It's Code ...

Last night I did two rides with Matt. First was a lap of STT-Old Camp-Luge. I was really happy to beat my old time by 17 minutes. I remember the last time doing this ride and I pushed really hard to get 2:01. I wanted to get under 2 hours really bad but just couldn't swing it. Last night I got 1:44 and felt great afterwards.

That's when Matt dropped the "Let's do another Luge lap" on me. If you are wondering why Matt would want to do ANOTHER lap after an already decently long ride, I have one picture for you:



Figure it out.

Anyways the second lap wasn't bad, but it wasn't good. I was tired and I kept zoning out mentally. Matt suggested I could reward myself with Wendy's after the ride and that sustained me. Some guys when they are pushed think of their families or girlfriends for motivation and inspiration. Not me. I dream of Wendy's.

New Brakes

Corby just reminded me that I haven't posted anything about the new brakes I recently got. I've had several really bad rides since I got my Specialized bike back in January 2006 due to brake issues. Cable stretch, pad alignment, lever issues ... you name it I've had problems with it.

I finally took the step up to hydraulic brakes a few weeks ago. I can't even describe how happy this makes me. I never have to adjust cables anymore (there are no cables!) and I don't have to spin dials to adjust how close the brake pads are. I swear - messing with manual disc brakes is like playing with a rubicks cube. You start to get it right and end up settling for "good enough" out of frustration.

Pics of the new braking system (Shimano XT 2008 levers and calipers):





So far they've been really good. I can use one finger to brake again and the power and consistency is really amazing. However I'm still getting used to them and so I don't have quite the control I want on certain downhill sections. I need some more time before I'll feel super comfortable. The nice thing though is that once I get set I don't have to worry about the brakes changing after every ride like they used to.

Just Call Me Nancy

I realized last night on a Blackstar-Motorway ride that I have a lot in common with Nancy Kerrigan. Here is a short list:

- We're both very attractive
- We're both well trained atheletes
- We both have admiring fans
- We both scream, "WHHHHHHHYYYYYYY?????!?!?" after taking a beating

I meant the last common trait in the best possible way.

So last night the ride with Matt and Andrew went pretty well until I got to the Motorway. I felt good on the climbs and we were riding at a pretty relaxed pace. We were able to hold casual conversations all the way from the cars to the top of the Motorway.

I did feel a bit out of control on a few fire road descents, but I figured it was no big deal. I was wrong because the bad feelings were actually an indication of something more serious.

This is the third time I've gone down the Motorway and felt out of control. By out of control I mean to say that my legs are so weak that they start to shake uncontrollably and my forearms turn to rocks from flexing so hard. The bike starts to wander all over the trail because I'm not physically strong enough to keep it on a good line.

The last two times I've felt this way I was convinced it was due to fatigue. The first time it happened was on Motorway (2x). The second pass down the Motorway on that ride was just too much and I was very weak. The next time was after a brutal two week push to win a GeoLadders game.

I don't know that I can dismiss away last night on account of weakness though. I slept a ton this past weekend and I felt pretty good on the climbs. I'm honestly not sure what the problem is, but as always I have a short list of potential culprits:

- Fast and hard singlespeed ride on Sunday morning. This might have taken more out of me than I previously had thought.

- A general fatigue? I did do a fast and hard Harding ride last Thursday, but I'm pretty sure I recovered fully from that this weekend.

- Not enough technical riding. We have not been riding extended technical downhills lately as a group. The technical areas recently have been short and allow opportunities to recover that the Motorway does not have.

- Underestimating the Motorway. I still have it in my head from earlier this year that the Motorway is pathetic. It is nothing. Very easy. Maybe I give myself too much credit?

Whatever the reason - or combination of reasons - I was pretty disappointed with the end of the ride. I felt awesome up to that point and then fell apart _fast_. I'm hoping I can recover well for the big ride Saturday. My confidence is shaken a little, but hopefully with a lot of rest I'll be fine.

Harding - A Performance Analysis

Something odd happened last night on a ride up Harding. I didn't set out to go hard or to try and break my personal best of 1:28 gate to gate. I just wanted to cruise and not put any "strain" on my legs. This meant riding in a lower gear with a higher cadence and it meant not pushing at any point in the ride.

Funny thing though ... I got a new personal best of 1:24. It was actually 1:23:55, but I figured I'd round up even though the old personal best was something like 1:28:50.

The point is that I blew away my old personal best (the last time I set a new best on Harding it was by only one minute) which was very unexpected.

I've come to some conclusions about riding and riding fast that I'm going to try and figure out over the next few months.

Ride analysis:

I'll divide the climb from gate to gate in three sections.

Section 1 (Warmup):

I rode in a high cadence and a low gear (1-3 to be specific). Even when the trail leveled out I stuck to my low gear. I wasn't moving fast and I was able to keep a conversation going with Matt. Heart rate was in a great place and I was not putting out a lot of energy. Felt slow, but that was ok.

Section 2 (Warm):

I felt better and warmed up after maybe 45 minutes and a few miles of climbing. I still kept my gear low and my cadence high. However I started to accelerate on the easier grade sections and pushed when opportune times came up. Heart rate started to get a bit higher, but I picked my spots to go harder. Felt like I was in a good rhythm.

Section 3 (Sprint):

I decided to go for it and push hard. Legs started to hurt and breathing started to hurt, but I pushed and pushed and went for it. I know the implication at the beginning of the post was that I was going to cruise, but once you realize you're on pace for a personal best, you have to empty the tank.

Heart rate went to my maximum sustainable rate and pain set in. Felt like I was going fast and tried not to fall apart.


The ride could be summed up with these steps:

1. Warmup
2. Get comfortable
3. Little faster
4. Little faster
5. SPRINT!

I find this fascinating because not only was the time fast for me, but I didn't fell all that bad after the ride. I recovered pretty well.

So my conclusion is that warming up and taking it easy for a while can make longer rides faster. I'll quickly compare my three laps at Whiting from last week with the Harding ride to illustrate the concept further.

Let's imagine I'm doing a ride from point A to point F. Points B, C, D and E are in between the start and the end.

For my Whiting laps I went at a constant pace - always trying to push. So Whiting looks like this:

A->B: Push
B->C: Push
C->D: Push
D->E: Push
E->F: Push

Harding looks like this:

A->B: Cruise
B->C: Cruise
C->D: Increase
D->E: Increase
E->F: Push

Even after I had warmed up at Whiting I was not able to push for the entire lap and get a good time. I just didn't have it because I think I went too hard too soon.

So all this to say that my new strategy for riding fast on trails and getting personal bests will now go something like this ...

I'll start out at a very sustainable pace. Something I could ride at for hours and hours and not get tired. I'll slowly start to increase the cadence and gears maybe an hour into it. I'll try to never push too hard as to strain my legs until a certain point. At that pre-determined point I'll go all out and sprint. The sprint should be at the end of the climb for that given trail.

The idea then is to start the sprinting earlier and earlier in the ride. I like this strategy better though because it allows me to not sprint if I'm not feeling good that day.

It seemed to work last night and I'll keep messing with it to see how it pans out.

Single and Alone

No this isn't a post about my dating life. Yesterday I decided to try and add another trail to my "conquered on the singlespeed" list. I didn't have anyone else to ride with me, so I went off by myself to do the Coto Valley Loop.

I had done the loop twice before on the geared bike and had logged a pathetic time of 1:48 as my best. To put that in perspective, I think Troy's best time is 1:16. That's over _30 minutes_ faster than my best.

I remembered a few hills from the last ride and I had ranked them mentally as far as difficulty. There was one in particular that I was worried about - namely the one right before entering the Chiquita Preserve. It's fairly steep and not short enough to just go all out on.

The ride through Coto and down into Riley was not that exciting. It was frustrating not being able to hammer on flat sections or downhills. I had to just sit and wait for some resistance so I could pedal.

I also discovered that when I'm standing I can stand straight up so that more power is put into the pedal strokes. The idea is that more of my weight is directly above the cranks and so that makes it easier to get them around. The disadvantage is that I lose traction in my rear wheel.

My habit as of late when standing is to lean way over the handlebars so that my helmet is almost touching the front wheel. Well ok, maybe not that far, but you get the idea. I'm going to have to experiment with how I stand to get the most power and the most traction out of it.

Anyways I got to Riley to see this sign:

"Mountain Lion Sighting - Most Recent Sighting: 9/12/2007"

That was not encouraging. I was alone at dusk in a park that was empty and someone had spotted a mountain lion there the day prior. Great.

Needless to say I got through the Riley area pretty fast. Well ... as fast as my singlespeed would let me. I also got lost trying to find the entrance to Riley which cost me several minutes and an extra mile of riding.

Riding up to the hill that I was worried about was tough. For some reason my legs were not there as I approached the climb and I felt weak before I had a chance to even start. I tried to ignore it and figured I would just give it my best shot.

I made the whole thing without having to walk, but it was very, very tough. I remember wondering what the point of failure would be on the climb. Would my legs freeze or cramp? Would I have a heart attack? Asthma attack? Something had to give because I was ignoring the warning signs my body was sending (high heart rate, heavy breathing, legs full of lactic acid) and I knew something would fail.

Nothing failed, but I paid a steep price. It took me a good 10 minutes or so before I recovered from the strain and the stress.

There were quite a few hills after getting into the Chiquita area and I made them all - but again at a price. My lower back started to hurt and I started to get discouraged because every corner I came around showed more climbing. This loop just has that quality to it. I kept thinking that around each climb I'd get to Tijeras Creek, but after each corner I just saw more and more climbing.

I finally got to Tijeras Creek, passed four guys like they were standing still (I was not going fast at all, they were just _really_ taking their time) and made it to the last climb after the crossing at the Coto entrance.

The final climb was the last potential problem I had listed mentally and it ended up being really hard on me. I don't think I've ever done this after a climb before, but I actually grunted and groaned out loud because of the pain in my legs. It was the kind of noise I usually make after going over the bars into bushes or something like that.

I'm happy I finished the entire ride in a decent time (1:21) and I'm happy to have cleared everything on the SS, but man it was a lot of work. Somehow the sense of accomplishment makes up for the pain and suffering.

Two out of three ain't bad

Decided to do three Whiting laps after work yesterday. I figured two wasn't enough and I didn't feel like doing Whiting-Luge, so I settled on three Whiting laps. Of course since I'm all about beating personal bests, I set a goal to beat my best time of 30 minutes.

Well I failed.

At least two of the three laps succeeded in meeting my goal of 10mph. The third lap was 9.9mph, but I'm not that upset about it because I purposely tried to slow down on the last lap. I was tired and sore and figured I needed to just take it easy.

List of possible reasons that I was slow (32 minutes) for my first two laps:

a. Seat was too low
b. Too tired from first lap
c. Chicken burrito at lunch that set off an atomic bomb in my guts
d. Hadn't recovered from Saturday
e. Bike suspension is off
f. I just plain suck

I suppose everyone has "off" days. All three laps felt less than stellar. I kept trying to push but my body wasn't having it. My legs just weren't there and I couldn't coax them into performing. Oh well.

Other notes:

- I passed a hiker guy and his super cute girlfriend three times - once on each lap. Man she was really, really cute

- Some older lady (that was also fairly cute as it turns out) got stuck on the rock obstacle at the start of Borrego and was impressed when I rode it. She walked.

- I got passed only once by the guy that works on my bike at Rock and Road. He was riding a singlespeed. Bleh.

- My bike felt pretty skiddish. Some of the downhill sections felt pretty bad. The section from Four Corners is super rutted and the ruts are spaced just wide enough to make your tires kick like a jackhammer.

- Middle ring, one gear before granny in the back is causing my chain to fall off. Stupid.


I'm still reading the Lance Armstrong book and figured I'd share some fascinating stuff that I came across.

Apparently some cyclists take a drug called EPO to get an edge in races. Well I guess EPO can lower your heart rate to dangerous levels and in one year 7 pro and amateur racers died as a result of taking EPO. They had heart attacks.

The book said that some racers that take EPO set their alarm clocks for the middle of the night so they can wake up and exercise vigorously so that their heart rate doesn't dip too much. Keeps them from DYING IN THEIR SLEEP.

How crazy is that?!

Blackstar Motorway Observations

This last Saturday I rode Blackstar-Motorway with Troy, John and Andrew. I was able to set a new personal best by 5 minutes (2:42), which made me pretty happy. I could go on and on about the details of the ride, but I figured I'd focus on a few interesting things that happened during the ride.

In order of how they are coming to mind right now ...

1. Hyperventilation. I don't think I've ever experienced this on a ride until this past Saturday. After getting to the white ball after Beek's I started to breath irregularly. I had asthma as a kid and I remember having attacks and the experience on Saturday kind of reminded me of that.

I was watching a football game Sunday night and the topic of hyperventilation came up. I think that is more accurate in describing what happened to me. I was breathing really fast for no apparent reason. I wasn't pushing - in fact I had just stopped to put on my sunglasses - but I found myself gasping for air and taking a lot of short breaths. Not sure what caused this, but it subsided after 5-10 minutes.

2. I like to turn right. I looked at the tread on my tires and realized that it was worn down considerably on the right side of the tire. The left was virtually untouched while the right side was falling apart.

I guess that just means I'm considerably more comfortable turning right. I need to focus on left hand turns then.

This is actually good news though because for a long time I was afraid to lean into _any_ turns. I would replace my tires because the middle of the tread would wear out while the sides would be like new.

3. There is such a thing as warming up. About one third of the way up to Beek's I started to feel a lot of resistance on the bike. My legs weren't moving as freely and the energy I was spending felt like it might have been too much. Instead of backing off I pushed through it a bit and hoped for the best.

My time to Beek's wasn't the best (1:03), but the trip from Beek's to the Motorway was a new personal best by about 5 minutes. I can only attribute that to the concept of "warming up" on the climb up to Beek's.

Sometimes I get scared to push too hard for fear of bonking. I'm starting to learn that sometimes pushing hard just gets you warmed up. I'm still learning where that line is for me.

4. A funny story ... Andrew passed me early in the climb to Beek's and I was surprised and impressed at the same time. He took a pretty definitive lead in front and kept a consistent pace.

I debated in my head what was really going on. I figured it was one of two things. First thought was that he was pushing hard to take the lead. Second thought was that he was taking it easy and his "comfortable" pace was just that much faster than mine.

When I'm on the bike and thinking about catching someone (as I always am) I need to know which of the two options it is. If he is just cruising and I'm pushing a little, then I'll just give up. There is no joy in going as hard as I can to catch him - only to have him turn it up when he realizes I'm getting close. On the flip side if he is pushing hard, then it's a battle of wills. Who is willing to suffer more to stay ahead.

Since Andrew rides with such a high cadence (his pedals go around fast) it always appears as if he is just cruising.

I decided that I might as well try to catch him so I attacked in Hidden Valley and came close to riding up on him. Hahaha. Then the good times began. I was really close to him and was debating whether or not to try and unload to pass him when I turned a corner after Hidden Valley to find a cloud of dust. That's right. A cloud of dust.

The reason a cloud of dust is funny is that it just doesn't happen on climbs. I mean when I turned the corner it looked like someone had just gone DOWNHILL not up. I then looked up to see that Andrew had grown the gap between us. I wanted to give up right there, but I kept a fairly aggressive pace in the hopes that he would burn out. He didn't.

As it turns out he had pushed really hard for half a minute on purpose to space us out. Hahaha. He played mind games and won! Hahaha. Good times.

Next time I won't fall for it Andrew! :D


On a side note, I'm reading a book called "Lance Armstrong's War". I needed to kill a lot of time while waiting for an oil change, so I figured I'd read a book. So far as a whole it's not all that interesting. There are however several nuggets about bike racing in general that I find fascinating.

For example, the writer claims that pro road riders never walk anywhere. They refuse to walk because it wastes energy. Also they never walk up stairs because again - that wastes energy. They also apparently have insanely strict diets and some of them even shower in their jerseys because they think water on the skin will make their muscles weaker. Hahaha. Incredible.

Loose Ends

Ok, some loose ends and random thoughts that I didn't want to cover in other posts ...

First is the game of HORSE.

Me losing in HORSE:



HORSE for basketball is where someone takes a shot and then challenges you to make the same shot. If you don't make it, you get a letter. One letter at a time until you spell HORSE, which is when you know you've lost.

Mountain biking HORSE is similar. Someone on the ride tries to clear a climb (or a descent) and then you try as well. If someone makes it and the other person does not (they have to put a foot down), then the person that missed it gets a letter.

A practical example from Monday:

Matt clears a very tough, steep and loose climb and I did not. That's an "H" for me.

So I lost the game Monday at the very end of the ride by tipping over and not being able to unclip my foot. Stupid eggbeaters.


In other news ...

I have set a new goal for my riding. Haha. I have decided to divide all rides into two categories, namely "Rock" and "Roll".

Rock rides are rides that require some hiking and are generally technical and taxing physically. You rarely if ever are able to settle into any kind of rhythm, hence the "rock" name.

My goal for "Rock" rides is to average 7mph. I'm averaging 5-6mph right now, so that gives me something to shoot for. This means that I would like to do the San Juan-Los Pinos ride with an average speed of 7mph.

Roll rides are rides where you can get a sustained climb or downhill for the majority of the ride. Think of Whiting, The Luge, Blackstar, etc. These rides allow you to get into a zone and just hammer. They also have downhill sections that don't make you get off the bike.

The "roll" rides should average 10mph. This is a goal because I'm not there yet. I averaged around 9.5mph the other day for a Whiting-Luge ride and that was because I was pushing very hard. If I can consistently average 10mph on "roll" rides, I'll be a happy camper.


The final loose ends deal with racing and training. I'm attending a clinic in November that should help me learn some better bike handling etc. I'm really excited to get out there and learn all I can from some good pro riders.

The last note is that I still want to do at least one more race before the year ends. I just need to figure out which one. I'm kicking around a few ideas, but I think I need to just sign up for one and then I can start planning. We'll see ...

Bare Chested Birthday Bono Loses at Horse

Wow! What a title for a post eh? The logic behind the title:

1. It was super hot this Labor Day weekend and so I had my Fox jersey unzipped all the way. That makes me bare chested.

2. It was my birthday Monday (Labor Day), so that's easy.

3. My new Specialized sunglasses apparently make me look like Bono from U2.

4. I lost at HORSE on Monday. I'll explain this later in the post.


The first ride this weekend was on Saturday. A group of us went up San Juan and then took "new" San Juan to Viejo Tie. We jumped back on Old San Juan to finish the trip back to the cars.

A few interesting notes from the ride:

- I ran out of water and had to borrow some from John Colvin. I feel like an idiot every time I need help on the trail. I need to bring more water.

- Some jerk slammed his bike on mine at Cocktail Rock. You know who you are you Orange-Santa Cruz-Nomad-riding punk. Not sure what the deal with that guy was, but he wasn't cool at all.

- Cramped going up Old San Juan. Not enough water I guess.

- Slammed my pedal into my right shin right on the spot that had just healed from a crash on Coyote in Aliso. Man, it hurt _really_ bad.

- Cleared all lower switchbacks before Cocktail except for the last one. Well, what I mean is all switchbacks before you "cross over" to the other side of San Juan. Hard to explain, but it was awesome that I cleaned so many on the way up.

I will say the trip from Cocktail up new San Juan is 100x more enjoyable than the trip _down_ new San Juan. There were some fun challenging sections on the climb to Viejo Tie. I made some and missed others, but it's always fun to make stuff you didn't think you could make. I cleared two really high steps going to Viejo Tie that pleased me considerably.


The second ride of the weekend was in San Clemente. Like an idiot I thought that since the trail was only worth 20 something points on GeoLadders that our one lap on Monday morning would be super easy. With that in mind I didn't bring a lot of water. Big mistake.

The first lap took a lot longer than I thought it would. The trend this summer seems to be to do rides where I average 6-7mph. It was really hard to get cranking on the bike because of the constant turns and short steep climbs or descents. Frustrating at first, but more and more fun as the day went on.

The second lap was a good pace and allowed me to cross off the "official" San Clemente route from my GeoList. The first ride was some personal route where Troy led us around.

I'm not sure I'm going to be going back to the area a lot since it's not close and I prefer trails where I can get some momentum built up. But it might be a nice diversion if I get too tired of the Santa Ana's etc.

Riding over a bridge in San Clemente: