CyclePathic Tendencies

We at Team Miracle have just added a new event to the roster for this year, and I won't lie... It's a biggie! Thanks to Stacy's efforts we are signed up for the 24-hours of adrenaline at Laguna Seca on May 2nd. Starting at 12pm on Saturday May 2nd the first of our team members will set off on the course and we won't stop the relay for 24 hours! Each lap follows the Sea Otter course and should take about an hour and a half to complete. Depending on the schedule, a good percentage of our team will be riding said course in complete darkness (aided by headlights of course...) Back on "adrenaline island" we'll have two campsites set up where we'll be staging, planning, encouraging, fueling and generally having a great time. I've volunteered myself as team mechanic and with the aid of my trusty stand I'll be helping get everyone's bikes up to speed for their laps.

CyclePathic Tendencies is sponsored by Stacy's growing Athletic Training and Rehabilitation business, Core Therapy.

Training Delay

I'm writing this post from Brooklyn, NY. After 8 midterms in Santa Cruz I jumped on a red-eye to NY, and proceeded to stay awake for a total of 42 hours before finally getting to sleep in a beautiful house in Princeton, NJ. The period of time between the red eye landing, and my head landing on the pillow was filling with a lot of amazing sights and time in NY, and honestly I didn't really want to sleep, but most of what I said to Bethany, my NY host, was received with a sideways stare as if she expected me to fall terminally asleep at any given moment. As if anyone could sleep in this city anyway. New Yorkers put up with a lot of noise, incovenience and commotion. On the flip side I have always been fascinated with cities what have basically grown so congested with people that they reach some level of functionality. Much to my amazement standing on the crowded subway, or weaving myself through thousands of people in the financial district of Manhattan I couldn't help but feel a sense of calm. New Yorkers do also fulfill a few stereotypes that we newbies to this city come in with. For instance, and I'll spare you the details of all of them, delivery drivers and cabbies in the city pull up to a line of traffic, one which they cannot see the source of, throw up their arms then lean on their horns for literally no less that 3 or 4 seconds. That doesn't sound like much, but the next time someone in front of you doesn't notice the light change to green, try leaning on your horn as you count out four seconds... You'll be disgusted with yourselves! (and if any of the folks in Santa Cruz try this you know they'll probably hold a lengthy city hall meeting about you and the possible implimentation of community based grassroots programs to train young kids on the humanitarian use of horns)



The seating chart in my life seems to have been built not to accomadate large crowds. There is just one front row seat, and it seems the many things I have going in life fight constantly for that one spot. Occationally the arrangement makes sense: school's comfortably up front followed by racing/riding and work is back in the third row trying to peer over their heads and despite the busy environment the arrangement feels right. But other things come in from time to time and steal seats causing everything to get messed up.



Last weekend was an XC race at Ft. Ord. I haven't had the chance to post a true race report yet, but I'll link to Stacy's photos. The race, in a brief synopsis went really well not in the sense of where I placed, but how I felt. As the laps wore on, my body seemed to feel stronger and stronger, and when I crossed the finish line I was barely winded! The ride was very encouraging. As I sit here now, though I see the Sea Otter approaching in about 10 days, and I feel drastically under-trained, under-prepared and just plain not ready! Between then and now is a few more days in NY, including a trip up to New Paltz...a town I've always wanted to see, and a climbing trip to Yosemite to climb the South Face of Washington Column in preparation for Half Dome this summer. If you're wonder which seat that mission has taken in the Jesse's life auditorium, it's standing in front of the front row jumping up and down, waving it's arms and throwing popcorn...

Downhill #2: No longer under the radar

Well, this past Saturday was the second of the spring downhill series. Zach and I showed up sporting new team colors of our recent sponsorship, Family Cycling Center in Santa Cruz. Its nice to be supported by a shop, but it was a new experience for me. I felt all the more "visible" in the yellow jersey, and I think I had grown accustomed to cruising just under the radar of that scene. With visibility comes the potential for your times and finishing standings being tracked, and for a while I think being low profile allowed me to finish wherever and feel okay about it, as if I were only riding for myself. But, with advancement come the notice of others, and if I'm not comfortable with that, then I don't think I deserve to be up front! So armed with that thought, I dawned that yellow jersey (which I'll remind is the color of victory in the Tour de France!) alongside Zach and hit the trails!Practice was not smooth. The course was very dry and pebbly, and it seemed no matter how much air pressure i took out of the tires, they just wouldn't hook up. I was experimenting with a new pair of Kenda Nevegals (thanks Kenda!) and i just don't think that is at all their strong point. I'll remember to set those aside for the more loamy races. Two practice runs consisting of both wheels sliding every which way left me quite nervous for the first race. The sun was pretty strong that day, and i felt tired even from the two runs...not to mention the two hikes up to the start! I felt nervous as Zach took off on his run a minute before mine, and I watched him accelerate down the fireroad start. The first race went great, though I made more than a few mistakes. There was one turn that came off the first fast fireroad that, no matter how much effort, I couldn't manage to keep my wheels from sliding out. Though I never crashed, i did make a lot of dust and take portions of a second off my time. The rest of the course was about the same, dusty lines, and deceiving corners. I finished strong and took 3rd in the Expert Class and 2nd in the Hardtail Class. Very pleased!Zach took very strong runs aboard his two very different rides. It has to be hard to reprogram from a plush heavy full suspension to a light hardtail single speed, and I have to commend him on turning in such similar fast times! After all the times were counted, Zach finished in at 2nd in the Sport Class and 2nd in the Single Speed Class! All in all we hit the podium four times in the top 3!As for now, my downhill schedule will take a break in lieu of midterms, a trip to New York and a speed climb of Washington Column's South Face with Stacy. It will ramp up in a big way in early April with the Sea Otter coming up, and I'll be scrambling to get practice time in on Dual Slalom courses, as that is the event I'm putting the most effort into! There is an XC race next weekend, and I hope to see the whole crew out there. Dusty is in Moab right now, exploring the trails around slickrock. I'm hoping he comes back with good photos and stories to post here!

Thanks for reading! Here's the link for results.

Downhill Season Opener!

The Downhill season kicked off yesterday with a bang! A large sized crowd was on hand for the opener of the Spring Downhill Series at Toro Park. The course was short and very fast with some great technical sections. The dirt was fairly dry and pebbly so picking tire pressures was the name of the game today, and

mixing that with some very high speed sections higher up on the

course it was a challenging and exciting course. Signing up in the morning cold, I watched the organizer write a big capitol "E" after my number, signifying "Expert" and my nerves started to run wild. I started to nit-pick my practice runs, brakes, the dirt, my helmet, food, everything!

Dusty running to a 6th place finish

Me making my first run as an Expert

Practices went fairly well, and I made my fair share of mistakes I had hoped to make early on. Zach was sporting his newly purchased single speed Santa Cruz Chameleon, and had entered the single speed class for the first time. As well his main Trek was outfitted with some shinny new improvements! One thing I love about downhill racing is illustrated by the following. Zach and I spent a significant period of time before our first run looking over a section near the end of the course that involved a rocky fast turn leading into a bump-up that, if you weren't in the right position, pitched you straight at a tree. A number of people had hit the tree that day one guy separating his shoulder, so it seemed like an good place to put some attention. After scoping all the lines possible, and considering all the technique variants we could use to cleanly make it through this section and not hit the tree, it was decided that we needed to just "make it happen". There wasn't any type of planning that was going to make this go any better, it just takes relying on your ability to improvise on the spot. Turns out the closer you came to hitting this tree, the faster you went through the turn. So testament to the sport, the name of the game is: you can't plan it and if you want it you gotta risk it. Worked out great I'd say!

Zach's 2nd place run in the Single Speed class

Results at the end of the day were outstanding. We took a total of five metals from the day. Zach took 2nd in the Sport class (a class he's likely to win this season) and 2nd in the single speed class, beating the entire field of riders except for the one who designed the course! Dusty finished in at 6th in the Sport class, a screaming improvement from last season. Our buddy "coach" Craig was out today, and turned in a 3rd place finish in his category. As for me, my first race as an Expert landed me in 4th place. As well I took 2nd in the hardtail class. My Chameleon is a jack of all trades. It may not be flashy, but I built her from scratch and it fits me like a glove. Thanks Dad and Stacy for coming out to support! The cheering on the side of the course make such a huge impact. Congratulations to my Dad on his 3rd and 6th place finish the same day at the Hollister Vintage Motocross! As usual, feel free to leave comments when you read! Thanks!

Results:
http://cccx.org/dh/2008/race1/2008_CCCX_DH_Race1Results.shtml

Rough Start...

The season hasn't gotten off to the best start for me so far. From getting sick and not being able to race a couple weeks ago to completely bonking out in the race Saturday, it's been a bit disheartening. It's hard not to project poor finishes out onto equipment and course condition, but to be honest "old yeller" was running great for a 10 year old bike, and the course couldn't have been better, with hard packed moist loam trails lined by green grass and oak trees. Perhaps the mixture of not being trained well enough and dehydration contributed to this past races poor finish, but whatever it was requires more attention to fix!

The life of a student isn't quite conducive to maintaining the training levels of a competitive cyclist. But as the days lengthen, the amount of time on the bike will increase and with that I hope to see lap times decrease. Speaking of the life of a student, my institution conveniently scheduled a mandatory 3-weekend course over two of the upcoming downhill races... So, my excitement has been dampened substantially...

For the rest of the guys, the season seems to be starting extremely well so far. Saturday, Dusty put in a very strong finish, beating his previous time for this course by 5 minutes, and inching to within 20 minutes of the leaders, who, mind you, are about to move up to the pro class!
Unfortunately Zach wasn't able to race Saturday, but the race prior he maintained a great pace and put in a strong finish! These guys are great to race with.

Welcome Stacy into the blog content, as she deserves the gold star for finishing 6th in her first EVER race, less than ten minutes behind the leader. Her nerves were quickly dispelled when she saw the results posted, confirming that she is a much better rider than she gave herself credit for! Congratulations Stace, we look forward to more races of trying to keep you from eventually beating all of us!!
Upcoming race is a Downhill at Toro Park on 3/9. As much as it pains me, and no matter how many times I double-check the calendar, it looks like I'll have to be passing it up for the sake of graduating in December. This seems like a harbinger of the kinds of sacrifices I may have to make in the years to come...

Results: http://www.cccx.org/mtb/2008/race3/2008_CCCX_MTB_Race3_Sport.shtml
More Photos: http://em.scottmosherphotography.com/g/xc311&gallery_page=&gallery_all=&view=1&photo_page=1#photo_s

A Cry for Summer...

I can't help but long for summer watching Doppler radar images of rain soaked valleys and snow laden mountains. You never really long for dust, rocks and heat, but the truth is, like snow in winter, they are the only real true markers of summer! Spring and fall always have loads of overcast days in California, and the trails are often nicely moistened, just enough to make the redwood duff loam absolutely tacky, but there's always the question of "will it rain?" "when? and how much?" Summer however, at least in this state, is ALWAYS riding season. Dust? Yeah. Heat. Sure. Rain? No. It's riding time. For now, It's 25 minutes away from February 24th, and this true believe is longing for a dusty trail to ride...

Race Report 2/10/08

Considering this was the first race of the season in a new class, Zach and I placed pretty well amongst the sport class. Unfortunately Dusty, Cyndie and Maia weren't able to make this race, so the Smith veterans lined up to sport team colors. Zach started off the race spirit by setting a land speed record from San Jose to Ft. Ord in exactly 1 hour, shocking even ME who literally grew up with his behind-the-wheel antics. It was hard to figure if we should stretch, or warm up, or sign up, or hydrate, or or...

Once the race flagged it all started making sense again. Pace, breathe, think positively and focus. At a point midway through lap 1 I was able to look back at Zach who followed 20 yards back after a hairpin turn and holler an encouragement, and soon we had settled into rhythm, working to memorize the turns and climbs of the course to best save energy. Honestly these courses are more like a graduation exam as compared to the SAT. They test how well you can study something first go round and apply on subsequent problems. Downhill racing feels more like an aptitude test, just free usage of the skills you have.

I had an interesting battle for the finish line with a guy I never did get to chat with afterwards. 1/4 mile before the finish was a short but grueling climb to a water tower followed by a bumpy downhill into the infield. I had save my energy for this last section. I was passed by two riders heading up, and dipping into the last little bits of energy I stood up and re-passed one of them, and immediately got on the other riders rear wheel and tailed him down the downhill into the infield. Once the course widened, I whipped out to the side to pass, but he was riding off the course on that side and I was inching off course, so i swung back behind and down shifted for the last hairpin 20 yards before the finish. I tucked in really tight inside and got on the pedals as soon as I could. Once I did, the rider I was chasing gave a look back to the inside at me and immediately slammed straight into a small oak shrub on the side of the course. It was tremendously strange watching the little shrub shake violently as this rider rode straight into it. I sprinted to an 11th place finish.

I watched Zach come into the infield soon after, hot on the tail of another rider. I watched his arms loosely gripping the bars as he sprinted in for a 15th place finish, thinking about how many years he spent behind a pair of handlebars. It was a great day. Next weekend the rest of the team will be on hand for race two!