Joyride Bicycles

If you’re still interested in attempting a gravel grinder this year, head over to the PCL blog for info on getting registered. Saturday will bring 149 miles of gravel, dirt, and minimum maintenance roads, 11,400 feet of climbing, stops in small towns, and fun with riders from 14 states.

GRAVEL WORLDS 2010 from nocoastfilms on Vimeo.

Brought to you by the Pirate Cycling League, this 150-mile gravel grinder in Lincoln, NE, launches at 6 AM on August 21, 2010. Music by the DK’d Willies.

Arrived in Kearney Friday afternoon, checked in & headed to the Thunderhead Brewery, our usual Kearney stop, for pre-race steamed mussels, pizza & beer. Brought the cooler along to tote a lovely growler of IPA back to Lincoln. I had never heard of the Nebraska Senior Games before, and didn’t know what to expect. Although limited to the 50+ crowd, that still encompasses some tough folks, and I was a bit surprised to find many of the usual culprits from the local USAC races present, as well as some folks from CO, KS, ND, WY & MO. Anyhow, a much tougher field than I had expected.

Sunday AM was refreshingly cool, a sensation almost forgotten, with some off & on spits of rain. The TT’s were both out & back around a cone; in the case of the 10k, around 2 cones, as you just did the 5k course twice – dead flat, and (almost) arrow-straight. Got off a decent 5k, 7:35, and an even better 10k, 15:05. Do the math, & you’ll see the 10k was actually a hair faster, and included a negative split, always a good thing in a TT. Both efforts were good enough for 1st in the 60-64 group.

Headed off a couple miles south of town for the 20k “Road Race”. Note to self: never again enter a road race designed as an out & back around a cone! My intent was to start up front, try to get something going & string out the field, hoping to get the big boys (Fred Galata & some other tough younger guys) to come along & help out, getting us all clear of any havoc & then sorting it out along the way. However, at the gun I Schlecked my chain, eventually having to dismount & get it on again as the field rode away. Had a nice solo chase for about 5 min to get back on, but now was caught in the back with the whole bunch content to roll along 3-abreast with no safe or legal way to move up more than a couple places. At the cone the predictable chaos ensued; the first half got around, others started to hit the pavement & I was unclipped & in the grass, upright but once again last of all the still-mounted riders. And by the way, the same thing happened with the second group on the road; Facebook followers have already likely seen the damage sustained by Nancy Brown.

At least I got a good 10k TT effort in on the way back, picking up riders by ones & twos & still managing a 4th amongst the 60+, but it was still frustrating. Overall though, 2 out of 3 isn’t too bad, and a decent end (at least, I think this is the end) of the 2010 road season for me.

Nancy Brown, who holds the women’s records in the 5,10 & 15 km time trials for the Nebraska Senior Games, faces stiff competition and will need to ride hard and smart to hold her titles.

Scott Bulfinch and Tom Hanthorn will also represent Joyride in their respective classes.

Stay tuned. Racing begins early tomorrow morning.

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1 lap to go

We arrived in Louisville late Sunday evening; forgot about the time change! Monday did a warmup ride on the TT course, a 4-lane country highway about 20 miles outside of the city. Saw Nancy Brown on the course with a remarkably healthy-looking Sydney supervising.

Headed back out Tuesday morning for the TT. Nancy had gone off with the early starters & had already collected her hardware & left by the time I got there for my noon start. Did see Kaos’ Rich Pearson heading in as I was heading out; he had started about 20 min before I did. This was the real deal here; as you went to the start house, everyone placed their bikes on a “bike jig” to check for UCI compliance. I found that my saddle position wasn’t pushing the envelope after all, and that I still can legally come a couple of mm’s forward. All helmets were being checked for certification stickers, even the obvious brand-name ones. And yes, there was doping control (although you had to be faster than I before they would track you down for that)! We entered the start house and were sent off from a real ramp; only have done that once before. And then there was about 100m of flat, the last flat we would see before the hills began, opening with about a mile of steady upgrade. No way to ease into that, this ride was super-threshold from the start. I got all excited when I caught my 30 second man half-way up that first hill, but it was a long time before I saw anyone else. At least we got to come back down that hill to the finish line, and with my 650c wheels I spun out the 54/11. I love checking out the equipment at TT’s, particularly here, where there was a full complement of aero tandems that were warming up for their mid-afternoon starts.

I really only came to Nationals for the TT, and hung around for the RR on Wednesday just because it was there. The RR course is in a lovely park smack in the middle of dowtown Louisville, a 5-mile loop that has about 50m of flat. The altitude differential through the park is only about 100′, but you do that about 100 times. Those who have ridden with me know that climbing is not my forte, and when I was still living in FL in 2003, several of my strong Cat-2/3 FL riding buddies came up to do this same course and all of them DNF’d. So I had no real expectations, but couldn’t pass up the chance to race against an all-60+ field.

We went off about 10:15 in the morning. At noon, right after the finish, local radio reported 97 degrees with a heat index of 112, and I believed it. I lost my only water bottle with 2 laps to go, so was chasing the shade wherever I could find it. On the first lap the field held together, although well strung-out, but then broke all apart. I waved good-bye to the Cat 1’s (yeah, there ARE Cat 1 60 year-olds, I discovered!) but soon found that there were plenty of guys there not a whole lot faster than me, and even some that I could drop on climbs – a real rarity, so I found a grupetto that would vary between 5 & 9 riders throughout the morning, as some would drop off as others got picked up. We split up for good on the last lap, and I rolled in solo with about a minute’s gap both ahead & and behind.

While I didn’t garner any press coverage, my bike did. As I was sitting in the shade trying to stuff my lungs back in, the local ABC affiliate crew came over and asked if they could borrow my bike to get some “spinning wheel” shots, so Wednesday night in Louisville my front wheel might have been seen if you looked quickly.

Kept getting hamstring cramps all Wednesday afternoon, and couldn’t sleep that night, as both legs burned beyond the ability of my prescription-strength Aleve to control; a feeling I remember from hard efforts in year’s past, but one not experienced in recent times. And after a week of taper & recovery, forcing in as much liquid as possible and not to mention sitting on my butt driving for a total of 24 hours I’ve managed to gain 5#, so this trip needs to be paid for.

It is fun to win, and that of course is the goal. But I have always gotten as much satisfaction from finishing in the pack among a quality field as I have cherry-picking local races, so I count this trip a success despite finishing well down in the standings. And it is fun to ride a tough, technical course with total road closure & real professional race organization.

Congratulations!