Let see, what have we been up to since last weekend...? I guess it goes without saying that we've obviously been up to a lot since we haven't had time for any posts.

Well, the weather gave us a little bit of a break last week and allowed us to ride mountain bikes three times. Last Tuesday's IEW ride was awesome. We rode out to the East Moscow Mountain lookout and it was clear enough to see the Seven Devils Mountains... over 150 miles away! It was crazy how far you could see from up there. Lorena and I had to head back a little earlier than the other guys but we still got a good ride in. The rest of the guys rode a portion of a trail that was on fire from the slash pile burning currently underway on the mountain. It's pretty much out now but they had some crazy pictures. They also had an encounter with a big bull moose. Somehow it sounds a little better that we didn't risk any more life-and-limb than necessary by heading in early.

I headed out for a night ride last Thursday night to try out my Princeton Tec Switchback1 light system that I hadn't ridden with yet. It was a little shy of 40 degrees when I left at 6:30 and I thought I was adequately dressed... but it turns out that I should have worn a stocking cap under the helmet instead of a simple cycling cap. My forehead got really cold and it felt as though my reaction time was a little slowed down. Combine that with a sore neck muscle making it a little painful to look up and it made for a short ride that night. The light is great though. It's amazing how much light can come out of a small package.

We had great rides over the weekend with a super-fast road ride on Saturday. It's difficult to have average speeds over 19mph with the hills and wind out here but Lorena and I threw down a really solid ride. The last 7 miles were into a headwind but we were never below 21mph. I will admit that those miles were relatively flat but when you're feeling good, you're feeling good.

New cross tires are on the way to replace the ones that gave out on us last week. We're getting some Schwalbe CX Pro Lites. It's a similar tread pattern to the Tufo but without some of the hassles of the Tufos like sealant and valve extenders. We'll see how they turn out. I'm also in need of a new middle chainring on my mountain bike. Well, that and a chain. My Wipperman chain has finally bit the dust but the chainring it's running on barely has any teeth to grab it with. They're on order too along with lots of other parts we've been putting off replacing.

We're having a Halloween party this weekend since the actual holiday falls in the middle of the week. It's nice to actually have the space to do things like that. There's a cross race on Sunday so we'll have to see how we feel after a night of chilled adult beverages....

That's all for now. All sorts of school stuff due this week that's filling in the gaps in between rides. I'm actually taking a break from writing a paper to write this. That, and listening to the Mingus Big Band.

Before signing off, I must recommend everyone listen to the song "Choctaw Bingo" by James McMurtry. I heard this on a radio station out of Sandpoint, ID one day and was hooked.

James McMurtry's Site

~Chris

Wouldn't you know it....

That, and some expletives, was what I uttered when I heard the hiss from my rear tire on my next-to-last lap. I can't imagine why...

I've never pulled a nail this large out of any tire, cars included. I don't know how it all fit in there. Needless to say, a new tire is in order to along with Lorena's problematic Tufos.

I got a pretty decent warm-up on the trainer before the start of the race and was looking forward to racing on a well-designed course. My start was OK and I found myself chasing the lead group pretty hard. The nice thing about the course is that there was plenty of flat, straight sections that allowed you to get in your big ring and go fast. I did a lot of intervals in these spots that helped me reel in a some people. I almost missed a turn because I was looking down and hammering in a straightaway I thought was longer than it actually was.

As the race wore on, I actually felt better and was motivated by the fact that I was reeling people in. With the mass start mixed with the Masters, it was hard to tell what your place was, but it was still nice to catch people. I also knew that the last lap was coming up and was pretty bummed when I flatted. At least I got some points for showing up and it was a double points race.

We weren't the only people who suffered from flats. Lots of people pinch-flatted during their warm-up laps and I saw more than one person running with their bikes during the race. That's racing, but you like to have a better result when you drive 2.25 hours to race.

I'm beginning to doubt my Rolf wheels for cross. They move around a lot and don't seem to be holding up very well on the rough courses we've been racing on. Perhaps I'm going to have to build a set of 32-hole hoops.

If anything, the scenery around the course was pretty nice. There was a little bit of snow at the tops of those mountains.

~Chris

Tough Luck on the 'Cross Course

Well, Chris and I both had some tough luck today at the cyclocross race held at Farragut State Park. My pre-race warm-up lap left me with a flat front tire. I borrowed a front wheel from our friend Allison who opted out of today's race. At the line, we noticed that there seemed to be a puncture in my rear tire. I have been running the Tufo tubular clinchers, the rear already had sealant in it, and there had been a sloooow leak for the last several weeks, so we figured that that puncture was really the slow leak and that it must hold up for the hour of the race. It didn't. I didn't even make it one lap before I could feel the metal of the rim bumping along the ground. Yet, being that they are tubulars, I figured I could at least make it back to the finish area. That caused my tire to kind of crunch up around the valve stem. Chris also flatted, but I will let you wait until he posts more details and photos. Sadly, for me, we had driven a couple of hours for only a few minutes of racing. Even more sadly, it was one of the better courses I have seen this season.

Lorena

Saturday Night Cyclocross Poll

A recent post got a little debate going in the comments. I decided to let our readers, of which I know many are cyclocross racers, voice their opinion on their favorite part of a cyclocross race through a wonderfully unscientific, yet incontrovertible, poll. We shall settle, once and for all, the best features of a cyclocross course.

Course designers take note.

(I moved to poll over to the right so it wouldn't get lost)

~Chris

How I spent my Friday evening

After spending what has seemed like a little too much time away from home, I was looking forward to an evening in and getting a little bit of cleaning done. What I hadn't planned on was fishing hair ties and other favorite cat toys out from under the washer and dryer. Our one cat, Pokey, AKA Pocatalico, loves to play with seemingly abandoned hair ties that he "finds" on my night stand or the bathroom counter. He quietly and coyly peeps his head up to these places and when the object of his desire is present, slides said object off onto the floor and carries it off in his mouth. When Chris and I are home, he will often bring us a hair tie and request that it be thrown. These are his fetch toys, but when no one will throw them, he will play with them by himself on the linoleum (vinyl, probably) kitchen floor where they scoot much like the puck in air hockey. Needless to say, as any cat can do, he often gets carried away and the hair ties scoot smoothly across the floor and right under the edge of the washer or dryer at one end of the kitchen and out of reach of all of us.

The last couple of days, I have seen Pokey searching the usual places in vain for a hair tie to play with. So, unexpectedly, I got out the straightened coat hanger and an old sock and began fishing around under the washer and dryer. Swirls, the other feline resident, thought that this was good fun, especially as he tried to get the exposed moving end of the coat hanger (the end I was holding onto). Pokey sat back and watched the proceedings with bewildered interest.

When I gotten out nine hair ties, I knew that this many would simply overwhelm the poor cat, so I gave him one and put the rest in the laundry. I thought I must of gotten them all, but still I laid with one cheek pressed against the cool kitchen floor and shone a small flashlight under. From this position, I could see that there were still a few left out of my reach. By the time Chris untwisted the top of the coat hanger for me to reach the ones in the back, the one hair tie I had already given Pokey was back under the washer again.

In total I removed from under the washer and dryer:

17 hair ties

3 rubber bands

1 twist tie

1 safety pin

and lots of cat hair and dust that will no longer be in circulation.

What an exciting way to spend a Friday night!

Lorena

INWCXS #2, Spokane Valley, WA

I was going to write this yesterday, but it turned into one of those things where you start working on a project and just keep making progress and the next thing you know it's 10pm and you realize: "So that's why I feel like I should go to bed." Granted, there was a brief respite in there to grab some dinner and a beer while watching some of the Indians game. I will definitely be watching tonight because I think the Tribe can pull it off. They have a lot of momentum and they're playing at home. What more could you want? I digress...

Here's the run-down on the cross race over the weekend. I got there about 2 hours before start time because I wasn't sure if one of the roads north of here was closed due to construction. Turns out it was open so that knocked about half an hour off of the drive. They had the course pretty much laid out when I got there and it looked like a mix of just about every type of terrain you could have in a cross race.

There were two run-ups, no barrier sections, a horse arena with lots of 180-degree turns, and a few sandy spots. Actually, there were lots of 180-degree turns all over the course. I ate a little and got dressed to do some laps to learn the course. The arena was the worst with its loose, sandy turns and bone-jarring bumps in the straight sections. The run-ups weren't horrible or especially long (unlike last week), but the first run-up didn't have a very good place to remount before having to make, you guessed it, a 180-degree turn.

I felt pretty good come race time. There were 16 guys in the B-field. Turnout was about 85 racers, up from 65 the week before. It was also over 60 degrees and sunny, which probably helped. I hit the first turn in about 6th place and would never get any further up. In fact, I just kept drifting further back until I was in about 11th place. The body just didn't want to do it. I think I also got a little psyched out mentally when we hit the first run-up on the first lap. The race started at noon and I finished my last pre-race lap about about 11:30. Somewhere in that half hour they had placed a really tall barrier at the bottom of the run-up. Needless to say, it was a more than a little surprising and pissed me off.

About halfway through the race I started to feel better and ended up passing a guy. I almost caught a few more but didn't quite have enough to do it and finished 10th. It was a little disappointing after such a good finish the week before, but it only knocked me down one place in the series points to 6th. It's a little reminiscent of my last season in the Bike Authority series where I finished 5th in the points.

One thing I have to say about the cross courses out here, with the exception of Starcrossed, is that they seem to be all about "How hard can we make this?". The run-ups are miserable and long. The courses seem to be very long and very rough. I think that's just a function of the dry climate. The races don't seem to emphasize speed and fluidity of going through barrier sections. Most of the races in Ohio are fairly flat in profile, have good barrier sections, and if they have a run-up, it's very short. One of the most fun aspects of Starcrossed was the barriers right in front of the beer garden. You come into it fast and have to be smooth. At the same time, you have people cheering for you like crazy and that's really motivating. They're cheering because they like to see speed and speed is often a precursor to crashes, something they also like to see. I think I always had more fun racing cross in Ohio than any race I've done here, Starcrossed excepted. Let's face it, if you've ever seen the pros go through a set of barriers at speed, it's an impressive thing to watch. I've never said to myself "Wow, look at how good that guy can run with his bike up a hill."

Ok, end rant. I'm going to continue going to the races because I enjoy racing and there's the series points thing. Last week was a little off on training and Sunday was probably the result of that. This week seems to be shaping up to be better. At least I hope so.

There are some pictures from the race over at this website:

http://athleticpix.studiocart.com/storefront/gallery_prints.cfm?tracker=Ji81PideNU0pCg==&CFID=928053&CFTOKEN=cf7a411bf263337a-4E4B0E27-0B43-1F0E-1CF4EF0B1035432D&jsessionid=bc30a0e1483d$1B$7F$A

That's all for now. I'd better get a little work done now that I'm caffeinated.

~Chris

Just one of those days...

A quick update before I head off to sleep... There'll be more tomorrow, I just don't have the energy to write much tonight. Did race #2 of the Inland Northwest Cyclocross Series today up in Spokane Valley. Let's say that it wasn't a stellar performance by yours truly. I just never got in a rhythm and couldn't quite turn it over like last weekend. I wasn't terribly surprised after a rather haphazard week of training.

Lorena's safely back in Moscow after returning from Ohio this afternoon. It was rather convenient that she was flying into Spokane given that's where the race was today.

Time for some weary legs to hit the sack.

~Chris

Pure, Unadulterated, Pain

That would be the best way to sum up this weekend's cyclocross race over in Pullman. It was the first in the Inland Northwest Cyclocross series and it was a doozy. As much as I hate to say it, I think I hurt more after this race than I did after Starcrossed.

I'm not exactly sure how many laps we did (I think 8), but I do know that it took me about 3 laps to really get warmed up. The temperature was around 52 degrees and the ever-present wind of the Palouse was blowing. I believe there was also a 40% chance of rain though it never materialized. We have had rain off and on over the last week so the ground was a little softer than usual. That was much better than at Starcrossed.

About 65 racers showed up with 17 A-riders and there were 11 B-riders of which I was one. Lorena had 4 women in her class including the winner of the Cat 3/4 women's race at Starcrossed. I think there were 11 women total including the "total rookie" category and the mountain bike category. Everyone else was spread out across the remaining groups.

We started one minute behind the A's and had our first run-up within about 100 yards. It was short and steep. We were on fairly level gravel for a little while before descending to the edge of some soccer fields at a very high rate of speed. It was a nice runout because you could stay in your big ring for a little while until reaching the base of the queen-mother of all 'cross run-ups. This thing was brutal and felt like it took a full minute to run. The range of emotions you went through while trying to "run" up this hill went from feeling great and fast at the bottom to delirium at the top as you tried to remount with cramping calves and max heartrate.

Lots of people were walking up that one soon into the race. Our friend Allison (the one who picked this hill to run) has some good pictures over at her blog.

Allison's blog

One other great feature of the race was "The Spiral of Death" which was near the finish. It was basically two intertwined spirals where you entered on one side, spiraled right into the center, turned left and then spiraled back out exiting on the opposite side you entered. It was amazing. There was no cross (no pun intended) traffic either. It almost made you dizzy.

In the end, I finished 5th in the B's and Lorena finished 4th in the Women's category. I'm pretty happy with my result and this race counted double points for the series. They drew from a hat to decide that before the race started.

Today was a nice recovery day with a short spin in some balmy 65 degree weather. It sure beats the hell out of the weather we've been having recently. It's supposed to be 75 here tomorrow so we're going to try to go mountain biking in the afternoon.

Lorena leaves for Ohio on Thursday to attend a friend's wedding. She'll be back on Sunday which is convenient since the cross race this weekend is in Spokane and that's where the airport is located. I can go race and then pick Lorena up afterward.

Time to get some sleep so I can get up and run in the morning.

~Chris

Is it just me...

...or did someone flip the season switch around here? It's 11AM and still 38 degrees. The weather has been rather chilly lately and that sun just keeps setting a little earlier and earlier.

There's not too much to report other than we'll be racing this weekend in Pullman at the first race of the Inland Northwest Cyclocross Series. There will be a race pretty much every weekend until the third weekend in November. Should be a lot of fun. The course this weekend has two run-ups and one set of barriers. I've been trying to convince a number of the grad students in my department to come out in race since they do a little mountain biking. One guy is all for it but the others may take a little more prodding. One thing that's a little discouraging is the increased price of the USCF one-day licenses. If you're like us and already have an annual, the $20 entry fee isn't too bad. However, if this is your first ever cross race, paying $30 to suffer like that may be a little steep, especially for college students.

We'll probably have pictures and a write-up on Monday.

This week did start off with a bit of a bummer in that I broke my Rudy Project glasses. Friggin' dropped them when I walked into the building where my office is located and one arm broke off. I don't know how many times I've dropped those things or had them fall out of my helmet with nary a scratch. C'est la vie I guess. I think I'm going to get a pair of Tifosi Quam 1.5's.

The FedEx guy brought me a new toy last week. I bought a Princeton Tec Switchback 1 light set. I haven't had a chance to try it yet but it appears to be a nice system. I like the quality connectors for the cables and the charger is super fast. The run-time is supposed to be 10 hours on low and 5 hours on high with a charge time around 2.5 hours. The mount seems to be pretty good too allowing for quick change to another bike. The earlier sunsets are going to necessitate these soon.

I guess there was more to write about than I thought. I'd better head in to the office and do some real work now.

~Chris