- Bad Idea Racing - HAS LEFT THE BUILDING

When I got home from the short track race Sunday I proceeded to clean my bike, my shoes, my Element, my trike, you name it.  Everything I took to the race had been contaminated with mud .  Forty-five minutes of racing requires an hour of cleanup.  In the past I have given my flesh to a disc rotor, and I have taken blood samples with my chainring, but I thought that was the extent of injuries that could occur during the mundane task of cleaning my rig.  While I was hosing my Dean I leaned over the saddle and stretched to reach the hub.  I pushed down on my upper rib cage until I heard a “pop!”.  I doubt that I snapped a rib, but now I can’t complete a sneeze or a yawn as my chest isn’t fully expanding.  To top it all off I keep my U-Lock tucked in my chest strap at work and it digs into the sore spot all day.  

Isn’t it great that you can ride at warp speed through the woods and come out unscathed, but you go to clip your toenail and you slice open a major artery?

Back to the Iron Bike tidbit of the week:

IB fact #2:  This race will be different (in so many ways) than the other stage races I have done.  Instead of ending up in a hotel every night or sleeping in a big tent erected by some Canadian Boy Scouts I will be sleeping in my little Eureka every night.  I will be in my tent the night before the race, and I will sleep in it the night before I fly back to the US.  I will have to put it up after every stage and break it down every morning.  I have really debated the practicality of those tents that you just throw into the air to set them up, seriously.

She looks cozy, doesn’t she?  I bet it would make a fine shelter at 3,000 meters.

Well we were back at the short track action this weekend, and when there’s a short track race there’s rain.  At least the temps hovered in the mid 50-60 degree range so it was tolerable.  The Boy went off at 10:00am and ended up pulling out a fifth place.  Seems kinda wierd that on the drive over to the race we passed the current points leader on the highway and he was driving.  The Boy is only 13 so they hardly seem on the same developmental plane.

The Boy, looking for gears???  Big thanks to Cory at Lucky Cycles for hooking the boy up with a fork that moves.

After killing a few hours drinking coffee and spectating, the single speed class went off at 1:00pm.  We had a few new racers in the field and we lost some from last week.  Ross (currently in the overall lead) was back as well as Brian who was  holding third behind me.  It looked like we had a race on our hands.  I went for the holeshot again and got it.  I decided this time I would try to hold the lead as long as possible and it lasted about three laps.  At least I got a nice prime for leading up to that point.  Ross took over the lead, and I did my best to stay in visual contact.  When I saw him looking a little weary I attacked and passed him just to let him know I was there.  Minutes later I dropped back to second again, but I kept him in sight until I felt it was time and then I made my final pass.  I kept my head down and led the last three laps for the win.  

 

Rolling in the corner.

Aero-tucking with second right behind me.

Coming in for the win.

 

I am amazed at the range of thought I can have in a 45 minute race.  A lot of the same things that pass through my mind in a 24 hour race still come up.  They are just more intense and short-lived.  Can I still attack this climb?  Will I be able to close this gap?  Can I maintain my lead to the finish?  I just scroll through my index of thoughts and emotions so much faster.  Being behind by 20 seconds is equivalent to being down a seven mile lap, or it just feels that way.

Oh well, straight off the single speed and over to the bike wash.  In my mind the first guy across the line AND gets his rig clean wins.  As soon as I get done blowing the grease out of my hubs and bottom bracket with a hose I line up for the misfit class.  We have a much bigger group this week including The Boy.  The field included; BMX’ers, a fixed gear with a mismatched 16″  Walmart front wheel, a 12″ wheeled scooter, and me on an adult-sized 3 speed tricycle complete with a basket.  The Boy pulled out a win on his BMX bike while I had to fight it out for a tie for dead last with the guy on the mismatch wheeled fixie(it was a scary handing machine).  I did my best to put him into the barriers at the finish, but I think we still tied.  The three wheeled trip around the course was pretty scary as the brakes were no match for the inertia generated by the trike’s massive weight hurtling down the hill.  Oddly enough the headbadge on my trike says “Trailmaster”.  I don’t think the marketing guy who named my three wheeled death trap actually ever took it out for a ride as there is no trail out there that this thing could “master”.   

Putting the “Trailmaster” to the test.

Not much going on here. I will be headed to the short track tomorrow to test out a few changes I made to the rig. I also managed to shed a couple pounds of human in the last week. Hopefully all these things will add up and I will keep my head in the game.

Just saw on MTBR that there is a 100 mile race in Tennessee in April. Boy oh boy, that sounds so good. It looks like I got some negotiating to do with my team manager (wife).

Since my home computer is poo-poo it may be Monday before I can post anything about Sunday’s race. Is sausage good racing fuel?

I have always had a tendency to mess with things to try to improve them.  I always succeed.  Sometimes I succeed at making them better and sometimes I succeed at rendering them totally useless for any purpose.  I have modified Camelbaks, cut the cuffs off  DeFeet socks, poked holes in my riding shoes with a soldering iron, you name it.  If my modification fails to acheive a desired result I don’t usaully throw the item away.  I place it in storage just in case it has the potential to become part of something bigger in the future.  My wife calls my collection “crap”, but I like to think of it as “stuff that may have some value in the future”.

I got sick of having a number plate scratching up my bar/levers when the condtions are nasty.  Supposedly scratching up carbon bars is a no-no and I don’t want to find myself face down in the dirt wondering how good my dental coverage is.  I came up with this mount using some reflector brackets and I used nylon hardware to cut down on the weight penalty. 

Success, but the good kind.

 

What makes some people so competitive?  I’ll never figure it out.  Freud said we do things to impress the other sex or something like that.  Is it our inner gorilla?  Do some of us just need to thump our chest once in awhile?  If a gorilla snatches a banana from the highest tree in the jungle will he thump his chest if there is no one around to see him?

In college my roommate and I would see who could stack the most chess pieces totem-pole style for the title of “master of balance”.  We would also play home run derby (inside and outside), Nerf-hoop horse, fling cards at a hat, beer can war, beer Olympics, darts, mumbleypegs (with darts) etc.  Everything was a competition.  I have to think Freud was a little off because I don’t think anybody ever won the favor of a woman based on their performance. 

So we race our bikes pushing our bodies to the limit making sacrifices in our everyday lives, and people ask us why we do it.  Has anybody ever come up with a really good reason?

It amazes me how the smallest of annoyances can affect my everyday life.  My left pinky toe has been suffering for over two months with an unhappy affliction.

 That doesn’t really look like a toe, now does it?  I’m thinking roadkill?  I feel it everyday from the moment I slip on my SPD sandals till I go to bed.  I have tried plenty of home remedies, but it still annoys me everyday.  I am going to cut it off, or maybe just keep ignoring it.  In the words of Homer Simpson “if you ignore your problems long enough they will go away”.

Speaking of toes…

This is my toe two and a half months after La Ruta 04.  I had a tangle with another rider that had us both “touching the floor”.  I realized later that my foot had gotten caught in his spokes during our high speed engagement and it killed my toenail shortly thereafter.  It grew back three or four months later, and I did absolutely nothing to make it happen.  Maybe Homer S. is onto something.

On another note, my home computer died (or is in a coma).  My IT buddy is currently incommunicado so I will be limited in my blogging for awhile.  I start a blog and my computer dies.  That’s how my cookie crumbles folks.

Before the race last Saturday I was scoping the competition. I saw one rider wearing full Gary Fisher scaries and I put my crosshairs on his back. He had way cooler facial hair than me so he must be fast, right? Well I put my money on the wrong horse. The guy who won looked less like Travis Brown and more like the guy next door (I would’ve said Charlie Brown, but the guy’s just too nice). I am going to have a hard time painting him as the ruthless villian in my current life story.

I figured out a few things I did wrong this weekend and I am going to make a few changes. What will I change? Socks. Like I am gonna say something before the race. Please, he might be reading this.

I figured once a week I would offer up a small factoid/tid-bit/blurb/whatever about Iron Bike.

IB tidbit #1: The night before the first stage there is a prologue in the town of Saluzzo. The prologue is a mass start event that starts and 9:00pm and winds through the narrow streets and even down some old stairs. Just picture the chase scene from “Bourne Identity” except replace the Minis with bicycles and you’ll get the picture. There probably won’t be as much gunplay either. The prologue establishes the starting order on day one (last to first, going off in one minute intervals).

Let’s see…..mass start, night crit, stairs, rigid fork, first day in a foreign land? Sounds great.

First race of the Sir Edmond Halley’s Cup short track series.
Weather: warm 55 degrees, chance of rain: 1,000 %
chance of fun and eternal glory: 50%
First things first. The Boy (my son) raced in the juniors class (14-18) for the first time on a single speed. He really held up pretty well in the wet conditions, but he went down pretty hard late in the race. He was holding a nice top three position, but dropped back to fifth (5/7) after the crash. Did I mention he was on a SS? His first race on a SS? Give it some time and he will crush his enemies, see them driven before him, and hear the lamenations of the women. (greatest movie ever)

My race? Well it didn’t go exactly as planned. I made sure to line up at the front of the ten man field, and cranked my ass off to get the holeshot. I was first into the woods, and I stayed at the front for the first lap. I waved second place on through going into the second lap so I could see how he was riding. He looked pretty good, so I knew we had a race. It was also a stupid move as his sluicy roost splortched my glasses and I rode the rest of the race looking through a mud kaiedoscope. I put him behind me again so we could work together. We pretty much had the top two locked in, so I let him through so I could pace off him for awhile. I fell asleep at the wheel, and the next thing I knoew they were calling out eight minutes to go and I was fourteen seconds back. Oops, that was a bigger gap than I was planning on and I had no time to close it. I tried pretty hard for one lap, but I only got the gap down to ten seconds. With one lap to go I settled in for a second place finish.
Well now I know my nemesis, and his name is Ross. He has a face and I shall put it in my sights. He’s actually a pretty nice guy, but for my purposes I will imagine he is Hitler, Charles Manson, and Celine Dion rolled into one. It is my job to put this foul character back into his place and turn him into pack fodder. At least that is what I will tell myself till next week.
On a happy note; as soon as the SS class finished they started the “misfit class”. I lined up next to a guy on a fixie with knobbies and two semi-functioning brakes and two people in a Western Flyer red wagon. I was astride my work bike, a brakeless fixie with 23mm road tires. I guess the other misfits decided not to bring their beach cruisers out in the mud. It wasn’t much of a race, but it did get interesting when the red wagon cut the course only to get out front on the downhill section. They were screaming “take him out” as I went by, but I navigated past them and escaped intact. They did manage to put the other guy into a tree, but he was able to recover for second place. I won a Salsa beanie for my efforts, but I gave up the vintage 80’s neon purple saddle bag to second place.

Tomorrow is the first day of the Sir Edmund Halley’s Cup short track series.  Why would I be stoked about participating in a race that is over in 45 minutes when almost everything else I do this year will last hours or days?  Because it’s racing.  The length just means it will be asses and elbows from the gun and a redline effort to the finish.  A botched corner can cost you a place and you won’t have four hours to get it back.  A holeshot actually means something in a race like this.  Like I said it’s racing, so I like it for racing’s sake.  Tomorrow will be a good day to die.

I also have something ready for the “anything goes” misfit class.  $5 and three laps on anything with wheels, and it conveniently starts as soon as the single speed class finishes.   It is on like Donkey Kong (minus the monkey throwing barrels and the crafty acrobatic plumber).

Well this isn’t exactly the bike I have for the misfit class, but I can dream can’t I.

So why would I want to do Iron Bike? I was looking for a multi-stage event that didn’t require a partner like the Trans Rockies.  I found a few and after looking at them all I started looking at the fine print.  Iron Bike has a lot of fine print and most of it is in Italian.  I sent off a lot of emails and got a lot of answers( some great/some vague).  They have a ton of rules and some point system that is awarded based on your daily time back from the leader.  Too many points and you’re out of the race.  It seemed confusing, and I had all but decided to pass on the race.

In one of my emails I asked if it had ever been done on a single speed before.  It took another email to explain what a single speed is and then I got this reply:

“Absolutely not: impossible to do with a speed bike (till now).”

Well that was all I needed to hear.  All somebody has to do is tell me it’s a bad idea and I am in.  I am slightly worried about the points system as I will have a hard time keeping up on anything that is flat, but luckily it sounds like we will be going up and down a lot.  I am also pretty good at keeping my body and bike in motion.  I can pee, eat a banana, and fill my Camelbak at the same time if I have to.  It will also be interesting to spend hours in the saddle at warp speed, and then have to erect a tent at the end of the day only to have to take down the tent the next day and continue at warp speed again.  They limit  the amount of gear they will transport between camps so you have to choose your equipment wisely.  Some of the camps are over 3,000 meters so you have to save room for cold weather gear.  I think I am going to be weighing a lot of gear really soon.  Hmmm…. let’s see, bring a 1,000 gram spare UST tire or a warmer sleeping bag?