Saturday Morning Motivation

About a dozen Ghisallo Cycling Team are in Georgia this weekend at a training camp. I hope the weather's been good this week and they've got a lot of good miles in. I decided not go because we are still waiting for Kara to have her baby (due today).

I was planning to get out on the bike for a few hours at around 9:00 this morning but I decided to check Cycling.tv and they already have Paris-Nice on. So now I'm sitting on my butt watching others ride their bikes instead of riding my own. I guess I'll use the race coverage as my motivation to ride in the cold today.

Poor Mr. Boonen....

Psst...Tom...put your hands down....you didn't win...Tom...put you hands down....

Race Report Disclaimer

I forgot to add this disclaimer to the race report for the Reily Road Race. This disclaimer will apply to all race reports I post..."This report is how I remember the facts of the race and may not be completely factual. In fact it may, in no way, resemble what actually happened in the race at all...Its just how I remember the event. If you where there and remember it differently, I don't care...go write your own report."

Do these clothes make me look fat??

Wearing the new kit...

2005 Hyde Park Blast Video

A cool video from Mark Hooton of the Cat 3 race at the 2005 Hyde Park Blast. I was in there somewhere hanging on to the back of the group.

Have I told you my Sean Kelly story?

Its 1996 and my wife, kids and I are on vacation in southern Ireland. I am driving on some back road on the way to Waterford. I happen to notice a guy standing, with his bike, beside a tree along side the road. I turn to my wife and say "that was Sean Kelly". "Who's Sean Kelly?" she says. I try to explain but I'm thinking I need to turn around and see if that was really Sean Kelly standing on the side of the road. I turn the car around and head back. We pass the rider, who is now riding his bike riding toward us in the opposite direction. I say again, "that was Sean Kelly". Now I have to turn around again so that I can follow the guy and verify I have just passed Sean Kelly twice. I pull the car up beside the rider and ask, "Are you Sean Kelly?". (I know this sounds like it could fall into the murky area of stalker or crazed fan but I had to know if this guy was actually Sean Kelly) He answers, "Yes, I am". At this point he stops the bike and we have a short conversation about his riding, about how Grip Shift was planning to build a factory nearby and about how our Ireland "holiday" was going. I grabbed a notebook and asked for an autograph before finally letting his head off to finish his ride. He was a very classy guy. As soon as we parted, I was kicking myself for not getting a picture. No way was I going to chase him down for a fourth time to ask for a picture...at least I had the autograph.



Now, fast forward to Christmas, 1996. We are opening presents and I unwrap one from Karma that is obviously a picture frame. Its a a picture of Sean Kelly that has been personally autographed to me.


After we got back from Ireland, Karma wrote a letter addressed simply, Sean Kelly, Carrick-on-Sur, Ireland, explaining that we had met Mr Kelly on the road in June and that I was disappointed that I had not gotten a picture with him. A time later, Karma receives a picture and autograph along with a nice letter from Mrs. Kelly. She even sent us a Christmas card that year. I still consider the picture and autograph one of the coolest gifts I have ever received.

Reily Road Race

I did the OVR Reily Road Race on Sunday. The Cat 3s were doing 7 laps of an 8 mile rolling course. The race was pretty well organized even though it started 45 minutes late. I missed the winning move by being in bad position at the back of the field. I had been riding near the front but let myself drift back just as a group of 7 or 8 moved off the front with almost 30 miles still to race. A second group of 5 or 6, with Corey representing Anthem, then went up the road right after them. I thought Corey's group was going to hook up with the first group but Corey said only a couple of guys would work and they never quite made the connection. (Kudos to Corey for the excellent ride after coming back from a bad accident and a couple of seasons away from racing). As soon as the second group came back to the field, I made a counter attack to try to bridge to the first group. One rider from the One Call team came with me and then Mitch from Torelli made his way up to us with still 25 miles to race. The three of us chased hard for over 10 miles and came close to catching the leaders but just could not finish it off. We continued to work together to at least try to stay out in front of the field. Mitch was a monster, doing more work than the rest of us to stay off the front. We eventually caught another One Call rider who had been dropped by the lead group. The four of us took turns at the front just hoping to hold off the rest of the race. With 6 miles to go, Mitch put in a surge that dropped the One Call guys and nearly broke my legs. The two of us continued on and finished 4 minutes down on the first group but still a minute up on the field. I managed to out sprint Mitch for 7th.

Lady

We lost our dog on Saturday morning. She was nearly 14 years old.

Why I hate riding the bike path......

As a general rule, I try to avoid riding the bike path. The Corwin to Morrow section of the Little Miami bike path runs within a few miles of home along the Little Miami River. I have not seen too many other sections but I have to believe this section is probably one of the most scenic. I really don't have anything against the bike path itself, its some of the people who use it. My experience is most people who use the bike path are oblivious to anyone else who might be using the path. Either that or they just don't care. I think it can actually be safer to deal with the cars on the road than some of the idiots who use the bike path. A couple of examples...

Last summer, I rode the 15 mile from home up to Corwin to meet Joe for a ride. We got in a good hard ride. Joe ripped my legs off and then beat me senseless with them. I was pretty wiped out when Joe dropped me back in Corwin for my ride home. I decide to ride the bike path down to the Corwin covered bridge, jump off the path and head up Waynesville Road to home. It was a nice day so there were a lot of people using the path. Just after I leave Corwin, I ride up behind a two person recumbent that contained a very large man and woman. As I approach the recumbent, I slowed down to let a little girl and her mother, coming towards us, pass before I pulled left to pass the recumbent. I was timing it so that as soon as the girl and mother passed I could just swing out and pass without slowing too much. Just as we all come together, the guy in the recumbent, without any warning, slams on the brakes and stops in the middle of the right lane. I swing left to avoid running into the recumbent and nearly hit the little girl just as I let a four letter profanity fly. I felt really bad for swearing in front of the little girl. I considered going back to apologize to the girl and her mother but I didn't. I would have said something to the recumbent guy that probably would have made for an ugly situation. I am sure the guy had no clue that he had done something really stupid that nearly caused an accident...moron.


Last night, I'm riding and I come down Elbon Road hill to Corwin Road. I decide to jump on the bike path to ride the two miles down to Oregonia Road and then home. I was zig-zagging down the path to avoid the sticks and branches that had been pulled from the trees by the winds we had last weekend. I passed a couple of guys, coming the opposite direction, on mountain bikes, giving them a "how's it goin'" as I passed. A few minutes later, I see a couple of people with three dogs further up the path. As I approached, I slowed down. The couple stopped and moved to the far left side of the path. I could see a man kneeling and holding what looks like an Aussie Shepard. The woman was holding some other big red dog on a leash. Just as I start to pass, a little rat dog jumps out from under the man and lunges at me. I slammed on the brakes and skidded across the path, somehow managing to miss the rat dog. As I was flat-spotting my Vitorrias, I let my usual four letter profanity fly. This time, I didn't even consider apologizing. Why the hell would someone walk their unleashed dog on a bike path...morons.

Koppenburg

A video of the Koppenberg at the 2006 Tour of Flanders. Its amazing how fast Boonen goes up compared to everyone else. The guy's a freak. I want to go next year...

Can We Please Get a Break in the Weather?

A small group of us met at WF on Saturday to ride a couple of hours. We were all planning to race on Sunday so the plan was to do an easy 2 or 2 1/2 hours. I needed to be back home by 11:00 so that Karma and I could drive up to Columbus to do some house hunting. We rolled out of the parking lot at about 8:45, just as it was starting to snow. The all knowing weather guys had specifically said we might get a little snow but it would not accumulate on the roads. Only two miles into the ride, it was snowing so hard that we couldn't see and the roads were completely covered....thanks for the accurate forecast weather guys. We decided to turn around and slowly and carefully make our way back the shop. Luckily, we made it back with no fall causalities. It just figures, it stopped snowing as soon as we got inside. We waited around to 15 or 20 minutes and headed out again. A lot of the snow on the road had already melted. We headed down to Corwin Road and started to ride up along the river. It started to snow and the road was becoming covered again. When we go to the Corwin covered bridge, the road was flooded. At that point, we decided to cut our loses and head back. It was a wet cold 2 hour ride in windy conditions but it was still better than riding the trainer.

Snow and a flooded road forced us to turn around...

First Race of the Season...Not

I showed up at the first OVR race in Germantown and found out it was cancelled. It had snowed a little Saturday night and the promoter thought the roads might be dangerous. A group of us decided to go ahead and ride anyway. It turns out they were right to cancel the race. There were sections of the race course that had a thin layer of snow that could have taken a group down. One section of road had flooded and was covered with mud. There was no way we could have raced on that road. Of course, we had to ride through the mud. It took me forever to get the bike clean afterwards. We made two trips back to the parking lot to drop off people during the ride. In the end, Dick and I were the only ones still riding after almost 3 hours. I would have been willing to ride longer but the 20+ mph wind and temps barely reaching 30 caused us to cut it a little short. The wind wasn't so bad, it was the temperature. I will generally ride in even colder weather but I was a bit under dressed. I was shivering when we got back to the parking lot and called it quits. I was a little disappointed that we didn't get to race but the promoter made the right call.


The muddy bike...

San Diego

Highlights From San Diego...

• The performance of the Ritchey Break Away. You would never believe you are on a bike that will fit into a large suitcase. Worth the investment, if you travel with your bike.
• Six days riding in relatively warm weather.
• The ride to the top of Palomar Mountain via Nate Harrison Grade Road. A steep climb of about 12 miles with around 7 miles of dirt road and then the 7 mile descent of South Grade Road.
• Mesa Grande Road on the ride from Santa Ysabel to Lake Henshaw.
• Cheers from a group of teenagers at the bottom of the 3 mile descent from Lake Wolhford to Valley Center Road. I was bombing the descent. They tried but couldn't keep up in their pickup truck. A fun way to end a 6 hour day on the bike.
• The ride to the top of Palomar Mountain via South Grade Road in the clouds, fog and rain.
• The last evening of the trip. We had a great time drinking too much Guinness and listing to a band play Irish music.

Lowlights From San Diego

• The ride to the top of Palomar Mountain via Nate Harrison Grade Road. It hurt so bad.
• Traffic in North County. Cars don't give an inch.
• The clerk at Palomar Mountain General Store who didn't want to give up a brown paper bag. We just spent $15 on food and drink...just give me the bag (we needed it to stuff up the jersey for the decent down South Grade Road). Maybe he was just having a bad day.
• The climb up Cole Grade Road on the way back from Palomar. Its only a couple of miles long but seemed steep as Hell.
• The hangover I woke up with on the last morning of the trip (see the last item in the highlights).