bikelovejones

O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!
   Thy winds, thy wide grey skies!
   Thy mists that roll and rise!
Thy woods this autumn day, that ache and sag
And all but cry with colour!  That gaunt crag
To crush!  To lift the lean of that black bluff!
World, World, I cannot get thee close enough!

Long have I known a glory in it all,
   But never knew I this;
   Here such a passion is
As stretcheth me apart, — Lord, I do fear
Thou'st made the world too beautiful this year;
My soul is all but out of me, — let fall
No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.

                       --Edna St. Vincent Milay

(pictures taken at Portland's Japanese garden)

I love racing singlespeed. It's freeing, it grows strong bike-handling skills and improves both strength and finesse. I love it so much that, for the remainder of my racing career (however long that is) I will choose to race on a singlespeed bike.

The downside is that, at present, women racing singlespeed bikes have one of three choices: race in their appropriate experience group (Womens' Beginner, Womens' A or B); race in their Masters age group (if applicable); or race in the singlespeed class -- with about three hundred men. At Cross Crusade races, about half a dozen women have chosen the third option, though to my knowledge none has ever beaten all the men to win the category.

Racing a singlespeed bike requires a different approach than racing on a geared bike. With gears, you will naturally slow down as you shift into an easier gear to get up an incline. With only one gear, you must time your ascent and start accelerating from farther back in order to gain enough momentum to get up the incline.
When, on your singlespeed bike, you get "stuck" behind someone on a geared bike who is fumbling a shift, you must either pass her -- or, if there's no room to pass, you will get stuck behind her and possibly lose enough momentum that you are forced to get off your bike and run up the incline. This happened to me at Alpenrose. At Hillsboro, I looked for an opportunity to pass a rider on a geared bike so I wouldn't lose momentum -- and had my first successful experience doing just that.

That said, it would be unrealistic to expect a large field of women on singlespeeds to be truly competitive with about three hundred men on singlespeeds. Physiology is just not on our side. Testosterone really can help you go faster (or else the UCI wouldn't test for excessive testosterone levels at the Grand Tours), and most women just don't come equipped with very much of the stuff. So it makes sense for the majority of women who want to race singlespeed to do so in their own category, and see how they stack up (no pun intended) against each other.

While I would not foolishly insist on a separate race for women on singlespeeds -- there's just no time to add another race to an already packed race-day schedule -- I would love to see women on singlespeeds be recognized for their accomplishments on what is a very different sort of bike. I envision simply adding a womens' singlespeed category to the existing womens' field, and counting the singlespeed riders in a separate classification as they finish with the other women. (At Cross Crusade all womens' categories except A race together. Womens' A races with Mens' A at the end of the day.)

Not long after the conclusion of the womens' race last Sunday, I had a lovely chat with Brad Ross, the Grand Poobah of the Cross Crusade cyclocross series. I asked him what it would take to create a separate womens' classification for women who wanted to get some credit for racing singlespeed. He thought about it for a minute, and suggested that serious inquiries from at least twenty women would be a good start to the conversation.

So, in anticipation of being able to set something up like this for next year, I've invited women to contact me through the OBRA or Cross Crusade forums and let me know if they'd race in a womens' singlespeed classification. I am compiling names and contact info and will schedule a meeting with Brad Ross for sometime in late winter/early spring 2010.

If you're a woman, an OBRA member and a singlespeed fanatic, and you'd be interested in racing in a womens' singlespeed class next year, go to the Cross Crusade forum or the OBRA forum; read the message, and PM me if you want to get on the list. The list currently has eleven women on it (including me). I hope to have at least thirty women who are serious about racing singlespeed and getting credit for it at next year's Cross Crusade. Because singlespeed is simply the best!

(10/25/09, Washington County Fairgrounds. Photo by S. Young, used w/permission.)

(Washington County fairgrounds, Hillsboro, OR)

UPDATE, 10/30/09 -- You may be wondering: what happened to this race report?

Here's what happened:

The same day I posted this report here, I also posted it to Cyclocross Magazine's Forum, thereby entering it in a contest for Best Race Report Of The Week. And for the second time in about thirty-five years, I've won a writing contest. The prize was a large messenger bag, which will come in quite handy for hauling gear.

Sooo... in order to receive The Prize, I had to agree to remove my post from my blog and post a link to it at Cyclocross Magazine's Forum instead. So -- if you were late to the ball and didn't get to read my report of the Washington County Fairgrounds Mudfest, fear not! 

It can be found in its entirety here.

(co-worker Kathy (L) and me (R) enjoying our favorite beverages minutes after the Beginner Womens' race.)

I took it easy yesterday so I could try some colder-weather practice today.
It mostly worked, though I feel slow and vaguely out of shape. I gave it 45 challenging minutes out in the rain and mud. Woodlawn Park was basically a grassy, muddy bog, which was perfect for practicing in soggy grass and mud.

I didn't practice ANY cross techniques today. Instead, I tried to prepare for Sunday's race at the fairgrounds by aiming for mud wherever I could find it, and riding through it different speeds. There was about two inches of standing water in multiple places on the softball diamond, and the small mud puddle I'd practiced in last week had turned into a brown lake. I needed to feel the cold mud on my legs and backside, and in my face. I needed to feel what a slippy rear wheel in mud would feel like, and if I could manage to keep the bike upright. I didn't fall, but I also didn't totally conquer my fears about riding in muddy puddles too deep to see the bottom. I hear the Hillsboro course will not only run through part of the livestock area, but also does a circuit through the rodeo arena. Delightful. I hope I can keep my bike upright in it.

Adding mud-appropriate tires definitely helped. The Cross Terras were fine for dry, fast conditions but I knew they would be pointless in the bog. I sought advice from the nice folks at the Cyclocross Magazine Forums, and several folks suggested the Continental Cross Country in 26 x 1.5 as THE tire for racing 'cross on a mountain bike. So I sprang for a pair and installed them yesterday. They feel pretty darned good in the mud, though the aggressive tread does slow me down a little. I hesitate changing to a lower gear just before a race so I will live with it and see how it goes.

When I got home, I looked down at my legs. They were beautifully splattered with wet grass and watery mud droplets. My butt was covered with mud. And although I was cold, I wasn't intolerably chilled to the bone, so my clothing choices worked pretty well.





Changes for Sunday:

--knickers AND embrocation (I got the NW Kneewarmers Mild mixture, tried it today and liked it);
--wool undershirt and wool armwarmers with VB jersey;
--long wool socks;
--thin thermal cycling cap under my helmet;
--Croakies -- probably unneccessary but they did make me feel more secure about racing in my glasses.

I am still playing around with shoe choices. On Sunday I'll go with what I've been using -- they work great on my pedals -- but if the run-ups are too slick I will have to go back to the drawing board. The courses will only get colder and muddier in November.

Here we go. Bring on the mud.

You can read why here:

http://bikeportland.org/2009/10/20/americas-top-bike-minds-ask-for-and-receive-advice-from-europe/

A panel of some of the smartest transportation minds from both sides of the Atlantic spells it all out, kids.
Portland can't become Copenhagen because Portland has the ill fortune of being part of the United States, and the United States is too big, too car-centric and was planned too much around the car for us to dismantle it and re-train enough human beings to want the smaller, intimate human scale that cities like Copenhagen were built on.

You want separate bikeways that actually get us to the same places we currently go by car? You want to reduce and eventually eliminate on-street car parking? You want to make it difficult, expensive and inconvenient to own and drive a car?

Move to Copenhagen.

Meanwhile if you accept that living the bicycle life here in the United States will always be harder, scarier, less safe and more fraught with anxiety and risk, and you're willing to do it anyway, then welcome to my world, friend!

Let's go for a ride.

I am counting/hoping on the large network that all of you across the Bikeaverse are connected with to help me find this bag:

<<Timbuk2 PRO messenger backpack, size LARGE>>

Below is a photo of the bag (medium is shown but I really need the large)

This backpack was made by Timbuk2 in 2006-2007. It came in plain black or in black with either an orange or silver reflective center panel, and it was BIG. After trying a friend's I am convinced that this is THE bag I need for race days (because I'm traveling to races without a car). My present bag has worked ok for summer short-track, but is not big enough to carry everything I need to bring to a 'cross race. The T2 Pro Messenger pack will hold EVERYTHING.

Can you ask around and let me know if anyone out there has one of these they'd sell?
Cosmetics don't matter -- I expect that if I find one of these it WILL be used and that is totally fine -- as long as the bag is whole and functional.

If you're a regular reader, you know how to get in touch with me. Please send up a flare if you find one of these, and thanks.

 

(Remember, this is the medium bag and I really need the LARGE one.)

I made a deal with myself that each weekend I wasn't racing 'cross, I would go somewhere and practice 'cross.

This has been relatively easy to set up. For easy or shorter practices, there's a neighborhood park blocks from my house where I can go to practice things like mounts and dismounts and off-camber riding. If I need mud and gravel and whoop-dees to play around with, I live about five miles from PIR (Portland International Raceway) and the single-track section of the course is always open during daylight hours. Sometimes the moto track gate is unlocked and them I can practice riding up the huge berms and over the rhythm section in the middle.

This morning I planned for about an hour of good, hard riding over at PIR. The sky was filled with clouds, the air was balmy-warm for mid-October, and rain was in the forecast. I desperately needed some time riding in the rain and through mud before Hillsboro. We've had a dry fall and so far the cross races in the area have all been on dusty, fast courses. My next race at the Fairgrounds will be run through part of the livestock area so there WILL be mud, and plenty of it.

I decided that it was warm enough to ride all the way to PIR, instead of taking light rail; the ride was equal parts good warmup and a little bit tiring. The raindrops started falling as soon as I'd crossed the bridge over the racetrack into the cyclocross area. I was sorry to discover that the gate to the moto track was securely locked. The fence was low enough for me to toss my bike over and then climb in after it; but I decided not to do anything that would reflect badly on OBRA (since they use the PIR facilities a lot). So I was good and stuck to the un-fenced areas, which gave me pretty much the rest of the course to play around with.

I rode a couple of laps around the far backside of the moto track where the big sandy berm is, and then I swooped in and out between the trees on the near side of the moto track, practicing sharp turns, mounts and dismounts over a fallen tree, and riding various directions over the baby-whoopdees left over from the short-track season. There wasn't a lot of mud, but I made do with a couple of fairly deep, muddy puddles that allowed me to feel what my back wheel slipping around under me might feel like in a race. The rain began to fall harder and I got a little but muddy from rolling through the deep puddle multiple times. About an hour into it, I'd had enough and headed for home. The rain was really falling when I left PIR and although it gave me a chill it felt good.

I really want to find some serious MUD before next weekend, but time is running out and I think I'll just have to be surprised by the terrain. In any case, I have a good feel for what things will be like when the Cross Crusade comes to PIR on November 8th.

If you have health insurance that you can afford and that offers you adequate coverage, don't read this.
It doesn't apply to you.

Now that the fatally flawed health care legislation looks like it's a stone's throw from passing, it's time to be clear:

The bill as it currently stands will require me to buy insurance from a private insurance provider.

It will require a private insurance provider to accept me regardless of my preexisting condition, but it will not restrict what that provider can charge me in monthly premiums, or what kinds of specific medications or treatments it can deny coverage for.

It will require me to pay for insurance I probably won't be able to afford.

It will let a bunch of suits who make a six figure salaries (and who likely have never struggled financially as I have done) decide how much they think I ought to be able to pay each month. (The suits will probably get it wrong. They always do.)

The bill will not include a public, government-run option, because the private insurance industry can't stand that kind of competition. The insurance industry is calling in its markers (in the form of campaign contributions to members of Congress) and reminding these weaklings what side their bread is buttered on. And by whom.

If this bad bill passes as it currently stands, it will become a bad law, and a law that will be very difficult to repeal.

I invite any of the rest of the forty-something MILLION uninsured American out there to consider what would happen if we all decided not to play. They can't put forty-seven million of us in jail, any more than they can successfully collect penalties from all forty-seven million of us. And they certainly cannot let forty-seven million of us end up destitute and homeless because someone decided we should pay half our income to cover the cost of our FOR-PROFIT health care system. Can you imagine how bad we'd look to the rest of the world if our government allowed that to happen? We just can't look that bad. We need the rest of the world -- and its investments -- too much for that.

In short, we're being told that we will have to participate in a racket that is being endorsed by our elected officials. In short, our elected officials don't give a shit about us. if they did, they'd tell the insurance industry to go to hell. Writing to them now and telling them not to vote this thing into law won't make a difference. But if we all told them we'd break the law if they pass it, that would certainly be something else altogether.

If this bill passes, Americans without health insurance will not have any real reason to rejoice and they should REJECT this law. And that is exactly what I plan to do. If there is no affordable public option, if the government decides to sell me out to private insurers at any price, I WILL BREAK THIS LAW.

Just so we're clear.

I slacked off a bit on the bi-nightly curls and twice-weekly intervals during the High Holidays, and it has taken some effort to reestablish the routine. Yesterday, while most of my bikey pals were out at the Cross Crusade race in Rainier, I went out and played around on Stompy, if only to keep the feeling in my body between races. I wasn't really in the mood to race, even if transportation hadn't been an issue. As Sweetie astutely pointed out, I had spent a lot of time and emotional energy getting ready for my first race and recopvering from all that probably takes longer than a day or two. Still, she agreed that I should go out for a little Stompy-time, as she called it. I'd feel better, even if I only went out for 30 minutes.

It was colder, with a breeze that compelled me to wear wool and add leg warmers and a thin winter cap under my helmet. I rode over to the park and looped around in all directions, passing over the grassy berms and taking off-camber passes at the back of the stone ampitheatre. I desperately need practice time in the mud, but there's only a couple of tiny mud puddles in the park, so I passed through them from all directions, getting the feel of my rear wheel slipping and dropping down into a seven-inch deep moat before hopping back up onto grass or pavement. There's an awful sound after my bike passes through mud -- it collects on my brake pads and when I have to apply my brakes it sounds like a thousand tiny shards of glass scraping against my rims. I try to ride through grass again after the mud to help clear some of the mud off the wheels, but it doesn't really help that much. Still, when I headed for home 40 minutes later, I did feel better, and my bike had glops of mud already beginning to dry in the late afternoon sunlight.

The fall rains are coming as soon as late tonight. Then I'll be able to go look for a muddier place to practice. I am thinking of taking my bike over to PIR on Friday morning and practicing in what will surely be some significant mud by then.


I am anticipating mud rather like THIS at the Hillsboro race:



YUMMY.

If you've read the previous post, you'll see that the president of a new womens' athletic apparel company responded with an invitation to check out her line and also to propose suggestions for a womens' bike jersy design. I went to the Web site for Ellesport and discovered that at present, the largest size they offer will fit a woman with a 36 to 38" chest, and a 30 to 31" waist. I -- and many women -- am completely out of their ballpark. I have politely suggested that Ellesport needs to significantly expand its sizing range before I would be able to buy their clothes, or indeed to take them seriously. Anyone else out there with a womens' athletic clothing line, take note. I am NOT messing around.

In this post I am not looking for solutions from my readers; I simply must vent.

I am SICK and TIRED of bicycle apparel manufacturers who insist on making clothing in such limited sizing ranges.
I am frustrated with bike apparel designers who insist that ALL womens' specific bike clothing should ideally fit a woman who is slim-hipped, flat-chested or bordering on concave, and essentially built like a 13-year-old boy. And I am tired of being told, in a million signs and signals and advertising messages, that I am "fat" by athletic standards.

At the Cross Crusade race on Sunday I saw women of many varying sizes try their hand at cyclocross. Most were skinny, flat-bellied and not especially well-endowed. But quite a few were built more like me, with a belly, or with a big chest, or with abundant hips. Some were considerably larger than me. And all of us were thrilled to be out there racing our bicycles on a gorgeous fall afternoon.

Not all of the larger women were attired in bike-specific clothing, because the fact is that some of us would not have been able to find anything out there to fit us. I was fortunate to find a couple of team-mates who had extra kit to sell off so that I could have a team jersey and shorts to race in; but the truth is that my new-used jersey fits rather snugly over my chest and I will be relieved when my new, more accurately-sized team jersey is shipped.

I'm mostly pretty happy with my body. (Well, I'd REALLY like not to have Crohn's but that will have to wait till the next lifetime around.)  My body is a miraculous thing that, in spite of chronic disease, heredity and a lack of a lifelong, competitive sporting history, does nearly all of what I ask it to, nearly all of the time. That right there is pretty cool. Especially since I've started asking it do some rather ambitious things of late. My body, quite frankly, performed beautifully on Sunday and I am still tickled pink at just how exhilarating the whole experience was. I will also admit that I AM vain and that, thanks to a lifetime of cycling, I have pretty decent-looking calves and quads. I think it's totally okay to like your body and when it comes to mine I am a reasonably satisfied customer.

The bummer comes when I have to sell a woman bicycle-specific rain wear, and she's built like me, and I have to inform her that she takes a womens' XL or 2X. I've accepted it for myself, but, as I've said to any number of athletic clothing reps and designers, you do NOT even want to be a fly on the wall when I tell a woman my size that she takes a 2X in ANYthing. Because it's ridiculous.

I'm not talking about someone who is clinically, morbidly obese and needs radical medical help in order to survive.
I'm talking about someone built like this:




(Me, moments after completing my first 'cross race on Sunday.)


Contrary to what nearly every fashion magazine out there would have you believe, a woman who stands 5' 7" and weighs 160 pounds is not fat. She should not always be forced to buy a Man's Large jersey and live with the excessive garment length in order to accommodate a larger chest. Moreover, no woman this size should ever be told by any salesperson that she takes ANY bike-specific garment sized 3X. Not because it's insulting -- my body doesn't insult me, it just finished a cyclocross race and today it feels like the body of a rock star, thank you --  but because the standards by which women's clothing sizes are determined are simply absurd. And if I ran the athletic apparel industry I would change the way women's athletic clothing is sized so that ANY woman who wanted to buy the best apparel for the sport of her choice would have ALL options available, regardless of how she is proportioned.

(Then, I would go after the advertisers to make them destroy the awful messages based on a narrow, false vision of what beauty and strength look like. Women need to know that they can be strong AND beautiful, no matter how they are proportioned. But that's another post...)

The sports apparel industry could be making so much more money by getting so many more women into their sport-specific clothing; and yet they continue to ignore this segment of the market. 

This past weekend, hundreds of women out on the Alpenrose course -- and thousands of women across the cycling universe -- got it. They went outside on their bikes, turned the cranks and perhaps breathed hard a little, they reveled in the feel of their athleticism and strength and found beauty in it. That's a powerful image that any smart company could get a lot of mileage out of. The fact that sports apparel companies ignore this sometimes makes me want to bang my head against the wall.

End of rant.

I went back to bed and got some sleep after my 2 am brain dump, and woke up at 7:30. I had a nice calm morning to gather everything up, make a few last-minute wardrobe adjustments and enjoy a simple breakfast of oatmeal, yogurt, juice and coffee before my sister came and picked me and Sweetie up at 11:30 in her truck.

Once at Alpenrose, Sis and Sweetie situated themselves in bleachers seats inside the velodrome. I alternated between checking out various parts of the course on foot and chatting with folks for the first twenty minutes or so. Sweetie and I checked out a little of the Singlespeed race. I led her around to the end of the velodrome and showed her where the sick run-up was that I had tried out at the last cross clinic. Sweetie's eyes grew big and she gasped, "You have to run up THAT?"

"Well," I replied, "I plan to walk. But yes." We stuck around and watched as the Singlespeed class (almost entirely men) made their way around the course to the run-up, and we cheered our friend Joel Metz mightily as he clambered his way up the more than 45-degree hill of clodded, hard-dried mud. Then I excused myself to go do some easy spinning as a warmup. At the conclusion of the Singlespeed race the course was opened for a very brief practice lap, so I rode the part I hadn't seen at the clinics and called it good. I didn't want to totally blow up before my race.

Twenty minutes later, I was near the back of a huge field of all the combined womens' classes (A's, B's, Masters 35's and 45's, and Beginners). We chatted amiably among ourselves while we waited to begin. I was happy to see my co-worker Hazel line up next to me on a bike she'd finished building up earlier that morning (!!). She said this was her first cross race and she wasn't seriously planning on finishing. Then, we were off.

Although it had rained overnight, the course was mostly dry by the time of the race, with only a few damp patches of something that had once been mud. This made the course fast -- and bumpy. In short, much of it was similar to the feel of the course at short-track. The primary difference was that the 'cross course was less technical and success depended more on just going hard, rather than on any special bike-handling skill. Reminding myself to stay within my own race, I tried hard to keep a steady (albeit slow) rhythm throughout the event. My goal was to finish, period. If I was able to complete three full laps, that would be bonus. If I could only complete two, well, fine.

The sick runup was about three-quarters of the way through the lap. And it was very, very hard. I treated it like a sort of rock wall and just looked for foot-holds on the way up each time. And yes, I walked. There was no way I was running up that hill or I would simply blow up. To my surprise and delight, some of my cycling friends (Joel, plus assorted folks from Team Cthulu, Team Beer, and a couple of kids from PSU Cycling -- go Vikings!) and even a co-worker of mine were at the top of the runup. When I pulled in, dismounted and appeared at the bottom they all screamed my name and shouted all kinds of encouragement, which I heard like bits of words phasing in and out, like an odd sort of petit mal seizure, between the loud clangs of dozens of cowbells. The noise was deafening, a little terrifying at first and then sort of thrilling; and I am convinced it helped me get up the hill. I made my way through the course laid out inside the velodrome, and was so happy to hear Sweetie Sis, and Lynne yelling for me as I dismounted and leapt over the barriers and completed my first lap.

As I began my second lap, I shouted out to a spectator, "Time, please?" -- he looked at his watch and yelled back, "Two-twenty-five!" That told me I could definitely do a second lap, and MIGHT be able to pull off a third lap if an official didn't pull me first. All I needed to do was to keep going.

The second lap was a little harder physically, but I found better lines and was able to avoid getting hung up behind too many geared riders because the field had spread out more. Down in the turnaround at the base of the parking lot I skidded a tiny bit in some damp mud but otherwise managed to hang on. More shouts of encouragement from other members of Team Beer who had assembled in the grassy field near the pit area.
The runup was insane, and much harder the second time. This time, Sweetie was standing at the top of the runup and cheered me on. I didn't see her among the dozens and dozens of spectators but I definitely heard her! And apparently, she saw me:





And just like that I was back in the velodrome finishing a second lap. The counter at the line indicated that there was one lap to go, so I went for it. Impossibly hard! I lost momentum getting stuck behind a junior who struggled to find a working gear (note to self: race Singlespeed class next year) and had to walk a little distance up a small, off-camber incline. As I re-mounted my bike, a photographer suggested with a smile, "hey, you're near the pit, maybe they can do a body swap for ya." I laughed in spite of myself as I passed the neat rows of stacked wheels in the pit.

I found my momentum again, enough to get me around the parking lot and back to the --UGH! -- runup. This time it felt impossible, and every step up was a struggle. But people were screaming and cheering me on and ringing cowbells in my ears, and somehow I made it to the top, and back into the velodrome for final pass.





A sloppy pair of barrier hops in the velodrome, and suddenly I was using my very last bit of energy to push across the line. I had ridden the entire time, and as a bonus I had completed three laps. I was insane with delight, and exhausted by the effort. This was the sickest thing by far that I have ever done on a bicycle. And the scary part is, I want to do it again.

Results? They'll be posted later online at the OBRA Web site. I assume I finished DFL, and I do not care in the least. I finished, I did exactly what I came to do, and I am very, VERY happy.

I am wide awake at 2 am. I will be racing, or something vaguely like it, in exactly twelve hours.

I went to bed at 10:30. Sweetie promptly fell asleep. I lay awake, tossing and turning. I may have cat-napped here and there, fleetingly. By 1:00 I was awake. By a quarter to 2 it was ridiculous so I got up.

I am wired. Nervous? You bet. Worried about mechanicals; nervous about bumping into/being bumped by other racers; scared of clawing my way nearly to the top of a spectacularly muddy runup, only to lose my footing and slide all the way back down again; worried about the time frame I set up for myself (i.e., not getting there till noon which means no time for more than a walk-through of a few sections of the course, which means basically riding this thing blind), and most of all worried about the potential for DNF'g. Mostly I am scared to death that my body will crap out and I will not be able to push myself to hang in there for what will likely be the toughest 45 minutes I've ever spent on a bicycle.

Why am I choosing to do this?

Bottom line: I am doing this stupid, insanely hard thing in order to quiet the six-inch-high wannabe jock inside me, the one who never got to participate in team sports in school, the one who had to drop everything and run like mad to the nearest bathroom with little or no warning a dozen times a day, the 90-pound weakling I grew up seeing myself as, who suffered in silent humiliation for years before science could explain that my fatigue was not some psychosomatic character flaw but physical and real. Learning that gave me space and time to understand the mental toughness I've developed over the years, the ability to adapt and to deal with things as they arise and to know which bullshit is small stuff and which bullshit is really worth worrying about.

Now that I've figured out how to live with the body I've got, I need to feel my real limits, not the ones I imagine for myself, but the real ones that my body will send me when the bonk hits home and I truly cannot run another step or ride another hundred feet in the mud, the real limits that will sound alarms when the adrenaline has worn off and I feel the chainring gash in my leg that tells me enough already, the feel of my heart beating in my throat and the sight of little halos forming around distant objects when I've really had enough of this craziness. I have to know where that limit is, and I want to be pleasantly surprised, happily shocked, if I somehow discover that my imperfect, sway-backed, middle-age-bellied, creaky, Crohn's-ridden body can outlast the clock on this one.

No matter how hard it gets later today, if I can last 45 minutes I will have won, even if I finish Dead Effing Last. If I can last 45 minutes today I will finally, truly be an athlete, I will be a thing I have wanted to be my whole goddamned life, and whatever happens on the way to that will not matter in the least when I get there.

In the final two days before my first cross race, I am obsessing. Of course. I've already packed most of my race bag ("mud" towel; dry clothes post-race; snacks and spare water bottle to hose off my eyeglasses with, stuff like that).

Later today I'll do some final mechanical love to my bike, which brings up the question of tires.
I've been training on some cheap but effective Cross Terra tires from Club Roost. They seem fine on grass, and merely okay in mud (though I have yet to get in tons of practice in lots of mud, it just hasn't rained enough yet). I've ridden them quite a lot since short track ended and by now they're worn down enough that I ought to at least replace them before Sunday.

I also have a pair of Schwalbe CX Pro Sport tires for 26" wheels that I bought months ago and never got around to putting on. I have to decide today. If I go with the Schwalbes then I'll need to head over to the park for a quick test-run to see how they handle. If I just swap in some new Cross Terras I don't have to ride at all.

Also thinking a lot about embrocation. Embrocation is to cross what shocks are to mountain bikes; both appear to be almost a requirement at some level. Have I reached that level? No. So for Sunday I'll probably skip it, even though a rep gave a sample bottle sometime back, of something called Ozone Warming Oil. It has capsicum in it and that gives me pause; do I want to put what's basically Hot Chili Pepper Oil on my legs? And moreover, do I want to put anything on my legs that requires alcohol and a scouring pad to remove so my legs won't keep burning in bed? No.

I suspect that knee warmers will suffice on Sunday and may possibly do a better job for me than any goo -- except for maybe Bio-Freeze, which doesn't warm the knees at all but which I'll totally need after the ride.

Today I worked a half-shift, ran some errands on Stompy, and went home. On the way home, I stoppde to pick up a few things at the store for Sweetie. As an experiment, I also picked up a can of Red Bull. I had recently seen a young man audition for a dance-oriented reality show; before his audition he had consumed SIX cans of Red Bull, and he was basically climbing the walls. Okay, so obviously you're not supposed to drink that much at a go; but what would ONE can do for me before riding hard for, oh, 30 to 45 minutes? I decided it couldn't hurt to find out, so I bought a can.

Upon arriving home, I changed into cycling clothes while slowly sipping the contents of the can. Then I rode over to Woodlawn Park to do a final practice run before Sunday. Woodlawn Park is divided into two parts: one part is a smaller greenspace with a sizeable playground and the other part is a much larger, open greenspace that includes a baseball diamond and a tiny stone-step ampitheatre. The grass is laid out with lots of small rises and off-camber riding opportunities, plus one small mud puddle next to the paved path. I proceeded to ride all over the larger half of the park and practiced mounts, dismounts and off-camber stuff and varying speeds. I also took many trips through the tiny mud puddle, my last opportunity to get at least some small feel for riding through mud. Based on my experience today I expect to fall at least once or twice if any section of the course is especially deep with mud. However, I managed to botch only two out of ten mounts, and dialed in all my dismounts; so I feel pretty good.

Two things of note: 1. After twenty minutes I was feeling a little tired and wondering how I would make it through 45 nonstop minutes on Sunday. 2. I kept going and stopped after about thirty minutes of riding. Now, after a shower and fresh clothes, I feel tired but not impossibly worn out. Was it the Red Bull? I don't know. Will I drink some before my race on Sunday? Probably not. The stuff tastes only mildly awful and if it really worked I'd drink it again; but since I can't tell if it actually did anything for me, it's not an experiment worth repeating at this point.

It feels good to be learning a new set of skills on my bicycle. This may be the best result of my foray into 'cross.

It's 4:30 am and I can't sleep, though I would like to. I am thinking and can't shut off my brain.

Yesterday, my pal Joel (See? It's a link! I finally learned how to do one! YAY!) stopped by on his way home from a day of messengering and while I cleaned up the Ordering office to prepare to go home myself, we chatted about the first Cross Crusade race -- this Sunday. We talked about butterflies in the tummy and my fears that I won't be able to last 45 minutes out there, and my worries about being undertrained and underprepared. As ever, Joel was a voice of reason, advising me that:

a. Alpenrose has the largest attendance of any Cross Crusade event -- as the weather turns colder and wetter, fewer people show up to watch and/or to race. So If I can get through Alpenrose I should be fine for the rest of my races.

b. My multi-category womens' field will still be smaller than Joel's Singlespeed category. That's a small comfort since my field will still be three times the size of any field I raced at short-track.

c. I should count on crashing at least once Sunday, in the sharp turn section just before the sick runup behnd the velodrome. Everyone crashes there, Joel said. However, if I watch my speed -- I don't think that's a problem! -- I should be fine.

d. Walking over barriers is perfectly acceptable behavior as long as you don't trip and fall. (You should only trip and fall while running, apparently...)

Joel wondered alound why more women don't race singlespeed; the ratio of men to women in this category is something like 100 to 1. I guessed that it might be a generational thing; most women my age didn't ride BMX as kids, and younger women went straight to mountain bikes with derailleurs. I've only met ONE other woman my age who rode a BMX bike off-road as a girl and enjoyed it. Girls weren't encouraged in the sport, and the few that broke through in the late 70's/early 80's mostly had to race cruiser class. I theorized that this is because by the teen years most girls are too tall (specifically, too long-legged) to fit a 20-inch BMX bike comfortably enough to race; plus those 20-inch bikes require a LOT of upper-body strength to muscle around the berms on a BMX track! That's why most girls raced cruiser class, where the larger bikes allowed them to focus on speed rather than on man-handling. By the mid- to late-80's, BMX had pretty much gone dormant except for the jumping crowd, and I have yet to meet ANY woman who got into the Big Air Scene of that era. BMX has enjoyed a resurgence, and women all around the world are racing those 20-inch bikes in international competition -- but I've noticed they're mostly shorter than me, or at least have shorter legs. (And younger. A whole lot younger. You don't want to be doing that to your knees when you're past age thirty or so...)

That said, I still maintain that I prefer riding my singlespeed bike off-road; shifting in dirt (and mud!) seems fraught with too much risk (either from mis-shifts or via a mechanical) and riding one gear feels delightfully unencumbered. Joel encouraged me to consider moving over to singlespeed class next year. "It's still 45 minutes," he said, "but the overall vibe is SO much more fun, less stressed about winning and just more laid back." I'd be one of maybe two or three women out there and the field would be enormous, but I would no longer have to worry about getting stuck behind someone fumbling for a gear on an incline. And finishing last wouldn't really bother me, either, as long as I could finish. It's a thought.

Meanwhile, I've been doing curls every other night before bedtime, and yesterday I rode my last interval sets for the week. Now it's just a little time at the park to practice mounts/dismounts one more time, eating and sleeping as well as I can (yeah, right!), and hoping I can handle it on Sunday. 45 minutes is an eternity on a bicycle. I hope I can hang on.

It's twenty to five. Back to bed.

Next Monday I will have the honor of being on the radio. And to make it even cooler, I'll be on public radio.

Unfortunately, it's Yom Kippur, so I won't get to hear it live.

If YOU want to hear it in real-time, it's scheduled to air at around a quarter to seven in the morning (6:45 am for those of you who wear only a digital watch), Monday 9/28/09.

Happily, you can find it here:

http://news.opb.org/hardtimesmusic/

OPB Radio decided to use the Stephen Foster song, "Hard Times Come Again No More" as a springboard for discussion about how people are dealing with the hard economic times we're living in. OPB listeners were invited to send in recordings of the song for possible playing on the air, and mine was selected for airing -- on Yom Kippur. That was the point, I was told; because the song was included on my CD of Jewish folk music (see links at right).

The interview lasted about ten minutes, will be pared down to about two (how DO they do that? It's some kind of gift radio people have), and will be available on the Web site next Monday. Enjoy.

*UPDATE -- several of you have emailed to tell me that the link to my interview has yet to appear at OPB's Web site. Yes, I know; these things take time. It may be another week or more before it appears. meanwhile, you can also go to iTunes to listen to stuff from my CD (Search under Beth Hamon and you'll find it).

My PSA for the day (with thanks to the folks at MoveOn.org):



Because, well, um... seriously.