Gay Pride Ride

A bunch of the bike clothes were dirty and the weather is in flux so that left me with a rather random assortment of riding apparel for my lunch ride today. It was a good ride on the singlespeed to get my mind and legs ready for tonight's effort but I felt a little strange representing pretty much every color of the rainbow in my ensemble. I mean it's always a little weird riding around in brightly colored lycra but today was special. :) Anyway the wind is still threatening but it's not going to be *too* bad I hope. Starting tomorrow night though the weather is going to get nasty (up to 12" snow!) so I'll take 50 deg if that's what we've got.Well work's almost over and then we're off to time trial number one. Full report tonight or tomorrow morning.

Plesko Racing

Not too long a post here, we've got to get to bed. Tomorrow is the start of the Karen Hornbostel Memorial Time Trial Series aka CCTT. I raced last year and did okay but this year Marni is joining me for the entire series. She did her first bike race last year, a mountain bike hill climb, and did really great. I think she's going to really enjoy the time trial series and also getting to watch her own progression over the 7 weeks. She starts 20 seconds behind me so I'm really excited to see her before the start and cheer her on across the finish line. Two people racing in the same family does mean hauling a lot more gear (clothes, bottles, bikes, trainers, pump, etc) so I'm glad we've got the Element this year.

As for me, I'm just hoping to ride myself into some speed over the series and if I'm lucky I'll beat my personal record time from last year. No equipment or position changes for race number one so we'll just get a good indication of my power output over 10.5 miles compared to last year. They're calling for windy conditions tomorrow with it tapering in the afternoon. With any luck we'll face just light winds by our 6:27 start time.

We've got a great little gang racing this year. In order of start times separated by 20 seconds: Scott, Dinh, Bill, Mike, Erik, Me, Marni, Melissa, Jeanie and Michelle. I'm looking to catch all those boys ahead of me, we'll see how that plays out. Goodnight!

April Century

I've been hoping to ride a century at least once each month this year and so far I'm doing pretty good towards that goal. Last year I think I rode one about 50% of the months without really trying so it's not too much of a stretch. Today's ride didn't have to be 100 miles but I was headed out for a hard long ride with the TransIowa setup until I ran out of time preceding Easter dinner with the family. I set the alarm for 5am but my body had different ideas and I didn't hear it until 5:40am. I woke up quickly after that and was fed and on the road by 6:15. The roads were pretty much desolate which was nice because there was a layer of ice on all the untraveled streets. I carefully picked my way towards the main streets without hitting the pavement and put the hammer down early. Other than carefully descending the Wall and a couple iced over bike paths things proceded smoothly. I flew down pavé, concrete and dirt, up the Koppenburg climb, around the res and eventually found may way slogging it out to Carter Lake. I didn't have much of a route in mind other than heading north and hitting any dirt I could manage but Carter Lake ended up sounding as good as anything. I called Marni from the climb to let her know all was well and continued on my way after a short photo session.


The weather proceded to deteriorate further throughout the ride with snow falling continously and the temperature never dropping much below 30 degrees. This of course led to me being soaking wet in sub freezing temperatures and my bike turning into an ice sculpture. Luckily for me the wool jersey and socks combined with my Driclime windshirt and neoprene booties kept me comfortable enough to maintain a high power output and stay warmish. My rear brake stopped working around 45 miles into the day and I had to keep pedaling or the chain would freeze solid but other than that I had nothing much to complain about. As I decended the backside of the lake I must have made a wrong turn and got a bit disoriented as I ended up on hwy 34 cruising into Loveland. Still with plenty of time I found my way to 287 south through Berthoud and then Longmont. Time was beginning to run short so I stopped for a hot chocolate and piece of cake while I called in the cavelry to arrange a change of plans. I would continue on 287 south and Marni would get everything ready for family dinner and pick me up along the way.


Another hour down the road I finally saw the Element merge into a turn lane and pull onto the shoulder ahead of me. Marni found me and I racked up the bike and we were off to dinner, luckily arriving at Marni's parent's house with enough time for me to grab a hot shower first.

All and all it was a great training ride. 103 miles on the singlespeed in heinous weather at a fast pace (near 16mph) and I felt great, ready to do it two more times even. 7 more big training days until I start my TransIowa taper. I'm ready for the worst weather but hoping for the best.

Really living

"Oh, I don't wanna' spend my life jaded
Waitin' to wake up one day and find
That I've let all these years go by
Wasted"
-Carrie Underwood

Here's a little photo journal of last weekend's Paradox adventure. I'll let the pictures tell the story 10x better than my words can. Enjoy a little slice of life that's rarely seen in the middle of nowhere USA. Now it's off to bed (after midnight) and I've got a very hard long singlespeed ride planned for very early tomorrow morning. It's currently below freezing and snowing but I've got 8 more hard training days left before my TransIowa taper and my wonderful #1 support crewmember is waiting in bed.

Lame

The Roubaix is postponed due to the weather until next Saturday which will probably now clash and lose out to my last big TransIowa training ride. Oh well. I thought things called the Roubaix were for the hard men of road cycling who ride in shit weather over dirt and cobbles and laugh while fueling only off the mudspray from the tires and the bones of the losers...okay maybe I went a little far with the last part. I did have my outfit all picked out, jacket, latex gloves and everything plus I was telling myself to be patient for once and go for the win instead of just having fun attacking the field repeatedly. No upgrade points for the thought of racing though or for attacking until you blow.

Either way it's lame to postpone a "classic" style race due to weather but Marni will now be happy to sleep in and not have to handup bottles standing in the feedzone in the freezing rain for 5 laps. My jacket did quite resemble a popsicle this morning before I dried it out in our 100 deg F temperature chamber.

In other lame news, we got to leave work early by an hour since it's Easter this weekend but someone is still here helping the process guys finish up. Man that guy is lame. At least he's updating his blog.

Blown Routine

Marni has been gone all week but she gets back tonight. Sounds like she's had a nice relaxing week in Vega$ and I'm jealous I couldn't go. One step at a time Chris, stick to the plan. I've been pretty absent on the blog front. Between riding and taking care of Turbo and the house, there isn't a lot of time to do other stuff except when I should be sleeping. On the plus side I only drove once (Wednesday when I was sick) and only watched TV once (last night when I gave in to the couch). Spent a good bit of time last night also reading the final reports from the Arrowhead 135 too. Spreadsheets and planning and "what-ifs" are heavily running through my mind for that race and it's 10 months away.

Today I rode in with freezing rain and blowing winds. Perfect classics weather and still not enough to make me wish for fenders. I dunno, I guess I'm just not a fenders kind of guy. Tomorrow is the Roubaix up in Boulder. This weather makes me want to suit up, caffeine up and make some roadies suffer tomorrow in sub freezing temperatures with a rain/snow mix even though my legs are a big question mark still. I love bad weather races especially when they're shortish. We'll see if I can resist sleeping in with my wife who I haven't seen in over a week though. I did prep the road bike last night just in case everything fell into place and my entry form is sitting filled out on the kitchen table.

Bah now I've got to work. Lithium by Evanescence is on permanent repeat in my head today and I didn't even charge the iPod. Hopefully I'll be back with all 1 million pictures once my routine is reestablished this weekend.

Back

The Paradox is no joke. The Bedrock store is a trip. I leave for work in 15 minutes and when I get home Marni will be gone. Booo. I hope she has lots of fun in Vegas though. The scale says I'm almost as skinny my lightest last year so pass the ice cream...

Today is going to be a long day without much sleep last night. More later bloggerland.

Gone again

Well I'm about 30% done with my Rim Ride write up and I have about 5 minutes to finish before I leave. Not going to happen. Crap.

I'm off to Bedrock, CO this weekend in hopes of scouting the Paradox Trail for the Grand Loop race this June. I'll be joined by the Daves, Harris and Nice. We'll be bike packing the trail baring excessive snowfall. I'll try to post back again Sunday night and wrapup my Rim Ride report too.

Happy Birthday to Marni!

Happy Birthday to my wonderful and beautiful wifey. I hope you have a great birthday today!

My RR report is coming I promise. Work is being stupid at the moment...