OK, I think I'm ready

The gran fondo is still a little under two weeks away, but I'm really no long worried about being ready or not. I've put in some good miles over the last 10 days or so, punctuated by yesterday's ride.

I'm not really the RAGBRAI type — a big ride filled with distracted riders lacking even the most basic skills — but it was hard to resist this year. (And, really, the biggest problems on RAGBRAI happen in the towns. Lots of people just swerving and gawking around. Out on the road it's usually OK).

This year, RAGBRAI rolled into Algona. Hard to miss that one. So I had Chris drop me off in Storm Lake, where the day's route began, and headed home. And I absolutely drilled it. I figured I'd be able to make good time, given the wind — SSE, 10 mph or so — but it was pretty ridiculous. (And yes, I'm aware of the oxymoron: drilling it on RAGBRAI.)

Eighty miles in 3:43. Average speed of 21.7 mph. And with the exception of one tiny pull a guy tried to take, I was on my own the whole way. Into the cross-headwind, it was 21-22 mph. With the tailwind it was more like 27-28. Things slowed to a crawl when going through towns, but it cleared up pretty quick after that.

The last 10 miles were the toughest, with 70 miles of hard effort behind me and a heavier crosswind. And, slightly, hills. Just the smallest little rollers, but the previous effort accentuated them.

And then I ate everything in my parents' house.

Wet roads. Always with the wet roads.

Since being sizzled during the state road race a few weeks ago, it seems like pretty much every ride I've been on has included radar checking and skirting rain.

From my sketchy memory of previous Nebraska summers, it's June that has more rain than July. And it's July that begins the long, slow bake of the rest of the summer. This year, though, it's feeling like a rainy July.

Sunday's ride was full of radar watching. Monday's ride looked it was going to rain at any minute. I guess Tuesday was OK, but the morning was wet. Wednesday was fine except for the dirty, wet, sketchy descent.

And then this morning: pouring early on, then wet roads for the quick spin.

If there's one good thing, it's that I have internally routed cables now. The bike may look like hell, but at least it's not shifting like it, too.

Familiar territory

One of the things I always like about pre-race stories from Europe is the quotes from the riders. They say things like "on form" and talking about "having good sensations."

Having good sensations? Sure, why not?

After Monday's and Tuesday's work, I was fairly certain there would be no good sensations for Wednesday Night Worlds. My legs felt tight and heavy and as we headed for the first hill, I was just hoping to hang on.

I made it up and over without too much problem, but came slightly unhitched on the long climb on Highway 36. I chased and rejoined just in time for the hill sprint that isn't a hill sprint. Sweet.

And then on the long hill on Omaha Trace Road, unhitched again. And in Boyer Chute, up the hill and down on the flat dragstrip, unhitched again.

Man, it sounds like I was off the back a lot, huh? I was, kind of. But every time, I wasn't very far off the back. I rejoined on Highway 36, and I could see the sprint being contested outside of Fort Calhoun. On the flat near the end, I could see the group ahead the whole time.

Off and on, there were good sensations. A good hill here, a good burst of power to close a gap there.

So once again, I'm close. Not good enough to be in the lead group the whole time, but certainly better than the chasers. But, unfortunately, alone. I've been there before, though. That would be the mid-May to mid-June phase.

Here's to good sensations.

Attention getter

Stop me if you've heard this before: I'm still amazed sometimes by the sheer volume of email that flows into my inbox at the shop. It's inside chatter about items of note, heads-up-type warnings of potential issues and, often, questions about situations and how to resolve them.

It's like I'm ... managing it all. Hmm.

On Monday, I got a confirmation that I'd be attending Trek World, the yearly Trek dealers' show in Wisconsin. Cool. I've been looking forward to it. But on the bottom of an email from Jay, there's this:

"PS: You will also be riding a 100-mile gran fondo on the 8th. Stay tuned for details."

Personally, I love it that a 100-mile gran fondo is the "PS." It's like, "oh, by the way, bring some riding gear, we're going to take a spin at some point during the trip. It'll be about 100 miles or so — no big deal."

It's been a while since I've ridden 100 miles. In fact, I've only done it once — in 2006 ... on my Bianchi. Also in 2006: the RAGBRAI century day that ended at 98.something miles. Eh, close enough. RAGBRAI 2008, when I left from my house, picked up Munson, rode to Missouri Valley and then did the route: 99 and change.

Ultimately, 100 is just a number. The near-misses would have easily topped 100 had I seen any reason to carry on. I'd arrived at my destination. Close enough.

But a gran fondo is a bit of a race. Not a super-serious, present-your-license race, but riders are timed and results are kept. And this grand fondo has a course profile that looks like this:

Seems a little lumpy, no? I'm a pretty solid climber, but this could leave a mark. The good thing, though, is that I've felt pretty good on the bike for a couple of weeks now. The weakness in my hips is pretty much gone, though the bright pink skin gives away the secret of recent road rash.

So now it's all about fitness. I did some seated climbing on Monday while watching a storm skirt Omaha to the north, then three hours of Zone 3-Zone 4 work yesterday. Tonight is Wednesday Worlds, which should detonate me entirely.

Seriously, it's going to be ugly.

Duking it out

So Chris and I had a talk last night ... about bike pedals. Because of her knees, which are more than a little sketchy, something like a Speedplay would be a good idea. Lots of float, easily adjustable, etc.

Except they're a real bitch to break in. The springs are really tight at first, and Chris ... well, she's not so big and not so strong. So, being the nice guy I am, I offered to break them in for her. I raced on them a couple of weeks ago, and have been riding as much as possible to soften them up.

Wow, how valiant of me!

Here's the dig: Chris has been, in the meantime, on my pedals. My Dura-Ace pedals. Like most high-end Shimano products, they're super-smooth and take a beating well.

Also, they apparently make sketchy knees feel better. She doesn't want to give them back. Sigh.

Ah, love shared through cycling pedals. However, I really want to give those Speedplays back. I'm getting used to them, but that doesn't mean I'm beginning to like them.

So what's the answer? One of us is going to be on Speedplays for the foreseeable future. Hope it's not me.

Miles and miles

I'd love to get up in the morning and have a set workout to do. Maybe some hills or some TT intervals. Go out there, rip it up, get home, get on with it.

But those things are indicative of a plan — a training goal — and looking at the calendar, there are none of those left. Training goals, that is. The races in South Dakota in August? Not an option. Des Moines? Ditto.

Sigh.

Cyclocross? If that happens, it'll be more like a coincidence than a planned strike. Same with any MTB stuff. When the tools aren't available to practice, it's hard to plan and work for it.

Right now, it's all about getting as many miles as I can get before the snow flies. Last winter, I went into the cold trying to recover. I'm pretty much recovered ... again ... so I need to start building. I'd like to go into the fall strong and solid and capable of improvement next year.

So, today: miles. Tomorrow: miles. Wednesday: faster miles. Friday: miles. Saturday: short miles. Sunday: long miles.

It'll be like this for a while.

Future tense

The final Nebraska Rider of the Year standings are out. I didn't win.

Of course, when you do fewer than half of the races, you can't expect to win, can you? Chalk five of those absences up to simply not being ready to race, and another to simply not wanting to race (the Yutan TT course. Ugh.)

When I won the Cat. 4 Rider of the Year title in 2008, I placed no higher than third in any race. But I was consistently among the top five or so, which makes for a pretty high total when it's all said and done.

With the exception of the Capital City Crit, I was in the bunch in all of the Nebraska races. I'm there. I'm just not up there.

I was well on my way to up there before the slide-out in June. And I don't feel horrible right now. Actually, I feel fairly fresh. If there was a race to train for (no, I'm probably not doing any MTB or CX), I'd be able to prep for it pretty quickly. So it's miles miles miles miles to close out the summer.

Next year, up there is the expectation. Every time. I want to be on top of that Rider of the Year list again.

I wish next year started now.

Storm front

I'm fascinated by weather. I love watching it roll in, change and roll out. It's probably the Midwesterner thing -- the weather plays a role in pretty much everything. And one day can be a 180-degree difference (not temperature, though) from the next.

So last night, as the radar images were blooming with all sorts of pretty colors, I was watching the sky as we rolled out. It was going to storm at some point, that was certain, but when and where was up for grabs.

We did know, though, that there was no way we were going to get the Wednesday Worlds route in. No way. So when it was time to turn farther north, with a wall of black in the way, I turned south along with four or five others. But others went north, and some even kept going east.

We kept the tempo high, knowing that if we couldn't get a long ride in, we could at least get a short, hard ride in. As we headed south on the Keystone, less than 10 minutes from the shop, the tornado sirens sounded.

Like any good rouleur, EO'B responded to my call to pin it. We were ripping down the trail, knowing we were perhaps seconds away from being forced to find cover. Right when we went under Western Ave., about a mile from the shop, we felt rain drops. And then they got bigger.

And then I almost got blown off my bike. Holy crap. A blast of cold wind, followed by rain threw us all over the trail as we got to the skate park. We jumped off the trail and headed for Crane Coffee, which was surprisingly still open. (I just figured a coffee place would close earlier. It's open until 10, by the way.)

We waited out the storm for what seemed like forever, checked in with all of the other riders to make sure they were safe and then, finally, made a dash for the shop. It was still wet, and still rumbling, but we made it.

And then we heard the rest of the stories. A few riders went downtown, for some reason, while others found a house and had to be picked up. And then I saw stories about the Bike Masters guys hiding behind a bush.

Kinda makes my coffee shop hiding spot seem like a palace, huh?

On the road

Chris' family is spending a few days in relatively nearby Springbrook State Park (OK, nearby is about 2 hours away), so I headed over on my day off. While everybody else went swimming, Chris and I kitted up and got some miles in. The area around Guthrie Center has some great rolling terrain — it would be fun to spend more time on a bike around there.

This lake is in the middle of the park — and you have to climb a pretty big hill and then go down another to get there. I'd compare the first climb to the long Hummel Park climb — steep and windy, but with a better road.

After Chris peeled off, I headed east and into the little town of Yale. This flagpole is in the middle of the main street. And it's been there for a long, long time.

This road leads to the Raccoon River Valley Trail, which runs nearly to Des Moines. I didn't have time (or energy) to check it out further, but it's only 5 miles from the park. May have to do that next time.

Oh, Iowa. This is the view from said trail. I'm guessing there's a lot more of this farther down the line.

A lucky draw

Photo by Dan Farnham

When I woke up Friday morning, I wasn't racing. When I woke up Saturday morning, I wasn't racing.

It wasn't until I rolled into Mount Michael a bit later on Saturday morning that things changed. Even before I found a parking spot, I'd decided ... well, mostly: I'm racing tomorrow.

My hips felt good. My back felt good. Mentally, I've been thinking about July for months. More than a year, even. But I'm not fit, won't be fit for a while yet and I really doubted I could get my ass up that hill in the peloton 10 times. I still felt like I needed to be out there, if only for 20 miles.

But then, rain. Lots of rain. So much rain it essentially washed out the bottom half — the hardest half — of the course. And the race changed into a flat, fast, circuit race. And that I can do.

For 70-some miles, we ripped around a 3.5-mile square. Twenty times around that thing. You want to talk about mind-numbing drudgery? That'd be it. Holy crap. At one point, I was positive we'd done at least 12 laps. The official came by and said "this is lap seven."

Lap seven? Damn. This is going to be a long day.

It took me a while to get into the flow of things. I felt stressed for the first half of the race, mostly because there were attacks on all points of the course. And then counterattacks. And then more attacks. Only once did I feel really, truly in danger of being dumped off the back.

Go or stay? I went, and that was that. Easy, right?

The heat took its toll. For the first half, I grabbed one neutral bottle. By the last five laps, I was in there every time. Mostly they got dumped on my head and passed to someone else. But in the last two laps, I drank as much as I could. Hey, I was thirsty.

My last gel came with two laps left. Double Expresso Clif Shot. Those things make you want to run through walls ... or attack a peloton in which every single rider is stronger than you. Luckily, every time I stood up to close a gap in the last two laps, my right calf gave the warning signs of an impending, debilitating cramp.

If not for that, I surely would have done something really, really dumb. Instead, I rolled in with the group, sprinted when it was time to sprint and didn't embarrass myself. These days, that's a good enough goal for me.

If you're keeping track, by the way (I am), the Velogear.com kit I'm wearing in the picture above is the fourth different set of kit I've worn in six races this season. Nice.

And the bike? The bike is fast as hell. When I stomp on it, it goes. Works for me.

It was nice being in the peloton again. I just wish there were more chances to do it again before the snow flies.

Waterboy

Last year in the feedzone of the Babcook Road Race, I handed up bottles while wearing a back brace.

This year ... same story, minus the back brace. Despite my efforts over the past week to make it happen, it's not going to happen. And, actually, I'm cool with that.

I'm glad that I'm at a place in my life where I can take a step back and look at the big picture. Yes, racing is a big part of my life -- and pretty fun -- but if I don't race, eh ... no big deal. I mean, I want to, but when I don't, it's not the end of the world.

I guess that says a lot about what I've learned about my body over the past year and a half, too. I know when I'm ready, and I know when I'm not. Of course, getting your ass handed to you helps decipher the clues a bit, too.

So, basically, not ready. Soon, though. Things feel better each day, but that doesn't mean everything's better. Life goes on.

Happy camper

There are a lot of "firsts" flying around our house right now — first movie in a theater, first time up and down the sidewalk on a bike without stopping (that's for Jack, not me).

With Jack's first camping trip looming (two nights in a tent!), I decided it would probably be a good idea to actually, you know, sleep in a tent before being cast into an actual camping situation with him.

Good news: He loved it. You get to stay up late, wander around outside at night and play with fun stuff — like the headlamp, for example.

Bad news: When he whispered to me, "Daddy, it's morning time." It was 6:10. I'm usually up then, anyway, so that's not a big deal. He's usually asleep for at least another hour. Kinda puts a crimp on productivity ... .

He's getting bigger. Pretty soon he'll be able to get the tent set up on his own. Now we're talking.

Routine

One good thing about last summer — and there weren't that many of them — was the morning routine. Since I wasn't riding, I got up early, got my writing done, got the coffee going and watched the Tour.

Already this year, that routine is well-polished. Actually, I'm only missing coffee right now. I need to grind more, but everybody is still sleeping. (They're running out of time.)

I suppose I can wait.

After two solid days on the bike, I can tell it's been a while. I'm not so much tired, just kind of achy. I'm stretching and strengthening and getting better — not only day by day, but throughout the day.

I'm not quite ready to drop the handfuls of ibuprofen, but I'm getting close.

Act two

Now and again, you get opportunities to try new things. It could be food, it could be adventures, it could be ... well, anything. For me, mostly, it's bikes. Here's the new thing of the moment:

While it looks all stealthy, it's a standard paint job on a 6 Series Madone. Geometry is the same as my orange 5 Series, but it's noticeably lighter and stiffer. Ride quality is similar, but there are times when you can tell the 6 is just, well ... faster.

Apologies for the mismatching training wheels.

Got out with Brady, Mike, other Mike, Rafal and — at the end — Kevin. It was a nice ride.

There's a better look at the paint. Matte black/platinum with a little bit of red in there for good measure. It looks pretty tight with the SRAM Force graphics.

On the bike, it was my third day in a row. Saturday was a commute/shakedown ride. Sunday was a little more spirited, with Mike and Jeremy along for the ride. I felt solid on the climbs, but power is still lacking a bit. Other than missing power, though, it was a good ride. Really good ride.

When I woke up this morning, I walked down the hallway without a limp for the first time in three weeks. Another couple of hours were on tap, so I kitted up and rolled out with Mike again. I could tell I was a bit sore, but once I warmed up, it wasn't too bad. I took a couple of good digs and didn't embarrass myself. I'm always pleased when I don't embarrass myself.

Tomorrow will be easy, Wednesday will be hard and then ... well, then I'll decide what I want to do for the weekend. The one thing that's out is the TT. I haven't been on that bike in a month, and now, with on-and-off pain and weakened hips, isn't the time to climb on.

Crit and RR? Crit? RR? No idea. It might not be any of it. Honestly, I'm happy to even be in a position to have a decision like that to make.

Fade to black

Changes are coming; looming on the horizon like the shell-toe Adidas in the bottom of the picture. It's gonna be cool.

Sweet Home

With work the way it is, I don't go home a lot -- at least not in the summer. We were in town yesterday for a funeral, and I took advantage of a cool morning and got out for a nice ride. Here's the view:

This used to be a skating rink. Most every Friday or Saturday night when I was a kid was spent here. My dad worked there in high school, and we always got in free.

The pile of logs is where my grandma's house used to be. The house in the background used to have a beautiful in-ground swimming pool. Even when I saw it, filled with debris and long-since abandoned, the tile work was nearly perfect.

New middle school, which is being grafted onto the high school. I didn't recognize any part of the old east end of the high schoool.

Orton Road. I've dodged many a deer here at night.

The cabin at Call Park. 1859 is the date, I believe.

The road in Call Park. I wasn't going anywhere near as fast as the photo makes it appear.

Downtown. The old movie theater is just behind me in this shot.

Best slice of pizza in town. Or anywhere, really.

You can see this grain elevator from about 20 miles away on a good day.

Home.