Cyclocross Frames FS

If any one is interested: I have two Specialized S-Works cyclocross frames, BRAND NEW in the box, for sale. Both frames are size 54 and include carbon fork, headset and carbon seatpost. They are new 2006 frames in high gloss red and not available to the public yet. They are hot. I will sell them for $750 each. This is a crazy deal. The pave carbon seat post reatils for $100! Let me know if you are interested or want photos: wilson_nav@yahoo.com

If not I will put them up on Ebay in August.

Home and Cold

Getting back to reality is tough. We had a relatively uneventful trip home from VA. We didn’t hit any traffic at all and made it home in 12 hours including a stop in Boston to get rid of Jon. There was one 30-minute gas stop at a rest area in NJ, but don’t get me started on that one. Temps have gone into a deep freeze here in the great north. The last two mornings temps have been well below zero. Brutal. I am on a rest week this week after my first 5 week block of training. I hate rest weeks, because I always feel like crap. When you stop training, your body seems to realize it is cracked and rebels a bit. I always feel on the verge of sickness at the beginning of a rest week. Standard. I just went thru the race schedule trying to get a “plan” together. It looks like I will probably start the season slow, building thru April and early May hoping to have a killer June and July with Tour of CT, NRC Crits in the Mid-Atlantic, VT Stage Race, Fitchburg and then Altoona. Time will tell. Right now I am doing my “if it is going to be cold, let it snow so I can ski, otherwise warm up” dance.

Finally, I have to send out a huge thanks to Marc and Nature’s Path for their hospitality (including the shot bourbon upon arrival before I even unloaded my bags! You gotta love the south). Nature’s Path sent us more tasty food than we could consume in several weeks. We were fortunate enough to be training with a Nature’s Path Pro/Am rider so we reaped the benefits of some of the best organic food out there. Damn they are a killer sponsor!

The Blue Ridge

Note to self: next time I come to train in VA, BRING A 12-27 CASSETTE!

Yesterday was right up there with one of the best days I have ever had on a bike. We did a 100 mile, 6.5 hour ride with 3 major climbs. It was totally sweet. I had terrible legs right from the start, but the terrain was killer, it was sunny and I think we saw 10 cars all day. We rolled for 25 miles and hit the first climb (no idea what it was called), then we rolled some more and hit Montebello. Montebello is a 5 mile climb that kept pitching up and up and up. I felt pretty good at the bottom so I went too hard. I straggled in well behind the boys. I rode a 12-25, wished I had a 27. Bionic boy rode a 12-23. Here is a photo from the Montebello store.

From there we continued to climbed and then dropped down Irish Creek Road. It was a dirt/mud/ice/snow road that decended for miles. It was epic. Once off the dirt we continued to descend for 12 miles. Sweet. The last climb was Vesuvius. It is 7 miles long with switchbacks. Here is a photo of me coming up the climb.

Ward was far enough ahead of me to stop, take a photo, and then drop me again. I would like to throw it down on this climb when I have fitness. It was so sweet.

Anyway, it was an amazing day, you get the point. We have two more days left. We have 21+ hours in the last 5 days and looking to get 8 or 9 more. Weather seems to be cooperating: today sunny and 53, tomorrow sunny and 61. I hear it snowed at home last night. Hopefully there will be Nordic skiing when I get home.

Cracked

Rest Day. I need it. We have done 15 hours in the last 3 days. That is more than any 6 day week I have had to date this season. I am having trouble getting the energy to lift the coffee cup to my lips. Yesterday was killer, although at times I felt like I was on a death march. Here is a photo during a small truce.
Bruno showed up yesterday, so he was fresh, and Ward is the biking equivalent the bionic man. There were several times I was just staring at the wheel in front of my trying to convince myself not to get dropped. It was as if I had been in a break all day and was sitting on trying to convince myself not to get spit out the back. You’ve been there. It isn’t pretty. We weren’t killing it, I was just toast from the last two days.

We did back off the pace so Tommy G and I could make it home. The weather was amazing and we got in a total of about 5.5 hours. The only thing that got me home was a coconut pie and a coke at a country store about 1.5 hours from home. You have to love a pie that has so much fat in it that is soaks thru the packaging.

So coffee shop time today if we can motivate. It is raining and Tommy and I are cracked. So we will see if we saddle up for more than an hour today. Tomorrow is another big day. We are driving to the Blue Ridge Parkway to do some climbing. I hear the ride will be 6+ hours with several major climbs. I better rest up.

What the F!?@

Day one was ridiculous. When we left it was 21 degrees. 5 hours later (when we finished) it was 31 degrees. I wore a thermal jacket and a thermal vest (see photo). It was retarded. Enough said. We got the work done and it was a character building day, but it was retarded.


So when I woke up yesterday and it was snowing (yah it snows in freaking VA). I was cracked. We had 4 hours scheduled and I immediately started discussing alternate plans. Even Ward was willing to discuss cutting the ride short?!?! We waited until 11:30, kitted up and were pleasantly surprised to find drying roads and sun. Word. Temps rose to the low 40s and we had a sweet ride. I even got some color on my face from the sun!

Weather is turning warm today and we are looking at 55 degrees and sunny. No thermal tights for the first time this trip!!! Bruno arrives this morning and we are kitting up for another 5 hours. Today is going to be a big day. Ward wants to “open up a bit”. That means I will have to put my head down and hang on. I hope I survive. I have been feeling good, but am getting tired. Tomorrow is a rest day. Looking forward to a coffee shop day.

Day 1

It is 6:50 am and, not surprisingly, I am the only one up. I have a feeling this will be a trend for the week. I am not used to sleeping late, and in all seriousness, 7 am is late. We arrived last night about 6 pm. We made good time (13 hours), saw minimal traffice since we passed Boston, Hartford, NYC, Baltimore and DC. We successfuly made is across the susquahenna (i know I misspelled that, deal with it) river without lossing any bikes off of the top of the car which was a bonus.

Mark (our host) has a dope pad and fed us well last night. I was able to resist going to Bacchus last night, I guess it is a trendy bar here in richmond. He was kind enough to leave me a book of matches on the laptop when he returned home last night to remind me that i missed it. Word,

Training starts today. We have 5 hours scheduled. It is going to be a bit chilly, but I am stoked to get on the bike. More later.

J-Walking

We moved to northern NH a few years ago from suburban Boston. It was a lifestyle decision. For the most part, it was a good decision. There is no traffic. There is clean air. The training is fantastic. The skiing is great. The people, as a general rule, are great. You get the point. Today, I have had to seriously reconsider my decision.

I walked down “Main Street” at lunch today and there were two cops writing people tickets for J-walking. Seriously . . . tickets. We actually live in a town where the biggest issue is J-Walking?

On Monday a woman was struck by a logging truck on Main Street. She lived, but was hurt. Apparently, the cops think that writing tickets for J-Walking will make crossing the street safer. Note: the woman that was hit by the logging truck was crossing the street IN THE CROSSWALK. We have way too many cops.

Mini-Camp

Well I am leaving in a few days for a mini-training camp. Tommy G, Wardo, Bruno and I are heading to the not so warm south on Saturday. Ward promised me that Richmond would bring warm, sunny days in the 50s and we could pound out a 25+ hour week. It looks like a cold front is coming thru and temps the first two days are only supposed to hit 40! Damnit. You know they are still going to march me thru 4+ hour days. Tommy is going to give me some line of crap about him training in temps below 20 in Maine and Ward will tell me if I had calves like him, I would be warm, blah blah blah.

It is going to be a tough start, but I am looking forward to being a fulltime bike racer if only for 10 days. I hope to update the blog daily and with any luck upload some pictures of the WARM south.

FYI, when you are a New England yankee, Virgina is the south.

Roller Time

The weather is up to it’s old tricks. This morning it was -6°F and sunny. Way too freaking cold to even think about riding. We expect to see highs of 20 today. I am all about the rollers.
We leave in a week for 10 days of training in Richmond, VA. The 10 day forecast is looking way warmer than here. Wardo is taking a page out of Bjarne’s training manual. Something like 6 hour days with minor rappelling and ropes work?!?!? What about getting kitted up and chillin’ at the coffee shop?

For the record, I didn't have a beer after ski racing last night. Who says I am not taking training serious?!?

More Mullets

Seriously, what is going on?!? First Eki and now Zdenek. . .
This is becoming an epidemic. Seriously, those hair cuts were lame in the 80s. 25 year later, they are still lame. What are they doing?!?!

Another Weekend

Another unseasonably warm weekend bites the dust. Saturday I got in a good ride with some local old guys. These are not yer average old guys. They are way fitter than you can imagine and were up for 3 hours on a 45 degree day in January. So, I did an hour or so solo (just me and the iPod) and then met the boys. You gotta love diehards. Sometimes I wonder what makes me tick when it comes to training. In general I train to get faster. I do like riding my bike, but I am not sure I would ride it nearly as much as I do if I didn’t race. The guys I rode with on Saturday don’t race. They ride. They ride tons of miles simply to the sake of riding. I hope when I stop racing I still ride as fast as these guys.

Here are some pics. Missing is Edwin, he is taking the photos.

Sunday brought rain and 40 degrees. “They” kept saying it was going to stop raining and clear. It didn’t. I finally kitted up and got on the rollers at 3:30. Martha and I did 2 hours with a bunch of “Tempo”. I felt awful all day, but the workout seemed to snap me out of whatever funk I was in. Some stats from this weekend:

Average Power for my all out 3 minute effort: 368 watts
Max Watts on Saturday: 874
Number of Beers I consumed on Friday: 6
Number of Beers I Consumed during he StupidBowl: 0
Number of minutes I didn’t watch the SuperBOwl to watch “Chasing Lance” on Discovery: 60
Number of pounds I lost this weekend training and not drinking my usual beer:2
Number of times I am going take townlines in VA with Ward and Tom: 6

GEEKING OUT

A few people wanted me to post some PowerTap data, so here is a typical output from the PowerTap. This was a 90 minute workout, with 30 minutes of “Light” and an all out “Surge” every 5 minutes during that period of light. When doing the surge, you can only shift down one gear, so it is all about the cadence. My max. cadence was 163.

Do the data is as follows:

Red is Heart Rate
Green is Cadence
Blue is Speed (x10)
Yellow is Power

Scale on the right is for cadence and HR, left hand side is power and speed (x10)

Have fun geeks.

Geeking Out

The PowerTap is up and running. I must say it was the easiest cyclocomputer I have ever setup. I don’t think any tools were thrown and I believe I only swore twice. That might be a record. So I am geeking out with all the data this thing gives me. I have already gone back and forth with Kurt several times looking at the data. Crazy bike geek fun for my engineering mind.

Much thanks to Mavic for the rim and to Big Ring Bob for building me a wheel I can trust. The wheel should be bomb proof as long as I can keep it upright. I did a 3 minutes “all out effort” last night to gauge my current power output. A 12 minute effort is coming tomorrow. I would like to post how impressive the output was . . .but it was ugly. It is a good thing it is still very early in the season.