Author: kennettron

A string of events:

After getting home from throwing down with Chris at the Thursday Nighter last night, which, by the way, we completely and utterly destroyed everyone, I saw that my bottom bracket was loose. This had happened a few weeks ago, so I took the bike in this morning to get it re-tightened at the shop. But, like Levi thought the last time this happened, it turned out that the frame is broken. And this time for good, because we couldn’t tighten the bottom bracket any more, and it was still floating around in the frame with my crank arms wobbling side to side like a drunken toddler on a two-wheeled tricycle. I stripped all the components off my frame and sent it in to Kona for a brand spankin new (warranty replaced) Kona Zing Supreme. It should be here in a week, and in the mean time I’ll be using Tony’s bike, which has seen better days.

My living situation is pretty fantastic down here. Dave and his girlfriend Maire have me set up in the computer room in his condo at 13th and Lincoln. We’re up on the fifth floor, and if I wanted to, I could open the windows and jump out into the oak trees blooming alongside the building.
The apartment is choked full of bikes. Fixies, road bikes, time trial bikes, mountain bikes. And pretty much everything we do revolves around these things, working at the bike shop, riding, racing, even writing.
The rent for me and my bikes to live here includes doing the dishes and making huge batches of cookies. The day before yesterday I made over 20, and they were all gone by last night.

The Willamette stage race was canceled due to an over abundance of cat 3’s and 4’s being stupid and lazy and not signing up. So instead, the new Willamette stage race will continue (the Thur. nighter was the first stage) this Saturday and Sunday with the CSC group rides. Come prepared for pain.

Two things that have made me super mad recently. Number one was when I walked into a small country store near Crow the other day asking to use the water faucet. They had remodeled the store since I’d been there last, so I wasn’t sure where the sink was anymore. The women said they didn’t have one. I asked if they had a bathroom and she said no. I was puzzled, and asked her if she was sure they didn’t have a faucet. “No, sorry we don’t,” she said. Right after she said this, I saw it behind the counter. “Uh, so I can’t use THAT faucet right there?” I asked.
“No, sorry.” she said.
“But I’ve used it in the past and no one’s cared.”
“Sorry,” she said, continuing not to look up at me and make eye contact as she pretened to be busy with some papers on the counter.
“Well I was going to buy some stuff here (a lie) but now I’m not!”
“Sorry,” she said lamely.
“No, it’s YOU who should be sorry!” I said loudly as I stormed out the door and then immediately realized that that was what she had just said.
“Whoops, that’s not what I mean,” I said as the door was closing. “Dammit!”

I was super mad and I will never go back there unless it’s to steal something or break a window.

The other thing that’s been making me mad is Safeway’s intolerance for bikes. Every time I go in there with my bike, I always get a “Sir, you can’t have that in here” or “Sir, next time please leave your bike outside.” Well I would leave it outside if Eugene wasn’t the bike theft capital of the US. Or if Safeway didn’t have 30 bums hanging around by the bike locks. Or if my bike wasn’t worth more than I’ve ever made in my life.
Up until Wednesday I’ve just been ignoring the “Sirs” but last time I went in there, one of those stupid cashiers thought that it was worth her time to run me down and tell me to leave.
“Sir you can’t have that in here, you have to take it outside,” she scolded, after literally chasing me a quarter way around the store as pretended not to hear her “Sirs.”
“Ughhhhh.” I rolled my eyes and my entire head up towards the ceiling, pausing for a second there to see if she would just leave. She didn’t.
“Sir there are no bikes allowed in here,” she said very loudly and rudely.
“Why?”
“Because there are no bikes allowed in he–because that’s the rule.”
“Yeah, so. Why?”
“Because it’s a store where you buy things,” she half yelled, obviously growing so pissed off she couldn’t think straight. I said some obscene words to her under my breath as she stormed off. Pretty soon I saw a security guard coming over to usher me out. I walked past him out the door before he could get the satisfaction of telling me to leave.

So if you see the thin woman, who looks like she smokes a lot, that has straight gray hair working at the Safeway on 18th street, feel free to make her job extra hard. Act confused about which way to slide your credit card. Get confused when they ask you if you’d like to make a donation to disabled people, and then say no and ask her why Safeway doesn’t just make their own contribution if they feel so strongly about it. Take your time unloading your cart. Write illegibly on the bulk bin tags. Next time I go in there I’m bringing pockets full of pennies. And a unicycle.

It’s times like those that I wish for the Button. The Button that controls people’s bowls and jowells. I’ve always wanted a button like this to make certain people have terrible diarrhea and vomiting. Uncontrollable. Just push the button and viola, instant diarrhea and vomit. Whenever someone pisses me off enough, I’d just push the button and they’d be shitting a hole through their pants while barfing up their intestines all over the place. It would be a great tool to use in racing too. Just think, you could use the Button to make sure no one attacked hard up a hill when you’re in the red. If you get buzzed by a redneck in a pickup while riding, just push the button and he’ll soon be swerving off the road into a ditch, where he’ll spend the next 20 minutes in the worst pain of his life while ruining the interior of his truck at the same time. The Button is great for all sorts of situations. Use it during a test on your classmates to lower the curve. Use it while watching Fox News to shut those idiots up (it works over TV too. Even pre-recorded stuff). The Button is great for those hard to reach places, and unlike a conventional blanket, the Button doesn’t slip or slide off, making it perfect for reading, watching TV, and even sporting events. Call now and receive a free Chop n’ Scoop. But wait, there’s more!! We’re also throwing in a second Button…for FREE!! That’s two Buttons and a Chop n’ Scoop for three easy payments of $19.95 plus shipping and handling. We’re practically giving them away. But were not done yet. Call in the next 7 minutes and get a free gift–the Ove Glove!! Tired of burning your hands while replacing light-bulbs that are obviously working because they’re on? Well, the Ove Glove is the solution to your ridiculously stupid problem. Order in the next 6 minutes and you get two Buttons/Snuggies, the Chop n’ Scoop, and the Ove Glove for the low low price of just five easy payments of $19.95!! Order now while supplies last!

Good luck. To get good luck, instead of finding lucky pennies on the ground, I’ve been placing my own on the ground for other people to find. My theory is that the luck gods will see this as good karma and reward my unselfish deeds with ten times the good luck of finding lucky pennies. Hahahhahah. I’ve fooled them again!! And it’s worked too. The first time I did it, not 1 minute later I found a full dollar bill sitting right in the middle of the road.

Eugene Roubaix: Chris “iron legs” Swan crushed the six man breakaway in a humbling and humiliating sprint that left his breakaway companions sobbing like babies.

The race didn’t go as well for me, but it was great seeing Chris win, which was our team’s first victory of the year (the men’s cat 1/2 team). I chased down breaks during the first couple laps, but nothing was really sticking for long, other than Mark Blackwelder’s long solo move that got away on lap 1. I felt strong on the gravel section, which wasn’t nearly as much of a race-deciding factor as I thought it would be, and I also felt good on the little steep climb after the gravel section. I was up at the front going over the climb the first two times, then I made a fatal mistake on the third time up. The pace was super slow heading into the climb, and I found myself near the back of the pack, lollygaging next to Nick. Nobody was doing much, and I figured it wasn’t as necessary as I thought to be up near the front on the gravel and short hill. But that was even less true than my front wheel, and that’s exactly when five guys got off the front (including Chris) and that was game over, since all the strong teams were represented and the break was made up of the strongest guys in the race. They quickly got time on the field, where only a few team-less guys were chasing, and Therapeutics Associates. I made a few moves on lap four and five when the pace started slowing down as the chasers realized their attempts were futile. But trying to get off the front by myself wasn’t going to happen, so I started resting up for the sprint.

With a mile or so to go, I heard the sonic boom of Chris storming the finish line in first place, which gave me some motivation to take the rest of the field in the same manor. Instead of attacking with 800 meters to go on the gravel section, which had been my plan, I decided to keep a good position near the front and just sprint it out, which worked and I took the field sprint for 7th place. Now the next thing I’m going to tell you is very, very, extremely important, and also very true: I pooped five times yesterday. That’s a lot of pooping!! And guess what? I pooped six times today!! Can you believe it? Because I sure can’t. I attribute today’s toilet success to some delicious sweet potatoes and kale that Zach Winter cooked up for me last night. But yesterday’s 5Xpoo was a mystery to me. I guess it was just all the pasta I ate the day before, but who knows. Maybe my digestive system was just doing some spring cleaning. You know, mopping out that old salami sandwich I ate back in January. Disposing of one of many bowls of oats eaten in the past six months that never quite left my small intestine. Squeezing out the leftover’s from Thanksgiving that had been crusted onto the side of my stomach the past months.

After the race yesterday I helped stop cars at an intersection for some other fields with Erich W., where I got to watch my brother, Galen, race with the cat 4’s and 5’s. And after a burrito with my family, who came down to watch Galen and I race, I drove down to Ashland with Jim, Chris, Karey, and Lisa to stay at Zach’s house.

Today was hot and played a big factor in the race. None of use were used to the heat, and I’m confident that everyone took a beating just from being out under the sun all day.

The field was extremely small for this year’s Table Rock RR. (Why didn’t all you guys come down for this race? It’s an awesome course, good prize money, and it’s Oregon cup points!). Because both the cat 1/2 field and the 3 fields were so small, they were combined. I quickly got a flat within the first mile of the race, but had plenty of time to get back on with Mike and Jim there to help in case someone attacked. But the pace was slow until we got to the two mile climb, which is not as steep as I remember. I attacked once on it, was caught, and just sat in the rest of the way up. It wasn’t really steep enough to get a break on this year.

I attacked again on the short and much steeper finish climb a while later and got off the front with Chris and two Therapeutics guys on my wheel, but we were reeled in by a still-fresh field by the bottom of the hill a few miles later. Not much happened for the rest of the lap, other than going really slow. Kenji did some work on the front to keep the pace fast enough so that we didn’t fall over, but by this point I’m guessing people were realizing that the heat was going to be a bit more draining than they thought it would be and weren’t very motivated to do much work off the front.

We went up the long hill (two-miler) faster on lap two, but not fast enough to get a breakaway going. Although on the downhill after the two mile climb the guy from California who did all the pulling up the long hill (I forgot his name) got away as the field slowed to a crawl again. He built up time and was soon almost out of sight a few miles later.

Leading into the steep climb at the finish, Chris jumped and held a hard pace up the first couple hundred meters. From there, I attacked and got a gap at the top, slowed down a bit to let Paul B. catch on to my wheel, then started down the descent with a ten second gap or less. We caught the guy from California pretty quickly and the three of us began working together, but it was apparent that both of them were suffering something hard core. The heat had zapped them. They hung onto my wheel the majority of that lap, and the guy from California popped when we got back around the course on the steep climb. From there it was just Paul and I to the finish, building up a gap of 3 minutes by the end. With 500 meters to go on the steep hill, Paul said goodbye as I pulled ahead. He didn’t contest the finish because I did all of the pulling, somewhat similar to how I earned my second place in this race last year with Zach Winter doing a lot of the work.

I watched the finish of the rest of the field a few minutes later, and was not surprised one bit when Chris powered up the climb easily, with a good little gap on the next guy to earn third place. Boo a yeah. A boo yeah. We never went to Dairy Queen on the way back to Eugene for dipped cones though, which was very upsetting. And to that I say boo, but no yeah.

Obviously sung to the tune of The Boy’s Are Back in Town.

I’m here in Eugene for the next six weeks to get some serious pain in my legs. Today I started out with the local hardman’s race-ride: the Thursday Nighter. A group of 15 or 20 started out on the one hour ride and I had plans to just sit in and take it easy on my low volume week, by order of Coach Jeannette. But that soon became impossible due to the fast pace and constant gaps opening up in the paceline. It was a fun time, and it hurt pretty good at times.

Another thing that’s been hurting has been my shami area. The area that I sit down on for hours at a time. The area that is subject to thousands of rubbing movements across a hard saddle. The new team O bibs are way thicker than what I’m used to using, which is a very old pair of Lifecycle bibs that have a paper-thin chamois pad (pronounced “shami” so that’s how I’m going to spell it from now on). The old bibs may have multiple stichwork done on ripped areas, they may stink and be see-through from behind, and they may have been cheap and uncomfortable when I first got them. But my shami area calloused up and got used to them over time. And now when my shami area was introduced to a nice new, high quality, shami with thick padding, it said “no way” and has been acting out more than a teenager that just got home after being forced to attend a boring bible camp all summer, isn’t allowed to get their driver’s license, and isn’t allowed to hang out with any of their friends past 9 o’clock on the weekend. It’s acting out alright. Except my shami area isn’t slamming doors, letting out overly exaggerated sighs while rolling it’s eyes, and proclaiming that “no one understands” what it’s going through. No. It’s covered in dime-sized zits and boils.

But enough about my shami area.

I drove down here on Tuesday night with David Well’s after he and my brother raced PIR in portland. I wasn’t sure where I was going to stay in Eugene, but I figured I could bum around for a few weeks at least. The options were Chris and Karey’s backyard tool shed or the couches of Will, Tony, Mike, and whoever else would take me. I was getting pretty excited about the tool shed, but wasn’t sure if I’d be warm enough in there. But as it turned out David W had a room for me to stay in. So no tool shed, no barn with hay and horse manure, not even an uncomfortable couch. Instead I’ve been forced to live normally again.

I just ate me a big ol’ bowl of bran cereal. 76% of my daily fiber needs. It tasted like old meat and ground-up vitamins and metal. It’s a giant bag too so I have a lot more to eat.

The race today went decently. I’m finally starting to feel good again. Being able to attack and go up the hills hard and such. We started out pretty quick with attacks going strong. Two got off the front within the first half lap and I helped with the chase. We were whittling it down and then had to stop because of a big tractor. I’m watching an OPB British detective show right now and they keep saying “govna” and I can’t concentrate on what I’m writing. Anyways, there was a big slow tractor that was in front of the break away duo and they became neutralized, as did we, for a couple miles. Eventually we started up again, caught the break, and went up the finishing 1 kilometer climb. There were three more laps after that and I attacked a good amount and was in a couple moves that I thought would stick, but none involved the right mix of teams and no break of the day made it. By the way, the British show just ended and the credits are rolling to country music. An interesting choice. Now I’m super not paying attention to this. Uhhhh. It’s taken me like 30 minutes to write this so far.

Race. The race ended with a pack sprint up the 1K climb. I was way too far back at the base of the climb. Terrible racing on my part. I weaved up through the peloton and made up a lot of ground, but it wasn’t nearly enough. I finished 8th a few seconds back from winner Josh Bartlett from Landrover, who’s two teammates Evan and Logan did a great job attacking and chasing down breaks all day to keep him fresh. Good teamwork. We should have done that. I should have been up farther before the climb. I should have eaten less bran just now. It’s always about 15 minutes after the race when I start thinking about all the things I should have done.

Oh, and that cone on the corner was a terrible idea. I know it was supposed to keep us from staying on the left side of the yellow lines for too long. But it should not have been there. Every time I passed it, I knew it was going to cause some trouble by the end of the race. On the last lap, the entire field took that corner very wide and wasn’t able to get back on the right hand side of the road before the cone showed up. Someone ran over it, it flew into Zach Winter who also ran over it, then I ran over it. Amazingly, no one went down.

Ok that’s enough for now. It’s taken me forever to write this.

My legs were a bit knackered on Monday from Cherry Blossom.  But they began feeling better already on Tuesday.  I planned on doing a three hour ride in the morning, but it turned into a one hour ride because I had to get a new chain and then fix my shifting again.  And I hate spending money on some stupid worthless part like a chain.  It was $50 (ultegra) plus $10 labor at Performance.  I thought Performance was supposed to be cheap!!  I went there because my local bike shop here in Sherwood, Willamette Valley Cyclery, was out of 10 speed chains.  But damn.  When did chains start costing so much?  Is there a global chain shortage or some kind of chain-maker’s strike?  I ended my three hour’s worth of shammy time and one our of actual riding and started painting our garage.  But quickly grew very sleepy as the warm sun beat down, so I took a nap.

Later that evening I drove up to Portland for PIR (Portland International Raceway), expecting 20 or 30 people like a Eugene Tuesday night crit.  Maybe a few more because Portland is bigger.  But nope, there were 90 people in the race.  That’s an even bigger number than 62!!  And in my opinion, 62 (or even 29) is a very large number.  Too large to count, actually.

I attacked hard for most of the race, getting in a breakaway just about every lap.  I could tell my legs were still lagging a bit from the weekend, but there’s only one way to make them stronger so I went hard.  With two laps to go, I sat in to rest for the sprint.  I ended up too far back by the final turn and on the right side of the track, which turned out to be the wrong side to be on.  No one was going fast enough in front of me and the left side was still going faster than I was, so I ended up just sprinting from where I was for about 500 meters or however long that last straightaway is.  22nd place, BOO YEAH.  

Today I rode for 4.5 hours at a good pace and now I think I’m tired.  But I’m not sure.  

I ate a good  sandwich after the ride, among other things.  Here’s what I put in it:

One piece of Dave’s Killer Bread
One piece of some other bread because there was only a half piece left of Dave’s Killer Bread left
I toasted the bread.
I accidently left the plastic bag from the bread on top of the oven toaster and it melted plastic everywhere
onion
red bell pepper
a huge amount of spinach
a bit of deli ham
a fried egg
lots of Valentino’s extra hot hot sauce, which isn’t really that hot.

Thursday: Chris and Karey picked me up in Sherwood and we drove out to Hood RIver to pick up our race packets and do the Hood River crit. But the crit was around a parking lot, it was raining, and there were only 8 people signed up for the 1/2/3 race so we decided to save our money. From there, we drove to Tony’s parent’s house a few miles away, where we stayed for the weekend with Karey’s teammate Jill Howe and her husband Doug.

Friday: The first stage was windy. Real windy. We had 4 laps of 18 miles with one hill about a mile long. A four man break got away in the first couple miles and quickly had over a minute on us. I was up near the front about 20 minutes later when a big group of people went off. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, because on this super tail wind section the peloton was constantly breaking up with gaps to cover as we furiously pedaled at 30+ miles an hour. I decided to conserve my energy and let someone else cover. But then no one jumped across to it, and I wasn’t going to help pull it back because my teammate Chris was up there in it. I continued to wait and still no one jumped to it. Pretty soon they had a large enough gap to call it a break, and they were gone.

The remaining 65 of us in the peloton went hard up the climb, but not hard enough to drop many people. I was in some pain here but held my spot up near the front in case someone tried to bridge, in which case I would attempt to jump on and get up there to Chris, who had made the breakaway. At this point, about half way up the climb, the chase group of 10 had caught the breakaway of 4 and joined forces. They had 30 seconds on the peloton at the top of the hill, but it quickly grew from there.

All the major teams had people in the breakaway, so no one wanted to pull on the downhill headwind section, where our pace grew to a crawl. In no time, they had 4 minutes.

Lap number two had a hard chase during the tailwind section and we began picking up dropped riders from the break. We went up the hill slower this time. I attacked at the top, and on the next smaller hill but the wind was too strong to hold it and not enough people wanted to follow.

Lap three I don’t really remember much of.

Lap four I bridged up to a group of four or five riders who had gotten away and were maintaining 15 seconds on the peloton. We passed more dropped riders from the break, including Chris, who had been worked over by some Haggen Berman guys while he took his wind vest off.

My little breakaway lasted for 5 or ten more minutes and then got swallowed back down by the pack. I sat in for a while, or as much as you can when the entire peloton is strung out with everyone in their 53×12’s. The wind had seemed to have picked up by now.

At the base of the hill, I tried attacking with a few other guys, but was blasted with a huge wrecking ball of head wind once I started the climb. The pack quickly caught up and others tried getting away on the climb. I followed a couple of them, but stopped when I realized it was pointless. An attacker would go hard for about 15 seconds, then die in the wind, unable to hold more than 6 miles an hour for more than a minute. The wind was super strong and jammed up the whole pack to a staggeringly slow speed. No one could get away.

Going down the hill was just about as slow as going up it, with the wind cracking anyone who stayed out in the front too long. Except for two guys who at some point got away from the field, or maybe one guy (Bannick) just bridged to one of the dropped breakaway guys. I didn’t know they were up there though.

With a few K to go, I got in contact with Kenji and Chris and told them I’d do a lead out if they wanted. I made my way up to the front with K-man on my wheel, but at some point he lost contact. At 300 meters, there was a sharp right hand turn up a little bump, which lead to a false flat uphill finishing straight. I had Chris on my wheel here, and went hard. But not hard enough to get him the field sprint victory. He took 4th in the sprint, and I came in 6th. Taking 14th overall with 7 guys already up the road. The winning Bissell guy (Mach) had something like 8 or 9 minutes on the field. It was a hard race at times, but on the other hand I didn’t feel very tired from it.

Saturday: The TT course was a gradual 2% climb up four miles, then a turn around back to where we started from. I used the Poop Leader TT bike, which Quinn tried fixing up last week with some success, Adam’s TT helmet, and my regular wheels since I don’t have aero wheels. So I wasn’t too bad in terms of having the right equipment. But I was unequipped with leg power. I only managed to pump out 370 watts for a time of 18:57. 30 watts shy of what I could do in December. I did pass my 30 second guy and 1 minute guy, but my performance was below what I had hoped to see. Gosh dern it.

After we all finished our time trials I lazed around in the sun taking a nap in the grass at the staging area as Chris and Karey fixed Karey’s bike before the crit. It had takin a little spill on I-84 the night before while driving back to Hood River. At 65 miles an hour. No one ran over it, but their was some fairly bad damage done to the handlebars, front wheel, and rear deraileur hanger.

While waiting for the crit to start, Chris and I rode around looking for a park to fly his kite in. Not just any old kite. A beginner’s kite boarding kite, large enough to lift you off the ground. We finally found a good grassy spot, but Chris wimped out because there was a no tresspassing sign.

The crit was shortened to 30 minutes due to a bad crash on the last lap of the women’s 1/2/3 race. Four girls were taken to the hospital, one of them had gotten wrapped around a lamp post.

We finally started. The weather had gotten colder and windier than earlier than afternoon, but the cold was soon forgotten as we burned rubber like madmen to get to the front. But we soon realized that starting rubber fires in the middle of the street wasn’t going to get us to the front of the race. It was just causing everyone to cough and gag, while the rest of the racers were continuing to lap us. So we stopped burning rubber and got back on our bikes.

I sat in for the first 15 or 20 minutes of the race, then moved up to the front to win some prime money. A fifty dollar prime was called out, and I weaved my way to the front as I heard Chris yell at me that he had my wheel. Go kennett Go, he yelled as gaps began opening up. At 400 meters I passed the last guy on the front, and drilled it around the final bend. 300 meters to go on the final straight away. I picked up the pace and began sprinting. Chris was still on my wheel, guarding it from any trespassers trying to get a free ride to the finish line. I expected Chris to come around me at 100 or 200 meters, but he didn’t need to and I took the prime. He had won a prime a little earlier, and between us we made $85 during the 30 minute crit. That’s $90 an hour each!! For a very short time, we were making as much as lawyers.

I went straight to the back of the crit after my effort, and pretty much stayed there for the remaining 10 minutes . I tried moving up a bit, but didn’t give it a super hard effort. At one lap to go, I thought we had 4 more. But I was happy just to win the prime and not crash. And it was a very fun crit too so it was an all around good race.

We ate dinner cooked by Jim over at the Team O house (Justin’s place) and went back home to sleep.

Sunday was the deciding day. The day of suffering. It wasn’t too windy, and the sun was shining. But the bike god’s were fondling their menacing beards with evil laughter as they looked down upon us at the staging area, knowing that their plans of destruction would surely kill all but the strongest.

The course was 3 laps totaling 82 miles. Each lap had a hill somewhere between 7 and 5 miles long. I heard different lengths from different people. I’m sure that by July people will be saying it was either 15 or 17 miles long.

The first time up the climb was brutal, I was hanging on for dear life at the top, gritting the teeth in my mind (my real teeth were too weak to do any gritting), as we rounded each bend. The last bend finally came, and we started down at a blistering speed. Over a third of the pack was dropped on the first climb, but some managed to get back on on the decent and flatter section as we headed back towards the finish line, and the bottom of the hill.

Bissell sat on the front all day. Those guys are strong.

The next time up the hill was easier for me, but not really any slower. We dropped even more people, reducing the pack down to about 35. Bissell still pulled at the front, bringing back a Hagens and Land Rover pair.

Near the end of the second lap, I was feeling tired. I was eating plenty, but I could feel it in my bones that unless this last time up the hill was easy, I was in for some hurtin’.

The pace was not slow. Attacks went off early on the hill and the entire peloton was split up. A mile later, I had managed to grind my way back to what was left of the main group. But another attack blew everyone apart for good. There was a couple groups of 3 or 4, a group of about 8, some stragglers behind them desperately trying to get back on, then me. I rode by myself the rest of the way to the top. A couple guys had been behind me, but were no longer in view. I finally got to the top, breathing back under control, and started the decent.

I passed a guy in the ditch on the side of the road, fearing for a second that it was Chris, who had made the third group, but luckily it wasn’t. I got to the bottom of the hill, and then I saw him. The bloody pulp mobile. Chris had crashed with the guy I had seen on the side of the road, but had tucked and rolled out of it from many years of martial arts practice. Knowing how to fall is very important in bike racing. That, and not hitting those metal reflector poles like the other guy did.

Chris was OK, other than a big dose of road rash, and we rode in the last 15 miles to the finish easy, as Chris grew stiffer and stiffer.

All in all, a good weekend of racing. I finished 25th overall. Not good. Not bad. My form is getting there.

Yowza.  And those were brand new bibs.

“Ohh you poor baby!!!”  Chris had plenty of attention.  Or I guess I should say Chris’ ass had plenty of attention.  Note the bystanders’ gaze.  

Karey couldn’t keep her eyes off him either.

Nor could Scott.

Celebration burgers for another good weekend of racing.

I’m heading out to the Cherry Blossom stage race this afternoon with Chris and Karey.  We’re doing the Hood River crit tonight to open up our legs for the four stages of racing starting on Friday.  The weather looks pretty good in the Dalles this week, low to upper 50’s with little to no rain.  Much better than most of this week here in the valley.  The registration looks like there’s a little over 80 riders starting the race, with the big teams being Hagens Berman, Lenovo, Hammer, Land Rover, Gentle Lovers, and a half team from Bissell.  We also have a good squad with five riders: Chris, Kenji, Joe, Brian, and myself.  My legs have recovered well from last week, my back is continuing to improve, my shoes are just about dry, and I even tried fixing the shifting on my bike.  We’ll see how good of a job I did tonight.

I’m finally back.  Although it’s not Kennettron 5000 right now, more like Kennitta 0.50.  But I’ve got over all my sicknesses and injuries for the entire season.  I’ve decided that I’ll have no more of it!  

IVRR was an epic race, and not to use the term lightly either.  It was by far the worst racing conditions, or best depending on your preferences and % Inuit heritage, I’ve ever seen.  It sat at a nice 33 degrees the entire day and snowed, sleeted, and rained on the quickly thinning field throughout the 80 mile course (mainly snowed).  Two steep little climbs and a strong as hell field helped weed out all but the strongest (myself included).  I got dropped on the last lap on one of the hills and came in 15th I think, with only 18 total finishers out of 50 or 60 starters from what I heard.  It was miserable.  I couldn’t see on the descents because my eyes were cross-eyed from fatigue and snow blindness, my fingers could hardly budge the break levers, and I must have weighed about 40 pounds extra from all the clothes I was wearing that were saturated with slightly above freezing water.  It was awesome.  Probably the coolest race (literally) that I’ve done in a long time.  

I got a ride with Chris and Karey up there to the desolate and barren wilderness of Washington, and we all huddled back in the car after our races and drove home with hot chocolate and the heaters blasting the entire way back to my house.  We ate a big dinner of vegetarian pizza and bbqed chicken made by my mom, then watched some 2004 Giro d Italia before some serious sleeping action.

Waking up the next morning was tough.  I was super tired, and had just been dreaming that I had looked at the clock and had seen that I had hours before I had to get up.  Feeling content and happy, I went back to sleep (still part of my dream). Then my alarm went off and I had to get up (not part of my dream).

But things got better from there.  We were shockingly surprised and happy to see dry pavement outside.  And it stayed that way all day.  Despite my silent wishes for more snow. HA.

Chris and I raced at 10 in the morning with teammates Kenji, Joe (who placed 5th), Brian, and Jim.  As you may know, the Piece of Cake Road Race is entirely flat, hence the name.  It was windy though, and my legs were a bit lagging from yesterday so it wasn’t quite a piece of cake.  More like a piece of pie.  A big thick slab of hot apple pie with figs and a thick crust.  Pretty tasty actually, and filling too.  With plenty of cinnamon on the top.

My back was hurting like a hurt back for the first couple miles, and unfortunately that’s when all the moves of the day got away.  A group of 3-5 and a group of 14?  as I sat back in the pack.  But I got in a good race anyways and started feeling better on lap 2 with the endorphins kicking in.  I attacked and drilled it at the front for two laps straight, causing havoc for the guys at the front of the peloton trying to work in unison.  They were a bunch if whiners if you ask me.  “Get the f– out of the gutter god damn it.” They yelled as I went all out in the cross wind sections in the gravel of the side of the road.  “You trying to bridge up to the break all by yourself?” as I got reeled in from one of my solo moves.  “What the f–.  Stop messing up the pace line!” as I purposefully tried messing up the pace line as I attacked, using the teammate up the road excuse.  I don’t know what their problem was.  If they want to race like the bunch of sad silly sally’s they seem to be, they should think about downgrading to the 5’s.  Anyways,

With a lap to go, I sat in the pack and chased down breaks and such, saving some energy for a good lead out for Kenji.  With a couple kilometers to go, I found him and got him on my wheel.  I moved us up to the front and hammered it with 500 or so meters to go, a bit to early I think.   I should have waited for about 10 more seconds.  I dropped Kenji off with a little over 100 meters to the line, and he took 4th in the pack sprint and 19th overall (some of the break away guys had gotten dropped).  I finished a measly 29th out of only 38 finishers from an original field of 70, but was happy with the race anyways.  It was a great weekend of training and it gave me confidence that my fitness will return shortly.  The power is there, it just needs to be coaxed out a bit.

My back is feeling much better.  I haven’t seen a doctor yet, and I’m pretty confident that I don’t need to anymore.  I’ve ridden the past two days and feel super slow, but my back is continuing to heal quickly and it already felt more comfortable on the bike today than yesterday.  Hopefully my fitness returns quickly too.

My back wasn’t going to be good enough to race on by Thursday, so I came home early to rest it and see a doctor this weekend.  Ironically, today–the day I returned–, is the first day that it’s felt pretty good.  The pain is still there but much milder than before.  With the sickness and now the injury, I guess I’ll be having a slow start to the season.  But I’m sure it will all work out just fine in the end.