HPCX 2012

With Hurricane Sandy making its way slowly directly towards us, I was uncertain about the conditions that I was driving towards in New Jersey.  Because it was pouring this morning here in Bethlehem, I assumed it could only be worse closer to the Atlantic.  I grabbed my mud tires (Captain CX) and only as an afterthought threw my Tracer tubulars in the back of the car.  I'm glad I did, because surprisingly it was dry in NJ, and the course was fast, even dusty.  Nothing like last year at all!  It was the muddiest race I've ever done.

The course was fun, although I was rimming out really hard on the root sections, those continue to be my nemesis.  A couple of times I hit so hard I was sure that I'd flat, or crack the rim.  That's really something to work on.  For a while I followed Dag, until he accelerated away too fast for me to follow.  After the first lap, I never saw the leaders, and came in 8th / 63, same as last year, and just one spot ahead of the race predictor.  Eric broke a cable, or I'm sure he would have been up there as well.

Then a short break before the UCI Elite race.  My only plan was to get some good training in, and try to not get lapped for as long as possible.   Race predictor had me at 39/44, but that wasn't happening.  After the first lap I could feel that I was really still struggling, and so just tried to ride smoothly.  Coming up on 1 to go, the three leaders came through, so I pulled over and let them by.  They were flying.  I don't mind getting lapped by a guy from Rabobank....

The tires worked out really well, I kept finding that the Tracers had more traction then I expected from them, and was able to corner faster as the day went on, even though it was getting wetter.  I think I had 23-24psi in the front, and 25.5 in the back.  That seemed just about right.

Now to prepare for the rain.

West Chester Cross

The crossresults race predictor had me at 13th, so my goal was set to try and beat that result.  It couldn't have been a better day with temperatures in the 60s, sun and low humidity, I was looking forward to this race.  I also had finally sorted out all my tubular issues, so today might actually be the first race that I'd finish with both my front and rear tubulars intact.  I still decided to play it slightly conservative and run a bit higher pressure, 27.5 psi in the rear, 26 in the front. 

We had a small group at the starting grid, so a front row start wasn't critical, I just wanted to not make the same mistake that I did at TownHall and implode after the first lap.  There were some fast guys on the line, and Geronimo lined up with literally less then 30 seconds to go, adding to the list. 

I played the start about right, going hard, but staying within myself.  Geronimo pulled some fantastic stunt on the first lap, somersaulting over his bike after hitting a rut wrong, and sending his bike over the tape and into the field.  Without breaking stride, he tumbled off the course, rolled to his feet, recovered his bike from the field, launched a flying remount, and rolled back up underneath the course tape and picking up right where he left off. 

After the first lap, a lead group of 7-8 formed, and I was dangling a few seconds back.  I spent a lap trying to chase, but I was losing time, and I decided that I was better off just trying to stay smooth.  I was ahead of a BikeReg guy, and Gerald until I swiped some course tape and took myself out. 

I caught back up BikeReg, but Gerald started pouring it on after an uncharacteristically slow start from him, and he was gone.  I passed the BikeReg guy, but Wyatt Stoup was coming up fast.  I started looking back, and seeing the gap dwindle.  Finally, on the last section of the final lap, he passed me and my final attempts at a sprint weren't nearly enough. 

The course was a lot of fun, good use of the available elevation, and the laps (despite being longer then average) went very quickly.  Managed to beat my prediction (barely) and the tubulars survived intact.  I could have gone down a few psi in pressure, but success. 

Repairing a tubular

After flatting two tubulars in two weekends, I was not keen on just tossing out those expensive tires.  Fortunately the mysterious slow leak from Charm City sealed up nicely with some Hutchinson Fast'Air.  However, the pinch flat at Nittany was not successful.

At first it seemed to be holding air, but I could hear a faint hissing, and soon enough the bulge started spewing out sealant.

Perfect opportunity to try a proper tubular repair.  I consulted the usual experts like Sheldon Brown and Leonard Zinn and felt like it was definitely worth a shot.

Peeling off the base tape wasn't easy, a lot of prying and pulling exposed the seam beneath.

I cut enough stitches to open the casing and pull out the latex tube.  It was surrounded by a very smooth and slippery silk lining.

The hole was huge, no way any sealant was going to clog that up.

A regular butyl patch from my patchkit.

Sewing the casing back together.  A thimble was very necessary.

For glueing the base tape back down, I needed a way of clamping it tightly, without getting stuck to the glue.  This reverse wrap and pinch worked well, pressing the base tape tightly up against the casing.

All back together.  The base tape is slightly crooked right at the repair, but it is holding air, and feels solid so far.  Maybe it'll become my FSX tire, or SS use, or both. 

Tubeless for Cyclocross (it's getting better)

Last year I ran a tubeless set of wheels, Mavic Aksiums with Specialized Captain CX tires.  It worked pretty well, was an improvement over clinchers, but I still burped air a few times, and was no comparison to my tubulars. 

This year I've got the Easton EA90 RT with a wider external rim width of 22mm, and a "proprietary rim design".  In training, I dropped the pressure down to see how low it would go, and was consistently hitting the rim without burping air, but the real test is a race situation when you're pushing the cornering limits harder.

First the Captain CX: these tires are like claws.  During the muddy TownHall race, I never felt like I ran out of cornering traction (just cornering skills).  I rode the steep hill every lap (including the SS race) and I think that is largely due to the excellent traction from these tires.  I did crash a few times in the 1/2/3, but the problem was my handling, the tires had so much grip, they were pulling the casing away from the rim bed before slipping out.

I noticed this grass in the wheel after the race, but I didn't notice the collection of rocks stuck in there until a few days later when I was cleaning the bike.

Although I didn't check the tire pressure, it feels the same, and I don't see any evidence of losing sealant. 

I'm also running Stan's cyclocross rim strips (along with his sealant) and that combination seems to be solid.  I'll have good confidence with these on the muddy and slippery days.

TownHall cross 2012

After pre-riding the course on Friday, I thought maybe it might get somewhat faster and easier on Saturday after a few races.  While the hill did get packed down and faster, the rest of the course just seemed to get slower.  The mud and grass was soft enough to sink way in, but firm enough to really grab your wheels.  What a slog-fest.  This year, I think that the hill was actually one of the easier parts of the course.

I spent the morning helping with registration, but did stick my neck out long enough to watch the start of the Cat 4 race.  I wanted to see 100 guy funnel into the hill.  It actually went better then I expected, with some congestion, but not too bad from a spectator's perspective.

The upside of my front row start in the 1/2/3 was a clear shot at the hill, the down shot was I completely blew my plan to not blow up in the first lap.  I had great spot going up the first time, but then quickly realized on the way down that was overcooked, and needed to back way off, especially for surviving the 60 minutes.  Then I crashed 3 times in the first lap, really putting me back.  All through the second lap my chain was jumping all over my cassette, I couldn't tell if it was just mud, a bent hanger from my crashes, or something else.  I tweaked my barrel adjuster a few turns, and finally got it to run smooth.  By now, I was two laps in, back at the rear of the race, and deep in the red zone.

I focused on just riding smoothly and efficiently, and managed to catch a few guys and make up a few places, definitely riding better towards the end of the race.  Coming around the back section, after the gravel, and before the stream crossing, I was weaving through the section of course that loops back on itself.  Who ever was in front of me, caught some course tape on their bike, and took it with them on the next loop.  So when I came into that part of the course, I encountered a tightly stretched section of course tape, sweeping across towards me at twice my speed, as he was now going the opposite direction.  I tried to duck, but it caught me right across the neck and clotheslined me right to the ground.  I managed to pull myself out of this mess, but the intrepid rider continued on, pulling out half the course tape for this section.  I finally got past him after the stream crossing where the tape had wrapped several thick layers around his rear axle. 

Then, a quick few minutes to zip tie my shift levers, swap numbers, and jump into the single speed race.  Once again, I took off at the start, and found myself riding second wheel behind Yozell for a while.  He was apparently taking it easy, but still I couldn't stay with him.  Lost one spot to fatigue, and then it seemed like I had a gigantic gap to third, and figured that I could ride a safe race in for the last podium spot.  However, fourth place was catching up fast, and I was running out of time and legs.  Coming down the short hill after the pavement by the pits, I wiped out HARD, tumbling head over handlebars, ass over teakettle, and found my bike tangled up in the tape, with the bars skewed about 30 degrees to the left.  At this point, he got by me, and I struggled to follow him, while slightly stunned, with bent glasses, a crooked helmet, and a bars pointing the wrong way.  He was too quick, and so I rolled through in fourth.

Still, that was a lot of fun.

Start of the women's races:

 Slogging:

TownHall Cyclocross 2012 Preparation

It took us most of the day, but the course is now all marked, staked, and taped, ready to for racing.  Fortunately all the rains stopped and we had great weather today.  Even a bit warm, hopefully it helps dry out the course.  The combination of tall grass, and soggy ground made for a very slow course today, but I get it will get faster as the day goes on (and muddier).

The turnout is expected to be about double from last year, with almost 400 pre-reg!  Wow.  This makes parking a challenge, and I'm very curious to see 100 cyclists try to get up the hill on the first lap.  I'm expecting nothing short of chaos.  We widened the start section as much as we could, and moved it further down the hill, but there will still be some bottle-necking going into the switchbacks.

Ok, cross-results has me at 9th place in the 1/2/3 race, I'm expecting a good battle between Mike Yozell and Gerald Adasavage for the win.  I want to see Jack Drummond go top 10 in the Masters 35+.

The start is going to be critical, hint: take the left line all the way up to the hill.

Look forward to the past

According to National Geographic, we lose 1 language every 14 days.  We've already lost many thousands of languages, and will continue to lose many thousands more.  In this particular issue, the article was highlighting some of the less common languages, threatened with extinction as their native population either dies out, or gets assimilated into a larger, modern culture.  It may seem like nothing besides a few words gets lost when a language dies, but I was really convinced by this article that we actually lose quite a lot more.  Our language is very closely connected to our culture.  The way that we describe the world affects our perspective of the world. 

Here is on example; in the Tuvan language, one says: look backwards to the future, and the past is ahead.  That is totally counter to our usage of language and notions of progress where the future is what lies ahead, and the past is gone behind us.  I find it a very interesting perspective to think about, we can "see" the past, it has happened, but the future is unknown, like what lies behind you. 

Where our language of "progress to the future" seems to imply that time and world are stationary, and we are creators of our own destiny, plowing our way forwards through life like explorers hacking through a jungle with a machete, the Tuvan perspective is completely 180 degrees turned around.  Time passes by, and what we see ahead of us, is the past that has already gone by.  The future is unknown.

I think that is a valuable perspective, regardless of which way seems "right" and which one seems "wrong", it is worth thinking about how our language shapes our perspectives.

WhirlyBird cross 2012

There are always wrecks, crashes, scuffs, dings, wipe-outs, blunders, and dropped-chains at 'cross races, but wow, it sure seemed like WhirlyBird had more then its fair share last weekend.

The big change was a new venue, and I really liked the course.  Fast, with "flow", some terrain variations, and it was lots of fun.  Definitely an improvement from the previous few years.

Greg missed his call up, but still managed a top 25 finish, and Jeff was close behind.  Right from the start, there was a significant crash in the prologue of the Masters 35+ race, taking down a few riders in the high speed turn before the pavement.

My 2/3/4 race started off well.  I was second row on the starting grid, and the guy in front of me missed his clip-in, but I managed to scoot around him into the void in front and into fourth wheel.  All was smooth until I hit the first set of barriers on the first lap, either I clipped my wheel on the first barrier, or just plain tripped over it, but I piled head first into the second barrier.  I lost some time and momentum there.

Then, on the run-up after the second set of barriers I dropped my chain, and had a hard time getting it back on the chainrings (3 min).  You can see the camera man go by in this video (#314 in yellow):



Then, coming up the paved incline to the stadium, I heard a terrific crash and looked back just in time to see someone that had piled into the chain link fence flying head first over his bars.  Ouch, that one probably hurt.

I managed to make up a few spots and caught up to a group of 6-7 who were riding together.  My chance to pass came when someone in front of the group took the downhill too fast and clipped the pipe marking the cross walk.  (Same thing that happens to the camera man above. )  That was a tricky turn.

I ended up running my Tracer tubular in back (thankfully the Hutchinson Fast'Air sealed it up), and my Captain CX tubeless in front.  It actually felt like a fast combination, with great cornering. 

Finished 8th, so was four spots down on the cross-results.com prediction, but I had a second chance in the Elite race.

In the starting grid, someone looked around and counted, turns out that there were only 26 starters, a small field, and because they were paying 25 deep, one person here wasn't going home with a check.  Ok, there is my goal....

Right off the grid, Mike F pops a spoke, and that takes him out, now there are only 25 in the running.  The 60 minutes of racing were far less eventful then the 2/3/4 race, it was also a smoother effort then then spurts I was putting in trying to move up and pass people. 

For a while I was behind a guy who was running too low pressure in his tubulars, at each turn his rear was rolling over and washing out with a bRaapP, it looked hard to control.  At one point I got by Willem who I expected to be faster then myself, we've been fairly closely matched in previous races.  For a while, I was focused on staying ahead of him, until I decided that it was better to chase something ahead, then run from something behind me.  I was trading spots with a Skylands/Sussex Bike rider for a while, until I cracked and he got a pretty good lead.  I could just barely see Patrick Bradley a couple of times, but we were very spread out.  In the last lap, I was torn between just riding my spot, I was safe where I was, or trying to catch the Skylands/Sussex bike guy who was a few seconds ahead.  With a few extra efforts, I got really close on the final lap, but couldn't quite catch him before the finish. 

Ended up 17th, just beating the race predictor by one spot, no doubt thanks to Mike's broken spoke. 

Next up, our very own Town Hall Cross.