I Enjoy Long Walks...

…at night on lonely roads while wearing cycling shoes and pushing my non-rideable bike…NOT!

Tuesday evening I went out for what was supposed to be a 2 hour ride. I rode South for about an hour then turned around. Soon I discovered my rear tire was going flat. I had a spare tube and TWO non-Genuine Innovations non-threaded cartridges of CO2. Turns out these things are worthless. They both lost all the pressure as soon as I tried to connect them to the nozzle. Long story short, I was stranded 19 miles from home and it was near dark. The road I took was a straight shot from the house, so there is not even a way to cut across anything. I called everyone whose number I had and lived within a 50 mile radius, that means my wife, but she was a work, so I had to choices: walk or ride on the rim. I did the latter for a while then the pavement got really rough so I walk for a while, then rode a little again. I made it home around 8:00 PM, hungry frustrated and tired.

Good Times!

North End Classic

Quick Update...I am tired and need to go to bed, but this weekend we went south to take part in the North End Classic Omnium. Saturday was the Crit in Old Town Yuma. A rolling course with quite a few turns. I bridged up to a break that stayed out for the whole race and got second at the crit and bonus sprint. After the race, we hung out and watched the other races then went back to my brother-in-law's place for some carne asada. Sunday was the road race. Two laps of a mostly flat 28 mile course. Jarrod and Patrick did an awesome job keeping me safe in front of the peloton, protected from the wind, however we misstimed when to go to the front and pick up the pace to try and get the bonus points. I ended up going with another guy with about a mile to go and ended up getting caught 200 meters from the line. Being over 8 points down, I figure I would let Jarrod and Patrick do their own race and defend my second place on my own. We had just started the second lap when Jarrod almost got taken out on the first corner. Shortly before the feedzone, Patrick went on a break with two other guys and they ended up staying out. I wasted a lot of energy chasing the leader when I knew I was going to beat him. Eventually I let him go, but later I had to work hard to chase the multiple attacks from the guys sitting on 3rd and 4th. We became the chase group along with 6 other guys, unfortunately I let off the gas a little too early coming into the line and got 13th which pushed me back to 4th overall just 2 point away from 2nd. Oh well...it was a good race.
Thanks to Jarrod and Patrick for all the support! Results got all screwed up so we waited for ever then went back to Yuma for food Burgers-n-Beers and a little drive around then a quick stop to see the family, then drove home.
Quite a busy weekend. I am glad tomorrow is Monday and I just have to go to work. Finally time to rest.
On other news, coach had a great race down in Mexico winning the Masters category at the 2nd edition of the Transmexicana. He even finished 3rd overall and rode the last couple of stages with the leader. Here is a link to a race report from a Canadian guy that finished second overall.
Way to go Art!
Now I am really going to bed. This didn't turn out to be such a short update after all. I'll add some pictures later.
Jeff

Sun Devil Criterium

The second event of the weekend double-header was the Sun Devil Crit put together by ASU Cycling. Coach had told me to do only one race, so I chose the 30+ because I figure it would be safer and less intense. Boy was I wrong! I knew they were combining the 30+ and 40+ categories and score them separately but by Friday there were less than 14 riders registered for both. Norma, Koko and I showed up at around 11 am after having some delicious chocolate chip pancakes that Norma made from scratch. I got registered and warmed up for a few minutes, just to find out that the races were running late. Sometime before 1 PM as I was hovering near the start line I saw this massive amount of riders around me. It turned out that they were all racing with me. My guess is that we had over 40 riders. Now this is a "D" shaped course with two sharp corners. I am just getting confortable riding in small groups but this was a little overwhelming. I lined up at the back and hoped for the best. The race pace picked up immediately and I was working a bit at the back trying to stayed with the group. At one point I though I had moved a few spots and felt like I was in the middle of the pack, then I almost panicked and for a second though about letting people by and moved to the back. As I let off the gas a bit, I realized that I was already at the back and now I was gapped. I picked it up a bit and regaing my lantern rouge position. 10 min into the race I had moved up about 10 spots and decided to grab some water and dropped the bottle as I was putting back in the cage. Total rookie move! I could see the bottle every time we went by. Unfortunately it was a Procon bottle so, everyone knew that one of us had dropped it and I had no bottles, so it was a simple process elimination answer.
Suj dropped out of the race, picked up my bottle, handed it back to me and got yelled at by the officials. I guess there are no hand ups at crits, who knew!
At one point the pace eased off and I saw a Ride Clean rider going hard on the right, I tagged on his wheel and soon we were off the front. The rider happened to be Brian Forbes and for a second he thought he had Craig or Matt, two of the most accomplished riders in Procon on his wheel, but he was quite disappointed when he found out it was only me. I pulled through and pedaled at the front for a few seconds before pulling to the side and letting the experienced guys do their thing. I moved up a little on the last two laps, mostly trying to avoid the big groups and found a safe line to sprint at the finish. Overall I must have finished in the top 20 but that was good enough to put me in 7th in the 30+ group.
Not bad for a really stressful ride. Fortunately my legs felt good and didn't even get a chance to test them, however my heart rate was pretty high mostly from the tension.
We are heading down south to Yuma this weekend for another road double at the North End Classic. It should be fun not to mention, we'll spend some time with my brother in-law and family.