The build-up

It's getting on fall, that time of year when you start thinking about the next race season. You start thinking about your bike, and then your other bike, and then how you'd like to change the components on still another bike.

And then you start thinking about how you'd like to get two more bikes. Maybe three. And then you wonder how inconvenient it would be to park outside all winter ... .

That could be a lot of fun. Having that many bikes, I mean — not parking outside.

Anyway, the bikes. For whatever reason, this time of year always gets me scheming and planning about how to tackle the next season. A couple of things are certain: the Madone and the TT bike. After that? My old Bianchi needs a complete makeover. Fit isn't right, components are cobbled together from worn-out pieces of other bikes ... ugh.

And then there's this whole 'cross bike thing. I'm being disproportionally picky about the matter, for some reason. Basically, I want something that's pretty light. The idea of lugging something heavy around with the back I have is not altogether appealing.

And a mountain bike? Yes, please. There have definitely been days where a good bit of dirt would have been a welcome change. I know what I want there, too.

So, basically, it'd be this: road bike, TT bike, CX bike, MTB and the Bianchi, which is probably best suited for commuter/Burley duty. Five bikes. That's not bad.

So what's on your wish list for the next six months?

Cooked

Friday I approached a busy weekend with the calm of a seasoned veteran.

On Monday, with the four-day sale in the rearview mirror, I'm all worked up ... and also exhausted. It's a strange mix, but it probably has a lot to do with coffee and mint-chocolate Oreos.

It was a weird sale. Stuff I expected to see go on Friday didn't, and some stuff that had been around for ages was among the hottest sellers. Yeah ... I don't know why. That's just kind of how it played out.

This morning I have a few things to do and should really get them done and go for a ride. But I gotta tell you — I'm fried. I'm tired and groggy and have no desire to get on a bike. I have to go mail a package and should probably ride there. It's seeming more and more likely that I'll just stop by on the way to work.

Ugh.

Luckily, tomorrow is my day off. And there's a long weekend up ahead. Also, this is prime base mileage time anyway. All of my rides have been three-plus hours long lately.

So yeah, I'm tired. I'm gonna go drink some coffee and take a nap. Trust me, it'll work.

Auto-pilot

Way back in the spring, as I was prepping the store for the first "really big sale" of the year, I was in full-on freakout mode. Lots of stuff needed to be done and I was the one who had to do it.

Also, I had no idea what, exactly, needed to be done. It was really great.

Now, though, with the Progressive Sale underway and a very good staff on hand ... no sweat. Signs were done ahead of time (!), a cue sheet was printed in reasonably timely fashion. Nobody got yelled at (yet). It's sweet.

And it's a far cry from where I thought I'd be a year ago. Mostly because a year ago I had no frickin' clue what was going to happen. I committed to the store through summer -- through the sale, basically -- and I was going to see what happened next.

I was surprised as anybody when what happened next turned into, well, this. Sometimes things work out pretty well. I think of that every time I ride downtown, past the big white tower where I thought I was happy.

Give me some coffee -- it's time to talk bikes.

The Professor

It takes about 30 seconds of a Rush song to realize there's a lot going on there. With Neil Peart on the drums, it's not a simple matter of keeping time. It's keeping time while keeping the undercurrent busy. I mean, look at that kit -- there's a lot going on there.

Seeing it in person, however, is something different entirely. I was immediately struck by the power with which he played his parts. As a young drummer, I was taught to keep it pretty subtle -- quickness, efficiency -- by using wrists and a little bit of forearm.

There's no subtlety with Peart. It's the full arm, whaling on every surface within reach. It's mesmerizing.

We had about three hours of mesmerizing last night, as Rush played at the Qwest Center in Omaha. I've been wanting to see them for years, but they were never close to where I was. The closest would have been in high school, when they played Minneapolis on the Counterparts tour. The show was the night before the ACT exam, so that was pretty much a non-starter.

This time, though, no tests needed to be taken this morning, unless you count getting a three-year-old to get dressed and off to daycare in a semi-timely fashion.

The show spanned much of Rush's 30-plus-year timeline. Most of the big guns came out, including Moving Pictures in its entirety. Also represented: 2112, Permanent Waves, Power Windows, Rush, Presto and probably a couple more.

Chris, who gamely accompanied me to a show where she knew she'd recognize maybe half of the songs, had a good time, too. Well, I hope so. I think maybe she was too busy looking for other women in the audience. Yeah ... pretty guy-heavy.

The most notable part of that guy-heavy mix? I've never seen so much air-drumming. You can thank The Professor for that.

Wait, what?

Did I just ... oh, my ... yeah, I might have.

Twitter is a fun little toy. You can dash of 160 characters' worth of whatever you like. Random observation, rant, conversation — it's an open forum. Also easy: smack talking. Probably too easy.

So amid the Gravel Worlds talk yesterday between relevant parties, I saw this (paraphrased): "next year, we do it up right. all the way." Let's see ... 150 miles, nearly 10,000 feet of climbing, all on gravel.

Yes, I'd like to be a part of that.

When I decided to do a marathon 'lo those many years ago it was for a pretty simple reason: to see if I could. And then I tried to see how fast I could do it. I qualified for Boston under the fastest qualifying standard (with less than a minute to spare). Good enough for me.

But I haven't had a "to see if I could do it" challenge for a while now. Sure, being fast on a bike is a challenge in itself, especially with the talent in these parts. But an event purely for the sake of seeing if I can do it?

Sounds like Gravel Worlds to me.

But first things first: I need a bike. Anybody want to be my bike sponsor? Anybody know anybody who owns a bike shop who needs an ambassador on their product day in and day out? I talk a lot, I write a lot. I'm kind of all over the place.

You know where to find me.

Allow me to editorialize for a minute

OK, here we go. Much like last week's aerobar ... umm ... issue, there's something that needs to be addressed. This time, it's much less to do with riders than with the other aspects of racing. Namely, races.

When the race is over, when do you typically leave? Right after you cross the line? Nope — after the results are posted. Most races have them up within 30 minutes of a race's finish. At a lot of the Nebraska races this year, chip timing allowed results to be posted within a few minutes of the end of the race.

In both cases, the results are printed and ready to go in reasonably short order. And if they're printed, they're in an electronic file of some sort. From there, it would be really, really easy to get them posted online.

But they typically are not. After most races, we have to wait until Monday, or Tuesday or — seriously — Wednesday. Three days to see results that were available on-site almost instantaneously?

Why?

Consider this: This weekend's "real" races — as in licensed, official and categorized — have yet to post their results. This weekend's "Gravel World Championships" had the results, along with podium shots, posted on Saturday night — an hour or two after the finish.

Cornbread and his crew had to manage a 150-mile course, aid stations, rest stops and about 100-plus riders. The race started at 6 a.m. Yet, just before midnight, results were posted.

The "real" races? Uh, no. Go to the East Village Criterium's website. Any info there? Nope. There's somehow even less information about the Big Creek Road Race the day before.

Gravel Worlds? More pre-race info than anybody else, quicker results, quicker photos. That post probably took Corey an hour, tops, to get online.

After the Omaha Cycling Weekend races, I typed and posted results on GamJams Midwest as soon as I got home. It took about 45 minutes after each race, and those pages saw huge traffic spikes almost instantly.

Clearly, people want to see the results. Promoters work hard to give racers a safe, efficient, fun experience every time they line up, and I recognize that.

But I shouldn't have to take a camera and a laptop to every race to make sure results get posted before Tuesday. That's not my job.

Promoters: finish your jobs. Get the results posted. It's well within everybody's technical grasp to do it.

It shouldn't be up to me.

Post up!

Jack's on the top step today — it's his birthday. Three years old. Dang. And, just like it was three years ago, there's a nice little thunderstorm rolling through. (Although the storms didn't roll through until later in the day when he was born.)

Happy birthday, buddy!

Get this lady to swing through Nebraska

Brady asked me last night whether or not I was allergic to everything green yet. Yup, pretty much. It's not bad yet, but it will be. Each morning I'm a little more gunked up, a little groggier. Ragweed. Ugh.

In lieu of having Miss Lake Michigan on hand, though, I've been taking a 24-hour allergy pill. It's generic ... I don't know, Clarinex? Whatever it is, things get cleared up, I start thinking sane thoughts and I don't fall asleep. It'll do.

Also last night, another night of not embarrassing myself on the bike. I haven't been riding a ton, but I've been riding. It's always hard to really gauge things without the big guns around -- Kent, Kevin, Mark, Lucas -- but between Shim and Paul and Brady and Bernardo, I did OK. Climbing was good, overall power was good. It's nice to be healthy and riding consistently.

And that's how it'll be through the fall. I like it.

Miracle workers

Much has been made of Omaha's budget problems in recent ... years. Put simply, the city has no money because it spends what little spare cash it has on things like million-dollar streetcar studies and gigantic baseball stadiums that only get used for 12 days a year.

And when you blow cash on things that won't ever happen and things that very few people will get to use, there's not a lot left over for more basic things, like fixing streets.

Yes, the great pothole debacle of 2010 is still raging. Though, thankfully, the fire has been put out in our neighborhood.

About two months ago, the city sent a crew out to fix the intersection of 129th Street and Himebaugh Ave. It got to the point where there was one line through the corner. All other angles resulted loud, hard thumps. The fix was long overdue.

Of course, they completely ignored the larger, wider holes directly in front of our house. Hey, they were about 150 feet away — it's hard to see that far! Anyway, we figured that was the end of it, since there was probably some dumbass study (or hotel expansion) the city wanted to get in on.

Imagine our surprise, then, when a crew showed up on Saturday and fixed the giant hole that has threatened to swallow my bike on more than one occasion ... and left the slightly smaller ones 10 feet to the east.

But fear not, friends: the crew returned yesterday. The street is now completely fixed, if "fixed" means "sort of half-assed patched six months later than it should have been."

Hey, you can't have everything. Viva Omaha!

Down among 'em

For a good chunk of Omaha — at least the bike-owning portion of Omaha — the annual Corporate Cycling Championship Challenge is the bike event of the summer. The route is semi-traffic-controlled and challenging. And it's always cool to see tons of people on bikes.

And if you don't race or specifically train for long rides, 42 miles on a hilly route is a long damn way. For some people, the same can be said for the 25- and 10-mile routes. So to those who came out and rode Sunday, congrats. I love seeing people on bikes, too. It's kind of part of my job description.

That said, there are a few things we should touch on before next year. Actually, there's only one thing, and it's pretty simple.

DO. NOT. RIDE. YOUR. DAMN. AEROBARS. IN. A. GROUP.

See? Simple. Within the first two miles of the ride, no less than a dozen guys blasted past in full "aero" tuck. The quotes are because their positions were not aero. In those situations, laying down on aero bars was substituted for actually having the neck/shoulder strength and hamstring flexibility to ride a road bike.

Now, had this been, say, a triathlon or time trial, I'm cool with people blasting past me (well, sort of) on the bars. That's kind of the nature of the beast, isn't it?

But hear this aerobars-on-a-road-bike guy: When you're on your bars, you can't steer. You can't. When you're in a group trying to do, for some reason, 25-plus mph in the first mile of a ride, you need to steer. It's one of the subtleties of pack cycling that you can't learn from dominating the Keystone Trail on Saturday mornings.

If you want to give it a shot, though, don't be surprised when you end up on the pavement. The guy we saw yesterday sure was, though. Seriously, dude. Lighten up and get off the bars. Your drops are more aero than that abomination you had going anyway.

To summarize: Aerobars are good for going fast, in a straight line, by yourself — or with trusted riding partners. Aerobars are not good for EVERYTHING ELSE.

And no, I will not install them on your hybrid.

The rest of the story

Long before I worked at a shop, I was numb to super-nice bikes. Seriously, just to to a race -- you'll see dozens of top-end bikes in full-bling mode. Red, Dura-Ace, Record? No big deal.

Imagine then, an entire parking lot full of Madone 6.9 SSLs. Even if you've seen hundreds of nice bikes in your day, that was still semi-impressive. Well, at least for the first 10 minutes.

As we walked around the Trek demo lot a little more, I was again numb to the whole thing. Speed Concept 9.whatever? Lots of them. Top Fuel 9.9? Sure. Superfly, Cronus, Remedy? All of those. No big deal.

Out on the road, though, that was different. The SSL Madone is lighter and stiffer -- you can tell right away. The Speed Concept is super smooth and super stable. There's no bobble or wavering when you transfer hand positions from the basebar to the extensions. It's a nice bike.

But you can only ride so much. By the end of the day Monday, we were cooked. When you're on nice, new, fast bikes you feel compelled to go out there and give 'em hell. There's a limit to that, obviously.

More time on the show floor on Monday night led to a reasonably early evening. Why? More riding. We rolled at 6 the next morning and headed for the hills southwest of town. Pretty cool group -- Mark, Matt, George (Trek STL) and Scott (Trek KC) -- along with reps and dealers and Trek's fit guru, Michael Sylvester.

Thirty-some miles later, we rolled back in and dove into the task of the day -- looking at every single product and deciding whether or not we wanted it. That, surprisingly, was pretty arduous. Naptime was warranted.

And then, the last night in Madison. Nobody broke anything, nobody climbed anything, nobody punched anything. Fairly anti-climactic, but probably for the best.

--

Oh -- Corporate Cycling Challenge is this weekend. I'll be going for the win after my poor gran fondo performance.

Mothership

Oh, the stories you hear about Trek World ... . After a good two hours' worth of stories on the way to Madison on Saturday, I wondered if I would even survive to make the return trip yesterday. I did, of course, but it was interesting.

Saturday
Just a long drive in the van. We checked in, got out the bikes and took a quick 45-minute ride around Madison to stretch the legs. At the gran fondo check-in, we got our first looks at the new Madone SSL -- pretty much everybody who didn't bring a bike got one to use during the race. Nice.

Sunday
Where to begin? How about we begin at 4:30, when we got out of bed? The 7 a.m. start and 5:30 a.m. breakfast necessitated the early wake-up call. I tried to eat as much as possible right away, knowing we had a long, long day ahead of us.

As we drove to Capital Brewery for the staging/breakfast/rollout, we took note of the clouds. Also, the pretty radar -- very multicolored. According to one of the Trek locals: "Nah, no sweat. It'll blow right past."

At around 6:15, we headed to the actual start of the race for staging and last-minute stuff. Sprinkles started on the way, along with distant flashes of lightning. About 10 minutes later, we were standing under the Trek demo tent watching the rain roll in.

And about 5 minutes after that, we went to an airplane hanger to wait out a storm. We were there for almost 2.5 hours. During that time, we saw a Specialized tent blow down, we saw bikes fall down en masse and heard reports of baseball-sized hail on the way.

Baseball-sized hail + 1,000 carbon bikes outside? That could have been interesting. Luckily, I was that guy: I ignored the signs that said leave your bike outside and instead brought it in with me.

After the rain cleared ... sort of ... we headed to the start line, having been informed that our 100 miler was now a 50-mile throwdown. Pretty much all of the guys in contention for the 100-mile win were now looking at a two-hour slugfest. The intent of the organization was a neutral roll-out for a mile or two, then letting it go after we were on wider roads.

When the whistle blew, it was pretty much game on from the start. I got caught behind a dude who flatted in the first 200 meters, finally got around and got going. As we neared the first hill, I saw three guys off the front, a line of about 25 more in the gutter, a second group with an echelon at the front and assorted stragglers, like me.

To recap: 1000 meters into the race, my HR is spiked, the pack is blown to bits and ... yes ... it's still raining. Holy. Shit.

My hope was to stay with my three teammates and do some sort of work to keep them rested for the later stages of the day. After the bobble behind the guy who flatted, I didn't even SEE my teammates until I was done. Damn.

By and large, though, I felt pretty good. In the groups I was in, I was one of the strongest guys. My downfall, however, is going downhill. On pretty much all of the big, windy downhills, it was pouring. Add to that a bunch of roads I don't know and ... yeah, I sat up. The guy blasting past me on a TT bike probably didn't help matters.

The sky completely opened up several times, which was pretty nuts. Of the 500-some riders in the 50-miler, I ended up 74th. Not shabby, but I need to work on that whole ripping down hills in the rain business.

The best part of Sunday, though? Dinner. Nice wine, great food, entertaining company.

More later. This is already too long.

Oh, and if you just want to see the new stuff, go here.

Packing list

We're heading to Wisconsin tomorrow morning — we meaning Mark, myself and the rest of the Trek Midwest gang. When I asked Mark what I should bring with me, it turned into a 10-minute conversation.

My initial thoughts: Bring kit for the gran fondo, some casual clothes, a nice shirt or two.

Mark's thoughts: Well, we'll be riding probably every day, plus the demo day. And then there's this dinner and this dinner and ... .

New thoughts: Three or four sets of kit, MTB shoes and pedals, a crap-ton of GU/Shot Bloks (I have a fairly ridiculous stockpile that could stand to be thinned out) and clothing for basically every situation short of a black-tie formal event.

Luckily, I do have monster bag 4000, which will hold all of that stuff pretty easily. Still, it's going to be pretty ridiculous. I'll try to post pictures and stuff.

As for the gran fondo, I'm as ready as I'll be. Even though my legs were actually pretty sore on Wednesday — I rode a hard three on Tuesday — I had a pretty good night. With fresh legs, I imagine things will be pretty good on Sunday.

If not, well, I guess I'll have to walk home, having shamed the company.

In which I lose my nerve

For one reason or another I came into last night's Wednesday Worlds ready to rock and roll. I didn't feel fast so much as fast enough. And more importantly, I felt fast enough to rip some stuff up.

Up and over the first hills, no sweat. Onto the grinder that usually shoots me out the back, no problem. I actually felt good.

And as we neared Fort Calhoun, we hit the little rise that always feels like a launch pad. Because of the valley around it and the trees right beside it, there never seems to be much wind there. So when it was my turn to pull through I did so ... and then attacked.

What the hell?

Yeah, I was kind of thinking the same thing, really. But the time was right and I felt OK. So I did. And when it was time to sprint, I sprinted. Of course, I got my doors utterly blown off, but I did see who won the sprint, which was a new experience.

And now to the part where I lost my nerve. Despite the good night (good sensations?), it didn't end well. Because Boyer Chute is flooded, we took an alternate route. A few rollers culminates in a long, high-speed downhill. And it just got some fresh chip-seal on it.

I really don't like chip-seal. Also, I really don't like loose rocks on pavement. And then combine all of that with high speeds ... hello, head-case.

It seems like since I got the 6 Series, I've been less willing to tuck in and bomb down a hill. It's a fairly snappy bike — it's really fast, actually — but there's something about it that feels, I don't know, twitchy.

It's quite likely the twitching is coming from me, and I'm just not used to a bike like that yet. I'm willing to accept that for now. But as the rest of the group pulled away on the downhill, I felt pretty powerless to bring it back. Like I was just picking my way through. And, hell, I was on that descent on Tuesday afternoon. Stay in the tire track and it's fine.

That message didn't get across last night. I need to work on that.

Gran(d) fondo

Hey, remember when Chicago was trying to win the bid for the 2016 Olympics? Man, that seems like just last year.

Anyway, to host the Olympics, you have to have world-class venues for every single sport, from soccer to summer biathlon. Also, cycling.

Sunday's gran fondo course includes bits of the proposed Olympic course, in southern Wisconsin. That should be interesting. Here is a New York Times story on the course/race.

Sounds like a pretty cool place to ride. I'd take pictures, but it sounds like I'll be on the rivet most of the time. Such is life when you're following the wheel of Skinny Mark Savery. Hopefully he won't make us stop and do some 'cross drills or something along the way.

Everything in its right place

Our long national nightmare is over. The Speedplays have been removed. The Dura-Ace pedals are reinstalled. Hot spots will cease — seriously, I had a hot spot by the end of my RAGBRAI-winning ride — children will sing in the streets.

More importantly, I'll feel a little more comfortable on the bike. Speedplays aren't bad pedals by any means, but they're definitely not for me.

And with that, it's time to ride.

Climb high

Every so often, you have to get out of town. For us, it's been a good two years, maybe more, since we've been on vacation. Like, real vacation. So we did what every right-minded parent of a 3-year-old kid does — drop the kid off at grandma and grandpa's house and skip town. Destination: Denver.

The plan was as follows: Go to Denver and do things. We had solid plans for Friday night — Cubs and Rockies — and Saturday afternoon: hiking with our friend, Dane. When we rolled into town on Wednesday, we got set up in the motel and set about making plans for the next couple of days.

Thursday: Boulder, Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park.


We headed to Boulder for breakfast and checked a few places out (like University Bicycles). After that, we headed to Estes Park. Like most days on the Front Range, we saw clouds roll in shortly after lunchtime. We finished up and headed to Rocky Mountain National Park.

As you can in the pictures, it stayed cloudy. Actually, it rained lightly pretty much the whole time we were there. It certainly didn't hurt the view. It was pretty amazing. We headed back to Boulder for supper and ended up at Mountain Sun Brewery.

On Friday, we planned on spending the day in downtown Denver. We were going to meet our friends Carrie and Tom (newlyweds!) for the baseball game later, but in the meantime wanted to take advantage of the downtown area. The main draw was the traveling King Tut exhibit at the Denver Art Museum.

Cool, huh? Well, not for $30 a pop. I love history, especially one-of-a-kind things like that, but $60 for the two of us ... nah. Instead, we went to the Colorado state capitol building. It was free. (This is a view from the capitol, by the way, not of the capitol.)

You'll see no pictures of Coors Field, even though it's really cool. I'm trying to forget the baseball part of that whole thing. (The Cubs managed to lose 17-2. It was fairly spectacular.) Oh, and before the game, we went here.

Saturday: Back to Boulder. Dane, who will be starting his first year as a teacher any day now, likes to hike on the weekends. And, as people who like to take advantage of local connections, we asked him to take us hiking. We hit some trails at Rocky Mountain National Park, but we really wanted to hike.

The route took us to the foot of the Flatirons at Chautauqua Park. We were headed to Royal Arch, which was certainly cool. But the views and the terrain on the way up were way more impressive.




Sitting on what felt like the top of the world. Dane, Chris and me.

We headed back on Sunday morning. Man, that's a long drive. People malign Nebraska for being boring, but eastern Colorado is something else entirely.