Boss Cross #3

I decided to go out and try my luck in the CAT3’s at Boss Cross #3.  I first have to start off by giving Joe and company their props for designing what I thought was a pretty good course.  The starting line was a long wide straight away that gave plenty of room for the field to jocky for position before the first turn.  There were a couple of corners that were a little tight and narrow (hint: if the tape needs to be fixed every lap, that is a good sign that the corner is a little too tight – not a complaint, just an observation).  I lined up in the second row of the 18 strong field after a quick practice lap.  I hung in with the field for the first ½ to ¾ of a lap, but just wasn’t feeling like I had any power.  I really need to warm up for at least 30 minutes on the trainer prior to racing, but I got down to the venue a little later than planned.  So, I decided not to chase the whole day and just ride the course at speed and work on my cross technique.  I did want to at least ride fast enough to not get lapped or finish last.  With about 3 to go, I was feeling a little better and decided to hit the gas.  As I approached the barriers and started my dismount, my cleat did not dis-engage immediately and I almost crashed, but was able to save it at the last minute.  I thought it was strange, as my dismounts have been pretty good this season.  On the next lap, I could see I was making up ground on the guy in front of me, but had the same thing happen at the barriers again.  Turns out the bolt on my cleat had come loose, so the cleat was moving with the pedal when I was trying to disengage.  Admittedly, I never check my cleats until I start to pull out of the pedals because of wear.  So I don’t know if I forgot to torque the bolt tight or what.  After the second mishap, the wind was out of my sails and I just went fast enough to hold my position.  I ended up 17^th for the day and I didn’t get lapped (see earlier goals).  I was really hoping my comeback to racing would be a little more productive, but I think I am resolving myself to just working on my fitness and getting my racing groove back on.  

I have 3 goals this season:

1)      Don’t get lapped

2)      Don’t finish last

3)      Finish every race

 

The results will come, but they may have to wait until next year……

Ritchey BreakAway TI Cross Review

I had no less than 6 different people stop me at yesterdays cross race to check out my Ritchey BreakAway TI Cross bike.  After several iterations, I finally got my Ritchey BreakAway TI Cross frame built up the way it should have been in the first place and I thought it was time to post a thorough review.  Anybody who knows me, knows I am a Titanium freak and I love cyclocross.  So when I considered getting a travel bike to take with me when I fly, I knew I was getting a Ritchey BreakAway from my team sponsor Ritchey and I knew it was going to be the TI Cross model.  

I have had this bike for a few years now and have put quite a few miles on it.  It has flown to Rapid City, SD and St. Louis, MO several times with no issues or oversize baggage charges.  Tom Ritchey really outdid himself with the BreakAway design.  It is so simple that it is genius.  The seatpost is the connecting rod for the first joint and a special fitting with flared ends is joined by a clamp on the downtube for the second split in the frame.  You can check out the Ritchey site for a more detailed explanation and a great video of how to pack/unpack and assemble the bike.  The frame just has that classic look and appeal that I would expect from Ritchey.  With my build kit of Campagnolo Record 10-speed, custom carbon tubular CX wheels, Crank Brothers 3TI Eggbeaters and a full complement of Ritchey WCS componentry;  the bike came in at 16 pounds.  

I was very skeptical about how much rigidity the frame would have, given that it splits into 2 halves.  I knew from the first time I rode it, that I was wrong.  I did not notice any flexing around the BB area when climbing out of the saddle or any twist when putting it through a technical CX course.  I wasn’t really surprised at how smooth it was, but the lack of flex was a huge shock.  So, this bike is comfortable, yet stiff and splits in two so you can take it with you in your travels.  The rear triangle has rack mounts, so you could easily set it up for touring or add some fenders. What more could you ask for?  I am not sure; as my only complaint is that they do not offer a hard travel case for it yet.  The soft case is still going strong, but I am always nervous when I fly with it.  The baggage handlers aren’t known for their respect of passenger luggage. I have been waiting for Ritchey to release a hard case, but I may just end up buying an S&S hard case before I travel next time. 

Some of you might ask if this could be your “A” race bike.  I am here to tell you that I have raced the bike in some local cyclocross races and it rocks!  The bike handles awesome.  It has never once gotten sketchy on me; whether the course was rough, soft, muddy or even when misjudging a corner.  There is plenty of mud clearance, as well.  With a race weight of 16 pounds, it is easy to shoulder up the most demanding run-ups.  I have never had to tighten any of the fittings after any race.  The list of benefits just goes on and on.  Wow, I am impressed. 

Not only does Ritchey produce some of the best components on the market, they also make an unbelievable cyclocross bike that just happens to double as an airline size travel bike!

Boss Cross #1

Rick Barrett and I did our best to represent Cow Town in the CAT3’s at Boss Cross #1. I haven’t seen the results posted online, but I think they had about 34 starters. I, unfortunately, was the last to line up due to a last minute nature break (won't let that happen again). Rick had a great starting position and was off with the leaders. The course was pretty narrow on the first corner and if you weren’t in the front group, you had to almost come to a complete stop. So, I ended up chasing the whole day. Since the course was not very technical, but fast, it looked like to me, that where you lined up is about where you finished. Rick trashed his rear derailleur and was not able to finish and I managed to make my way up to 27^th. Not a great showing, but it was my first CAT3 race since I upgraded back in 2009. A couple of things I did learn today, was that a good starting position is critical in the CAT3 races.  They seem to be much faster than what I remembered the CAT4's being.  You also need to force you way past someone if you want to pass.  I guess maybe I race differently than some, but if I can't bridge up to the next racer in front of me, I will let someone who thinks they can, by me.  Oh well, I'll get this racing thing down eventually.  It’s great to be back racing and hope to get a better starting position and finish tomorrow.

Tis' the season.....

Tis the Season for CYCLOCROSS!!  It has finally arrived in full force and I can’t wait to do some early season races and plan to do as many as I can throughout the season to race myself back into form.  I don’t expect any real results this year, because I have been away from the sport for a couple of years and I am sure there is some good local talent in the CAT3’s. 

I have finally been able to get a steady training schedule down and seem to be making some good progress towards my comeback.  I set some goals back in January, the #1 goal being to lose some weight and #2 to start riding my bikes again and #3 quit making excuses.  I have dropped a lot of weight (40 pounds), but that has come at a price due to the calorie deficit it takes to get that much weight off.  So, although I am finally at my “race weight”, I don’t seem to intake enough calories to sustain an effort when I am on the bike.  I need to find a balance between nutrition and performance.  I really need to figure out what I can eat before and during a ride or race to give me the energy I need to sustain an effort.  Right now, I can go fast for a short time and climb like a billy goat, but I just can’t sustain either effort for as long as I need to. It’ll come, but I am not as patient as I was 40 pounds ago. 

I met Guru the other night at a secret training facility and he laid out this kick ass cyclocross practice course for us to do some heat laps on.  I brought my portable pvc barriers and we had a great course to race on, with all the necessary elements.  It was a blast and I was putting down some great lap times.  I just hope that I can sustain that kind of effort for 45 minutes.  If so, I should be good to go. 

Speaking of cross, I converted to racing 100% on tubular tires and carbon rims the last season I really raced (2009).  It was a learning curve in many respects.  First and foremost is gluing those bad boys on, followed closely by tire pressure. I won’t go into tire pressure as it is a personal thing and varies by rider weight, tire selection and course conditions, but it could mean the difference between a win and a loss. I learned why gluing is the most important thing to me when I rolled a couple off the rim during the 2009 season (see pic of a tire roll in action) and got heckled by my teammate, I mean the crowd.  So I was talking to a guy at one of the races about it and he said he did all of his using the Belgian Gluing Technique.  He even went as far to say that he had to cut the tires to get them off, so I was immediately sold.  Now, I can’t verify anything yet, because I haven’t raced on the 2 sets that I Belgian Glued, but it looks very promising. I still have one set mounted with just Vittoria Mastik One, that hasn’t rolled yet, but the glue job is getting on in years and I expect it to roll at some time during the season and then I will Belgian Glue those as well. Here is the Belgian Gluing Technique that I used, straight from Stu Thorne:  

 Step 1. After stretching the tubular tire, apply one coat of Vittoria’s Matstik One glue to the rim and tire; let set for 24 hours. Thorne notes that thin coats of glue are key to good setup.

Step 2. Apply a second thin layer of glue to the rim and tire. Thorne then adds tubular tape to the rim (the Belgian Tape from www.cyclocrossworld.com), pressing it against the rim to smooth the tape out.

Step 3. Peel the backing off the tape, revealing the second adhesive side, and apply a thin layer of glue to this side of the tape and a third layer to the tire before mounting the tire to the rim.

Step 4. Inflate the tubular to 80 psi in order to make sure the tire is properly seated on the rim. Thorne then lowers the pressure to around 50 or 60 psi to let the glue cure.

Rolling your own...tire

That’s about it for now. I plan on posting a little more often, once I start racing again this season. Here are some pics of my trusty steeds that are going to get me through the season.  My A-bike is a Lynskey Pro-Cross weighing in at 15.5 pounds and my B-bike is a Ritchey Ti Breakaway weighing in at 16 pounds.  Both are built up with Campagnolo Record 10 speed and a full complement of Ritchey and Crank Brothers parts.  IT’S GO TIME!!

 

 

Race Myself into Form?

I find myself in a difficult place right now. That being totally out of shape. It has been a long time since I was this slow. This year so far has been very bad for me from an athletic standpoint.

My work load became very consuming and I was off the bike completely from September 2010 to June 2011 and I put on about 30 pounds over my race weight. I did a couple of short rides in that time, but nothing you could call training. So, I know why I am in the shape I am in.

My goal is to try to race at least 10 cyclocross races this season and train when I can.
I hope to get back down to my racw weight by January and really put in the time to get ready for next year. I've done 3 CX races this year so far, which resulted in two 4th place finishes and a 14th place finish.

I am not a quitter so, I'll keep at it. I've lost 10 pounds so far and only have 20 more to go. Stay tuned and check out the Cow Town website for race results and reports.

A little motivator.......

It’s been a while since I posted, but I have been away from the bike for so long, that it really didn’t seem a priority. I have finally started training again and hope to gain enough fitness before cyclo-cross season starts September 17th.

As a motivator, I decided to build up a second set of carbon tubular wheels for the upcoming season. Since I use Zipp 404 tubulars for my primary racing wheelset, I prefer Zipp Tangente Cork brakepads to help slow me down. It is a pain to switch brakepads anytime you want to roll aluminum rims, so in all my infinite wisdom, I decided it would be easier to just build a backup set of carbon tubular wheels. Not a lot of sensible logic there, but I had a set of my favorite DT 240S hubs that needed to be built. The front is a 20 hole 240S radial hub and the rear is a 24 hole Ritchey design with oversized flanges and 240 internals and cassette body, that DT built for them. I would have liked to build the front with a 24 hole as well, but I would have had to purchase a new hub (remember this is a budget build). I sourced the rims from offthefrontracingsystems.com . They are 50mm Asian made carbon tubular rims. There are so many different Asian carbon rims now, that I thought I would let someone else do the research for me and I didn’t have to wait a month to get them. They cost a little more since I didn’t buy them direct from Asia, but I thought it was worth the extra cost to have the option to return them if they were not what I expected. I decided to build them with black DT Revolution spokes and black aluminum Sapim nipples. I have had great success with Revolution spokes in the past and they are only $1 each versus the $3.50 each they get for the DT Aerolite or Sapim CX-Ray spokes.

I have built a few sets of wheels in the past, but this is my first set of carbon hoops. I laced the front up radially and the back is 2 cross non-drive side and crow’s foot drive side lacing. Crow’s foot, you might ask? Well, I wanted to make sure the rear wheel would be nice and strong for cross, so I did a little research on the internet and found an interesting article on Crow’s foot lacing (http://spokeanwheel.110mb.com/lacingcf.htm). So, I decided to give it a shot. Both wheels trued up nice and round with equal spoke tension all around.

I thought I should include some details about the wheel components. Through a little research, I found out the carbon hoops are manufactured by Xiamen Sonata Composites Technology Co. and came in at around 380 grams each, so not super light, but not boat anchors either. They are about what I expected quality wise, with a 3k weave, matte finish and machined braking surface. Definitely not in league with Zipp rims, but they were about $600 cheaper each than the price of individual Zipp rims. We’ll see how they hold up to the rigors of cyclo-cross. The front DT 240S hub weighs in at 105 grams and the rear DT/Ritchey hub weighed in at 238 grams. Spokes and nipples for the front came in at 99 grams, while the rear total came in at 126 grams. I’ll save you doing the math, the front wheel weighs 584 grams and the rear weighs 744 grams. Now I have a 1328 gram wheelset to put to the test for the upcoming cross season. I’ll be finishing them off with a 10 speed Campagnolo Record 12/25 cassette, Turner TI Skewers and a pair of Vittoria Cross EVO-XM-II 32 tubular tires.

I am back!

Not much to say except that I have all but given up this season. I came off of my best winter training season ever to being able to only ride every now and then. I have almost hit rock bottom and I am hoping when I do, that the jolt snaps me out of this quandary. As my old buddy Chris says, you have to make the time. The passion is still there, but what drive I had is gone. I’d like to place the blame on someone else, but everybody knows that the first rule of leadership is that “everything is your fault”. I have nobody to blame but myself. So, instead of walloring self pity, I am starting my comeback tonight. It will be a long road of recovery and rediscovery, but I love cycling and everything that has to do with it. I refuse to give up because I temporarily lost my focus and I am writing this to say that – I AM BACK!