This just in ...

It's windy in Nebraska in the springtime. Last night was probably some of the more ridiculous wind I've ridden in for a while.

And that includes Tuesday's ridiculous wind. For reference, it took 80 minutes to get to the turnaround on the Bike Masters ride last night and 40 to get back. True, there's less neighborhood hopping on the way back, but we were pushing 30mph pretty much the whole way.

It reminded me of the first time I rode with Spence on a super-windy day - after struggling for what seemed like forever, we turned around and jumped on the tailwind express. There's a big difference between going for a ride and training. If you're just going for a ride, the tailwind means the work is done - you just sit up and cruise.

But with Spence, we took a breather - like a 30-second breather - and started drilling it all over again. The difference between into the wind and with the wind? We just went faster - that's about it. It still hurts, but the numbers on the computer are bigger.

In the end, I got what I was looking for - a long block of zone 4/zone 5 work. Like, 90-plus minutes of it. My back ached at the end of it and my legs are still sore.

All in the name of improvement, right?

Just what some doctor would have ordered

Yesterday was a strange day.

I'm off on Tuesdays, which usually means I get GamJams Midwest up and rolling for the day, play some PlayStation, jump on the bike and go for a ride. I also have to vacuum and cook, but those things don't really need to be worried about until 4:30 or so.

Yesterday, however, I was in front of the computer from about 6 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. I had GJ-MW, VeloGear, shop email and other stuff going all at once. It was fairly ridiculous.

Finally, at noon, I was able to get out on the road. As you may have noticed yesterday, it was windy. Really, really windy. I spent a little more than an hour heading straight into it before turning a corner and catching the tailwind express for a while.

I was aiming for four hours or so, but due to a road closure near Elkhorn, I ended up just shy of three. Still, I got 50-some miles in and climbed fairly well. I'm finally feeling semi-snappy. I have a feeling that ramping things up both on the bike and in the store contributed to feeling fairly awful for most of the last, oh, three weeks or so. Eh, it happens. That's life, I suppose.

Tonight it's off to Bike Masters (or, rather, off to my house and then a quick ride up the street) for their Wednesday night ride. It'll be nice to be home by 8, rather than blasting down the Keystone in the dark.

No, I don't know why

Call it boredom, call it a desire to have another fast, fun bike in the garage. Call it dumb, if you like.

But I want this bike. Like, pronto. They're in stock. They're built up as I'd like them to be built. There's no really good reason other than that.

Will I race 'cross? Seems a lot more likely with something like this around. Will I ride gravel? Eh, probably. Will it be sweet to have something like this in the garage?

Yes, absolutely. Good enough.

Back to work

Rest weeks are a funny thing. The first two days are nice — recharging the batteries and just relaxing. But I always feel a little bit "off" when I get back on the bike. Almost like I was off for two months instead of just a couple of days.

I felt pretty bad Wednesday, which is good because I was taking it easy anyway, and then ... somehow ... worse on Saturday when I rode into work.

And then something just clicks and you feel refreshed and ready to go again. I had a nice ride with KGil on Sunday afternoon. Despite too much holiday-weekend food, I felt sharp and snappy and strong. I didn't really expect that.

Since my schedule got rearranged a bit at the shop, I had to move my workout schedule around, too. Mondays are now off days, while Tuesday will still serve as a long-ride day. Wednesdays are going to have to be the super-heavy workout days, and I'll hit whatever Wednesday-night ride suits the order of the day better. I know already that this week will be Bike Masters, mostly because there's no stopping — I need a long, steady, uptempo burn.

Also, I don't want to get home at 9.

Thursdays are off, Fridays are easy. Saturday will be long-ride/group-ride day. Sunday will probably be a ride into the shop, but maybe taken the long way in.

And that's that. There's a month or so until the next time I line it up, and about six weeks until the state road race and criterium championships. I'd like to be fast for all of that.

Better get to it.

Out after dark

For the better part of ... wow, 10 years now, I guess (wow) ... Chris and I have hit a few concerts per year. One by one, we're checking off our favorites and adding some new favorites to the list.

Wilco, Springsteen, Rush, Willie Nelson, Ryan Adams and Ben Folds (the good, early 2000s version of both of them), Sufjan Stevens, Wilco again. We've seen some good shows.

Last night we ventured out past bedtime and caught The New Pornographers in Benson. I first heard them a few years ago during the great "everybody at the World-Herald trades music" phase of my collection. I think I picked up a pair of their albums during that particular period.

Chris has become a pretty big fan of the latest album — Together — since we picked it up last spring. So we ponied up our $22 each and hit the show.

Yes, it was an awesome show. It's a very tight band — tons of power, plenty of finesse, etc. I maintain that being the drummer for The New Pornographers (Kurt Dahle) would be a pretty awesome gig. Pretty much every song looks and sounds like it would be a blast to play.

Before that, we hit Pitch for pizza (the Leonardo, with prime rib, salami, peppers and olives) and drove around and looked at houses. No, we're not moving anytime soon, but we were there and had time and hey, why not?

And then we saw the show and got home really late. I'd do it again tonight, if possible.

But I'm gonna need some coffee.

Wait or stay?

Last night, fairly early on the Wednesday Night Worlds ride, Kevin Limpach flatted. When I rolled by, he asked for a CO2 canister, which I didn't have - I have a small hand pump to better handle the sealant in my road tubeless setup.

Because of the nature of the ride (big group, really strung out) and the riders I was with (I was escorting a couple of customers on their first WNW ride), I was never really in a position to let the group know that Kevin was back there. And, honestly, I was more worried about my charges than Kevin (sorry, man).

Mike Miles stopped and hooked up Kevin with some air and I didn't think about it again until the regroup at Florence Mill. Kevin was pissed that I didn't offer to stop (after seeing Mike stop, I didn't think it was necessary), but also that the group kept rolling.

And this is where we get to the crowd-participation portion of the blog post: what's our responsibility to each other when something like this comes up? Obviously, we'd all like a wheel to help us reconnect with the group. Given my situation - shepherding new riders in a big group - I felt like I needed to keep rolling, especially since Mike stopped and I didn't have the necessary tools anyway.

But I also inadvertently left one of our riders by the side of the road. (Apologies, again.)

So ... what say you, Omaha?

Off day/rest day/on day

For about two weeks, I had yesterday circled on the calendar. I was due for a rest week from the bike, which means I just relax and ride when I can. I have a few things to get done, but nothing too stressful.

Also, the dust has finally settled from the gigantic spring sale at the store. Things are reasonably back to normal, though getting busier by the day.

Finally, I had no writing projects coming up, so I had nothing planned but coffee, the sound of rain on the windows and PlayStation ...

and a 9 a.m. meeting at the store.

OK, no problem, right? Done by 10, home by 10:30, plenty of day left. But I had to go to the warehouse to get a bike. Then I had to track down the bike. Then a few things popped up when I got back to the store.

And when I looked up, it was 2 p.m. Sigh.

When I did finally get to fire up the PS3, I got my ass handed to me three times over. It happens, I guess.

Today is not a rest day or an off day. It's a full-scale ON day. Gotta vacuum (didn't do it yesterday) go to the store and write for VeloGear.com (been super busy lately) and then crush April's sales goal (we're getting so, so close).

After that, I'm climbing on the bike for a bit of Wednesday Night Worlds action. While I may contest the first hill, I'll be pulling off shortly thereafter. If you see me, I'm not blowing up — I just like sprinting up hills.

Tail gunner

Photo by Dan Farnham

One of the really good things about getting destroyed at Wednesday Night Worlds on a weekly basis is learning your place in the grand scheme of things. That's not to say I don't aspire to be better — to be faster — but I know what I'm capable of accomplishing. Perhaps more importantly, I know what everybody else can do, too.

To say nothing of current form or readiness, just reading the start list for this weekend's Le Tour de Husker (results here) gave me a pretty good idea of what was in store. Of the 16 starters, eight were Cat. 1/2 riders. And seven of the 16 were from one team. It was fairly obvious how this was going to go down.

Saturday morning dawned cold, cloudy and windy. With a small field and 60 miles or so ahead of us (and a TT in the afternoon), I figured we'd chill for a lap and then open it up. In reality, we chilled for about five minutes. It was nuts.

Up the big hill that marked the start of the race loop, a few guys rolled off the front — pretty standard — but then a few more guys jumped across. And they jumped hard. I was boxed in at the time, but when I got loose I tried to follow them across to the lead group. I knew full well that I probably wouldn't be able to stick with them for the entire race, but given what we were up against (three Cat. 3s against a loaded field of Cat. 1/2 riders), I felt like I had to at least try to bridge.

That did not work.

Like any good Cat. 3 arsonist, I tossed matches all over that first hill in a pretty futile effort to get across. When I realized it wasn't going to happen, I re-integrated with the chase group and sat in for a bit. We started rotating with a heavy tailwind on the back side of the course and appeared to be minimizing the gap. When we got to the dam — infamous for crosswinds — we were still rotating. On the tail end of a pull, two or three guys pulled through hard, gapped the group and tossed a couple of riders off the back. Including me. Thanks, guys.

And then they guttered the bunch. Even more awesome for chasing back on. That's not to say I could have done anything to begin with, but it wasn't helpful.

Eventually, I caught up with Vaughn and we cranked out the final laps together. My back was killing me most of the way, but it got better toward the end ... somehow.

(Three hours of downtime.)

Time for a late-afternoon TT. Still windy, but quite a bit warmer. Considering the very, very minimal amount of time I'd spent on the TT bike before the race, I was pretty happy with things. I felt comfortable and efficient and fast. I had an OK time — nothing special, by any means — which was encouraging after that road race debacle.

Sunday morning also dawned cold and cloudy and windy. Two years ago (almost to the day), I ended up in the hospital after a crash on the same crit course. I wish I could say I blocked it all out and drilled through the race, but I didn't. I thought about the crash every time through the corner. Mostly, looking at the semi-sketchy surface, it went like this: "How did I blow it through this thing again?"

I wasn't scared — as a few thought I might be — so much as focused on staying with the bunch and riding a technically smooth race. I knew I didn't have the fitness to be up front, so I stayed in the back.

About two-thirds of the way through the race, Spence slid back and told me to get up to the front — thinking I was hanging in the back to stay safe. Actually, I hung out in the back because I didn't want my lack of high-end fitness to cause gaps for those who were better equipped for a 60-minute crit. I really just wanted to stay out of everybody's way.

Regardless, I did try to take a flyer with about 20 minutes left, hoping maybe they'd let me float away. Again, that didn't work. But I had to try, at least.

Overall, I finished probably second or third from last, which I'm not too concerned about. I got some good race work in, and identified a few weaknesses that will be improved upon before the next go-round.

It's been a while

The last true, timed stage race I did was in 2007. I did three of them that year - Lincoln, Beatrice and Omaha - and haven't done any since.

The last three-race, two-day weekend I did was in 2008. In 2009 I was a bit dinged up. In 2010 I was even less dinged up, but still wasn't good to go.

This year, I'm not dinged up - just slow. But I'm digging out all of the stage race goodies for this weekend's action: TT helmet, aero booties, work stand, tool box, cooler. The 'ol Camry will be pretty full.

For the first time, I'll have an actual TT bike to ride. Kevin Burke's old Trek Equinox 9 came my way via trade (he has my Felt frame) and it's built up with a mix of Ultegra and Force bits. I'll be rocking the new Shimano RS80 C50 carbon wheels, too. That should be interesting.

Here's what I expect: It'll be chilly, windy and probably pretty uncomfortable. Results? No idea. I guess we'll find out.

Yin/yang

When I took over at the Trek Store back in the fall of 2009 (wow, it's been that long?), it was on one condition: Chris Wolff (the assistant manager) and I had to work as a team.

The thought there was as follows: "Chris knows what he's doing and you don't, but for some reason we're going to hire you anyway." (It's probably because I shaved that day and put on a shirt with buttons.)

Neither Chris nor I were particularly worried about working together, so that relationship was easy. Sure, we disagreed plenty — but the end goal was the same. Get people to ride bikes more.

A breakdown of our disagreements:

• I'm a roadie, he's a dirty damn hippie mountain biker.

Actually, that's about it. (Discounting the Russian gypsy punk fiasco, of course.) We were on the same page on most everything, which made life around the shop pretty easy.

But we definitely brought different personalities to the table. It was crystallized recently, when we opened a shipment of Capo spring/summer clothing. We both grabbed the tall Strada 200 sock — but he grabbed the black one and I grabbed the white one.

Yeah, that seems about right.

But Chris is gone now (he's not dead or anything). He's packing up his stuff and his dog and the ridiculous amount of beer people brought for him in the final days at the store and heading west. Fort Collins, Colorado.

I suspect he'll be back next spring, if only to crush the souls of flatlanders in a few local races. Living and riding a mile into the sky will certainly be helpful — to say nothing of the skills gained riding in the mountains. You know, actual mountain biking.

Until we see him again, this is how he'll be remembered in these parts:

Perfect.

Giving away nothing

Like a lot of guys, I had a list of things I felt I needed to work on in the offseason.

Item number one: get faster.
Item number two: work on the pain face. Check out how I did (all photos by Lois Brunnert):

Focused, calm, relaxed. You'll see no information given away from that face. Nevermind my heart rate, which was probably out of control. And those dark lenses are there for a reason — you can't see when I'm cross-eyed. It may have hurt, but you'd never know by looking at me.

And that's more than I can say for these two guys:

Why so angry, EOB?

And poor Brady. He looks like he's cowering from someone whacking him with a stick. Granted, that could have been from wind or that god-forsaken hill, but he looks miserable.

I post these photos not in jest, but as a learning tool. Hide your emotions — your pain. Bury them deep inside and display an exterior of stony coolness toward the effort being given.

It may not make you faster, but you'll at least look cool when you get ripped from the comfort of the main peloton. As a guy who spent the last two seasons in that position — and subsequently viewing goofy pictures of myself — trust me.

I know.

As well as can be expected

When you have good legs, sometimes you can tell as soon as you get up in the morning. Or as soon as you jump on a bike. On the other side of the coin, I knew I'd have bad legs on Thursday afternoon, even though the race was three days away.

And that's the life of a bike shop guy, especially during a sale. Constant motion on a concrete floor, long gaps of time where it's so busy there's not even time to grab a drink or a quick snack.

I mention these things not as an excuse, but rather as a foreword for how I felt heading into the Twin Bing Classic. Tired, slow and not exactly snappy. That said, I didn't do horribly. I was 17th from a field of 31 Cat. 1/2/3 riders.

It went like this:

The first few miles were pretty chill — I was sixth or seventh over the climb and hit the big ring as soon as it was feasible to avoid getting dumped on the downhill. At one point, EOB and I were on the front riding tempo (really, really slow tempo) before I slid back a bit.

I don't remember exactly when it was, but things hit the fan a few miles later, hard attacks, guttering, surges, more attacks, more sprinting and more guttering. We saw some nice pinball action from a few swervy types in the bunch, which was both terrifying and strangely entertaining.

On the second lap, on the two corners where the headwind/cross-headwind turns into a full-on tailwind, the group splintered. After the surges on the first lap, it was pretty obvious how it was going to go down. With that knowledge, I moved up heading into the corner, but that kind of power just wasn't there. I was probably about 30 feet from closing the gap, but was completely maxed out and heading uphill.

I sat up, regrouped, refocused and started reeling people in. By the time we finished the backside of the course — all rollers, all tailwind — a group of five or six had bridged up to the second chase group, which contained Ryan Feagan, my teammate (who needs to keep his blog updated). After killing myself to get there, I sat in a while. And by a while, I mean about two-thirds of a lap.

When we hit the tailwind section again, I went to the front and just rode tempo, hoping to keep Ryan sheltered a bit before the last time up the long hills. I worked as much as I could, though I wish I could have done more.

Heading into the last three miles, I was mentally preparing to gut myself up that damn hill. I took over when the road really kicked on the first pitch, hoping to deliver Ryan to the base of the second pitch with a bunch of tired dudes behind him. Like Mark, I came up a few feet short on the last incline. I would have liked to have kept the tempo high onto the next part, but as it was, it was pretty much a total shutdown as I pulled off to the side. Ryan almost took the bunch sprint anyway, though.

If there are positives to be found, they sound like this:

• I didn't get dumped on the first hill.
• I didn't get dumped on the cross-wind bits.
• I was able to help a teammate, if only a little bit.
• I was able to regroup after getting dropped, and able to start pulling guys back.
• I felt horrible pretty much the entire time.
  

Notice I didn't mention my back. It hurt throughout the second and third laps, but not in a debilitating way. Last year, it felt like I was doing bad things to it. This year it just felt a little sore. Not bad.

There's still work to do, but considering my preparation, which wasn't really ideal, I'll take it. And now it's time for three more races this next weekend. Ouch.

Not really ideal preparation

So there's a big sale going on at the store right now. High traffic counts, lots of running around, lots of stress, etc. Kind of goes with the territory.

Unfortunately, those things aren't really the best way to get ready for what's bound to be a pretty stressful race on Sunday. There's the stress of the course (of course!), but also the stress of fitness - or lack thereof. I think I'm where I want to be, but I guess I'll find out.

Usually on a Friday or Saturday I'd go out for an hour or so of pre-race workouts, with a few sprints and harder efforts built in. This time around, my harder efforts will involve dragging bikes around, juggling multiple customers and slinging hybrids. That's not quite the same.

But there's not much I can do about it, so I'm not going to stress too much.

It happens sometimes

For the record: I've had better legs for Wednesday Night Worlds.

Also: I've had worse.

Add in long hours on the bike on Sunday and Tuesday, chasing my tail and herding cats at the store in between — including all day Wednesday — and I was pretty cooked before we even rolled out. But I knew what was coming. It'll benefit me later.

You know that extra two or three percent that makes it easier to pull through and stay with the bunch and climb and sprint? It was completely absent last night. I didn't really expect much less.

But because I'm an optimist, there are positives to take away. The biggest, like every week, is that my back didn't hurt. My legs hurt like hell the entire time, but my back was fine. I'll take that as a win any day.

When I was laying in the hospital looking at a white-board drawing of a crushed vertebra, I wondered what the rest of my life would be like. Would I ride again? Would there be constant pain? Would I essentially be an old man at 40? Would I need surgery?

So far, the answers are yes — a month later — and no. The first few months were tough, but by and large my back doesn't hurt that much anymore. After a long day, I'll be tired and stiff, but that can be fixed with stretching and a heat pack.

So I was slow last night. It happens. In the overall scheme, I'm where I want to be. I'll take the next few days pretty easy, get in a quick spin on Saturday and head into Sunday at the Twin Bing Classic hopefully capable of ... well, something.

Out in the street

Finally. Finally, it's nice out. Or, rather, nice enough to pack up Jack, put the dogs on their leashes and go out for a walk as a family.

I remember when he was tiny, and we had to put the seat in the pack at its highest setting. It's on the lowest one by now, and he can climb in and out himself. Pretty soon, maybe by the end of the summer, he'll be able to walk himself.

Well, maybe.

The hook

Back in the day — the day spanning from college through the first year or two of having a grown-up job — I used to bail out on any responsibilities for Opening Day. The Cubs usually played at 1:20 or thereabouts, so I basically shut it down after lunch.

Hey, at least I took care of my morning duties.

Anyway, I always get excited for the start of baseball season, no matter how god-awful the Cubs will probably be. One of the only bummers about moving to Omaha (nearly seven years ago now) is the significant drop-off in the number of Cubs games we get to watch. In Waterloo, Iowa, Comcast Sports Chicago is on the local cable system, along with WGN. Between the two, most Cubs games were broadcast.

Here, we were left with WGN, which handles only a fraction of the games it used to, and ESPN. And ESPN sucks.

But even though we only got some of the games, WGN was a major attraction for holding on to DirecTV as long as we did. Better to have some games than none at all, right?

Here's a better question: Why not get ALL of the games, for every team? That was one major factor in going with the dual-PS3 setup — the built-in MLB.tv app. Live, HD streaming of every major league game (except the Royals, since we're in their broadcast area. That said, it's the Royals. No big loss.), just $120 for the entire season. For reference, our old DirecTV bill was $78/month.

Four games into the season and I'm absolutely hooked. If you miss the live broadcast, you can jump through inning by inning to the good bits, or watch the game in its entirety. You can choose the home or away TV feed, and you can sub in the corresponding radio feed in lieu of the TV announcers. For example: When the Cubs are on ESPN, I'll be listening to the WGN radio broadcast with the ESPN video.

There's an in-game boxscore, and you can jump back and review the game on the fly. Game going south? Switch to another one. It's already proving to be well worth the price of admission. More sports leagues need to get on board with streaming technology. For as old-fashioned and behind-the-times as baseball can be sometimes, it's on the cutting edge on this one.

Time for some exorcise

Nothing like going wobbly-kneed at 5:30 in the morning:

The UNL Cycling Club is sponsoring the event which has a new format for 2011: a USAC stage race. The road race (stage one) and individual time trial (stage two) will be hosted at Branched Oak on Saturday, while the criterium (stage three) will be hosted at Lincoln Southwest High School on Sunday.

The last time I raced there, I ended up like this. For whatever reason, I've never really thought about racing there again. In hindsight, that thought was was kind of foolish. Why wouldn't we race there again sometime?

So there's that. I'm not afraid of racing, I'm not afraid of cornering. I'm actually sort of looking forward to getting back on that course. Because, really, I liked that race until the last 100 meters or so.

And as a side note, I guess this means I need to put the brakes back on my TT bike and actually, you know, ride it. I trained on it over the winter on the trainer, but it hasn't been outside in months. Guess I know what I'm doing this week.

The weekend: 75 miles on Sunday, lots of hills, only a little wind — timed the wind switch from SW to NW perfectly — and an excellent start on the summer tan lines.

Back tracks

There was a time in the late 1990s when my parents thought I was buying new CDs on a weekly basis. This is due partly to getting gas at a place in Cedar Falls called The Music Station. And with that tidbit of information, I can see where they were coming from.

But new CDs every week? Not quite. I was more like a binge spender. If, somehow, I managed to actually get to payday with money — rare, very rare (sorry Mom and Dad) — I always felt like I had a surplus, and therefore was entitled to go buy something.

One Friday, I picked up a handful of CDs on the cheap. I recall getting three or four Bruce Springsteen albums for something like $8 apiece. They were (I think): Born to Run, Darkness on the Edge of Town, Nebraska and Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ. If you're going to double your Springsteen library, those aren't bad choices.

After various listens, Born to Run took priority for replays. That's a fairly obvious choice. Asbury Park was next, followed by Darkness and Nebraska.

Then, for whatever reason, I just didn't listen to Darkness very much. If a song came up on shuffle, I wouldn't necessarily skip it — I just didn't seek that album out. I liked the songs and all, I just hadn't considered the album itself very often.

Sometime before Christmas last year, my mom called and asked if there was anything I wanted. Other than money, she meant. After listening to some previews on NPR, I told her she could pick up The Promise, an album made up of 25 or so songs that didn't make the cut for Darkness.



After listening to the outtakes and then to Darkness, it's easy to see why these extra songs didn't make the cut. They just don't fit. They're mostly great songs without a home. Some of them got sliced up and used elsewhere, some evolved into the tracks on Darkness, some just got boxed up and tucked away.

If it did nothing else, The Promise forced me to go back and listen to Darkness as an album, rather than a collection of nice songs that were OK to play on shuffle. My thought was, "OK, if these outtakes are good songs, that must mean those on Darkness are clearly superior."

Yes, they are. Where Born to Run was all muscle cars and hot summer nights, Darkness is what happens when the bills come due. Gritty, dark and brilliant. I could go on and on and on, but I won't. Check out three tracks: "Adam Raised a Cain," "Racing In the Street" and "Darkness On the Edge of Town."

You'll see what I'm talking about.