My first mountain bike race

I did my first mountain bike race last night at the last race of the Wednesday Night Mountain Bike series.

No pics sorry.

The net: I had a blast; I wish I hadn't waited so long to try this.

Glen, of Elephant fame, has been bugging the hell out of me all season to go and do a race. He finally figured out the key to getting me there: tying my participation to the completion of my pending Elephant bike. Nice work Glen.

Here are some thoughts:

• At the level of racing where I'm at (rookies near the back), I am plenty fast and technical enough to be competitive. I was really worried about slowing people down through the technical stuff, or worse, crashing on the technical stuff and hurting other people. The fact is, everyone shat the bed on the first technical/rocky piece so it came to a near stand still.

• You get more rests in mountain biking than you do in CX. For about 1/3 of the race, at various times, I was stuck in a long line of cyclists winding through tight single track. You can't pass and you're only as fast as the guy up front. And last night, that speed was never approaching CX speeds.

• Hills are great places to pass. This is funny to a clydesdale like me -- that I can pass anyone on a hill, but that's where I passed a lot of people -- and at the top of a climb. People tend to blow up near the top of a climb then use the first 50 yards of the flat to recover. I found that if you can push through that and continue to put out -- you can pass even more people on the flat as they recover, then latch on to someone and draft the flat for a bit to recover. Then pass that guy at the next hill. Crazy.

• I only did one lap. It was a 6.5 mile lap and most people did two laps. So I could go full throttle for the single lap. If I attempted 2 laps, all those people I passed would be passing me on the second lap. So don't think I'm horn-tooting here.

• The configuration of the Rawland is bugging me. It excels as a drop bar rough stuff long haul tourer commuter. I can't get the flat bar thing to work for me on that bike. A new hard tail (with suspension fork) is in my future. But in theory, I knew all of this. Now I've proven it.

• As with CX, I'm totally impressed by the community around this event. Spokane cycling community is so rad. Totally inclusive and cool. Gage, at the Steam Plant Grill, provides a big honking keg of great beer after each ride. Jon, at Out There sponsors the race with ads in his magazine; North Division and Emde are also sponsors. I don't know what they do, but I know Michael, and I sort of know Marla and they're both good eggs. Geoff, of Two Wheel, was the sponsoring shop last night. He provided tons of swag. I don't think anyone came away from the event last night without some kind of prize. Geoff has really proven himself to be a great new bike shop owner who loves cycling and enjoys being apart of the cycling community.

Cool.

But lame that I waited until the last race to try it.

Cheney-Rock Lake Road Race

Well I’ve been negligent in my bloggigness. To recap my season since last post: I’ve been riding some, getting dropped every time on the race course, and working hard putting on races and helping with races. Two out of three positives…you can’t have it all.

Anyway, we’re getting pretty excited about the Cheney-Rock Lake Road Race on June 20th. This is the 2010 the Washington State Elite Championship Road Race. In USA Cycling speak, Elite = Senior = anyone who wants to race. This is opposed to a race that’s limited to Juniors (under age 19) and Masters (over 35 or so). Riders from around the state will be competing for state championship medals, merchandise, and most of all pride.

The Cheney-Rock Lake course offers something for everyone. Racers will be treated to beautiful rolling hills of the Palouse farm lands and channeled scablands south of Cheney. This is classic bike racing!

For this race we wanted to offer something different than the typical circuit races that racers are so used to: a 10-20 mile loop repeated multiple times in order to get the required distance for the races. Cheney is nice in that you can ride out of town and not see another traffic light for 100 miles. To take advantage of that, for this race we're using a combination of three loops: A 73 mile long loop, a 38 mile loop, and a 14 mile extension loop for give everyone the required distances for state championship courses.

Urban legend says that the Inuit’s have 100 words for snow. True or not, I would say that cyclists have even more words for “Hill”. Check the Dictionary of Roadie Slang if you don’t believe me. We in eastern Washington call the terrain in the Palouse “rolling” and that confuses people from other areas. Yes, they are “hills”, but I would not call them “climbs”. Two of the biggest hills on the course are notable: there’s a one mile long 5% “grade”, and .25 mile long “wall”. There are no mountain passes, no crushers, and no other terrain changes that should affect the outcome of the race. Anyway, it’s a pretty good course.

We’re also looking for volunteers for the event. If you’ve ever wanted to check out road racing, but aren’t sure if you’ve got what it takes, volunteering is a great way to get into it. You’ll get to watch the race unfold and support the cause. Email us for more details.

And for your riding pleasure, the State Championship Criterium is being held in Cheney on Saturday June 19th. Details here. We’re doing this as a combined weekend in order to make it more attractive for west siders to travel over for the weekend of racing.


manditory bicycle photos

Tuesday Night Twilight Series

Eric Abbott leads the peloton through some tight corners at Spokane County Raceway. Photo: Tim Wong

Tuesday night Twilight Series road races start next week! These races are a weekly staple for many local lycra-clad rodies. They're also a low key, low stress way to get into bicycle road racing. The weekly series usually attracts 60-100 cyclists of all ages and abilities, divided into four fields: A, B, C, and Women. A-pack riders are the most experienced racers, and hence the fastest, B's are intermediate, and C's are new racers and Masters age 50+ racers. Women may race in any pack they choose, but most women race in the dedicated women's pack. Distances range from 15-30 miles, or 30-100 minutes.

The peloton racing down the dragstrip area of Spokane County Raceway. Photo: Tim Wong

Hosted by Baddlands Cycling, racing happens almost every Tuesday night of the spring and summer at various spots around the Spokane area. The first race was cancelled because of an issue with a venue. Therefor racing starts this Tuesday, April 20th, in Cheney WA. Check the Baddlands site for complete details!

Spring Racing in Eastern WA

The spring racing season is almost here. It's been a few years since we've been able to claim a "season" of racing in the Spokane area. This Spring, we have six weekends of racing to brag about. That isn't counting the Tuesday night Twilight Series which runs Tuesday nights all spring and summer (more on that later). Here's what we have:

March 7th: Wawawai Landing Time Trial & Hill Climb Race. Near Pullman WA

March 28th: The Muddy Huetter Roubaix Hosted by Vertical Earth in CDA

April 3-4: Frozen Flatlands Omnium hosted by Baddlands

April 10th: Ronde van Palouse , hosted by Spokane Rocket Velo

April 11th: Rocky Mountain Roubaix, (near Missoula MT, but close enough)

April 16-18: Tour of Walla Walla, probably the biggest race in the state. Sold out already.

Mandatory race photo #9: Two points if you can name the venue ;)

edited to fix formatting

Ronde van Palouse

Folks, we're in business. Complete details on the 2010 Ronde van Palouse road race can be found at spokanerocketvelo.com .

And don't forget the Bike Hang tonight at the PI @ 1730 hours.

We're making progress...

The bicycle racer progress report:

Previously I laid out several priorities in the process of being a bike racer in 2010.

Priority 1) Weight Loss: so far this has been a total disaster. Okay, so I'll specialize in the "flat" races. Next priority...

Priority 2) Ride the bike: Check...not a problem here. With this sissy winter riding has been fairly pain free.

Priority 3) Cross Train: Check...there's snow in the mountains and I've been "alpine touring" which I guess is hiking up the mountain on skins and skiing down. This is a lot of work. The other day I wore my HRM during the climb. I happened to look down and see 180 bpm. During a bicycle race this heart rate usually tells me, "you're about to hit the wall, then get dropped by the pack and finish the race by yourself", but it actually felt fairly normal for skiing up a hill. I don't know what that means in terms of training, but at least I was in pain and that's good preparation for bicycle racing. Anyway, here's Tony Aleto and I at Mt Spokane last week, looking like a couple of mountaineers:





Priority 4) Have a training plan: Well...does downtown bar biking count as a plan? Because I've represented myself pretty well over the holidays.


Sarah on her way to "First Night"


Here we are training on New Years Eve downtown: Patty, Sarah and Pat

Close enough to the NALP for me.


T-8 weeks until the first Mason Lake Road Race.

Tuesday Bike Stuff

Item #1 - Jonathon Chung

Jonathon is from Taiwan. He's been riding around North America since last August. He's traveled 7400 miles so far. I've been signed up as a host on the warmshowers list for over 2 years now, and while I've taken advantage of others' hospitality, Jonathon was my first guest. Yay.

What a cool guy; very gracious.

Some facts:

• 50 lbs of gear
• Started from the mid-west, went to Toronto, then down the east coast, through the south to San Diego, then up the west coast to Vancouver BC. Now he's on his way back down to LA via the Great Divide.
• His visa expires in August so he's flying back
• He's replaced a spoke, 3 rear tires, the rear cassette, and the rear derailleur. Not bad.
  

Item #2: Bad Lands Summer Twilight Series race at Lincoln Park

My friend Taylor (no. 240) came in 3rd in the "B" class. The first 3 finishers were all within a foot or so of each other as they blasted over the finish line. What a great race. It's fun to watch and learn about racing and the Lincoln Park race is perfect because it's such a small course. You can walk around and see the different sections and the challenges in each section.

Taylor (in blue) and the dude in red broke away from the pack early in the race for a $2 preme. (Cha-ching!) The guy who won the race ended up breaking from the pack in the last few minutes, but otherwise the pack stayed back by about 20 seconds for the entire race after the preme. For the majority of the race, Taylor pulled the guy in red up a slight grade at the back side of the course, while Taylor drafted the red guy on the down grade.

Next Lincoln Park crit is July 15th at 6PM. Put it on the calendar now. This is a great after-work no-money-fun event.

Item #3 - BAB'ing

I wish I could've stayed to watch the C's and A's race, but I had to get down to East Central Community Center and pitch my favorite route to the neighborhood council. The route goes through Playfair, which is going on the auction block very soon.

My mission was to get the neighborhood to make sure bike/ped access is baked into the plan regardless of who ends up with this key connection. The neighborhood ended up passing a resolution that supported access to Playfair as long as it didn't disrupt the sale -- so it's sort of a good thing, but I would've liked a stronger statement with some bite.

Item #4 - Mr Blaine update

According to SPOT, it looks like he's bedding down outside of Libby MT tonight on the southern tip of Lake Koocanusa. The race starts on Friday.

Item #5 - FBC Ride tomorrow night

Meet at Benidittos South at 8. Ride at 9.