onward and upward

In true Cleveland sports style once the season is over it's time to gaze boldly and dreamily towards the upcoming season. There is always next year, and next year will be perfect... right
Taken from the NEOCX website..

A number of dates have already been reserved for the 2011 NEOCX Series! Please see the list of tentative dates below:

- Sept. 3, 2011 (SATURDAY – Team Lake Effect/Manatoc)
- Sept. 11, 2011 (SnakeBite/Brooklyn Rec.)
- Sept. 18, 2011 (Spin/Wendy Park CX)
- Sept. 24, 2011 (SATURDAY – Stark Velo CX)
- Oct. 2, 2011 (SnakeBite/Cascade Park, Elyria)
- Oct. 16, 2011 (Spin/Willoughby CX)
- Oct. 23, 2011 (Blue Sky (or Not!) II CX/Euclid)
- Oct. 29, 2010 (Solon/Chagrin River CX – Day 1)
- Oct. 30, 2010 (Solon/Chagrin River CX – Day 2)
- Nov. 6, 2011 (CRC/Solon)
- Nov. 13, 2011 (Spin/Location TBD)

All these prospective races come with a potential Single Speed CX Category that the Centurion will own, maybe co-own. The currently hypothetical SSCX race would be Open and only 30 minutes. Which leaves me to think that with a little extra effort over the summer and spring, I could possibly race that, and then still have some gas in the tank to race the B's. Singlespeed then too... of course

I am excited, are you?

snow

winter is back.....so are the fenders, the layers, the gloves that never quite keep warm, and the totes galoshes because waterproof booties are out of my price range. I hope to keep some form this winter. We'll see, the past two winters I've gained 10-15 lbs and then lost it in the spring. I don't want to do that again. I like riding in the winter, I always feel like there is less traffic. I doubt thats quantitatively accurate. Nonetheless, crisp morning rides where everything is muffled by the snow are to me, a great way to get the day going. Of course, not everything is gumdrops and rainbows.

Two years ago I broke a blood vessel in my eye straining so hard to ride up a hill going home during a snowstorm.

There is also the random wipeouts due to ice on the road. Usually once are year I'm just riding along and then zing! I'm sitting on the ground wondering what happened as my bike spins away from me.

And how could I forget my first full Cleveland winter of riding, back when I had virtually no technical gear. Riding to school during the day and working as a server at Aladdin's at night. One night at work at Aladdin's my right foot started burning. Just a little at first, but then it got worse and soon my left foot started burning. Though I've never had athlete's foot, I thought man this must be athlete's foot. I trotted across the street and purchased some athlete's foot medication from the convenient store, and rubbed all over my inflamed feets. WOW was I wrong. My feet went from burning to holy sh#*# what did I do? shove my feet in a coal furnace! Wrong move, bad form misdiagnosis. Turns out they were frost bitten. Now I know what not to do....

bog of eternal stench

Visit cyclingdirt.org for more Videos

daaaaaaamn '87 cx nats superbog

Visit cyclingdirt.org for more Videos

also a video of the day 1 A race from the 2010 Chagrin River Cyclocross Challenge

kirtland pump station

welp the season is over...This was my second year racing at Kirtland park, and I love this course. I think it's a perfect course for a single speed. There is really only one section were racers can gear up, otherwise it's turns, technical climbs, switchbacks, and two 'day of reckoning style' stair cases that frame the course on the east and west sides. Just like last year the stairs and a technical dismount-180-around-a-tree-on-a-hillside-switchback are what saved the race for me, ....well at least made it so I was able to hang with the fast guys. I never like the first lap of the race, they're crowded, no one's willing to give an inch and people take unnecessary risks. Fortunately for me one of those unnecessary risks was racers trying to ride this 180 around the tree thats on a hillside switchback. Every time I ran this kooky section I either passed a racer or made up a great deal of time on someone who passed me. Otherwise I spent most of the race passing and then getting passed by a Stark Velo racer, I think his name was David. Finally in the 7th lap after the first stair run he blew by me in the flat, and I thought damn thats it, I'm gassed and there is no way I can catch him. But low and behold on next and final lap he tried to ride the dirt path parallel to the second section of stairs, where he stuttered, faltered and failed. Earlier in the race I caught him here but he immediately blew by me on the remount. This time around I had caught up right behind him and ran those old concrete stairs as hard as I possibly could, stairmaster, and hoped for a smooth remount as I was passing him. Success! and then went wide open, full throttle, pedal to the metal, as fast as my stumpy legs could spin through the spiral of death on the baseball diamond and home into tenth place. and then on to Happy Dog for some grub.

I'm bummed the season's over and very excited for next year.

graph

So here's a quick chart I made of my six race season. It progresses chronologically from left to right across the x axis. The y axis is place ratio, which is my attempt to control for the varying field size between races, its just my finishing place divided into the total racers. I don't know what is this is the best way to represent the data, or how I can properly weight each race, as a last place ratio would be 1 but a first place ratio would be asymptotic and possibly not accurately representative. A 5th in a field of 44 would have a much larger ratio than 5th in a field of 63.

The CRC Solon and Chagrin river races were raced with a 7 speed index system on 27inch wheel and riser bars ( using my normal Centurion frame). All other races were with my normal single speed setup.

What does this tell me ?
I was physically unprepared for the season. I most certainly need to dedicate more time to getting race ready. This year I didn't start riding (outside of commuting to work, school and playing bike polo) until mid June, and even then it was inconsistent and lacked interval and heart rate training completely

Also being psychologically prepared, going into the Kirtland park race knowing I can easily finish top ten made a world of difference.

Heart rate training. Just before the chagrin river race I started keeping track of my heart rate when I was exercising. I believe that that over the course of the following four weeks was one of the biggest contributors to the vast difference between my early season and late season races.

Needless to say there is plenty of room for improvement between now and next year.

happy dog

I'm no food critic, but I feel the need to give this place some props.
If you're in Cleveland and on the near west side 58th and Detroit to be specific, I would suggest swinging by the Happy Dog. At first $5 for a hot dog ( or vegan sausage) seemed a bit steep, but that $5 includes any or all of 50 gourmet toppings. Vodka sauerkraut, chorizo chili, fresh tomato slices, kimchi, peanut butter, bourbon baked beans just to name a few. All alongside an awesome atmosphere. A little over a year, maybe two years ago the Happy Dog restructured themselves changing up their menu with the help the owner of Momocho, and few other things such as getting some great local band s to play there and starting events like a pinball league. Since then I've made a monthly sometimes tri-monthly trek westward to dine on delicious dogs, tater tots and a brew from a seemingly endless selection. Its also a great low key place to watch a browns, cavs or tribe game.
note
happy dog has fast become a local cycling scene favorite. After yesterday's (11-21) cyclocross race I went there with the 'rents and my g/f only to run into a few other racers there, and then learned later on in the day (well after we had left) that 40 some had stopped there after the awards ceremony.

pre last race '10

Last race of the season is coming up on Sunday. Apt timing too as I have far too much catching up to do with my grad school classes. (not that I'm really behind, I'm much more dedicate to being a good student than a good cyclocross racer) Browns are playing away this weekend so I'm gonna try to get as many people as possible to tailgate the race. At the very least give my friends a visual to put with my most likely boring stories that i tell them. If there is one thing that I learned this year its that I didn't dedicate enough time training and getting in shape before the season. Its always easier to put something off or substitute it with something easier, or call it quits early on a work out, but in the end I end up cursing myself for those shortcuts. I don't desire to be the fastest racer out there, just to have good competitive races, and those don't happen without investment. I know it sounds corny

also still following the j-pow behind the barriers, I think they're great. my g/f thinks it's just bike dorks with a bored cameraman.

"Behind The Barriers" Episode 7 from Behind The Barriers on Vimeo.