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!

Activation Energy

Activation energy, in chemistry, is the energy required for a reaction to initiate. It is unique because there is a little bump of energy, if you look on a graph, that is a bit higher than the energy needed to propel the reaction (or to level the graph line). So for a reaction to run steadily it needs less energy than it needed to get it started. Preparing for race season is virtually identical, and I chose to overcome that bump today, in the rain, in the mud. I did just that with the help of my old bike, my patchwork of old parts that used to be my regular "do it all" bike. The simplicity of the aged parts made the ride unique to the past year spent focused on finish standings, points, the best and newest equipment, etc. Not to say that the year was anything short of amazing, but so often we forget about the basics, or the roots - the things that got you started, or first lit your fire. There are a lot of different things you could place this analogy on, but for cycling, a trip back to the beginning, it turns out, will often reinvent that feeling of what cycling was when you hadn't yet become desensitized to it. A lot of riders complain about older bikes for a lot of the reasons that make them amazing to ride. Lack of suspension does definitely make the ride bumpier, but when was the last time you decided to really feel those bumps. If you pay enough attention you can actually read the terrain without seeing very much and it ends up being fun! V-brakes and skinny tires are a challenge, no doubt, but the challenge is to see if YOU can change, not the bike, and once you do, your having FUN again! There's no wonder in my mind as to the resurgence of riders ditching gears and suspension for the bikes "of old", simply put, the make you feel like you did the first day of riding, and they make you FEEL riding.
My old bike isn't the "of old" that I'm thinking of, but for me it is just old enough to remind me of what I was like when I was riding 8 or 9 years ago when I bought this thing, and to be honest it was damn fun. I mean more fun that I've had on a bike in a while and it was just what i needed to propel me over that bump of energy and fuel the drive to initiate another season of riding and racing. I'm sure there will be all kinds of events and all kinds of new exciting equipment, but I hope this old one is still waiting in the wings for another day in the mud.

Welcome

Hello! A new year and a new race season, and since I end up putting together so many group emails with photos, and I'm not sure how many people actually WANT those showing up in their inboxes, I figured I'd just put together a blog for our extensive fan base to visit.

As informal as a team can be, the five of us, Zach, Maia, Cyndie, Dusty and I make our way to the same races nearly every time they are held in the central coast. Last season was the first that most of us had raced seriously, and by the end we had compiled a nice list of finishes and often saw a few of us standing on the podium!

So, the new season starts very soon, and I'm excited to get riding again. Please feel free to check back anytime. I hope to post general riding-writing, race reports and trip reports fairly often through the year! Thanks!