though. He didn’t answer the phone, but when I walked down the stairs to his basement apartment, he was standing outside, cutting comic strips out of the paper.

Anyway, hanging with Ed is always enjoyable. You never know what is going to happen. He knows everyone locally and a lot of the people he knows are just as interesting as he is. The guy next door is a super machinist, makes custom titanium things for Steven Spielberg as well as parts for F1 cars. He does this out of his basement in a residential area. Ed actually lives in El Segundo. It is a weird area along the beach in LA. LAX is to the north, the sewage treatment plant to the west and the whole place is oil storage and refining. That being said, it is still pretty cool. And expensive, of course, as all beach areas in LA are.

We went for a ride down south to Palos Verdes. It’s kind of a rest ride, because you have to ride down through Manhattan Beach, Hermosa and Redondo before getting to Palos Verdes. Palos Verdes is super exclusive, a peninsula with awesome views of both the ocean and LA. Once getting up on the hill, the riding is pretty great. The June marine layer was sort of coming in and out yesterday, so the beaches were pretty full, but not crowded. The ride was great people watching.

Today, instead of racing, we’re going up to Vista to go to a BBQ at one of Sue and Don’s friends house. There is a big MTB ride going, but I can’t do that yet. So, I’m going to go for a road ride up there. I guess the riding is pretty unreal east of I-15. Rice and Couser Canyons are supposed to be really good riding. I guess they were sort of undiscovered until Tejay or someone at the Tour of California this year did an interview and raved about how great the riding was there. After that, there was a influx of riders coming up from San Diego to ride. I’m coming from Kansas, so I guess it isn’t much difference. Okay, that’s the plan for now. Should be a pretty nice Sunday. I hope you have a nice one too.

This is my friend Ed Bauman.

e wp-image-26116″ />

I saw these sterling silver pant clips at Ed’s place. I had a pair too. We won them at a parking lot criterium, at a shopping mall in Kansas City back in the 70’s. I wonder where mine are?

We did a lap of El Segundo and this is the back of one of Ed’s friend’s places. It kind of looks like New Orleans.

There was a beach volleyball tournament going on in Manhattan Beach when we rode by.

One of the views from Palos Verdes.

Ed gave me a little toy VW pickup truck he had. I bought my VW pickup from Ed for $400, back in 1977 I think.

This pants style is completely ridiculous, but you see it a bunch out here.

I had a great ride yesterday up in Vista California. The riding there is pretty much the same it was 40 miles South, in Rancho Santa, 30 years ago. Lots of beautiful roads with hardly any traffic. It’s too bad it is 50 miles from here just to get to the start of the ride.

I’m riding like shit. I’m not sure why that is. I guess I still am blaming allergies, but I’d hoped that a change of pollen would at least change it somewhat. When I get like this I just go out and ride easy, for 2 to 4 hours. That sometimes resets my body and I can then start training again. But, that isn’t working. It is funny that as an athlete, you usually tend to dwell on your weakest link, even though that problem might only be temporary. I’ve got a hamstring pull, that is kind of tugging on my pedal stroke on and off, plus my arm is just mediocre. I talked to a couple guys at a party last night that had rotator cuff surgery and they didn’t give me much confidence. One guy was 3 years out and said his arm is just permanently jacked. I didn’t really want to hear that.

How about the conclusion of the Dutch Investigation into doping that 80-95% of the professional riders were doping in “the EPO era”. I think that is a little low, but what do I know. I think some of the guys that are saying that they never saw much of it, like Jens Voight, might want to rethink that answer. If you in a sport where nearly 100% of the participates are taking drugs to compete, it would have to be nearly a miracle to be able to participate at any level without indulging. That is just a fact. But, each and everyone has their own story and spin on doping, so to each their own.

Velonews had a title of an article about the “lost art” of criterium racing. I was thinking it was going to be an article about how bad the races are and how shitty the bike handling is. Instead it was an article about why the pro teams are sending full squads to the NCC races. What a let down. The professional cycling scene in the US is cash poor. Most of the teams are just pretty much domestic elite squads that decided to pay the UCI a fee to have professional licenses. So, don’t expect to see a bunch of teams fielding full squads for weekend criterium races. It’s not going to happen.

I’m going to suit up and go ride around North County now. I have a couple days to do that. I’m flying out tomorrow night, to Denver, for the Garmin physiological testing deal, then back to Kansas on Wednesday night. It’s hard to believe it is the middle of June already.