Continuing the Crank Saga

The bottom bracket fix seemed to do the trick on the Zipp cranks, but check out this latest problem:



If you look closely you'll see the threaded sleeve moves back and forth as I try to tighten/loosen the pedal. It only takes about 0.5Nm of force to make this happen. I'll be having an interesting conversation with Zipp on this problem.

I've since gone back to the old aluminum SRAM Rival cranks. Today will be the first ride with the old crankset and I'm hoping it will be enlightening particularly around the stiffness and lack of chainring flex. I did notice a bunch of flex with the Zipps and recently confirmed that their new chainring design due out in March would fix this problem. Too bad I won't be running your cranks Zipp to let you know if the problem was fixed.

Cranky BB Bearings

After last season's mishap at the Madera Stage Race I decided to play around with a set of Zipp cranks. Shaving off nearly a pound from the SRAM Rival cranks was a nice bonus, but other interesting surprises have popped up.

In the past seven months I've burned through two sets of ceramic bottom brackets. I'm not sure if I'm getting sloppy seconds from Zipp, but this hasn't been much fun. Each time the BB decides to bite the dust it makes the loudest click-click sound you could imagine. I'm sure a few guys riding near me at Cherry Pie yesterday were wondering what was happening to my bike. Trust me, as annoying as it is to you my fellow competitor, it's ten times worse for me. I get a bit OCD when it comes to having a quiet bike.

I'll let Zipp know about this failure and see if their steel bearings might be a better fit for me. Each breakdown of the ceramic bearings has had the same result. It feels like grit and sand has worked its way into the ball bearings; definitely not rotating smooth, but very rough. Thankfully I've got a spare set of BB's on the shelf that will keep me on the bike. If these break down again I might just have to find another crank alternative.

SJBC Training Camp

This past weekend marked the second year SJBC has done a winter training camp. Last year was our initial trek down to the ultra-secret central coast location. Ok, it's no secret, but Solvang is still a nice quaint small town. Again we were treated to perfect weather and plenty of sun.

Friday's mid-trip stop in Paso Robles was an excellent way to break up the drive and get a quality ride into our legs. Peachy Canyon, Vineyard and some other back roads were excellent. Caution had to be given in most corners due to the debris in the road from the recent rains, but for the most part people were safe and had a blast. I can probably throw this blanket statement out there for most everybody when I say that our pace was probably a little too brisk for the first day of camp. We must have been itching to throw down because my power file showed some pretty high numbers for extended amounts of time for a January ride. Ok, I was one of the instigators...

The next morning brought on Figueroa. Riders had the option of doing a shorter ~50 mile loop or toughing up and doing the ~95 mile route. For some reason climbing up the backside of Figueroa this year didn't seem as hard as last year. It was a few degrees cooler this past weekend, but I think what made it easier was knowing the climb. I was expecting much worse for myself because I had my own personal challenge that I set for myself; I wanted to stay with the lead group all the way up the climb. I accomplished that which was nice. Also, the elevation profile wasn't completely truthful. After completing the 95 miles we had put in nearly 8,000 feet of climbing.

After our team meeting Saturday night, some excellent food and a good night of sleep, my dead legs were put to the test on Sunday. Thankfully there wasn't any significant cramping all weekend, but it was still hard to roll out of bed and know I had another 75+ miles waiting. The plan was to ride out to Jalama and back. I did map out a longer route, but there weren't any takers and I needed to be back to Solvang by 3pm. To make up for the shorter distance, I made sure I put in some pretty serious digs to get out of the ride what I wanted. For those that had to peel off early and head back to Solvang before reaching the coast, I advise you make the effort to stay later and ride Jalama Road all the way to the beach. One of the best rides I've had!

It goes without saying that all of this couldn't have been possible without the tremendous support of our SAG folks. They did a great job keeping everybody hydrated and well-fed, safe and took some pictures too (I'm trying to track all of them down...). And I'm glad the wives who came along had a great time too. I know my wallet is a little lighter from wine club memberships and shopping, but that's an insignificant expense when you consider the compromises our families make to allow us to ride and race.

A Few Noteworthing Things

2009 came and went so fast I didn't have time over the holidays to publish any thoughts about the passing year. I might get to that, but don't count on it. Looking forward there are a lot of balls being juggled. New SJBC president role, expanded club race team, busy-ness with family stuff and general chaos.

On a tangent, it's been fun over the past month to watch my kids take up the sport of basketball. I'm not one of those parents that dictates what their child's sporting interests will be. I see lots of parents getting their kids involved in things based on the past history of success (or lack thereof) of the parent. I'm not expecting my kids to be Division I Pac-10 athletes (like their dad), but just seeing the joy in them taking up the game of basketball has brought back a lot of heartfelt memories of my own.

Last night a fellow parent asked if I would ever get into coaching basketball. Hmm, something to ponder, but at the moment I'm having too much fun watching. Besides, I can't give away all my secrets on how to play the game.

Need Route Advice for Solvang/Santa Barbara

I'm putting together some routes for myself and want to learn more from local riders in the Solvang/Santa Barbara area.

The first loop takes us out of Solvang and out to Jamala. The return back I've got us going through Lompoc, then Los Alamos: http://www.mapmyride.com/ride/united-states/ca/santa-ynez-valley/838126093664516876

The second loop goes up the dirt side of Refugio Road out of Solvang (not sure how good of a road this is, but I'm not afraid of taking the road bike on some dirt), then on to Santa Barbara and returning via the Gibralter climb: http://www.mapmyride.com/ride/united-states/ca/solvang/177126093828350408

Any feedback would be great.

Blogging Low Point

Wow, November was a dismal month for postings on this blog. I guess that coincides with a few things happening with other priorities in life. Work has picked up significantly with a little known acquisition that's been proving to be more worth than initially scoped, and the onset of the holidays has its usual bevy of activities between Thanksgiving and Christmas (...or Festivus if that's your holiday of choice).

In the midst of all of this, I'm proud to say that November broke some new ground for things bike-related. I explored a lot of unexplored routes that I previously had dismissed. Many of them were dead end roads, but several gems were found (Weaver Road) among the duds (Aldercroft Heights Road). I found out how versatile a road bike can be on local fire roads where most traffic tends to be mountain bikes and hikers. I even explored the possibility of buying an old bike from one well-known CX racer who just happens to be very tall and a national champ (BTW, thanks to those that helped me get in touch with the individual).

To top it off, I did accomplish something of interest on the bike. For you Trainingpeaks WKO+ geeks like me, I had a five day block of serious volume right around Thanksgiving. Hit a new high for my ATL while driving my TSB down to -51! But what about the CTL? It came close to a high, but not near what I had back in July. That's fine, because I'm not really looking to put a peak together this off-season for our local weekend club races.

And speaking of those (SJBC Winter Series), I had a blast testing out my new Edge tubulars at the last crit. First time out on this wheelset and an absolute joy. I'd forgotten how much trust one can develop with a set of tubulars while your railing through a corner and laying down some power.

Thinking more about this, it's the first time in probably 2+ years that I haven't raced with a power meter. All my previous iterations of race wheelsets had been built around PowerTap hubs. With my intent to use Metrigear's future product (yes, I did order a Garmin Edge 500 on Cyber Monday...sweet discount too), I've decided to move away from the PT hubs. It was interesting in the crit on Sunday that I never found myself feeling the need to have the power numbers in front of me. Sure, when I hit the gas and cause the split and subsequent break to form, it might have been nice to see the data after the fact, but in retrospect I found it somewhat of a relief to just not have the power number in front of me being a distraction. I felt myself focusing more on the race, which was the object, and placing less focus on whether or not I'd blow up since these power numbers on the head unit were showing that I was going ballistic. This somewhat supports the idea I've thrown around in my head about riding/racing with the power readout display covered up with some electrical tape.

When time permits I hope to throw together a post highlighting some fun stuff from my own past year and give some 2010 predictions.

Exploring in the Back Yard - Soda Springs Road

Our local area is very blessed with the vast amount of terrain for on- and off-road biking. Over the past couple of months with the intensity low on my training radar I've done a few rides that normally I wouldn't have tried previously. Not sure as to the specific reason why I wouldn't have done these rides as part of my normal training, but it's probably because I've felt less in a rut around riding and more carefree about where my bike ends up taking me. That's a good thing and something I need to do more to counterbalance the demands of training and the impending slew of interval work I see on the horizon.

I recently decided to explore Soda Springs Road. The low-key'ers did this climb a few weeks ago and though I missed it, I felt I should at least make the effort to give the climb a go. What really prompted me to get my rear up to this climb was the announcement that the Los Gatos Creek Trail had reopened the upper part of the trail across the front of the dam. No more nasty climbing on the gravel road (I actually never did it, but it was a deterrence). I came down it plenty, but never found a reason to be joyous about climbing it. With the change in the trail in place, I figured it was worth heading up to Soda Springs.

The sign at the bottom is harmless and gives no real indication of what was in store. As the climb began I was surprised at how this road meandered up through the canyon. For some reason I thought I'd end up with a nice few of the back side of Mt. Umunhum as I climbed but that wasn't the case. I did keep getting views of the trails in the Sierra Azul area where folks typically mountain bike.






I'm not going to go into too much detail, but I captured some interesting things along the climb that caught my interest. The autumn colors in the leaves on the vines aren't done justice by the iPhone camera, but they were ablaze in vibrant fall hues.






As you climb higher the road narrows and leaves just enough room for a cyclist and a single vehicle. This is probably one of my favorite pictures on the climb because it gives you a real sense of what the climb entails. Pretty steady 8% grade the whole way up. You just have to find that happy gear and mash out your feel-good cadence. Mine happened to be at at nice tempo pace on the day I took these pictures. I came back a week later and went a bit faster (sub-threshold) and shaved off three plus minutes from my previous time up the climb.

Higher up on the hill you come across less people and more outstanding views. There was some local valley haze in the area and it wasn't completely clear; the following week at the top it was much cooler and clear. I could see all the way to Mt. Tam, SF, Oakland and the foothills up near Sonoma and Napa Valleys.

I'm still surprised at myself for not making the effort to get up to this excellent climb sooner. From my house it's roughly a 1.5 hour ride to the top. Not bad considering that I'm only having to really deal with cars for the first twenty minutes of this ride from the house over to the LG trail head. Once you get up around Lexington and the climb the volume of cars is very low.

On the way home I decided to hop over and give Montevina a climb. I've cut across the dirt trail numerous times to descend Bohlman, but given my adventurous bent, I decided to stick to the dirt trail (on the road bike...25mm tires mind you) and descend into Los Gatos. Of course I took it easy on the descent because coming home in several pieces is not an option. Overall it was fun to explore some new parts of the hills and open myself to new adventures in the dirt descent.