Sobe 1ktogo

And More Thanks ...

2012-11-22T20:24:00.001-05:00

Continuation of More Thanks (Should be the last installment)...

For the push for electric cars and reducing dependency on foreign oil. I will buy one someday, I just need the range to be a little bit longer.
For Twizzlers.
For people that respect cyclists that respect drivers.
For telling Verizon they can keep their TV service, the Sjoberg clan wants to experience the world first hand.
For the library, you provide so many lessons learned.
For power tools. In the words of Tim the Toolman Taylor, "ARGH, ARGH, ARGH!!"
For learning there is more to life than bringing home a big paycheck
For warm clothes fresh out of the dryer on a cold day.
For Kids having only to worry about how they are going to play.
For my boys laughter.
For understanding that some higher power will judge whether I left the world a better place.
For learning to live in the moment because our lives could be taken away from us in the blink of an eye. I miss you Julie Taylor (Frank) and Lemmy Kirkland. It is so easy to get caught up in stuff and forget this. Let's hope I can keep remembering to do this.
For punctuality.
For audio books and figuring out that mundane tasks (i.e. raking leaves, driving) allow for easy listening opportunities.
For trying to learn to do things in moderation. Very much a work in progress.
And lastly for the air I breathe.

More Thanks ...

2012-11-21T16:11:00.005-05:00

A continuation of Give Thanks ...

For having lots to be thankful for.

For songs and musicians that move me. From Garth Brooks to Pearl Jam to Techno to Peter Gabriel.

For learning from my mistakes. I have made some big ones. Unfortunately I can be a slow learner sometimes.

For Boy Scouts and the life long lessons it taught me. I wish I would have kept reciting the Scout Law over the years. I let you down on a few. Going to work hard to not allow that to happen again.

For the outdoors and camping and hiking.

For getting lost because it makes you want to stay found.

For home cooked meals that have lots of love poured into them.

For playing cards with my family.

For traditions.

For the internet. It is amazing how much information is at our fingertips now a day's. Who knew that duct tape could be used to remove a wart on my son's finger.

For the great schools my kids are able to go to.

For strong work ethics.

For my step-parents.

For my in-laws.

For my step-brother.

For people that don't text and drive. I am trying to stop this. Almost there.

For my weaknesses and identifying them and trying to improve them.

For my strengths, not always sure what those are but everyday is a chance for strengthening.

For those that serve in the military.

For some awesome teachers that I had growing up. Mrs. Bloomquist, Mr. Shaw, Mr. Davis.

For the summers I used to spend in Maine with my grandparents.

For the humongous Swiss Roll Grammy used to make.

For geocaching.

For learning to be myself and not what I think someone wants me to be. This is a work in progress.

For my boys that never think twice and always wear their bike helmets.

For different perspectives.

Probably to be continued ...

Giving Thanks

2012-11-21T08:17:00.001-05:00

For great friends that you can always count on.

For books like 7 habits of highly effective people, 7 principles for making a marriage work, parenting that works, Scrum guide (Odd but has good stuff for all aspects of life)

For regaining the focus and values I once had in life.

For a job that I enjoy.

For the community of Crofton.

For those that volunteer and don't expect anything in return.

For websites that impact me - momastery.com, sealfit.com, http://www.facebook.com/Consciousparentingnow

For my two healthy, smart, loving boys.

For my mom.

For my dad.

For my grandparents.

For my other mom (Helen-Sue).

For my best friend (Wes).

For my therapist.

For EMDR, that stuff is bringing back some good old memories.

For the people in my past that gave me positive and negative experiences. For the negative things I have learned from them and forgiven you for those. For the positive experiences, I hold onto those and try to implement them in the way that was impressed on me.

For three stray cats in our backyard that we feed.

For all the animals that have been a part of my life and touched me deeply.

For leaves that provide shade during the summer eventhough you always fall to the ground and we have to pick you up every year.

For my hammock.

For my camera and the pictures it has captured over the years.
For unselfish teammates and to sacrificing myself for the greater good of the team.

For learning how to share feelings.

For patience.

For focusing on the positive.

For my puffy coat that keeps me warm.

For the floor heat in my car.

For crossfit.

For my bike and the freedom and natural highs it provides me when I am rolling through the country side and the endorphins are kicking in.

For Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

Sadly I must admit that I am thankful for Taco Bell and Mountain Dew.

For a nice cup of hot Dunkin Donuts Original Blend home brewed coffee. Nothing smells much better than that in the morning.

For learning to support my kids in whatever they choose to do. I will not live vicariously through my kids and try to push them to do what I wanted to do. If you want to do the ribbon event in gymnastics, I will be right there with you and will love every minute of it.

For friends that would rather go out rucking on Friday night then go to a bar.

For empathic people.

To be continued ...

Changing the Decline of Kids Biking to School

2012-05-10T12:27:00.001-04:00

Did anyone know that it was National Bike/Walk to School Day this last week?

Pretty sad that the number of kids biking/walking to school has fallen off a cliff over the past couple of decades. Now we have a national day for this. Every day should be bike/walk to school day!

I remember when I went to elementary school in the early 80's, we had at least half the school biking/walking to school. I think we may have had a total of 3 buses. I had great memories of riding to school with many of my friends growing up. We would even leave early from home so that we could ride the long route to school. This usually involved a little dirt track fun. We would even meet up with kids along the way.

My sons local elementary school only allows the 5th graders to ride their bikes to school. Because of this it only has one bike rack and it isn't even full. So so sad. A vicious cycle has occurred whereby parents are concerned about kids safety. So they begin driving kids to school and put more cars on the road. Which increases congestion and potential for more traffic accidents. Some argue that riding distance was a barrier. Our school is right in the heart of our community. I think most kids are within 1 mile of the school.

Crofton Woods Elementary School SINGLE bike rack.

Here is a good article on why biking/walking has declined.

My boy absolutely loves riding to/from school. I go so far as to carry his bike back home and carry it to pick him up when we do ride back from school. It gives us some time to talk, get the blood flowing. We have great side walks (recently the corners were overhauled to ramp down to the street) and crossing guards that look out for our children's safety.

I am going to get active and change this at my local level. I already have a local bike shop, Family Bike Shop, willing to support us with additional bike racks. Additionally a local cement company is willing to dump their daily overage into frames that we construct.

Get active and educate folks!

How to save MOOLAH, so you can buy more bike stuff

2012-04-30T21:09:00.002-04:00

I come from a long line of penny pinching parents. I don't implement all that has been passed down to me. Namely drying used paper towels on the clothesline (true story, Grandfather did this) but I try to pinch where I can. Because over time it adds up and then I can buy the fun stuff like Gucci Zipp Carbon wheels. And fuel my other vice, Belgian trippels (Bier that is). My grandfather would be rolling over in his grave if he knew that I have a set of wheels for my bike that retail for probably more then he collectively spent on vehicles in his lifetime.

Below is a list of various things one can do to save a little money here and there. Some of this stuff may be hazardous to your health, I will let you be the judge of that. Additionally you will have to ride a fine line to degree in which you implement any one or more of these without risking war of the roses with your significant other.

Shelter

Hang paper towels (if you want to go extreme)
Dry your clothes on a clothesline.
Lower thermostat in winter and raise it during the summer. If you have a programmable thermostat, use it.
Replace incandescent with CFL or LED bulbs
Raise your home insurance deductible
Grab floor space in someone's hotel and split with the extra soap and shampoo. I traveled a ton for work a couple of years ago and every time I would take home the soap, shampoo, condition and anything else that wasn't glued down. I can say I haven't paid for a bar of soap or shampoo for about 5 years.

Gettin' Around

Own a fuel efficient car - better yet, if you can handle an electric car, go for it. This is certainly in my future, just want the range per charge to get a little better. <soapbox> I would love to never purchase another gallon of gas. Mainly because it would be good for America to significantly reduce its dependence on foreign oil. </soapbox>
WARNING Dangerous Tip - Draft semis. Come on we do it to conserve energy on the bike. Why not increase your MPG's. But please use caution, when they start veering off into the break down lane and turning on their flashers, it is time to back off and find another truck. Trust me on this one. I will tell you that story over a beer sometime.
Carpool to races.
Ride instead of drive - great for training but make sure you shower, people at work don't want to smell you rotting in chamois creme.
Raise your auto insurance deductible.

Table Scraps

Make your own meals. Especially dinner but even make sandwiches instead of eating at McD's during race weekends. I do break this rule from time to time because it is good to support the communities that host events
Take your lunch to work - my great wife always makes enough food at dinner time for a family twice our size. I always bring the leftovers in to work instead of dropping 7 bucks at the nearest Taco Smell.
Let someone else keep starbucks in business and stop buying the venti double bubble caramel machimottos

Shopping

Sell your old stuff on eBay or craigslist
Buy stuff on ebay/craigslist but watch out sometimes you can find items cheaper at places like Amazon
Get on a great team (Bike Doctor rocks) that hooks you up with low prices on bike stuff! Unfortunately for me this doesn't lower my overall bike cost because I end up buying more cool things.
Buy generic and buy in bulk - you will eventually eat all 5 gallons of peanut butter.
Use fatwallet.com to find deals, coupons and get cash back on online purchases. I have probably received a couple hundred bucks in cash back from this site over the years. This is in addition to a cash back credit card that you can use to make the purchase.

Entertainment

Cancel cable - Who needs it anymore (aside from major league sports) with the internets. You can go to a local sports bar if you really got to watch the BoSox's tromp over the Yanks!
Completely turn off DVD players, TV's, game consoles. Can save 100's a year if you own a bunch of stuff that lies around waiting for you to turn it on. Either connect these devices to a power strip with an on/off switch or connect them to a wall outlet that has a wall switch.

Misc

Cancel telephone land line

If you got any more good ones, I would love to hear them. Add a comment.

Group ride junky!

2012-04-23T21:49:00.002-04:00

The subject says it all. I live for the group ride. I am a friggin' junky for a leg breaking group ride. Like Charlie Sheen hitting another speed ball, I gotta have my group ride. And not in a way that I think of it as a race and try to win sprints and KOM's but that I look to punish my legs/lungs to the extent that I can barely walk afterwards. And the stronger the riders that regularly show up, the BETTER. I secretly start grinning when I see multiple fast dudes/chicks post up because I know we are all going to be in for a great work out.

Almost every group ride starts out with a pretty decent size pack that rolls together nicely for a few miles but then the speed in-evidently picks up and slowly guys start missing pulls. Then it is down to just a few to keep trading pulls until everyone explodes. When I have my legs back after a few months of getting dropped on the group rides, I love nothing more then for someone to keep pulling through. I will always dig a little deeper and try to be the last one to pull through.

The DC, Maryland, Northern Virginia (NOVA) area has plenty to offer in the group ride arena, here is a sample of where I like to get my group ride fix on:
Tuesday noon hill ride from Arlington Italian Store
Contes Tuesday evening ride (especially when the kegs are tapped and food is free on the first Tuesday)
Thursday noon Hour of Power from DC Cyclelife
Wakefield Tuesday/Thursday evening ride
The Point (a.k.a. Hains Point) anytime
Davidsonville 424 Park and Ride (Tuesday/Thursday)
Greenbelt race on Wednesday

New edition may be Westside Worlds hosted by Adventures for Cure.

I hear the Tuesday Night Worlds in Reston is pretty stellar but a long haul. The goon ride is a bit out of the way for me as well but I hear it is one of the fastest out there.

I can't wait to get my next fix. Hope to see you guys out there. Probably going to show up at 424 ride tomorrow.

Any other fast group rides in the Northern Virginia, DC, Maryland area? Leave a comment. I will tally them up and put them on my group ride page.

Carl Dolan Pics

2012-04-16T21:37:00.002-04:00

I handed off the camera to one of the Bike Doctor "MABRA housewives" and she was able to capture some good shots of the 1, 2, 3 action. It is a little Bike Doctor focused. Congrats to team DC Velo for walking away with the 1-2 podium. Check the pics out in the link below.

Dolan Pics

Comeback year in review (final installment)

2012-04-12T20:25:00.000-04:00

The sandbagging comments were approaching a deafening level as evidenced by YGD calling me out and I knew it was time to move up but I had to finish out my epic battle with Dan Netzer (Celerity Cycling) and the GamJams.net Cat 3 Cup series. I will note there is a rule that allows a rider to stay at a particular category if they are in contention for a series and the promoter of the series approves it.

Tour de Millersburg, Cat 3: TT - 6th, Crit - 1st, RR - 10th

Awesome race, amazingly supportive town. TT didn't go as well as planned, I had a hard time keeping my speed over the hills. Crit was a different story. The plan was to sit in for the first half and then Andrew Shelby (WWVC but not for long, BD colors were in his future) and I would hook up and try to play dynamic duo off the front. Well that plan got updated when I saw Justin Mauch (HPC/List) take off from the gun in his typical fast self style. I decided to go with him and see how things unfolded. Another strong PA rider (Calvin Hoops) bridged up to us a couple laps later and we started motoring. With 10 laps to go it was pretty apparent we were going to lap the field and my two teammates had been caught up in some crashes and I didn't want to lap the field. So I just sat on for the next few laps. We still ended up catching the group with 5 to go. We quickly made it to the front and I got locked into field sprint mode and knew the only way to ensure victory was to win the field sprint.

Tour de Millersburg crit win! (Photo Credit: Joe Mallis)

With 2 corners to go I positioned myself nicely in about 5th place and noted Justin was glued to my wheel. Out of the last corner I waited about 50 meters to start the sprint up because I knew it was a long way to the line. Even though I waited I left myself a lot of room but luckily Justin was restricted to Junior gears and I managed to hold him off and win the race.

The road race was a fun roller and we (Hampton and Ramos) just stayed alert. However with a lap to go, 4th and 5th place in the time trial snuck away. Before I could get the other teams alerted to what was up the road, they had built up a pretty good gap. After much begging and pleading the other GC teams started helping us but it was too little too late. Hampton and I had a plan for the finishing downhill section and he delivered me to the bottom corner to perfection but I hadn't realized that it was 1km from there to the finish and was stuck out front. One guy jumped around and I went to latch on but my chain flew off. I got it back on and stood on it again. After 10 more strokes it fell off again. This happened a couple more times until the finish line. Luckily I had enough speed and distance to roll in for 10th place. I was able to retain a podium position despite my mechanical and finished 3rd!

Appalachia Visited, Cat 3: 2nd

Fun, mountainous race for one last defense of the GamJams lead. I had to finish the battle of the GamJams title with Netzer and the staging ground was a JR Petsko special in the WV mountains. It was one big loop with 2 significant climbs (3-4 km each). Over the first climb the group was shattered with me somewhere in the middle group and Dan unhitching from us about midway up the climb. As we crested the top, Dan was no where in sight and I could see the lead group, sweet. We caught back up to the lead group a couple miles later. We rolled on the flats for a good 10 miles until I saw what looked to be Dan chasing back on. Sure enough a mile later he latched unto our group a bit on the sweaty side. The man had turned himself inside out to catch back on. Turns out my easy coasting in wasn't to be and the last climb would be a nice show down.

Appalachia visited profile with commentary

We were the lead group of 3's starting the climb and Ian Spivack (DCMTB) decided he wanted to ensure everyone went crosseyed up the final climb and turned on the wattage. I was glued to his wheel and noticed Dan glued to mine. I settled into the hurt locker and tried to will Ian to slow down with my laser beam focus on his seatstays. 2/3rd's of the way up Ian's pace was taking its tool on me and I wasn't sure if I would be able to hold on. I still saw Dan glued to my wheel but not long after I saw a beautiful sight. Dan's front wheel shadow started to drift back from mine. He was cracking. This gave me new found energy and I found another gear. We crested the top and I told Ian the race was his if he just worked with me during the final 4 mile, mostly downhill run into the finish. The plan worked to perfection, Ian took home a much deserved victory. I finished 2nd to secure the GamJams series victory! Dan rolled in about a minute later for a hard fought 3rd on the day and 2nd overall in GamJams. I have to say that it was great racing in the GamJams series and duking it out with Dan all season. He is a great competitor and great friend. I look forward to racing with him in the big boy races next year.

Dawg Days, Cat 1,2,3: 8th

The day after Appalachia I put in my category 2 upgrade request and got it in time for the Dawg Days race in Bowie. This was a nice fast industrial park crit with mostly wide open turns. It was pretty apparent nothing was getting away but Warner, Giles and myself mixed it up really well and we were almost always in the dangerous breakaway situations. With 2 laps to go, Warner and I hooked up and he sheltered me nicely from the wind and moved us up into good position. Immediately I found Brownie's (Tim Brown from Harley) wheel and was dead set on not leaving it. Well that was the right plan but during execution I got distracted by Keck Baker attacking just before the final corner and I took off after him. Well he sat up or something and I found myself in no man's land with 300 meters or more of somewhat downhill sprint and so I decided to put the head down and go for it. I could see riders on my wheel and never gave up. Brownie ended up winning. I managed to hang onto the final money spot, 8th. Not bad for the first time being back with the big boys. Certainly looking forward to next year. We are going to have a very solid cat 1, 2, 3 team.

Tanner Browne and I at the
MABRA Awards banquet

Additionally I was able to secure the MABRA BAR All-Around rider award for Senior 3 due to my late season success. Jason Hall certainly put up a nice year long fight and made a late season charge but ran out of races. It was great getting to race with Jason and gain another good friend in the MABRA peleton.

Needless to say I had an awesome year that was totally unexpected! I have to certainly thank my selfless teammates for many of my successes. We are a great team on and off the bike and I look forward to many more years keying off each other in races and enjoying post race brews. Not sure which one of those I enjoy more. Additionally, without sponsorship I wouldn't have been able to race nearly as much. Thank you Bike Doctor, DigiSource, Elite Endurance, Cyclops and Cannondale. Lastily and certainly most importantly, I have to thank my beautiful wife and boys for supporting me during this season! They were an awesome support team and every time they showed up to races I was able to find another gear that I didn't know I had.

Comeback Year in Review (Next to last installment)

2012-04-02T08:24:00.001-04:00

I now had 3 solid months of training and racing underneath me and things were really starting to come together.

Giro Di Coppi Finish! (Photo Credit: Jay Westcott)

Giro Di Coppi, Cat 3: 1st

The perfect leadout!! Bickling and Rist joined me for some fun around the hilly Barnesville, MD area. We mostly sat in but Rist managed to turn the screws on the field a couple of times. I rolled off the front once but was just playing around and didn't want to burn any matches. On the last lap Paul Rades (GamJams) was off the front and I started to grow a little concerned, cause that guy can flat motor. With a half lap to go his time was starting to come down. I planned on putting a big dig on the final climb to shake things up and to bring down Paul's gap some more. Well I went hard and got a little gap but I had a few guys covering me pretty tightly. As we were rolling to the finish, Rist found me and just gave the look (indicating take my wheel and I will see you to the finish line). I slotted in behind him and we moved up some in the field and then just as we were getting to the base of the climb to the finish, Rist found a nice hole open up on the right side and gunned it with 400 meters to go. I stayed tucked behind him, like a pig in blanket until 150 meters and launched. I never looked back, gritted my teeth, made some unusual noises as a result of my overgeared sprint. With 25 meters to go, I finally looked around and saw no one and was able to celebrate in grand style!! Rist's monster lead out provided such a separation from the field that he even held onto 3rd place!

Finish of Cat 3 Arsenal Crit
(Photo Credit: Bob Wellmon)

Arsenal Crit, Cat 3: 1st

Another solo adventure against 30 guys I had never race against. It was fun little 8 corner flat crit in the semi-abandoned Philly Navy Yard. I got into a group of 6 fairly early on and we just started rolling. There were 3 guys from the same team (Shirks Racing) and this worried me but they were all pulling through nicely. It was clear with half the race to go that we weren't going to get caught. I didn't do anymore work than anybody else and started planning for the eventual attack onslaught from the stacked team. Well it happened with 10 to go, a Shirks guy took off and the other two teammates look at us and shrugged. I eventually bridged up solo with a sneaky dig and quickly started working with the guy off the front. We stayed away and during the final couple of corners I couldn't get the Shirks guy to come around. Well it was a tailwind sprint and from the final corner it was about 250-300 meters so I figured I could gas it right out of the corner and hopefully get a little separation. Plan worked to perfection and I had a couple bike length lead at the finish. And my wife and kids got to see the victory salute!

Arsenal Crit, Cat 1/2/3: 7th

Made the second group that got off the front and barely rolled in alive out of the 3 man group I was in. Managed 7th, not to bad.

Lost River Classic, Cat 3/4: 5th

Can you say mountains, good night! Lesson learned, shouldn't have hesitated. Felt okay on the climbs and they were definitely climbs. One was 1.5km and the other was 1km and the rest was rolling. Pete Warner had told me to watch Matias from Snapple prior to the race. Well he got away solo with 2 laps to go and I grew a little concerned. Then coming into the final lap, Ben Frederick and Matt Phillips (didn't know him at the time but by looking at him, should have known he was climber) took off and the alarm bells started to go off in my head. I didn't react but should have. We staged a late rally to claw back the 3 but it was too little too late. I gunned it at 1km to go on the finish hill and Ian Spivack came with. We rotated a couple times and then he had more than me at the end. On the GamJams note, luckily Dan Netzer blew a literal head gasket and finished way down and I was able to climb back into the GamJams lead.

Liberty Crit, Cat 3/4: 3rd

Huge field of Philly riders. I just sat in. 3 guys got away with 5 laps to go and things were looking promising for them. The pack started eating back some of their time and they were only a few seconds ahead with 300 meters to go. I was positioned about perfectly and shot out the left hand side and started a drag race with another sprinter. Well he got the best of me but we were able to catch 2 of the 3 guys that were off the front. I made a huge bike throw at the end that made the difference.

Shenandoah TT, Cat 3: 2nd

This just hurt. Went out too hard, settled down and finished strong. Only missed winning by 20 seconds. Dan Netzer won this and as a result the GamJams leaders jersey went back on his back.

Showdown at Shenandoah Speedway

This was just plain fun. I love racing track style events. Managed to win the combined miss and out!

Page Valley RR, Cat 3: 4th

Damn Netzer (finished 3rd) came around me in the final 100 meters to pad his lead in GamJams! One guy had soloed in and Ben Frederick left no doubt that he can climb and finished 2nd. I will say Paul Rades made this race hurt bad with some hard digs up the climbs. He would just set a fierce tempo that would make most cry for mercy.

Ben Frederick towing me up the finish climb at Luray Crit
(Photo Credit: Team Traveller)

Luray Crit, Cat 3: 2nd

I needed to beat Netzer here to regain GamJams. This was a beast of a crit course with a little ring wall up to the finish line every lap and we had to do a bunch of laps. First half of the race Rist and I just covered little things. I was feeling pretty comfortable going up the hill and then gaping folks on the windy backside descent section. I got a little impatient half way through the race and gunned it up the hill and got some breathing room. I was off for a couple laps and starting to feel the hill a bit. I looked behind me and saw a lone rider that looked to be Ben Frederick (hell of a climber). We hooked up and immediately started working together. He was a beast and pulled almost everytime up the hill. I started to fade with 5 to go and told Ben the race was his and that I would pull through when I could. He took off with a lap to go and easily won the race. I rolled in with 2nd place and Netzer finished 3rd. That was just enough to put me back in the GamJams lead by a mere 1 point.

... to be contined.

Comeback Year in Review (Next Installment)

2012-03-29T00:21:00.001-04:00

By now I had been hitting the group rides pretty consistently and I was finally starting to help increase the pain factor of the rides. I was also doubling up regularly in the races.

Crystal Cup, Cat 3: 6th

I was really amped to try and win this race and certainly had been training hard leading up to it. The team worked like a well oiled machine but things just didn't pan out. Still managed to get 3 guys in the money. Won some nice Tifosi glasses that would get destroyed in my first cross race. Damn cross bike doesn't corner like a road bike.

Cat 3/4 ToWC Kickoff Crit

Tour of Washington County Kick Off Crit, Cat 3/4: 1st

Yeah baby, counter Todd Bickling on second lap, breakaway establishes, almost lap the field and come away with a 5 bike length sprint victory. Only issue was that I couldn't find any photogs that had captured the victory salute.

Tour of Washington County Stage Race, Cat 3/4: Prologue - crap, RR - I was a crappy teammate, TT - crap, Crit - 1st

Learned my time trialing sucked arse despite being set up with some decent aero equipment. Road race went okay but I was late to the game to set Rist up but he still managed a top 10. The other time trial was another abysmal failure. The crit was another story. It was father's day and my wife surprised me by showing up to the race with my two boys. Wow, will that ever re-energize a proud father. We ran a pretty aggressive race, I was not feeling great and was ready to call it a day with 2 to go but then Doc Bickling rolled up to my side and gave me the look and I knew what to do. Todd worked his way through the field with me in tow and had us perfectly position in 4th spot around the final corner. He gave it a great kick and I punched it with 150 meters to go and we came away with the 1, 2 Bike Doctor victory!!

Bickling and I going 1,2 in final crit of ToWC

Church Creek TT, Cat 3: 3rd

Rist was a very generous man and let me borrow his insanely sweet Cannondale Slice with a Zipp 606 set up! I managed to just break 56 minutes which I was pretty psyched about because I hadn't really done any TT specific training all season.

Reston Towne Center GP, Cat 3/4: 7th

We were really gunning for this one and we thought we could make a move with 3 to go and it might be able to slip away if the right group got away. Well we got caught on the final lap because Haymarket wasn't represented and they did some digs to bring us back. Hey, that's bike racing. I mustered up enough energy to get into decent position for the sprint but some chaos in the last couple corners caused me to lose some positions and finish up 7th.

Reston Towne Center GP, 35+ Open: 2nd

Planned to sit in and just trade off covering significant moves with Rist. With 10 to go I found some extra gas in the tank and felt the pack was getting warn out and I attacked. One guy bridged up and we had a good gap for 4-5 laps. A group of 4 more caught us and we stayed away. I managed to get 2nd in the sprint to Chip Hoover who was a monster in the sprint.

Toona crit finish

Tour de Toona, Cat 3: RR - 5th, Crit - 2nd, Overall - 2nd

Flew solo on this one. Sunny Gill was rocking the cat 2 race. Well the road race was brutal. I have done this before and the climb up Blue Knob is never easy. This is also where I was introduced to the grit and determination of my future GamJams rival, Dan Netzer. Dan attacked from the gun of a 70 mile mountainous race because his teammate, Frank Cundiff triple dog dared him. Well I never saw Dan again. Some reshuffling would occur with the guys that initially went with him and the guys that separated themselves from the group going up Blue Knob. At the finish there were 4 guys spread out in front of the "peleton" (about 10 guys). Luckily the peleton included me (although severely cramping as my longest training ride was 45 miles). Fortunately I had scouted out the finishing stretch ahead of time and knew when to give a kick. I managed to win the field sprint. For the crit, I just sat in and made sure the GC guys didn't sneak away. One non-GC guy did sneak away with about 3 to go when the pack just decided to give up. A last lap charge started to claw him back and I was hoping it would be just enough for me to catch him if I timed my sprint just right. Well with 2 corners to go I was sitting perfectly on 3rd wheel and came into the last corner with the solo rider in my sights. I stud on it for the 250 meter uphill sprint and was closing fast but I didn't have enough real estate to nab him. Missed it by about a half a bike length. Oh well, 2nd place in the crit managed to move me up to 2nd overall. Not bad and the pay out was "advertised" to be pretty sweet. (Note: As of this date 3/21/2012, I haven't seen a payout check from Tour de Toona!!).

... to be continued.

Black Hills 2012 Photos

2012-03-26T22:07:00.000-04:00

The team I ride for, Bike Doctor, put on a race this weekend at the Black Hill Regional Park. While I was manning a corner and parking lot, I figured I would snap off a few hundred pictures of the event. I used a buddies 50mm f1.8 and my newly acquired 70-200mm f2.8 from eBay to capture the action. I was able to get pictures of the Cat 5, Juniors, Cat 4/5, 35+ Open, Womens and Cat 3/4. Check it out.

Link to Flickr Photos

Samples are below:

Comeback Year in Review (Next Installment)

2012-03-24T10:17:00.000-04:00

At this point I had been on the bike for a month (doing 2 group rides during the week and racing on weekends, for a total of 6-8 hrs/week) and I was just beginning to see signs of training starting to kick in but I knew it would be another solid month of training before the old legs started to come back a little.

Leonardtown, 35+ Open: 13th
Starting to feel a little spunky! What's this a first lap flier, what am I thinking, I know this is a crit of attrition. Alright settle down Sjoberg. Covered moves to the best of my abilities. I didn't animate but my teammates certainly did. I had all I could do to hold onto some of the accelerations that were being laid down. Well with only a handful of laps to go Scott Giles was coming back from a break that he didn't burn all his matches in and he latched onto a solo flier attack from Rist. The two worked flawlessly together and crossed the line one-two!! Yeah baby!

Bike Jam - 2 to go flyer

Bike Jam, 35+ Open: 11th
This was going to be a field sprint from the start so I just sat in and conserved matches. With 2 to go, I found our good ole sprinter, Jim Weinstein and he latched onto my wheel for some good ole lead out fun. Gosh, I hope I remember how to do this. Well with one lap to go we came through the finish and I started to move up and that is when I heard the sound of psst, psst, psst along with some expletives. I was hoping it wasn't Jim but then I got confirmation. Well I just got promoted to sprinter, I gave it my all. Not great but the legs were definitely starting to come around.

Bike Jam, Cat 3: 8th
Time to double up. Only one match burned in the previous race so what the heck, I need the training. Same mindset, just sit in and maybe try something with 2 to go. Well I did just that, I lit my match with 2 to go up the finish stretch, I got a little daylight but I was quickly brought back with 1 to go. Ohh crap, what now, I'm done. Ohh look there is my bottle rocket teammate, Doc Bickling! New found energy for me, hey Todd, why don't you grab my wheel and I will see if I can deliver you to the finish line. That mostly worked, I pegged it out of the round about from 6-7 spots back and Todd was able to secure the final podium spot. Another week, another podium for the team, I could get used to this.

Ride Sally Ride, Cat 3: 10th
Man was this like drafting a school bus, can you say "sittin on the sofa". Well Sunny hooks me up with 1.5 laps to go but what am I thinking trying to do a solo flier on this course, lesson learned. Still managed to sneak into the top 10.

Ride Sally Ride, 35+ open: 7th
Doubled up for some training. More sofa time and tried to hold my own in the sprint. Not bad!

Ride Sally Ride, 1/2/3: DNF
Triple up time! Racin' is the best training. This race was all about burying myself. I was able to hang onto moves by Nima and Hutch and even pull through but with 10 to go my matches were all burned up and I called it a day. This will pay off soon.

Tour of Mt. Nebo, Cat 3/4: 8th
First race on the new Cannondale Super 6!! I was headed back from a wedding in PA and this race just happened to be on the way home. Sweet, although it had a ton of climbing and I still had some winter weight to shed and no teammates. I stuck it out, spun like a mad man throughout the race and managed to grab the last money spot with a final kick around a rider with 25 meters to go. Imagine a full on sprint in your 39x21!!

... to be continued.

Comeback Year in Review (First Installment)

2012-03-22T08:25:00.000-04:00

What a YEAR for the team and myself!! Hey, if Brittany Spears can comeback, so can I.

Here is the somewhat abbreviated play by play. I tried to keep it short but this took on a life of its own. There will be a few installments. :-)

Early January I began contemplating a come back to the road cycling scene but kept denying my trusty steed some actual mileage until the temperatures reached levels my Florida blood could handle. Well this meant me not being on the road until sometime in April. Not to worry I was pushing around lots of weights and jumping on boxes and sometimes joining a spin class to remind my legs what I would be asking them to do again soon.

Couple weeks prior to my first race I was able to participate in a few group rides where I was able to sufficiently punish myself (and barely affect anyone else) to the point of severe droppage. Thankfully none of it was caught on YouGotDropped. So the comeback begins and I definitely wanted to show the DC local group rides that I could contribute something to the suffer meter for everyone's benefit.

First race: Chantilly Crit 35+ Open: Pack Filler
Wow, 40 other guys suited up and clipped in for a wet, windy and willy shrinking race around a non-technical course. Oh, look I got a teammate (Peter Warner) up the road. Well, let's see if I remember how to block a bunch of rabid cyclist bent on catching a breakaway. Something worked because I was cooked and my teammate stayed away and got 3rd. At this point my max effort was right at the level of being a good teammate and setting pace just fast enough that the pack wouldn't chase and the breakaway would slowly pull away.

Carl Dolan Circuit Race 35+ Open: 50th or so
Much nicer day, weather wise. Not much to do in this race except wait for a sprint but I was here to get some training in. So I covered moves and made a pathetic one or two myself.

Giles solo victory in 35+ Open!

Bunny Hop, 35+ Open: Pack Filler, Team WON!!
Team Bike Doctor was extremely animated in this race except for one individual who I knew should be up here trading blows with the powerhouse Harley squad. That one individual, Scott Giles, where the heck are you man. With the laps heading into the single digits I pick a good time to go after Peter Warner had just been reeled back and the pack was tired of chasing, I make a solo flier move that everyone in the peleton probably laughed at. As I was getting drug back I see a very blurry object moving up the right hand side of the road and it's my teammate Scott Giles moving at the speed of light. Well the pack was done chasing and he went on to take a very sweet victory for the team!!

Ft Richie, 35+ 3/4: 3rd, Team WON!
Holy crap what am I doing in a 4 man break with another one of my Bike Doctor brethren with 15 laps left, I am going to die! Well thanks to Brian Rist powering the break and a cadre of teammates shutting things down we stayed away. I had to dig real deep just to hang on and occasionally pull through. I lost contact with Brian with 2 laps to go. He won the race and I slumped in for 3rd. Sweet my first podium and a teammate victory!! Things were definitely improving.

... to be continued.

Back to Basics

2011-10-06T15:40:00.000-04:00

Lack of Computer Gadgetry!!

Along the lines of questioning whether you are a real cyclist, I came across another cycling term, "Back to Basics". This translates to training/racing without any type of device that monitors speed, heart rate, power, whatever. Basically you have nothing on your handlebars. Pretty unheard of nowadays. I saw a few folks this year that I swear could have commanded the space shuttle from their handlebars. Believe me, I would have loved to have the command center staring at me but I was on a tight budget because I was just getting back into this sport I love and needed to update my ride.

During my real fit days (at least 15 years ago), I used a heart rate monitor pretty religiously and loved it but it sometimes became a crutch. Anytime the batteries went out or it just stopped working because of my overly corrosive sweat, I had a hard time getting motivated to go out training because I knew I wouldn't be able to geek out and see my data when I got home and downloaded it to my Intel 486 with math co-processor (yeah, remember those days). Well I decided this year, I wouldn't train with anything and it proved pretty effective.

This year, my training program was pretty much limited to two group rides during the week and racing during the weekend. So heart rate/power meter monitor or not I hit the group rides as hard as I could, for as long as I could. At first this meant me pulling once or twice and then hanging on for dear life in order to not get dropped. But after a month or so, I found myself starting to be the last guy standing on the paceline of death and was loving it. If nobody wanted to pull through, eff it, I would just stay on the front and continue punishing myself. This was old school Sobe training at its best.

I would get questioned prior to some of the group rides about my lack of computer gadgetry on the handlebars and I would just shrug my shoulders and say I just do group rides and go until I can't turn the pedals anymore.

I hope I can stay in the back to basics mode but I may cave after one of my teammates posts his power meter numbers and the geek in me wants to know what kind of watts I can deliver to the pedals.

Are you a "real cyclist"?

2011-08-18T20:20:00.003-04:00

Wow, has it been a while since I last posted. Here's to trying to stay up to date with this blog.

Do you know what it means to be a "real cyclist"? Well I didn't know until recently and I am proud to say that I am now fully qualified at the ripe age of 36.

I found the definition from a very reputable source. The link is certainly worth a look, there are some pretty funny cycling terms defined there. Things like bug gulp, fridge magnet, yard-sale, etc...

"Real Cyclist - You are only a Real Cyclist when the net worth of your cycling equipment exceeds the net worth of your automobile(s) by a factor of >= 3!"

It isn't like I couldn't afford something from this decade, car -wise, I am just not much of a car guy.

Well a couple months ago I officially became a "real cyclist". Let's do some quick math to ensure proper qualifications are met. I paid $800 for my sweet civic baller ride a couple of years ago. Now the bikes, CAAD7 was $2000 (new), Trek STP - $1500, Cannondale Supersix - $3300 (retail). Adding things up we have $6800 on the bike side (not including my recent CAADx purchase ($1300 retail)) and $800 (not factoring depreciation) on the car side for a ratio of 8.5/1! Easily qualified as a "real cyclist" and very proud.

Well are you a real cyclist?

Bullets on Crystal Cup Cat 3/4 Race

2011-06-20T01:15:00.002-04:00

Controlling the field with 2 to go.
Photo Credit: Daniel Meaurio

Little short on time for a full up post so here are some bullets on the category 3/4 Crystal Cup race.

Aggressive racing by Bike Doctor
Good counterattacks off teammates to take premes
First preme I nabbed with a counter on Rist after the second turn. Had to gas it for about 1.5km and held off the field
7 crashes in 14 laps, ouch, even had to stop the race early on
I stayed in top 10 most of the whole race
Love courses with 180's for blocking. We were able to slow the pack down considerably when we had guys off the front

5000 ft of climbing takes its toll - Tour of Mt. Nebo Report

2011-06-12T20:12:00.002-04:00

Not really but it sure felt like it!

I had heard about the Tour of Mt. Nebo road race and how great the course was but hadn't checked on the date details until I stumbled upon it while in PA for a buddy's wedding. I was planning to leave on Saturday from the wedding and figured I would surf bikereg.com to see if any races were on the way home. Well low and behold I saw Tour of Mt. Nebo right in my path. Sign me up! I figured my new Cannondale Supersix would turn me back into the climber I used to be before I gained 10+ lbs from my old race weight.

The night before was the wedding and we partied pretty hard. So hard that my wife and I forgot our phones at the reception. Whoops! Luckily I did pass out around 11pm and got a good night's sleep at the foot of the bed on the floor. Not sure how I missed the bed but I snuggled up with my wife about midway through the night. Bare with me on the digression.

That morning I couldn't find my phone and it was getting close to the time I needed to leave. I checked a few places around the hotel with no luck. So I went to the business center, mapped directions from google maps and hit the print button. Man talk about old school. I was looking at close to thirty turns to get to the race with very little room to spare. I said goodbye to those that were awake and hit the road.

Luckily I didn't miss any turns and made it to the race with about 30 minutes to spare. Don't worry I wasn't planning to warm up because the race was longer than any training ride I had done this year.

Race time conditions were pretty good, sunny, high 80's with some wind. I was concerned not having someone to feed me and decided to stage my cooler at the top of the feed zone and if I got real desperate I would try to get ahead of the pack, stop and grab some bottles. Luckily I had also grabbed a couple of packets of Gatorade Prime and stuffed those in the jersey along with a Gu and two large water bottles (with three capsules of endurolytes in each). The Gatorade Prime came in very handy and allowed me to not have to stop for my cooler because they have a considerable amount of liquid calories.

The race was scheduled for 5 laps of a 9 mile circuit with a reported 1000+ feet of climbing per lap.

We started off in a rolling neutral for the first mile. The flag was dropped and the racing began. I tried to stay in the top 15 or so and occasionally institute the fat man fade. For those that don't know this is where you start at the front of the group and slowly fade back as you are climbing. It works great as long as the group is big enough. During the race there wasn't much attacking but just steady leg breaking tempo up the climbs. I knew the best way for me to survive was to spin like a mad man up the climbs and thankfully I had a 25 tooth cog to make this happen. I kept looking around and seeing guys that weighed a little over a plastic bag and thought to myself what the heck am I doing here.

By the completion of the 3rd lap I looked around and saw the group was reduced to about 20 riders from the original 55 and I was starting to think that I might be able to finish pretty well in this race. Of course, nothing in bike racing is ever that easy and on one of the big descents on the back side a guy mid pack decided it was a good time to invert his bicycle. I am not sure how it happened but all I saw was a guy endo with his legs flying up in the air and then lots of sliding on the ground at 40+ mph. Ouch!! The last part of his skin reduction treatment involved him sliding on his arse. I think he is going to need a butt donut for a little while. Unfortunately for me, I had to grab a handful of brakes to avoid a similar fate and this caused me to be unhitched from the group.

Once I got back up to speed, I buried my head and charged on to reconnect with the group. Thankfully I was able to latch back on after a mile. The only problem was that just after I came back we were starting the big climb on the backside of the course. I held on as long as possible but lost contact about midway up the climb. I kept going as best I could with the only hope being that I would be able to join other dropped riders to chase back on. Once I got to the top I looked back and saw two guys that were close and I waited for them. We chased for about 2 miles and were able to get back on.


Proof I was in this, me with head down. Photo Credit: Julie Elliott

I was not looking forward to tackling the finishing climb to enter the last lap but the climbers of the group decided a moderate pace was sufficient for this lap. The rest of the last lap was pretty tame until 1k to go, when a guy took a flyer leading up to the finishing climb. I was a little too far back and a lead group of 6 separated from the rest of us. I managed to move my way up during the climb but suffered like a dog. I think people from three counties over could hear me breathing. I was closing on one guy with 100 meters to go and wasn't sure if I could find any more gas in the tank but managed to pass him with 20 meters to go. That was good for 8th place, last in the money! Sweet!! Thank you Cannondale Supersix for being so nice and light!

So not a bad race for me. The course was awesome. You could go wide open through most of the descents once familiar with them. I would definitely come back for more punishment in the future.

Sobe got a new Steed! (Training this week)

2011-06-11T20:27:00.001-04:00

Training this week was productive but a little scattered with business travel and vacation time. I was able to do any group rides but I wasn't able to saddle up on a new steed (a.k.a. bike).

Rode to work and back on Monday, fairly uneventful. The usual pot hole dodging and leg shredding Cat 5 climb at the end. Made especially fun with the extra 12-15 lbs in my laptop bag. I have a love/hate relationship with that climb.

I had to do a day trip to Charleston on Tuesday and I brought along my spin bike compatible Nike shoes. After my meetings I had a little time to kill, so I swung over to Golds Gym with my travel pass. I decided to do a couple rounds of deadlifts, incline presses, burpees and 15ft rope ascents because I haven't been doing crossfit lately and needed to remind my body of that stuff. They actually had climbing ropes hung at this Golds, which was sweet! I then hopped on the spin bike for quick warm up, 5 minute interval, 2 x 1 minute intervals and then 1.5 minute low rpm climbing interval.

Rode to work on Wednesday. Along the way, I had a nice boost from a Sysco semi for at least a mile. Spun out the 53x12! Yeehaw! During the day I got some great news from the Cannondale rep, my new bike had arrived at Bike Doctor Waldorf!! On the ride back I witnessed a drug deal go down. You know the old two handed hand shake. Some parts of my commute go through some shady parts of DC.

Once I got home I grabbed the kids and headed down to Bike Doctor Waldorf to piece my bike together and bring her home. When I pulled my new Cannondale Supersix out of the box I had to go into the bathroom and rub one out! That thing is sick light. I was able to get most of it together at the shop (Thanks Chris R for giving me some space). Luckily the shop has an additional mechanics area in the back because I had my two golden children with me. They did a pretty good job hanging out (relatively speaking) but did start a few fights that needed my mediation. I think I was able to provide the mechanics with some birth control incentive. Not sure if those guys will want any kids anytime soon. They were troopers. What I didn't get done at the shop, I finished at home that night.

Thursday afternoon I headed up to Bear Creek Resort to see my good buddy off to get hitched and I brought the bike so that I could take it out for a spin on Friday. I certainly wanted to make sure everything was race ready for Sunday at the Crystal Cup.

I took the new bike out Friday morning for a couple of loops around a route I scouted out on google maps. This was the first time I have been on carbon fiber and it was smooth. Very stiff and responsive but also dampened the bumps in the road nicely. It was hard to say how much faster I was able to go but the course had a couple of cat 4 and one cat 5 climbs and they felt pretty good.

One more good week of training in the bag. Can't wait for Tour of Washington County stage race!

Racing is the Best Training - Ride Sally Ride report

2011-06-06T19:25:00.001-04:00

They say racing is the best training and I decided to make the most of this today. As someone who is 36 and a category 3 rider, it is possible to almost always race two races and on certain days you could even race as many as 4 races. Well today was one of those certain days. The Whole Wheel Velo Club Ride Sally Ride crit was on tap today for mid-Atlantic shaved legged bike pedaling crazies. It was a beautiful day (low 80's) and I was signed up for the later races (35+ open and 1/2/3). I was able to get to the course a little sooner than I expected and jumped into the category 3 race for the start of an insane day of racing/training. I was looking at 70 miles of racing, 112 laps and 336 right hand turns. Dizzy, dehydrated and depleted was on the menu.

I kept the warm up to a minimum and started the 3 race with 60+ other riders. Starting for Bike Doctor was Todd "Doc" Bickling, Robb "Wrob" Hampton, Mike Schneider, Sunny Gill, Cliff Chamberlain, Judd Walencikowski and myself. The plan was to have a few guys on the front and to keep some guys fresh for the finish in the pack and out of the wind. The course is very wide with 3 corners and a little uphill prior to the final corner. When you are in the field it is like riding behind a school bus, so lots of guys have fresh legs, the pace stays high and very little ever gets away. Cliff and Sunny covered most of the significant moves and the rest of us enjoyed the draft.

Around 5 to go Wrob, Doc and myself started moving up to join Sunny and Cliff. We were all sitting around the top 20. Sunny slotted in behind my wheel right about this time and said something. All I heard was "3 to go". I assumed he meant for me to go with 3 to go. I was all for this and had talked to some of the guys about going with 1.5-2 laps to go if it felt right. Because I hadn't heard Sunny clearly I needed to talk to him but just wasn't able to so I decided I would light it up with 1.5 laps to go and see what happens. Either Sunny could sit on and launch or he could let me go and create a good gap. We went with the latter and I gutted it out for a half lap and looked behind and saw that guys were breathing down my neck. I decided to keep the pace high and figured the rest of the team would benefit.

At the second to last corner I was caught and started getting passed, I sucked it up and tried to maintain some speed. I saw Sunny go flying by on my left just before the final corner and he looked like he was going to grab a nice placing. However racing bikes gives you that glimmer of hope and then snatches it from you in the blink of an eye. Just as the front of the pack rounded the last corner, a rider went down and nearly took Sunny with him. Sunny and about 10 other riders nearly came to a complete stop. I was able to slip under the crash and managed to grab 10th place.

I was surprised to not see some of the other fellas up there for the sprint. What I saw during the warm down lap, explained their absence. I saw Todd and Robb walking their bikes from the 2nd corner. Todd had gone down in the 2nd corner and Robb had to lock up the rear brake to keep from t-boning Doc. In the process Robb wore his tubular to the bone and flatted. Luck was not on our side this race.

The next race on the plate was the 35+ open and another 32 laps of fun. Bike Doctor fielded Brian Rist, Pete "Sit In, What's That?" Warner, Evan Ellicot, Cliff and myself. For this race I wanted to play a little more active role but still enjoy the school bus draft. The whistle blew for the start and Pete shot off like a cannonball and worked with a little group for a couple of laps. All of us stayed pretty active towards the front either covering moves (Cliff and Rist were all over the front) or instigating them through out the race. About midway Pete was off with another group of guys (Harley and XO) and I was up covering stuff when I heard the bell ring and the official yelled out pack preme. As we neared the 3rd corner I was behind two Harley guys and I decided to gun it before the turn and snag the preme. Sure enough I was able to grab it (cha-ching) and immediately sat back up to resume my blocking duties.

Pete's group eventually deteriorated and he flew solo for a couple laps until the pack finally consumed him with 8 or so to go. He was able to grab two premes while away. Things started winding up with 2 to go and I found Pete and got into pretty good position. Harley wound things up from about a lap to go and we hung on. Pete and I were able to pass a few guys in the final stretch and were able to get 8th and 7th respectively. Not bad for a couple of non-sprinters.

Race number 2 complete, burned a couple more matches and got another top 10. Not bad.

This last race, Category 1/2/3, for me was going to be pure training. No one from the team entering this race had fresh legs. We had Ellicot, Rist, Gill, Warner and myself ready to tackle another 48 laps. My goal was to try to help the team as much as possible by covering moves and try to hang on for at least half the race. I was definitely happy to see that my speed is coming back and I was able to follow moves and even instigate them. Now I just need to work on sustaining the speeds and recovery when in breakaways.

I saw the 24 lap to go card and I was happy to have met my goal. I continued to mix things up but was certainly wearing down. With 15 to go, I decided my time was up and made one last pull to bring back a breakaway that didn't have us in it. I managed to pull it back and then punched the eject button with 14 to go. I am not sure how the team fared in the finish because I left. I believe some more crashing occurred and some of the guys were caught up in them.

I was amazed at the sheer number of crashes that occurred throughout the day. This was a wide open course offering very little reason for crashing. I think guys just got squeezed from time to time when we went 4-5 guys wide into the corners.

My racing is the best training day was complete. I had two top 10's and 98 laps (60+ miles) under my belt without a crash. I was also able to rock my new "You Got Dropped" t-shirt proudly, hopefully nobody got a picture of me dropping out of the 1/2/3 race. I am pretty sure Bruce Buckley had left the scene.

Guess What? My laptop bag is hail proof! (Training this week)

2011-06-02T23:56:00.000-04:00

My training during the week started off with a bang. I hit the Murph WOD (see previous post) on Monday and my upper body was sore the entire week because of it. Love it. Following the Murph workout the family headed over to the single best community pool in the world, Crofton Swim and Tennis Club. They have an awesome opening weekend Memorial Day Kid/Adult fun day. They have lots of activities through out the day for both kids and adults. The kids have a watermelon relay and a juice dive. The adults have a splash contest (3 meter spring board, oh yeah!) and a beer dive (picture 50 grown adults diving into the deep end trying to grab as many beers as they can). Needless to say I did plenty of liquid carbo loading and was ready for the upcoming week of training.

Motorpacing

Tuesday I rode to Hains point in the evening and it was surprisingly light on riders. I did get a chance to meet Chuck Hutcheson and a few others. I had heard that he sometimes motorpaces and I wanted to talk to him about tagging along at some point. Hopefully we will link up soon. He was on an easy spin night because he just got back from the Tour of Somerville, where he placed 10th, very impressive. So I parted ways with their group and started my intervals. I did 3 long intervals of about 4-5 minutes each. Then I did a 2 minute followed by a 1 minute interval. After that I called it a night and rode back to my car (about 8 miles away on the bike trails).

On Wednesday, I set my bike up for commuting, slapped the laptop onto the rack and headed into work. The ride was uneventful and I didn't push too much because the soreness from Murph was really starting to set in. I showered, changed and headed over to the Desperation Deli (coined term by some of the folks I work with) near our building for my post ride to work breakfast sammich and chocolate milk. Yummy!!

While the ride into work was uneventful, I can't say the same for the ride home. During the day, I was looking at the temperatures and they were creeping up to the mid 90's with a feel like temp of 104. Stttickyy. Knowing this, I was drinking heavily (not alcohol but water) throughout the day. Well as it got closer to head home time, the skies started looking a little ominous and sure enough as I walked across the street to change into my riding clothes, it started raining lightly. I usually love the rain while riding but something about the clouds told me that there was more than rain in store for me.

I headed out into a light drizzle with my laptop bag setup for inclement weather. As I got closer to DC the rain started to pick up. Nice heavy drops of rain that stung a bit when they hit your face. Well those heavy drops started turning into peanut M&M sized hail. Hmmm, what to do now? I kept trudging on and managed to avoid most of the hail but occasionally one smacked me pretty good. I will tell you, it did keep my mind off the pain in the my legs. The hail lasted for about 10 minutes and then I was in the clear after another 10 minutes of heavy rains. One thing I can say is that not only is my laptop bag rain proof but it is also HAIL PROOF. Nice work Topeak.

Scott "Meesile" Giles

Frank "the Tank" Ramos

Thursday I was working down at Pax River and planned to go for a ride at some point while I was down there. Earlier in the week, I had shot an email out to our team regarding rides in the area for Thursday. Most of them agreed that the ride formerly known as the "aero" ride was the one to do. It basically goes out and back and covers about 40-45 miles. I met up with the group that was about 8-9 guys. Bike Doctor was well represented in this smallish group because we had Frank "the Tank" (aka "Framos") Ramos and Scott "Meesile" Giles.

We started out at a chatting pace and picked things up where Giles and I were riding tempo at the front until I finally decided to peel back and enjoy a little draft. The paceline got started from there and never really stopped. We had a nice tail/crosswind on the way out and we were flying. Each of us was taking our turn at the front for an extended period of time. We got to the turn around point and stopped for a water refuel and pee break. As we were sitting around you could tell that we were all thinking about the headwind we had in store for us on the way back and were hoping for a MAGICAL BUS to arrive and take us back home. After a few minutes we realized our bus wasn't coming and decided to head on back.

Thankfully the Meesile was with us because he pulled at least half of the way home at INHUMAN SPEEDS. Scott stands at least 6'4" and you would think he would produce a nice draft but that man can get arrow and cut through the wind like a knife. I didn't even try to match his pulls but did my fair share along with the rest of the group (Frank was certainly not slacking on his pulls either). A couple of guys broke off from the ride to head home (including Frank) and we continued our pulling ways. I could tell we were getting close and for fun I decided to throttle things up a little after one of Scott's monster pulls. This gapped Scott and his wife Katie (a bona fide bad ass in her own right) and forced Scott to chase back up to me with his wife in tow. I didn't realize that he had lost contact and just as he was catching on I looked down, saw a wheel and flicked my elbow. The boy didn't hesitate a second and made another monster pull after having pulled for a mile or so and chasing down the gap to me. Studddddly!!

Great week of training and looking forward to working with the team at Ride Sally Ride this weekend put on by Whole Wheel Velo Club!

Memorial Day Murph WOD and some soreness

2011-06-02T00:30:00.000-04:00

First of all I just want to thank all of our service men and women who have sacrificed much to ensure the freedom of this great nation. We salute you. Happy Memorial Day!!

Lt Michael Murphy

I got converted over to crossfit a couple of years ago and was recently doing sealfit until I started to put more time on the bike. I am a big believer in crossfit and love every aspect of it. For those that may not know, they have the "Girls" Workout of the Day (WOD) and "Hero" WODs. These are basically the metrics by which you can gauge improvement and you usually repeat them every couple of months. Either you try to beat your last time or try to do more reps in a fixed amount of time. One of the Hero WODs is Murph, after LT Micheal Murphy, who was killed in action during a fire fight in Afghanistan back in 2005.

Here are the details on the Murph WOD:
For time:
1 mile run
100 pull ups
200 push ups
300 squats
1 mile run

You can break up the pull ups, push ups and squats however you want. If you have a 20 lb weighted vest, wear it.

For a couple years now it has become a tradition to do this WOD on Memorial Day and I wasn't going to miss out honoring both Memorial Day and a fallen hero and decided to hit Murph after 2 months of very little upper body workouts. I got to Gold's, met a buddy of mine, slung on my vest, hit the timer and let the sweating begin. One thing I failed to mention is that everytime I have done Murph I modify the push up for a little more pain. I grab a 24" box and the push up handles. My feet go on the box and it puts more weight on the push up and gives a better incline push up motion.

I have made through my modified Murph in the past but 2 months of limited upper body work, took its tool as I completed 300 squats and nearly 100 pull ups. I had just past the 100th incline push up and I was dying, had to hold back a few times or I would have tossed yee old cookies. I was barely getting 3-4 push ups at a time. I decided to chuck the vest and finish off the pull ups and get whatever push ups more I could do while reaching 100 pull ups. I ended up getting 125 push ups. I threw the vest back on and finished the mile. My finishing time was something around 1 hour 15 minutes, not great but I got one heck of a workout. I was drenched.

Well over the last couple of days my soreness has set in and I can tell you that my chest is more sore than Pamela Anderson after a boob job!

I am going to continue to focus on cycling but I will definitely need to start hitting sealfit/crossfit WODs starting in September because a group of us are signed up to do the Tough Mudder in Virginia!

Is there a Doctor in the house? - Bike Jam race

2011-05-29T23:14:00.000-04:00


BikeJam 2011 Cat 3 - 1 lap to go attack Photo Credit - Jim Wilson Images

Today was Kelly Benefit Strategies BikeJam in Baltimore. I have great memories of this race back in 2002-2003 when the course was on the west side of Patterson Park and even though it was moved a few years later, I still like it. It has its fair share of craziness, one tight corner, a little uphill to burn the legs and the occasional couple of kids that think it is fun to throw rocks and sticks at the pack and BLAM you have BikeJam. The weather was in the high 80's with a pretty good headwind going down the backstretch. With it being a little warmer I wanted to make sure a cramp didn't limit me and drank a ton of water before and during the races. I was also hitting a couple of capsules of Hammer Nutrition Endurolytes every hour.

Well the last month has been great for Bike Doctor, we have been winning races everywhere and even though the team was light a few guys today we were still confident that we could bring home another victory. During the week I was starting to feel that the legs and lungs were responding to the training I have been knocking out lately and I thought I could play a decisive role in bringing home the top prize.

For the Category 3/4 race it was Todd "Doc" Bickling, Robb "Wrob" Hampton, Cliff Chamberlain and myself (a.k.a. "Sobe"). Prerace we decided to just sit near the front and stay out of trouble but not to put ourselves in the wind too much unless we saw a break that looked dangerous. We lined up with 80+ other guys and the gun fired and we were off. For the first half of the race things were going smoothly, we were near the front but not terribly active off the front. Nothing significant ever went up the rode.

Going into 1 corner after round about.
Photo Credit: Jim Wilson Images

At 10 to go the bell rung for a preme and I decided it was time to test the legs and as we came through the start/finish I moved up a little to see what was going on. Well a couple of guys were dangling off the front so I upped the pace down the left side after the downhill and shot up to those guys before the roundabout. I went around the last guy and continued on the gas through the chicane. I came out of the chicane with lots of speed (thanks to my Mavic Griplink tires), stood on it for a couple of strokes, looked back and saw I had a good 10 bike lengths. I continued up the hill and sailed through the start/finish with an easy preme.

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Training this week - Huck Finnin' on a bike flashbacks

2011-05-26T23:23:00.000-04:00

Had another good week of "quality" training. "Quality" meaning short and sweet training sessions. The days of LSD (Long Slow Distance) miles are behind me. My training consists of either short intervals or long intervals, that's it.

Tuesday I rode from work and did the Noon Hill ride out of Arlington Italian Store. During my ride there, I saw someone carrying three car tires on their mountain bike handlebars. I thought leaving my laptop mount (weighs 2 lbs) for commuting on would be good for training, this guy (didn't join us on the ride) took that to a new level.

I was excited to get a good ride in because last week was a disaster (flat in first 2 miles of ride). Things started off well, we were starting to crank up the pace and I was in the groove. About halfway through the ride, I started having some weird feeling in the chain that was prominent when I was cranking on it. I dialed back the power after realizing this. Still put in some good efforts and there were a few strong guys there that made it nice and fast. Well it turns out I had one link that was about to go. Thankfully the guys at Big Wheel Bikes, near where the ride meets, hooked me up with some pliers and a chain extractor and I was back on the road. I road back to work, no problems with the chain.

On Wednesday I slapped the laptop bag onto the bike, threw a leg over the bike at the crack of dawn and set off for work. The first 20 miles felt great, I was cruising pretty good into a slight head wind until a familiar feeling started coming from my bike. The damn chain. I thought it was fixed for good! Well what I did yesterday used to work with chains made for 8-speed bikes but not for the new ones. You are supposed to replace the pin. Oh well, I dialed it back again and made it into work.

Well as the work day went on I started having flash backs of my POOR RACING DAYS when I had to ride every bike part into the ground and only when it broke, it would get replaced. Rewind 20 years and my best friend, Wes Hamilton, and I are doing the old Windemere death ride on Sunday. It was a typical Florida, hot as cat in heat, day. We were about 10 miles from the finish of the ride and we were puttin' the hammer down when I slipped a chain, or so I thought. I didn't think anything of it until I pulled over and looked down and saw that I no longer had a chain. I looked back and it was lying on the road, D'OH! I tried to piece it together, MacGyver-style but nothing worked. So I said eff it and decided to Flintstone it, that is climb on the bike and just start walking/running. The only problem is your toes just barely touch the ground. Well I could only take this for about 2 miles, my boys down stairs were DYYYYING.

A little brainstorming later and I decided that I needed to find a decent sized stick to use HUCK FINN-style on a bike. This worked pretty good until my hands started bleeding from being worn to the bone. I still had 5 miles to go. I gave up on trying anything else and just took off the bike shoes and started the long hot walk to the van. Just when I was starting to have oasis visions, I saw a beautiful sight, good ole Wes Hamilton. Wes had come back to save my butt!! I hopped back on the bike and he pushed me the rest of the way to the van. Lesson sort of learned (that is, fix chain before it breaks).

After recalling this incident I decided I didn't want a repeat and rode over to the local REI and fixed the link. They used a part called Missing Link to fix it. I may be the only one that doesn't know these parts exist nowadays but it rocks. I grabbed an extra one just in case a broken chain is in my future. I had 30+ miles in front of me and was starting to feel rushed because I only had 2 hours of sunlight left, so I paid my bill, grabbed my bike and hit the road. I started hitting the tempo pretty quick and started sweating quickly, it was in the high 80's. I reached down to grab a bottle and came up empty, damn it. I had taken them out when I gave the bike to the mechanic and forgot them at REI. Oh crap, I knew I needed water on a day like today. Luckily once I hit DC I realized there is a street vendor about every 5 feet and I was able to grab a bottle of ice cold water. Whew!!

One thing that sped my ride up on the way home was that I was able to draft a PT cruiser for a couple of miles as I was heading out of DC. Felt good to go that fast for a little while but you have to be uber aware of the road ahead. DC tends to have some significant manhole cover tire busters.

Thursday I did the Wakefield ride. I was going to meet the "pain train" at Bailey's cross roads but none of them were going to the ride today. I grabbed my Nite Rider MiNewt head light and decided to ride from work. It was a nice night and we had about 30 folks head out of the parking lot. This week I stuck with the group and we steadily picked the pace up after about 2-3 miles.

After a couple of hard turns on the front a couple of us pulled away from the group. Turns out our little group wasn't very familiar with the course. We managed to do a decent job negotiating the turns for a couple of miles until we started second guessing our selves and decided to slow our pace. We kept making turns and saw the group was closing on us. We made a bunch of quick turns that we thought were the right ones until we noticed the group wasn't behind us anymore. One of the guys that knew the course the best (relatively speaking), thought we had missed a turn and sure enough we did and turned around and got back on track. We decided to drill it and after a tough effort we caught the group after 2-3 miles of chasing. Sweet effort but that spent one or two of my matches.

Finished up the rest of the ride with some decent pulls and hill efforts. As we got close to the parking lot, I put on the headlight, waved to the crew and headed back to work. I got in 45 good intense miles today and I can certainly feel it in my legs right now. Time to rest.

Hitting BikeJam in Baltimore this weekend. The Bike Doctor team has been dialed in the last month or so and has been winning lots of races. If we can avoid the craziness of the BikeJam course we should be able to continue these winning ways this weekend.

Warrior Dash Fun

2011-05-24T07:48:00.000-04:00

Some friends of ours told us about the Warrior Dash a couple of months ago and we signed up almost immediately. Well today was the day to see just how much warrior we had in us. This was held in the middle of nowhere Mechanicsville, MD.

We consolidated babysitting at our place and Larry and Kathleen Wan's brought over their kids and we bolted for the race in their very clean Honda CR-V. As we were getting close all we saw was lots of pastures and trees until finally we rolled up to a large pasture with about 1000 cars and couple of signs indicating that we had found our destination.

We grabbed our stuff and headed for the check in. As we were walking we noticed that most of the folks were fairly clean and were thinking maybe we won't get that muddy. Just then we looked over and saw the "Warrior Wash" zone. This consisted of two huge water tanker trucks with warrior staff on top, armed with fire hoses, dousing mud caked warrior finishers. Ah ha, we are in the right place after all.

We got checked in, chugged a free Monster drink, warmed up and were ready to rock and roll.

We weren't the only ones from Crofton either, we were part of a much larger contingency. In our heat was Mike and Trisch Usher, Porter and Christine Hinton, Mark and Christy Stuart, James and Tammy (just met them and didn't get their last name) the Wans' and us. We joined another 500 more very clean similar minded crazy people wondering what the next 30-45 minutes had in store for them. Just before the start the MC got us pumped up by doing some Warrior Dash chants and a couple of crowd waves. He began his count down from 10, the gun went off and flames shot out just above the start banner. The flames were big enough to instantly warm the area by 20+ degrees.

We are off! Started with a good trail run that quickly turned from nicely packed dirt to shoe swallowing shin high mud. The obstacles were entertaining and one of the first ones had us get down on our hands and knees in the mud and crawling through a blacked out 50 foot long tunnel of sorts. We did a little more mud running and then leaped over a bunch of five foot high walls. My wife and I were doing this as a team building activity and so I did my part and gave her a boost up some of the walls. One time in fact I boosted a little to hard and she slipped and fell face first into the mud. Yummy!! She wiped off her face, maintained her warrior spirit and plowed on. What a trooper, she rocked!

We continued on through some more obstacles and a little more running until we got to the very large slip and slide. This thing was a good 100 feet long with a good drop. Kathleen, Lyra and I were told to go. I decided to go super speed style lying straight out but after 50 feet or so I was traveling a little fast to be able to stop where they wanted us to. I sat up and immediately began doing uncontrollable 360's until I slammed into the side wall and slowed down rather quickly. Yeehaw, I was smiling most of the time but I think I will have some mild bruising manana.

Only a few more hills and we were close to finishing. The last part had us jumping over fire. We chose this time to pose for the cameras and Lyra and I went hand and hand jumping over, hopefully putting on a decent smile. We could see the finish line but one more obstacle stood in our way. Knee deep mud and low hanging barbed wire, sweet! We got down on all fours and slithered our way through without any puncture wounds but added another 10 lbs of mud. We slugged our way to the finish line, hands connected and thrown in the air for the victory salute across the finish line.

What a blast!

The rest of the Crofton contingency rolled in shortly after us. All with a smile on their muddy faces and a look of determination to find the beer tent. We grabbed our beers and hung out while watching other folks trudge their way through the course.

I certainly feel like we got our money's worth. Along with the T-shirt, we received a finishers medal, cool viking hat, one free beer and most importantly a full body mud treatment that you would easily pay a spa $100. If you are able to make it to one of these, I would highly recommend it. Know that you will be finding mud in places on your body that you didn't know existed for hours after the race. I want to thank the Wans' for driving and allowing a little dirt to creep into their car.

Successful Bike to Work Week

2011-05-20T23:32:00.000-04:00

Ready for the rain

This was a good week for me on the bike and saving gas money. I decided since I have been riding to work once a week now for the last month that I would add an extra day since it was bike to work week. Both rides were good, the threat of rain was always there but I never got hit by more than a couple of drops. I was certainly prepared for it as you can see in the picture.

Today was a little interesting, I got started just after 6 am and there was a nice chill in the air. About 4 miles into my ride I was cruising down a little hill and just starting to feel good when an ever familiar sound of psst, psst, psst, psst, psst, ding, ding, ding followed a loud metal on metal bang. This was caused by a screw going straight through my tire, outer and inner walls of the tube and poking a hole into the rim of my wheel (see picture). Needless to say this caused another insta-flat for me this week and my rim suffered enough damage that it will be joining my other trashed rim (see Tuesday blog post) in the garbage can. The tire gods are very angry at me for some reason. Must be something to do with the end of the world tomorrow.

Screwed by a screw

The last part of my ride into work is all paved trails for 5 or 6 miles. I don't really mind traffic but I do like it when I finally hit the trails. Today however everyone was riding into work (last day of bike to work week) and while I think this is awesome to see, I think it can make the trails more dangerous then the roads. Here is a familiar scenario, the trail is about 6 feet wide with a line in the middle to separate the different directions, road rules apply, always stay to the right except when passing. Well when you have multiple people riding at different speeds and people need to pass they sometimes have to cross the middle line and those on the opposing side can also be in a situation where they need to pass. I just get a little nervous sometimes when I always expect people on the opposing side to move to the right after passing but sometimes you see them twitch to the left and then commit to the right.

One other cool thing about the ride is that my final hill is actually categorized, at least by MapMyRide.com standards, as a 5. A category 5 is the lowest categorization and it goes up to 1 and then there are also above category climbs but DC surely doesn't have any of those. My route is pictured below without the elevation chart.

Anyway on the way back home I was able to enjoy the tail wind that was the head wind I faced on the way in this morning. I was also able to latch onto a Honda CR-V for some motorpacing for about a mile or so.

Today I was a little tired after riding 4 days in a row but I am hoping my body will respond by resurrecting the lungs and legs that used to be able to move a bike pretty fast.

My route to work, click on the route link to see it in more detail