bikelovejones

This was taken by fellow racer "Rich" at last Sunday's race, used here with permission:





Yes, it really was this hard. And this steep. And by the time this photo was snapped, I was about 3/4 of the way through the course, in pain and out of breath. I cannot believe I DNF'd. I cannot believe I completed a full lap. I cannot believe I want to go out and do it again this weekend.

A new mantra, as suggested by a reader of my blog:

I can do anything for 45 minutes.
I can do anything for 45 minutes.
I can do anything for 45 minutes.

It's a lot to paint on my handlebar, but it's not bad.

I am told that the Barton Park course is more technical than PIR, and the mud should be a little less peanut-buttery, more watery. There is talk of a "monster" run-up and some "dangerous" off-camber single-track. I will walk, but not pre-ride, sections of the course on Sunday. I have learned that too much pre-riding kills me for the racing, and also lessens the do-or-die attitude that I have found necessary to get through a race.

Today, some pootling time on the bike this afternoon over at Woodlawn Park.
Tomorrow, a "rest" day spent off the bike. Saturday, a light morning spin around the neighborhood. This is the last race of the Cross Crusade series and I would like to finish. I don't care what place, just finishing will make me happy. I am sure other, stronger racers have nobler goals but there's mine and I'm sticking to it.

Today I stopped being a racer, and became a racer-shaped object.

I rested well Friday night, which is what I wanted for a Sunday race. I ate decently and had no serious IBD-related issues. I went to the race early, wearing additional clothing to stay warm while I cheered on friends. When it was time to warm up I stripped off the street knickers and applied a second coating of embrocation (and enjoyed helping three other racers, including two who were visiting from Team Beer-Sacramento, learn how to embrocate as well). I made sure to stop eating solid food around two hours before my race, and had a final drink and bathroom stop well before call-ups. I walked sections of the course, noting that the mud would be come good and soupy by the time three hundred people had ridden and run through it (and that was before the womens' race). I took an easy, long warm-up, first stretching and then doing moderate laps in the start area and around the backside to the first run-up. I did only a couple of "hot" laps, and followed up with some more gentle stretching before waiting to be called up. Call-ups for the women took a long time. After series leaders in each category were called up, The rest of the women were called up by random ending number, and that put me squarely in the middle of the Beginner's pack. I worried that I would knock someone down if we got too close to each other and slipped in the mud.

In the moments before we were sent off, the clouds blew by quickly and the sky darkened dramatically. The rain, which had held off since my arrival earlier that day, began in earnest. A collective groan arose from the hundreds of women before we were sent off by category.

The rain did not help. Neither did the fact that, as soon as I'd stopped warming up and waited around for call-ups, I got cold in a hurry. (Note to self: next time, get a really cheap jacket at Goodwill and bring to call-ups. Try to toss it far away just before my race starts. If I can't find it afterwards, well, it came from Goodwill.)

I managed to stay upright through the early, slippery paved parts of the course. When we got to the mud, it bogged down quickly, and things began to go downhill. I was already fighting my head, trying to stay focused on my mantra ("Keep Going", painted on my handlebar) and struggling to maintain the upper hand. Riding through the mud took so much effort that I was spent before I'd gone a third of the way around the course. And it was a long course, the longest of the entire series, at over 2.5 miles a lap. I came to the first run-up (shown, here, during a previous heat before the mud really began to degrade):





It is actually steeper than it looks, nearly as steep as the run-up at Alpenrose and another half-length longer. By the time the women were racing the mud had turned to grease. I went down on my knees twice on the way up, and the second time I nearly toppled off to the side because my bike had accumulated about thirty pounds of mud since the start. (This is why the pros have two bikes, and trained helpers to clean and hand off each in turn.)

I made it to the top, and I began to hate racing. I carried on, not out of some noble triumph of spirit but because I was freezing cold and moving helped me to stay almost warm.

I slogged my way around and down the backside of the hill, to another short incline that I was able to ride up -- thick, goopy mud is where I definitely felt some kind of advantage with my slightly wider tires and no worries of a derailleur to break. Then it went from bad to worse. Every turn was sickly, dangerously off-camber and slick as goose-shit (actually, there WAS goose-shit scattered around the fields). Occasionally, there were watery bogs so deep that my rims would disappear. Racers on older road bikes converted for 'cross were in trouble here, because their bottom brackets would actually submerge below the water-line. My higher bottom bracket cleared the water, but it was really hard to keep my momentum going, even with the relatively easy gear I'd selected (32 x 19). At one point, my legs began to burn so badly that I stopped pedaling to coast -- and immediately came to a halt in calf-high water. My foot went down, and the shock of cold water seeping into my shoe sent my resolve tumbling. Still, I kept going; I sure as hell didn't want to stop in a foot of standing water.

The mudfest continued and became simply impossible. I kept fighting the mud on more off-camber corners, trying hard not to go down with my bike. At length, I had to stop trying to pedal, get off and walk the bike through the mud -- lifting and running with it wasn't going to happen at this point. I breathed a sigh of relief when I finally made it back to something resembling pavement, only to see the next run-up:





At this point I knew that I would not, could not, finish the race, and that all I could manage was to tough it out for one full lap. I nearly cried as I dismounted and dragged my sorry ass up the hill and over each barrier. Banana slugs could have lapped me by then. I made it to the top, fell down on another off-camber corner slick as snot, and winced when I got back up; my "trick" right knee was complaining, and loudly. That was it. I was done. I crawled across the finish line, pulled off the course as far as I could, and signaled to the official "D-N-F", spelling out each letter in sign language to make my point. I didn't know which I felt more -- disgusted with myself for quitting, or wrung out from the utter stupidity of the effort. Either way, I felt like crap.

I was cold and wet and grumpy. I retrieved my things; pulled off my sopping VB jersey and slipped on a dry wool one; pulled my street knickers on over my wet cycling togs; said my goodbyes at the Team beer tent and threaded my squishy-footed way through the maze of tents and booths to the exit. On the way, I decided to stop for a waffle; if I couldn't handle beer (and I couldn't just then, because my stomach wasn't feeling so great), at least I could eat something warm and toasty. It helped a little. If I wasn't in such a foul mood, I might have stayed for the Singlespeed CX World Championships, which were due to start in about an hour; but Sweetie had gotten us theater tickets and I needed to get home so I'd have enough time to shower, change and rest a little before we went out. Plus, I was really cold and wet and wasn't in the mood to stick around anyway.

I got home and discovered that Sweetie wasn't feeling well herself; we made plans to trade the tickets for another night and stayed home. It's just as well. Tonight I am bone-tired, my joints are achy from the cold and I am feeling truly beat-up by a stupidly impossible course on a cold, very soggy day. I hope I will feel a little better tomorrow after a good night's sleep.

Next week I am scheduled to race the final Cross Crusade race at Barton Park, assuming I can get a ride there and back. I am hoping that I will want to by the time next Sunday comes around.

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.