I wrecked my body

Totally ruined myself, man.

It is now roughly 30 hours after finishing the Washington State Time Trial championships. I've been on the floor watching Breaking Bad for three hours now. And I can't move.

Last night I felt like I had been repeatedly stabbed. I couldn't roll over in bed, because for all I knew my hips had been disconnected from my body and were floating around in an smorgasbord of discomfort and angel tears. Let's not even begin to talk about my ass muscles. Sweet Baby Jesus.

Let's not talk about something else. How there is something wrong with me. Why do I want to do another one of these? Just typing is hurting my forearms!

Yesterday I drove to Tenino, the town where they feed road kill to wolves at Wolf Haven. On tap was a 40km time trial, on mostly flat roads. There was a section of terrible chipseal where upon hitting it, my power went up 200 watts and my speed went down probably 7 mph. There wasn't much wind, there wasn't much turning, and there wasn't much to distract you from pedaling hard. This combination of factors combined to create the feeling in my universe that there may be a risk of internal combustion and permanent damage.

I've never done a 40 km time trial before. I've done similar things though. I've ran full speed into brick walls. I've jumped off a bridge into piles of nails. I've also tied my legs to semi trucks and have them driven in opposite directions. Only one of those statements is true (two counting this one).

Now that I wrote that, I think it is probably pretty likely that I have ran into a brick wall in my lifetime. So two of those statements were true.

Since I never have done a 40km tt before (sorry to ruin the game), I set a power goal and wanted to stick to it. I was feeling great, I was in a good rhythm, I was staying smooth, and I was passing people. I thought that I was on tap for a great ride! Then, shortly before the turn around, something happened.

I got MASSIVELY Colby-Cranked. That's right folks, my teammate Colby Wait-Molyneux started one minute behind me and had just caught me by the turn around. I right then threw my power goals out the window and pedaled as hard as I could. This worked well for about three minutes until I started to implode and I backed off again. Soon, Colby caught and passed me for the second time. I focused on staying smooth and passed him back ten minutes later. He caught me with two K to go, and I caught him back with 500m to go. We finished together, with Colby finishing exactly one minute faster than I did.

I had a ride I was very happy with. I did better power than I was hoping, I didn't explode, and I didn't have anything left at the line. Colby and I were able to go 1-2, with third place a couple minutes back from me. Let's find where Colby got that minute!

Here I am, settled into my pace on the way out. Notice I'm mostly nose breathing, I'm in focus, and I look like a fairly friendly human.

Check out http://spotshotphotography.smugmug.com for more great photos!

Meanwhile, Colby was coming up HOT behind me. Here's what one minute looks like! Notice the lion roar, the shifter further down in a bigger gear, the blurry photo, and the lack of apparent eyeballs. You never want to let your competition see your eyes. I need to paint my visor.

http://spotshotphotography.smugmug.com

We rode the same time on the way back and passed eachother five times. Actually:

The way back

http://spotshotphotography.smugmug.com

http://spotshotphotography.smugmug.com

Will Teal from HSP had a good ride for third, and I heard that he finished on a flat tire. That means he was smashing it!

Here's a picture I pulled off of Colby's FB page. It's Colby there on the left. I can only hope that's me on the right.

I love these time trial things. Wow.

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The internet is CRAZY

Hello world.

First of all, you are reading my mind right now. Thanks internet. Try and read my mind in person, and I guarantee you will be wrong. Unless you predict that I was thinking about monkeys and slurpees, then there is a good chance that you would be right.

Mind-reading ability is only one of the smallest examples of the ways in that the internet is an absolutely crazy and mind-twisting realm of human capabilities and function. Let's take a look!

First, the internet makes it so that celebrities, sports heroes, politicians, comedians and that person you are stalking are just one small click away. You may never have a chance to meet Lady Gaga, but you can follow her tweets with passion. This access often never leads to much, with usually only a sarcastic defense (if any) to various fans tweets of admiration, or in most cases, hate.

Recently however, there has been one shining example of just how crazy the internet is. I'd like to introduce you to "Bubby Lyles". He had 500 twitter followers. He then decided that OMG Lolo Jones is a hottie, I'd love to date her.

http://instagram.com/p/bzs-j_nJzz/#

Then, he used twitter to ask her on a date.

In 11 days, he got 150k retweets. WHAT! In those 11 days, he shot from 500 followers to 2500+ followers. What!

The greatest thing about this is how down Lolo was:

You see people! With the internet, you can do anything.

Next, I hate skateboarding. I tweeted this earlier this week because it is amazing. Seriously incredible. Thanks internet for making this possible.

Finally, I have incredible powers when I use the internet. I admit, I was doing something stupid. Truthfully, most things that most people do on the internet are pretty stupid, but here I was, August 1st, looking at various winter cycling shoes to buy for when the weather turned sour. I was hoping I could get a good deal since it was summer and all, but instead of a good deal I got another surprise.

That's right, the next day I got torrentially rained on while riding. The first time in quite awhile that I rode in rain, and it happened the day after I looked up winter shoes on the internet.

The next day I was looking around the Smith Optics website. The next time I rode my bike? 80 degrees and sunny. You're welcome, world

So as you can see, the internet has magical powers that make things happen. It may be a date, or it may be inspiration, or it may be a shift in weather. Since it's apparent that what you search on the internet comes true, recently I've been doing a lot of researching on Professional Cycling, BMW's, and Capuchin monkeys.

See you later!

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Maturing

I've been listening to the album "Country Grammar" by Nelly a lot lately. By a lot, I mean maybe once, half-way through. By lately, I mean today. This is another fine example of rap music being very different listening to it as a 23 year old with life experiences rather than a ten year old listening to it all fresh and shiny, proud of his first rap CD purchase- way cooler than Jennifer Lopez CD's. I mean, uh, Beastie Boys CDs....

Apparently that tattoo says "Lunatic"

Another great example of this is the album Word of Mouf (sic) (sic=thus was it written). I had this one as a wee lad, but I had the edited version. We listened to this album on the way home from  Cascade and I learned that when listening to it unedited, the songs are longer, much more filled of words and significantly more descriptive.

Normally when I don't update after a race it means Ish went bad and I don't feel loco enough to write up stories. This wasn't the case from the final two days of Cascade. I've just been busy. I've been doing some real man shit. Real life shit. Just real adult shit, man. Real talk, real deal. Really.

So let's take a ride on the magic memory train where I'll share with you Cascade stages 5 and 6 and then that real manly stuff I've been talking about.

We did the crit and it went. My favorite part was when I noticed the sprinklers going on and drenching all the spectators on the slowest part of the course. I was having no luck getting to the front of the bike race so when I was going 8mph through the third and fourth corners of the course I was able to notice these things. It was ALMOST like this:

We finished and then ate food and then Jon and Staz napped.

Sunday's stage is one that pretty much daily I think to myself "omg, Ian, that course is perfect for you. Do dank things there, ok?". Then, the race comes around and I find myself thinking things more along the lines of "WTF? WTF? WTF?" (why this fast? x3). Then I get dropped and scheme for years to come when one day I'll have the good ride that I've been promising myself since I was a second year u23.

This year I crossed the bridge from terrible ride to pretty good ride but no result. This is something that I'm ok with, but nowhere near content with. I made all the front splits on the climbs, chilled in the group while Staz and Steve melted in the break, and plotted. I put a lot of emphasis on the word chilled in that above sentence, because Harry Dynamite went back for bottles and ice socks approximately 1 million times.

Hero work.

We raced, the break got caught, and I learned just how different the finish stretch is at race speed rather than dropped and sulking speed. I did a good sprint from tooooooo far back and finished directly in mediocrest place. Maybe some day I'll do a good'un here and I can be famous too!

Ya see, Rhae does winning and gets compared to Jens Voigt. Interesting.

I returned from Cascade feeling slightly mature. I decided that to continue my maturation, perhaps become an adult and maybe just maybe eventually be growned-up enough to have a GREAT race on the Awbrey Butte Circuit, I needed to do more adult things.

First, I went to get my car's emissions checked.

I failed.

Then, I went to the shop to see about getting it fixed. It was $900. I said no thanks.

I failed.

Next, I got a haircut.

I won.

Then I went to an art show, classy and adult-like of me.

Then, I decided that being an adult was for softies so I slept till ten and went bike riding. I went pedaling, where I saw something that I thought epitomized specifically just what's wrong with this world. I was stopped at a light, and crossing the street were three girls. These girls were, if I had to guess, 10 years old. They were wearing sunglasses, carrying purses, and drinking Starbucks frapasomethings. Somewhat disturbing.

I continued on with my ride slightly concerned with how the world is evolving. Soon, I came across a group of ~ten-year old kids riding their bikes in the street. I passed them, made the corner, and one of the kids bunny hopped the curb, sprinted up the sidewalk, and shortcut passed me back. He yelled "woohoo!" and threw up both hands in a victory salute. His friends cheered behind me.

Faith = restored.

Then I brake checked him into the next corner and attacked as hard as I could.

Officially mature.

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Cascade time trial event and road biking race

I started this yesterday so if it sounds confusing, you probably should stick to your Archie and Jughead comics.

Today we did an aerodynamics contest in the Kentucky of Oregon. These certainly display some strengths and weaknesses for people.

I really like time trials. Each one I do I'm surprised that I still like after, and I get excited for a TT days in advance. Turns out that if you like something, you don't automatically win. Which I'm fine with, because I would be winning Kobyashi type contests and I really don't want to be a winner of those sort of things.

Pretty typical morning, really. We drove in the van listening to Jon's Australian rap. It's better than regular rap because they have fun accents and rap about kangaroos and Fosters beeyhur. We arrived at the parking lot, see a professional team parked DIRECTLY next to the "absolutely no event parking here" sign, park the van, repark the van, warm up, start house, go.

I pedal way too briskly for the first eight miles. I catch my thirty second guy 300 meters before the turnaround, pass him, and begin to crank home. Then my 30sec guy drafted me the entire eight miles back to the finish line. TTT minus my participation. This was new to me, since it was so blatant. In fact, he passed me once and swung off as if he wanted me to rotate through. I didn't.

Here's the fun part. He's from a line of famous people. You see, this chap that started in front of me and had the easiest last 8 miles ever is a Moser.

That's right! He's a nephew or son or grandson or something of Francesco, and that would make him a cousin or brother or son of Moreno who got third on today's stage of the TDF.

Check out that crazy wheel!!!

Anyways, I've unlocked the secret of all the Moser's family success. Silver bullets! Speaking of those, Steve's aero water bottle fell off during his start, so he didn't win.

Then I went to the river instead of posting and when I came back I was hungry and after I ate I was sleepy.

Then, we woke up at 5:15 am to eat and get ready to go to start of our next stage, which was at 8:30 in the morning.

That means that lots of people had to do this:

The Bachelor stage parking situation is quite large, since its sole purpose is to be a place to leave vehicles. That means a normally terrible situation is actually quite painless. You may have thought that I was talking about where to place a large van, but the real conundrum comes when you get to the start of a bicycle race with 200 power meter geeked out cycling lunatics and you need to sync your Quarq and your Garmin. Normally, this smells like trouble. But, this spacious Bachelor parking lot is extra big since the finish is no longer a coned off spiraled parallelogram like in years past and that allows for perfect pairing possibilities. See!

Photo credit: Graham Watson

So once everyone had taken care of what they needed to take care of, we were off for a downhill bike racing contest. This course has a finish climb, and they advertise it as so. What is left out is the fact that we covered the first 90 miles in three hours. You can do the math, Will Hunting.  Good!

Gameplan is as simple as it always is on paper: make the break, stack the break, go 1-2 from the break with a big enough gap to take over the GC, Best Young Rider, Points, and KOM jerseys. We were WELL on our way to doing that today when after a tumultuous first 40 miles (so about 45min of race time, something like that) Chris and Jon worked their way into what appeared to be the dankest group to ever get off the front of the Cascade Classic, with nearly all teams represented with multiple riders a piece. I took this opportunity to try and relearn how to breathe and to make my legs work slightly better than they had been for the first bit of the stage. Not too successful on that front. CyclingNews got a great photo of Staz and Jon in that move:

After a spirited chase by Jelly Belly which made me hate my legs and my decision to not be a computer nerd and pedal things instead, the move got brought back. Then, the group collectively decided that now was the perfect time for a big 'ol crash. Let me tell you what happened to me in this bicyclepalooza.

There was a whole lot of braking in the field as everyone skidded and swerved to avoid the carnage. I had to brake to avoid hitting person one on the ground. Person two behind me chose against that option and bumper car rammed me directly in the most sensitive spot of my bicycle. The derailleur. I quickly ate a cookie to gain some mass, and instead of going down with the person behind, I did a bicycle version of this with the entire strength of my Shimano derailleur:

Rolled out of fine, kept pedaling, and then was informed by Staz that my hanger was bent all out of shape like when you put 3 laundry bags in the wash together and they come out broken and twisted like a Skrillex song.

The good news? I had a spare bike on the car. The bad news? The race (mostly my teammates) was (were) going ape up the road to try and get into the next move. I was stuck in a limbo area- I couldn't shift too far up otherwise my whole biznaz would get destroyed and I'd probably end up in the ditch. I also didn't want to stop and get a change right then, because the race was going too fast. So instead of going all snapping turtle with my teammates at the front of the race, I twiddled my thumbs waiting for a good moment to get on a new bike. That finally came, and Doug jumped out of the car and got my bike off to the roof faster than cartoons. I like cartoons.

I got back in the bike race, and worked my way to the front just in time to do nothing of value. I almost won the race into the base of the climb but lost that too, and rolled in with a big group about two minutes down. Jon had a good climb despite riding in the break today and finished in the second group on the road.

Then we rode home from the stage finish to end the day at 113 miles and about a 27 something average speed.

Good news. I can hear normally out of one of my ears! Goood times.

Credit: the world wide web

 Okay

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cascade update

i've decided to forgo using the shift key on my computer because i can't be bothered.

I've changed my mind because that looks as if it was written by an infant, and the only infancy that I'll participate in today was the level of my bicycle pedaling up and around Mackenzie Pass. However, after evaluating the results from today, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that my 139th place on the stage was attained with far more cunning than you may imagine. You see, Cascade lets 200+ register in order to stack that paper cheese. Then, in a display of their power, hack the field to 150 riders before the criterium bicycle tournament on Saturday. For some, the GC battle is for the top 10, even the top five if you are one of the talented few who didn't find today's stage hard. For others, the (I'd argue) real GC battle is for 150th place. I... placed... myself pretty far back today, but not TOO far back. What a relief!

Let's rewind to last night's prologue, since I haven't mentioned that yet. Everyone's favorite thing to do after 2.3 mile time trials is to pick their race apart until their actual effort is a limp comparison to what they could've done. If all the prologue deities and gypsies aligned, every last one of us silly, incredibly alike bike racers would be winners. Which, if I understand life (aka bike racing) correctly, isn't possible.

As you can see in this photo, I have scientifically proven that there is only one winner in bike pedaling:

Ok, so I was talking about prologues, how they are short, and how there are always spots where you think "OMG I totes could've gone faster here". When the time gaps are this close, it's easy to see where you could find that extra six or ten or 13 seconds:

I'm going to mind ramble and shuffle you now. After all that lead-in, I'm going to instead be grateful of my 21st. Rather than be pissy that I didn't go X seconds faster so I got X place, check out the fact that I STOMPED the 13 sec back group! That's right folks, I was the winner of the losers in that ONE second space from spots 21-28. Let's talk about where I made up those seconds, rather than where I could've gone faster. Booyah

• I trimmed my gorilla arms this week! I saw Steve shaved his arms prior to the UCI win in Delta, so I assumed that simply by trimming my arms I'd be set for some sort of miracle. Even though I wore a long sleeve skinnie, I'm going to assume this = +.5 seconds
  
  
• As mentioned in my pre-prologue boredom post, my head has been all congested and such. This was an extremely helpful thing for two reasons: the weight of my head tripled to at least Lang mass, and that made it so I was able to keep in the aero position much better than normally. My heavy head stayed low. The second reason involved my clogged ears. I couldn't hear myself breathing, so I just had to assume I could go harder. That is AT LEAST one second. 

• Our team van was parked about 200m to the finish. This allowed us to watch people cross the line, see their technique, and evaluate their performances as they finished. This was all fun and games until I realized that I would soon be riding on the same course as the other pedalers and passing the team van as well. The extra motivation of making sure that I kept composure through the last 200 meters had to have been worth at least 12 seconds.

• I wanted to pedal hard. = +1/1000th of a second

More proof that I have a heavy head this weekend! Here's the descent off of Mackenzie Pass. Apparently we got loose this year.

To pass the time, I've been reading about bank robberies. Don't ask why. Seriously.

In this research, I've discovered the legend of a man named Willie Sutton. This guy was an excellent bank robber because plain and simple he had a great time while doing it! Slick Willie dressed up in costumes like he was trying to give out a court summons to an unwilling participant. Then, while all costumed up, he'd hit you with the "surprise, I'm not the mailman. Give me your money!" Super simple, super effective.

Speaking of super effective, Staz and I were telling eachother stories in the laughing group today. I use that term loosely since our group was getting attacked and guttered repeatedly. Also I told one story and Staz couldn't think of any. Regardless, the moral of this story (not the one I told but the one I'm telling now) is that while bike racing in warm weather, I dream of slurpees. I requested our vehicle stop for frozen beverages immediately upon finishing. We stopped at a place that advertised smoothies. The elderly Russian woman who greeted us called Staz handsome and told Doug that he couldn't have whipped cream once he turned 50, so he should take advantage of it now.

The end.

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Killing time in Bend

My ear has been clogged since I think Saturday. My sinuses have been slightly Kennettronned and I'm fairly certain that when I sprinted in the Derby Dias criterium I sent some sort of reverse osmosis from my sinuses through my ear canal and it got stuck there like when the guy from Home Alone tries to sneak in through the dog door and instead gets hit in the face with a frying pan.

Because of this strange anomaly occurring in my head region, I've been talking louder, hearing less, and becoming much more aware of my surroundings. That, plus the Cold brew that I had at Backporch Coffee this morning made for a weird pre-prologue bike ride. The world felt slow motion and as I moved through it at extraordinary speed and quietness, I couldn't help feel like I had finally made it as a cast member in one of the greatest animated films of all time. Besides Ratatouille. I spelled that right on the FIRST try.

All this slow motion quiet life has had me thinking a lot about the latest book that I read, called "The Way of the Peaceful Warrior". There was a section of that book where it talked about a concept called Satori. This idea is reflective of that haze you get when doing something important, when "attention rests in the present moment, when the body is alert, sensitive, relaxed, and the emotions are open and free. Satori is the warrior's state of being". I can't even begin to express how excited I am that since Saturday, I've been in a permanent state of Satori. Something to do with that ear thing has had me fully immersed in the present. I can't be distracted by far away noises. I can't be bothered to listen to anyone's conversations.

So, it seems that I'm a warrior now. Which is appropriate, since my power creature for tonight's pedaling is a combination of these beasts:

SLAM

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Gastown

Bike racing is the weird step-cousin sport in North America. Television would rather show extreme fly fishing rather than twilight criteriums. Apparently, TV can't catch "it"- the combinations of things that make bike racing so spectator friendly and exciting.

The Gastown GP has figured it out. Whatever it is. The allure behind this race seeps into the air and there is a general buzz as the combination of 200+ racers and 10,000 spectators share the enjoyment of something truly beautiful.

Gastown is a race that has been around for a long time. I spectated in '08, and watched Svein Tuft make everyone look silly and in the process of that make ~20,000 dollars. Last year I was super excited to even be in the race. It's a race that I had always wanted to do and just being in the field was a great experience. I didn't reallllly race though. I rode around and got 80th. I wanted, and was ready, to RACE this year.

But first! Being a twilight crit and all, we got the great pleasure of going on an easy AM spin. This was even more excellent than usual, because our host house was quite near to a well-maintained bike park.  This park had your choice of obstacles: Dirt jumps, turns and berms, rhythm sections, drop-offs and mountain bike trails. Since Jamis recently announced a new cyclocross team, we figured we could do some fun activities to test the limits of our frames and skills. This means that I watched as everyone else got loose, because we all know how I feel about mountain biking.

Steve trying to scuff his new shoes. Credit: Winger Studios

This trail was marked beginner, so I gave it a try. Credit: Winger Studios

Just 6 guys and we're having a good time, having a good time. Credit: Winger Studios

Alright, so we went biking and then drove to the race for more biking.  I just can't get enough.

The course at Gastown is a loooong rectangle-type shape with a little zig-zag instead of two 90's and a U instead of two more 90's. Since that made about as much sense as a Shaggy song:

Here's a picture of the course to clear things up:

It was a headwind on the downhill back straight and, since I know a lot about weather, it was the opposite on the front straight. When you were going the other direction. So it was a tailwind.

The name Water St. is somewhat grumpy to me, because on lap three I lost my water bottle somewhere between the last corner and the huge set of bumps on the finish straight. Every time that I rode past a puddle on the course, I did this:

Moving on. People stage for this race almost 30 minutes before the start of the actual pedaling. It would've been nice to have lined up in the front, but I didn't get there. Oh well. I'm under the impression that if you can't move through the pack to get to the front, then you don't really belong at the front anyways. So I set about getting to the front. Here's a strange photo that I found from the startline:

Credit: Scott Robarts

As you can see, Steve got a call up and got the excitement of being on the start line when they had the photo with the Jr. Devo team. You can see why I find this incredibly fortunate:

Credit: Scott Robarts

We got going, I made it to the front in time to see that Steve had already gone in the breakaway, so I spent the next bit covering moves and getting yelled at for not helping chase Steve down. Steve going in the breakaway surprised me so much! Usually that guy is content to just sit in and wait for the race to happen around him.

We continued racing, I got thirstier, and soon it was 10 laps to go. David towed me into great position, but I was using a lot of energy to keep it, so I drifted back to about 15th-20th wheel. Here I could take the corners fast without being in the swarm in the top ten. It was perfect. Getting the bell with one lap to go, Steve brought me up the outside of the field and as we went through the 180, I was in the top five. Things were great down the backside, and I started to prepare for the sprint. As the race swarmed into the third corner, I made an instinctual move to try and shoot the middle to grab Ken Hanson's wheel. I did that! And things were great. Then, the swarm pushed me in, I grabbed brakes, and then I lost some spots. Oops. Negative points. I did a sprint that I was happy with, passed some people, and finished up 12th on the day.

Credit: Greg Descantes

It was pretty cool to actually be a part of the bike racing at Gastown instead of just riding around. Turns out that 10,000000 people on course make a lot of noise during the closing laps. Only 11 more spots to go until that lucrative $15,000 prize!

Thanks to Global Relay for bringing Gastown back, and thanks to the drunkards for yelling especially loudly.

I WILL BE BACK!

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