Santa Cruz Mtn Ride

This past Saturday I ponied up with a few SJBC teammates who weren't up at the District races to do the Santa Cruz Mountain Challenge. I was pretty excited to do this 100 mile ride. Sure, 11k of climbing might sound painful to some, but I was amped to ride on some new roads and climbs. What follows is just a few points of a great day on the road:

• Mtn Charlie - For some reason I thought this road was a nicely paved meandering climb up to Summit Road. It was, but the pavement was mediocre and inconsistent. But with no traffic I liked it.
• Big Basin descent - This rocks as always...though I've only done it once before. The only thing I forgot, but learned the hard way, was how the first hard hairpin turn on the descent from China Grade in the park near the park HQ has a tight decreasing radius turn. I took it pretty fast and made it through barely. The two random riders on my tail weren't as 'aware' of the corner, but they made it through safely.
• Jamison Creek - WOW. Double WOW. The bottom portion of this climb isn't anything too special, but the last two thirds just shot you up to the heavens at an alarming rate. I was in my 36-29t combo and averaged around 360 watts for the climb (mid-23 minutes to complete). Standard gearing would have really hurt.
• Felton-Empire descent - Great pavement. Too bad there were cars that made me slow down and wear out a set of brake pads.
• Zayante - Hot as always in that canyon. I know this climb, so it was bearable
• Granite Creek - The map shows this as a little blip of a climb, but when it shows up at mile 98 it's a bit tougher than when the legs are fresh. By this point my feet were on fire, but the legs and butt could have ridden a few more miles.

Thank goodness this is my rest week and I can recover. This ride capped my biggest training week of 290 miles, so sitting back for a few days with easy spins and telecommuting from home is on the agenda.

Blondie Part II

This afternoon I got the wild idea while grocery shopping with Logan that I'd do something with my hair. Go figure that I made this decision just a few days before heading back to work, but since I telecommute 95% of the time I think this won't be a problem.

First I started out with a little trim with the #3 clipper. Easy to do but I needed the wife to trim up the back.

Then it was time for some bleaching. I last did this 12 years ago to my goatee and it burned my skin pretty bad. Today's bleaching application didn't burn as bad as I remembered from the past. We'll see if I start getting monster dandruff flakes in the next couple of days (a sure sign that things have gone bad).

Now that I'm blond maybe I'll have a much fun as my blond-haired daughter.

Blondie

I don't know if blonds have more fun, but we'll find out soon. Pictures to follow...

Wet Pants

My son will hate me later in life after he learns how to read and realizes what I'm doing with this post but it's too funny not to share.

A few of his friends came over to the house to play. They ended up playing hide-and-go-seek. A classic game we all know. He just took it too the furthest extreme! He hid, ignored the fact that he needed to go to the bathroom and subsequently pee'd his pants. I had to laugh; however it wasn't funny too him. He was mad that he was found.

Watsonville Crit Race Report

Having never done this race I was excited to see what lay ahead for the race. There's a real small hill after the last corner that rises up to the finish line. It had been a couple of months since I had done a E4 race and I didn't know what to expect at the start. 24 laps were put on the board and off we went.

After a few easy laps where the field was feeling out the corners (which were pretty technical) folks were hitting the small hill harder. Surges would come up both sides and then you'd get pinched coming into the first corner if you were stuck in the middle. This happened a couple of times and for me it soon became easier to stay on the outside of the turn and take it a bit wider. Guys diving on the corner were easy to shut down because the wind would hit them first coming out of the corner and you'd regain your original position easily.

Halfway through the race I freaked some of the young guns out by locking up the rear brake (man those M5 brakes work well) as I was entering the corner. A gut reaction to the wheel in front of me falling back fast, but it woke up a few people on my tail. The pavement through some of the corners was a bit bumpy and on those turns where I was pedaling through I felt the rear bounce around a tad. Other than these incidents it was a pretty smooth race on a technical course.

With 2 laps to go I surged up the hill and made up quite a few positions by pedaling up and over the backside of the rise. I was surprised how many guys let off the gas at the peak. This gained me a few positions going into the first corner. It was easy to hold my position through the rest of the course.

With 1 lap to go I held my position and was hoping to see a few of the guys I had marked move up. Like clockwork up they came...however, their teammates weren't coming up with them. I was hoping that one of the better represented teams would wind up the pace and provide some sort of leadout. This would have suited me better, but it didn't happen.

We rounded the last corner and then burst up the hill. I was about 10th coming out of this corner. I had a ton of momentum and moved to the left to pass a few people, but then one of the Third Pillar riders in front of me moved left and shut the door in front of me. To make it worse, he was dying and falling back. I had to momentarily back off the gas and then jump back on. I was pulling 1,100+ watts, then 2 seconds later 91 watts and losing 2mph. I finally got around him and put down another 1,200 watt effort to cross the line. 7th was mine.

In retrospect I'm stoked with a top 10, but can only wonder how things might have turned out if I could have kept ramping up my sprint coming out of the final corner.

Nolan said what?!?

Race reports to follow, but this was humorous...

After fighting it out in the Cat 4 race I lined up for the M35+ open. I was in front of Larry Nolan when I heard this or something to the effect, "Wow, this race has been going on for 31 years. This is my first time."

Go figure, a race where Larry and I are rookies together. And that my friend was the end of the similarities between the two of us for the next 40 minutes as our race rocketed out of the gates...

BTW, I absolute loved watching Larry's effort today. Impressive to observe after I got pulled.

Way too long off the MTB

Yesterday a friend of mine convinced me to head out with him on a mountain bike ride. My poor mtb, it hasn't been ridden on the trails in over two years. I put a little TLC toward the bike and cleaned it up for a late evening ride on the trails.

What ensued was a 2-hour ride around the trails at Santa Teresa park in South San Jose. I forgot how mentally fatiguing climbing/descending a technical single track path can be. I must say, I'm such a wuss when I descend on the mtb. However, I can climb much better than I remembered on the fire trails.

I'm more tired than I thought I'd be this morning, but man, that was a fun diversion from the road bike. I'll have to do this more often.