haiku form:

bump chicanery
"feel, be the grass" yells paule.
gathering vigor…

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dfl #1 - sept 5 - golden gate park, sf

first race effort, ouch.
sierra ash: sky, lungs burn.
sun pretty, men not.

larpd #2 - sept 8 - robertson park, livermore - 7/7

dizzying hairpins.
superman remount » tire roll.
reglue every year!

larpd #3 - sept 15 - robertson park, livermore - 7/11

legs coming around.
more a's show up, behind me!
feel like a racer.

lion of fairfax - sept 29 - white hill middle school, fairfax - 28/29 (9 dnf)

guts fell out last week.
techy parcours, no power.
dudes behind, finish!

pilarcitos #1 - oct 7 - sierra point, brisbane - 37/38

head, legs still elsewhere.
drifting backwards through traffic.
flat flexus. beat mau!

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dfl is back. they actually got some new race numbers and got up well over 100 entrants. i got a decent spot at the start so didn't deal with much gridlock. only lapped by justin and cam in the last ¼ of the last lap.

thanks to julie, erin, and malik for coming out for the absurdity.

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2. ride it for a month or two to get comfortable with it.

3. do some core work to anchor your pedal stroke at extreme cadences.

4. ride it two days in a row.

5. on day 2, do a couple short, hard, seated climbs at super low cadence followed by descents at super high cadence and recovery. work hard, but don't completely blow yourself up

6. as soon as possible after the last rep, find a flat, scenic, uninterrupted stretch of good pavement to spin your legs out.

voila, pedaling nirvana¹. if you achieve it, you won't be able to tell if you're pedaling the bike or the bike is pedaling you. you will be moving fast but feel like you're effortlessly warming down. your legs will buzz.

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1: results not guaranteed, your results may vary.

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which superhero are you?

san francisco, ca (home)
gold river, ca (in-laws')
elmhurst, il (work)
soda springs, ca (snow)
poipu, hi (honeymoon)
princeville, hi (honeymoon)
kings beach, ca (snow, sun)
portland, or (en route to whistler)
whistler, bc (mountain biking)
westport, ma (oishi wedding)
meriden, nh (grandparents')
santa cruz, ca (dreyer wedding)

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new hope - blink 182 - an ode to princess leia

i mostly only use the thing during the occasional public transporation commute. it seems like one of these two songs comes up during more trips than not. yesterday it was sir psycho sexy.

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photo: rick rasmussen

manzanita park, prunedale
2006/11/26
elite men
19/24
'mate: aron

i got back on the headcold rollercoaster the week before this race. not as bad as the previous week, but still not feeling 100%. i arrived with hopes of doing and feeling better than the last race here in september. the weather definitely suited me better. overcast in the 50s as opposed to sunny in the 80s. actually kept my arm warmers on for the race.

i liked this version of the course much better. the hairpins that the cccx crew love so much had better flow without so many dramatic slow downs approaching them. once the field got spread out, i had a good time mixing it up with jonathan from joselyn's and evan. evan had a mechanical and lost a lap or two and was just doing hot laps by this point. i'd catch up to him through the technical bits and descents then he'd pass me on the paved climb and i'd bury myself to try to hold his wheel and get a gap on jonathan. then i'd have to recover, evan would get a gap and jonathan would bridge back up. we repeated this for a few laps before i just let evan go and jonathan didn't bridge up anymore. really made me notice what a difference the climbing speed made on this course. i might have to do more to address that in the future...

my pacing seemed pretty good and i was gaining on sean coffey in the last couple laps. i finished only 9 seconds back from him. only barry lapped me and it took him 52 minutes to do it instead of 35 minutes in september on a similar length course.

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photo: julie

golden gate park, san francisco
2006/11/19
elite men
30/45
'mates: funke, aron; rich, matthias, and scott on the blinglespeeds

another great race in golden gate park. this will be the third year running that they've hit the nail on the head in scheduling this race. cinematically perfect low autumn sunlight filtering through the trees as the fog burns off. nothing but moist, tacky dirt on the ground from the previous week's rain and night's fog. it's refreshing to be able to stand up from the breakfast table 2 hours before start time, strap the race wheels onto my timbuk2 bag, and ride 10 minutes to the venue with plenty of time to get registered, situated, and warmed up.

i picked up a headcold last week, so was off the bike resting wednesday and thursday. just 30 minutes easy/flat on the fixie to wake the legs up friday. i slept and napped as much as i could friday night and saturday. and then i took another nap. went out to preride the course on saturday and i was liking it. only a few variations on a circuit that i've been riding a lot this year with aron and with funke's wednesday evening rides. home court advantage! my head was still draining a little bit and i had some, shall we say, voluminous snot rockets to offer, but my heart rate came right up when i tested it on a hot lap of the course. it felt pretty good and easy but i wasn't sure exactly what to make of it. either i was primed and ready to rock, or my body was still otherwise occupied trying to heal as well. tbd at the race.

i felt a little trepidatious at the start because of my health, so i didn't go out too hard. got stuck in some traffic in the first lap because of it, but oh well. i wasn't off the back, so i figured i'd save whatever matches i had and work my way up as things started to sort themselves out. as it turns out, i had plenty of matches to burn, and i easily worked my way around bunches of the usual suspects the first two times through the paved start/finish stretch. all right, looking good. first time this season i've really felt like that, and it felt good! settled into a solid pace with mack and a junior named cody. by mid race it seemed like mack was showing his fitness and started to gap us, and cody was starting to fade. i was riding hard but still well within myself, not sure if my health was going to catch up with me.

i was feeling sloppy on the slow bumpy remount after the tall double barriers at the top of the hill. i supermanned a remount a little too much and could feel my rear tire buckle to the side under the pressure. a small section of tire had rolled off the rim just a little and was rubbing my seatstay. poop! i let cody take off while i tried to decide what to do. i could swap the wheel out for my spare, or try to push it back on which is a lot quicker, and risk riding on it for the rest of the race. i decided to give the latter a shot, and stopped at the top of the rooty section to push it back on the rim. it went back on fine, and i was back in business in a matter of seconds as rich came around me in second in the singlespeed category.

i followed rich around for a couple laps taking corners and remounts pretty gingerly until he rode me off his wheel. thanks for the draft, rich! the tire seemed to be holding fine, and i quickly caught back up to and passed cody. i had a couple more racers in sight in the last laps but wasn't able to quite get up to them except for aaron, who was barely moving. i think he might have had a mechanical or something.

so i finished with my best result of the season so far, feeling strong. not sure if all the rest last week brought on a fitness peak, or if it's just my form coming around, finally. but i'll take it. it feels good to have a strong result on home turf, providing welcome motivation for the last month or so of training and racing.

thanks to julie, deb, katy, and ariel for coming out to cheer. to dave and the rest of the meeces for all the volunteer work on the course and the series. props to marissa for braving her first 'cross race, and all the sycippers who seemed to up their game this week.

technical notes: looks like the tire didn't pick up much dirt after it rolled off, and it seems to be sticking back on well, so hopefully it won't need to be completely reglued, again. it's a fresh tire and fresh glue job after my blow out at white hill. also, after removing my top mount cheater brake levers this season, i decided to put a single rear one back on. i like to dismount and remount on the tops, and it allows me to control my speed (and confidence) that much more in fast barrier approaches. it got exercised quite a bit in this race, i appreciated it.

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granite bay, folsom lake
2006/11/04
a men
13/17
'mates: roger

we decided to make the trip up to sacramento to visit the 'rents-in-law and do a sacramento series race, as we've done a couple times in the past. i cut out of work early on friday in time to get to gold river for dinner. mmmmm, homemade lasagna....

a small field and a flat, windy, open course left just about everyone isloated eventually it seemed. once i lost the last wheel i'd been able to hold on to for a couple laps, i kept a steady pace and time trialed most of the race on my own. i wasn't feeling very motivated to be racing this week after the double race weekend last week and a hard set of intervals with aron on wednesday.

the double sand pit at granite beach was brutal as always. i managed to clean the first section a couple times, but bobbled and lost time when i failed. i was riding alone and the next guy ahead of me was steadily extending his lead, so the time loss didn't really feel like it made much of a difference.

the top three lapped me with less than a half lap to go. jordi, rich, and jim were duking it out fast and furious. jordi and rich were banging handlebars for the lead as they entered the sand pits. rich lost the good line and bobbled, giving jordi the win and almost allowing jim to catch him. props to jordi, and to jim for hanging with those two to the finish. i wasn't too upset to not have to go out for another lap, as we were already over an hour.

thanks to dave, connie, and julie for coming out to cheer and take pictures. always good to see roger.

based on my mood and motivation level in this race i decided i needed a little break from racing, so i aborted my plan to come back to sf for the pilarcitos race at mclaren park on sunday. we stayed another night in sacramento to relax and visit. dave and i went for a nice spin on the american river bike path on sunday. a welcome change of scenery. i'm curious to hear how the first legit race at mclaren went.

<br>]]> http://www.linebrake.com/2006/11/sacramento_cyclocross_7.html http://www.linebrake.com/2006/11/sacramento_cyclocross_7.html cyclocross Sun, 05 Nov 2006 17:11:07 -0800
photo: andrew yee

watsonville fairgrounds
2006/10/29
a men
30/33
'mates: aron

double race weekends are never easy. the second day of the first double of the season feels a lot like the first race of the season. even though i didn't dig too deep yesterday after my flat tire, it was still a solid hour of moderate to hard technical riding and i came into day 2 generally feeling flat, with sore calves from my little jog around half the course yesterday.

the course turned out to be another norcal bump fest, and i was a little bummed to be without my rear tubular (flatted yesterday). i was planning to run both clincher wheels today so as to not have such disparate tires, but after preriding the course i decided to run the front tubular anyway for the cush factor. still felt like i got pretty jackhammered by the rear.

i got held up for a second behind josh with his brake issue at the whistle, and i settled into last place for the first couple laps. just didn't quite have the top end ooomph to scramble back up there and mix it up. once everyone settled into their mid-race pace, i could see people start to come back to me. i easily worked my way around 3 people in the middle third of the race by trying to race strong and steady.

i finally got up to dean's wheel with about 4 laps to go and noticed that he wasn't running up the big hill very fast. i didn't try to pass him just yet, because i wanted a bit of a break so i sucked his wheel to the bottom of the hardpack hill at the back of the course. i tested him by attacking on the uphill to the second runup, but he held my wheel. i guess it wasn't going to be that easy. i pulled him back to the start/finish on the flats and called it even. he was still on my wheel the next time up the big hill, so i attacked again and got a gap on the runup. i was feeling pretty maxed out, but managed to hold the gap for the next lap. with a half lap to go, i hoped i had him, and tried to just dig a little deeper on the flats. but there he was on my wheel the last time up to the back side runup. he sat on, but i wasn't willing to pull him to the finish just to be out sprinted. he attacked pretty hard and i didn't have an answer, so let him go. he also managed to catch jeff patton in the final meters, who we had been gaining on. he had a good race i think.

so i made it through the double weekend. my pacing was strong today i think, but i was lacking in the top end for the beginning and ending, which put me back a few places from where i think i could have been if i'd been fresh like most of my competition. i'm planning one more double this weekend (sacramento and pilarcitos), and i'll be racing against mostly fresh people on sunday again i think, so i may have a similar experience. maybe i will have a little more spunk on day two and be more on par with where i think i should be. hopefully the double-double will pay dividends in speed for the rest of the season.

thanks to eric for hanging around to give me water even though i only took it twice, and lauren and michko for the cheers.

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white hill had a fun, small race feel after 3 consecutive weeks of bigger, series races.

after two mellow warmup laps on the tight course, my legs seemed to switch on, and i had some pretty great sensations for a half lap before the ladies came around after their start. a few warm up sprints a bit later out on sir francis drake didn't feel quit as spectacular, but not bad either. good signs for things to come.

only about 15 racers and no singlespeeders in arrears made for a pretty sane start, which was a nice change after last week. it would have been tough to accomodate a big field here with the tight start stretch and course in general. the school grounds were pretty small and they didn't have a lot of real estate to work with. so lots of tight, low speed corners that some folks were struggling with that kept speeds down. definitely a course that rewarded technical grace over brute speed and fitness. this suited me just fine and i actually found myself riding midpack with nick, jay, and evan after a couple laps. guys i haven't been able to touch most races so far. seemed like everyone i rode with crashed in the first 3 laps but i was having no problems.

and with things going so well, on the 3rd or 4th time down the fast bumpy decent after the runup on the back side of the course, PSSSSSHHHHhhhh...! poop! the air was completely gone from my rear tire in about 5 seconds, and i was about as far as i could get from my spare wheels. so i had a nice 5 minute jog around the back half of the course to the pits. a distance i probably would have ridden in about 2 minutes. everyone went by, although i was happily suprised how long it seemed to take for the tail to catch back up to me. i'd really put some time into them.

with at least 3 minutes lost to the next rider and another race tommorrow, i figured there wasn't much use digging too deep to try to catch back up with anyone, so i settled into a nice tempo pace for the second half of the race and got some good technical practice.

not much hope for the tire it seems. it has a 1/4" slash in it that looks too big to try to get to close up with sealant, so it's a write off i think. not suprising given how fast the air evacuated from it. i guess i'm on the clinchers tomorrow. hopefully i can get a new tire glued on this week.

thanks to tom and bjarne who hussled to find me a spare wheel when they saw me running. i got to my own spare before i got back around to them with their's. but i appreciate the effort. it was motivation to not dnf.

and thanks to dave for riding from sf to fairfax even though he only caught the very unspectacular ending.

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