Last Day in Boulder

I leave for New Mexico and Gila tomorrow. Rode 5 hours today with a crit near the end. I felt good and got off the front some, but the course was so boring I think I forgot I was racing for most of it. I just rode in circles until everyone stopped. Good day of training, though.

Funny story from yesterday, though. The theme of the story is that nothing ever goes perfectly.

I've been needing to replace the bike rack on my car for awhile now. The old one was the public bus style, so it held the bike by the wheels and protected them well, but it was really too big and heavy for my little Toyota, and it scraped the ground and scared my passengers.

I bought a new rack that should do the job better and went to install it yesterday. Of course, the hitch pin was bent and wouldn't budge. I bought a hammer to get it out, but that didn't work, so I went to plan B: I intentionally backed my car (rack first) into a pole on the opposite side of the bent. It was fun as hell, and it worked.

Like I said, though, nothing ever goes perfectly. When I went to slide the new hitch tongue in, there was a metal tab in my receiver that was directly in the way. No clue why that was there, but I guess this hitch tongue was longer than the ones on my previous racks.

Enter the industrial file. I actually had one of these in my toolbox for lawyer tab removal and it finally got some major use. Once I filed most of the tab off, and then decided to do the rest of the job by jamming the new hitch into the hole as hard as I could. That worked as well, but it took a few hard thrusts, and my knuckle got jammed in one of them. I don't give a fuck about pain, so I finished the job without treating it. Passersby were amazed at the unusually large quantities of blood.

In the picture below, you can see blood spots on the rack instruction manual.

Air Force Cycling Classic Day 2

Today's race was one of the shortest in my career. I lined up with 15 pros, including a pretty full Toyota-United team, all the solid locals, and a bunch of cat 3s. Naturally, it started with a descent. Since I didn't start at the front, I found myself in the midpack danger zone, with tons of morons moving into holes that weren't there, bumping handlebars, and being generally stupid.
I drifted back, thinking that if I couldn't be in front of the crashes, I at least wanted fair warning. Sure enough, the road narrowed around mile 1.5, and a pileup ensued. The 20-foot gap I had opened saved me from a high-speed crash, as I cruised into the wall of bodies at 5 mph, hearing the tragic (and melodramatic) groans of the fallen.
By the time I navigated through the mass, the field had split some. I kept them close on the flat and the downhill, hoping to make up time on the first climb, but the climb didn't come soon enough, and I never saw the field again.
I thought about riding around some, but opted instead to go back to the Springs and go shooting with my friend/former teammate Jared. I'd never shot a gun before, so it took awhile to get the hang of it, but I kicked ass when I started pretending that the clay pigeons were cat 3s. Pictures can be found here.

Colorado Springs

I made the trip to CO Springs on Friday night, since the races started early on Saturday. I'm staying with my teammate, Todd Nordblom (who I finally met for the first time), and his roommate, Jared Faciszewski, who happens to have been my teammate two years ago on VMG.

The CO Springs Classic is put on by the U.S. Air Force Academy and Colorado College, so it was fun to get back to the collegiate racing atmosphere for a weekend, complete with disorganization, small fields, and silliness. The first race was an ITT Saturday morning. It was a 20k course with some wind and decent climbs. I was still feeling the effects of my rest week followed by my illness-induced second rest week, but the legs were okay, and I'm definitely getting used to the altitude. I ended up 2nd place in a pretty good field.

Between races, I got to read the paper, and I found a headline that I had to share with the world:

The evening race was a crit, which had a smaller but stronger field than the TT. The course was pretty fun, with a 180, a chicane, and a nice, steep hill leading up to the last turn. I'd say 25 guys lined up for the start, 6 of them slipstream devo and another 4 assorted pros. I had a real teammate for the first time this season: Alister Ratclff, who goes to Fort Lewis College. Alister and I rode well together, covering all the major moves. We finally got him up the road in a group of 5 or so. The break worked well, so it rolled and wasn't going to come back. Slipstream had two guys in it, so Taylor Phinney and I worked together to shut down all the bridge attempts. Once hte break's gap was established, the race started to get boring, and a few of us were on the hunt for a decent workout. With about 25 laps to go (out of 60), the Slipstream kids restarted the hostilites and started launching guys off the front. The field was attentive and brought them back, but when I countered one of the attacks, they rightly left it up to argyles to chase me. I was solo with about 20 seconds for the last third of the race, finally feeling good.

On the last lap, my lead was solid. I'd been gaining on the break, but without hope of catching them in time. I held the same pace I'd had for the whole chase attempt, but apparently someone in the field wanted me back, and they lit the afterburners. Going up the hill, I looked back to see them all RIGHT THERE.

My bike had been mis-shifting and jumping gears all day, since I just built it up and I'd never worked with SRAM before (and I'm a very mediocre mechanic). So, of course with 200 meters to go and the field breathing down my neck, it wouldn't find my big ring. I came out of the last turn and sprinted anyway, popping and grinding madly on my skipping chain, and held off all but one guy from the field. Whatever. I got my workout.

After the race, I figured out what must have caused my unfortunate luck: my new team socks differentiate between left and right, and I was wearing two lefts. That's probably also why I can't dance. Damn.

New blog format

Hi Folks,
I'll be posting blog entries here from now on. I'm a shitty web designer, so my personal webpage is a bitch to update. I'm hoping that moving the blog here will translate to more content and short-term updates. But fear not: the rest of www.philthethrill.net will be intact.