Dear Cyclocross,
Our time together is up for now. You’re going to go hang out in Europe for a few weeks, and it’s time for me to catch up on all the other things I’ve ignored while you’ve been in town. Maybe I’ll hear from you, but I won’t really see you again until next fall. Before you go, I want to let you know how much I’m looking forward to that.
Oh, I know I’m not your favorite. Obviously you like plenty of other guys better, and sometimes you act like you hate me. That’s probably never going to change, and yeah, it makes me a little bit jealous. I don’t care. When I’m with you, all my other cares disappear. You consume me, and I like it.
You’re probably not all that good for me. My wife sure wasn’t happy when she found out about you! And it seems like you go out of your way to hurt me. Every time I see you, I go home bruised and aching. A couple of times, you hurt me so bad that I couldn’t walk straight. That’s not really a sign of a healthy relationship, is it? Some people would call it abuse.
Despite all that, I can’t bear the thought of giving you up. I’ll be thinking of you while you’re gone. While you’re off doing whatever you do, I’ll spend some time with your sister Road – hey, we never said we’d be exclusive – and, when I’m desperate, I’ll call your ugly cousin, Trainer. Lots of things can happen in nine months, but I hope I’ll get to see you again next fall. Maybe, if I try hard, you’ll learn to like me a little better next time.

Well, maybe not quite that bad. I should give myself a little room; I did no cross races in 2008, only one in 2007 and a grand total of three in 2006, my first season ever. I didn’t expect to move to the head of the race this year, and sure enough I haven’t. In fact, I have yet to find my way to the top half of the pack.
My season so far:
9/20/2009 – A beautiful early fall day at Sucker Brook’s fast course. 59th of 82 in the Cat 4 field. Felt optimistic after finishing my first cross race in 2 years.
10/3/2009 – DNS at Gloucester, due to a major calf strain sustained earlier that week when trying to practice dismounts. Seriously, I couldn’t walk straight. I’m 0 for 2 in even finding my way to the start at the New England World Championships.
10/10/2009 – 45th of 51 at Providence, Cat 4 35+, after dropping my chain on the first lap. Even without that, the technical course presented a big challenge for me.
10/18/2009 – 38th of 51 in the Cat 4 field on a crazy day at Wrentham. Cold rain, mud city and a poor equipment choice caused me to lose all braking force about halfway through the race.
10/31/2009 – 36 of 38 with the Masters 35s at Canton. Good news: race venue just down the street from home. Bad news: racing with really fast dudes. Crashing on the first lap didn’t help.
11/21/2009 – DNF, as I fell victim to the Ruts of Doom in Lowell. I managed to get around all the technical features for three laps, then blew up my front tire and ate dirt on a straight but soft stretch of trail. In my own defense, I wasn’t the only guy who had problems there. Really a shame, as I was running pretty well.
On the bright side, my skills have come a long way. I drilled my remounts until the stutter-step disappeared and I burned circles in the grass while practicing my low-speed cornering. Mostly-decent weather and a nearby park have given me more quality practice opportunities than I’ve found in previous years. All of which has raised my skill level from nonexistent to way below average. And I’ve been fortunate to do more races this year than all previous years combined, despite injury and a small mountian of more productive options for my free time.
I will likely always suck at this, to a great extent. I was not born to be a bike racer, and like the dancing bear, the miracle is that I can do it at all, never mind do it well. But when I roll to the line, clip in and hear “racers, 30 seconds to start,” I get to shrink my world to just the course in front of me, and try to suck a little less on this lap. I might improve, or I might not, but the only way to find out is to go do it.

My 2nd attempt at the Mt. Washington hillclimb, held yesterday, didn’t go as well as the first. I had worked up about the same level of fitness as last year, but my weight didn’t quite get down to the 68 Kg/150lb mark that I reached in 2008. I made up for some of that with a lighter bike (which I should write about sometime), with slightly lower gearing. I again went with the tiny 22-tooth chainring up front, but decided on a lower 13-29 cassette, with an eye toward keeping my cadence up. When training on our local hill, I noticed that I could put out more power over a 5-6 minute interval if I could keep my cadence at about 90 RPM, compared to grinding up the hill at 70-80 RPM. I felt pretty well-prepared going into the week before the race, until I started showing cold symptoms on Wednesday.
I spend most of Wednesday moping around the house with Andrew, who also stayed home sick. I had a little nasal congestion but mostly, I just felt weak and worthless. I perked up a bit on Thursday and Friday but I don’t think I quite reached 100% by Saturday.
The promised hot, sunny and humid weather materialized for the race. Not a trace of cloud in the sky, and not a breath of wind below treeline. Summit temps hovered in the high 50s, with winds around 20 mph. That’s absolutely perfect for racing, but we had to climb through three miles of stagnant air to get there.
I warmed up with my buddy Andy and took my place with the Top Notch wave. The Top Notch consists of pros, cat 1 or 2 racers, and anybody else who finished last year’s race in less than 1 hour, 20 minutes. That’s how I managed to work my way into such rarefied company. I chatted briefly with Tom Keane, a racer from the Crack O’Dawn club whom I met at the Okemo hillclimb a couple of months ago. I just barely nipped Tom at the line at Okemo, and he and I had similar finishing times at Mt Washington last year. He wrote his mile-marker splits on the back of his race number, hoping to push himself a little harder along the way. I had considered doing the same, but figured I couldn’t handle the panic if I found myself off-schedule at the first mile marker, so I left the back of my race number blank.
The canon boomed to send us up the mountain, and I entered the pain cave, trying to find that place where I can maintain maximal effort for upwards of an hour, without overdoing it and causing myself to have to back off and recover. I knew that practically everybody in my starting wave would go faster than I would, so I let everybody go and sought out my own pace. By mile three, I knew things weren’t going too well. I felt encased in a bubble of my own waste heat, and had to back off briefly at one point when I started gagging a bit. That quickly passed, and I found some relief once we crossed the treeline and the breeze started blowing.
I spent most of the latter half of the race swapping places with Nicole Marcoe and an NEBC rider that I didn’t recognize. We hit the six-mile marker in about 1:02, which I knew was about three minutes slower than last year. At that point I knew I would be close to a Top Notch finish, so I buried myself and lost the NEBC rider, but Nicole started putting distance on me. My left calf cramped around mile 7, and I used an uncomfortable toes-down pedaling style on my left side to keep going.
I hit the final ramp and saw Elise, Andrew and Maggie standing on a rock to cheer me on. I had virtually nothing left, but came around the final bend to see the clock tick over 1:20 while I was still a few yards short of the line. I hope the kids didn’t hear what I yelled as I crossed the line in 1:20:16. I try not take bike racing too seriously, but that was a heartbreaker.
In retrospect, the lower gearing probably wasn’t a good idea. I spent a lot of time in the 22×29 and 22×26, and even though my cadence was higher I wasn’t putting out the same power. Preliminary post-race analysis of the data shows that I didn’t lose time in any particular area; I was pretty consistently slower in every sector. Maybe the cold took the edge off my fitness, maybe the heat got to me, or maybe I just didn’t have it this year. I’ll never know for sure, but I’m going to do my best to make sure I’m better prepared in 2010.

So runs the title of the blog entry over on fatcyclist.com announcing the death of Susan Nelson from metastatic breast cancer. Elden “Fatty” Nelson is Susan’s husband. They have four children. Though I never met Susan, Elden’s gut-wrenchingly honest depiction of her struggle against cancer brought me close enough to care quite a bit.
Elden and I have a tiny bit of history; way back in 2006, when Susan’s cancer was in remission and the Fat Cyclist blog was mostly about Elden’s two-wheeled adventures, he helped me reach my fundraising minimum for the Pan-Mass Challenge. That’s the generous, slightly impulsive guy he is. Since then he’s taken up his own cancer fundraising, and created the most successful team ever for the Lance Armstrong Foundation LIVESTRONG rides. That’s the motivated, highly organized guy he is.
I realize people die from cancer every day. Heck, people die from all sorts of things every day. But cancer took Susan away from her family far before her time should have come. Thanks to Elden’s writing, we have a solid reminder of why it’s so important to do what we can to help others. Our individual efforts may not seem like much, but taken in whole, they can move the world.
Thank you Susan, and thank you Elden.

For the fourth consecutive year, I’m riding the Pan-Mass Challenge to raise money for cancer research and treatment at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute here in Boston. When the calendar rolls over to August, you’ll find me in Sturbridge, awaiting the start of the two-day, 192-mile ride to Provincetown. I’m looking forward to it. Many people tell me that they think the ride sounds like a lot of hard work…but they’re wrong. The ride is my reward. The fundraising feels like work.
But, you can help me with that! I have raised only about $1100 of my $7000 goal. The uncertainty we all feel about our financial situation has, I think, put new limits on charitable giving. I can certainly understand that, but it’s not going to stop me from trying. While many causes qualify as worthy, I can tell you with certainty that PMC makes good use of all donations. For the last couple of years, every cent raised by riders has been given to Dana-Farber. We riders and other corporate sponsors bear the cost of the ride and the organization that makes it happen, and we’re proud and happy to do so. My affiliation with the Pedals for Pediatrics team means that all money you donate will go to pediatric-oriented projects. We team members decide how to allocate donations, and you can bet we’re careful about it.
As usual, the easiest way to donate is via >my page on the PMC website. Thanks for your support!
I’ll leave you with a thank-you video produced by some of the people who benefited from your generosity in 2008. This is not a tear-jerker, and I think it’s worth 8 minutes and 43 seconds of your time. Thanks for reading, and thanks for your support.

The Rock Racing Stars and Stripes jersey. Their regular team kit is atrocious enough. Astana took some serious liberty with the concept, and Michael Ball and company don’t exactly have a reputation for respecting tradition. Whatever they come up with will no doubt be double-coyote, eye-bleach, Acqua e Sapone circa 2002 ugly.
With any luck, the sartorial controversy will drown out any lingering discussion over Tyler’s cleanliness, or lack thereof. The Pate’s quote in the article above don’t give me much hope, though.

I have a strong suspicion that approximately 2.5 people read this blog on a regular basis. And, of those 2.5 people, I’ve probably already mentioned PMC to at least 1.5 of them. The other guy, well, I managed to convert him into a rider this year – Hi Tim! – which is cool, but, so much for that donation this year.
So, in the interest of leaving no stone unturned, here’s the pitch: This August 2nd and 3rd, I’m riding in the Pan-Mass Challenge to raise money for cancer research and treatment at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. It’s a two-day, 192-mile bike ride from Sturbridge in central MA to Provincetown, at the tip of Cape Cod. It’s also the biggest bike fundraiser of all time. Last year, some 5000 riders raised $33 million.
You can probably see where I’m going with this. I plan (or perhaps aspire would be more appropriate) to raise $7000 this year. I’m a little more than halfway there, so I need your help. Please donate to support my ride. Any – and I do mean any – amount will make a difference. Oh, and since you probably know Tim, too (in fact, there’s a 40% chance you are Tim), please go donate to him, too. In fact, donate to him first.
Now that’s nice and flip, and I will admit that I have an absolutely awesome time on the ride. But the reason for the ride is deadly serious. DFCI treats thousands of adult and pediatric patients every year. Sometimes, there’s a cure, but many patients aren’t so lucky. Two years ago, right after I finished my first PMC, a six-month-old boy named Cian was diagnosed with neuroblastoma. He received treatment at DFCI, but died less than two months later. I have lots of reasons to ride PMC, but Cian’s memory remains my biggest motivator. Maybe someday families won’t have to undergo the torment of losing an infant to cancer, and PMC will be a victory parade instead of a fundraiser. Until then, once a year I’m going to ask you for a donation.
One more thing: this year I’m riding with team Pedals for Pediatrics. 100% of the dollars you donate will go to support pediatric treatment at Dana-Farber. Dr. Sam Blackman, the team’s founder, expressed his oncologist’s realism and scientist’s optimism in an excellent speech a few weeks ago. If you have 20 minutes or so, I highly recommend you read the transcript.
As always, thanks for reading, and thanks for supporting PMC.

The year so far has been a good one on a number of fronts, and I’m happy to report that riding is among them. Since I resumed training in January I’ve managed to shed a few pounds – the thought of having to haul any excess weight up Mt. Washington in August has proved to be a powerful motivator – and I’ve been putting up numbers in training that put my about where I was in March of 2006. However, until today I didn’t really have any idea how I was really doing. Though I was eager to show off the new team kit emblazoned with the logo from our new sponsor, Harpoon Brewery, the sleet-turning-to-snow kept me from going down for the first Charge Pond race last weekend. Ah, Spring in New England.
Today’s forecast proved to be a bit more favorable, with nothing more than temps in the 30s and a stiff breeze to contend with, so I loaded up with a few of my teammates and went down to try out my legs. 50 or 60 other folks toed the line for the B race. Charge Pond is a training race, meaning that it is a fairly low-key event, offering no prizes to speak of and placings only to the top 5 or so. However, the “real” races don’t get going until next weekend, so it draws a good crowd. The course is a 2 Km clockwise loop in a state park, offering passable (if deteriorating) pavement, one short hill and one 90-degree corner. We rolled out at 10am sharp.
I started mid-pack but worked my way up to the front 10 or so after a couple laps. I had resolved to ride aggressively, and soon got a chance to cover a breakaway. I chased off the front of the group to bridge to two other riders that had a small gap, and we worked together for most of a lap before the bunch brought us back. I stayed near the front and might have covered a couple other small moves (funny how details fade so quickly under the pressure of heavy aerobic exercise), but was getting nowhere fast. I faded back to mid-pack to recover a bit.
About 15 or 20 minutes into the race I moved toward the front again, just in time to see my teammate Ari take a flyer off the front. I had momentum so I kept going and jumped to get on his wheel. He dragged me up to 2 other riders, and we maybe had 10 seconds on the main group. I cashed in a few chips to make that move, and I wasn’t worth much when we finally caught up. I pulled through a couple times, but the bunch swallowed us up again in a lap or so.
Our teammate JP was in position to make a counter-move as we came back, and he and 2 other riders got a gap. Ari and I were still more-or-less on the front; we stayed there and soft-pedaled as JP and his new friends went up the road. I expected some of the other teams to make a move, but nobody did. They let us sit on the front and control the pace while the gap widened. Eventually a couple guys woke up, but the damage was done.
A couple laps later I came around the corner and sprinted up the hill. It’s not much of a hill, but in a crit like this I have to apply max watts for a few seconds to maintain position. It also comes immediately after a fast downhill corner. I mention this to underscore the fact that at this point on the course, the race does a really good job of absorbing all my available brainpower. Anyway, I take the corner and sprint up the hill and as I’m sprinting, I notice a guy wearing my team jersey standing on the side of the road, fiddling with his bike. As we flashed by, I saw his sunglasses and the logo on his tights and felt a thought forming at the limits of my thoroughly lactated brain: hey, that looks like JP!
At that point, the only thing I was sure of was that my situational awareness was dangling around my ankles. One of the basic rules of bike racing is that when you have a teammate in a break, you never, ever do any work to catch that break. If there’s a group up the road, you’re coming to the end of the race and you don’t have a teammate in that break, you work just as hard as you can to bring them back. So we have a break up the road, but is my guy still in it? Dunno. By the time we came back around, whoever he was, was gone. So was that JP, and did he make it back in the race, and where is he now? Should I push the pace or sit in? I couldn’t answer any of those.
I decided to hang out in the bunch. We had about 15 minutes left in the race, our sprinter Ari was maintaining good position in the bunch and looked like his legs were pretty fresh. I stayed on or near the front until we heard the bell for 1 lap to go. We took our final sprint up the hill, and a lane opened up for me to get all the way to the front. I don’t have much of a sprint, and I didn’t have the legs to get away, but I figured I might have enough juice to set Ari up to take the bunch sprint. As I went by him, I managed to gasp out “let’s go!” Of course, everybody heard that, but only one other guy managed to get behind me before he muscled his way over to me and latched on. I continued to the front and drilled it as hard as I could – which admittedly was not very hard! I was pooped. With about 500m to go, I pulled off and watched Ari keep going. The guy we had sandwiched was nice enough to finish my leadout, and Ari took the bunch sprint.
I managed to really goof myself after pulling off. Because it’s a training race, lapped riders can rejoin the field but shouldn’t contest the finish. We roared down the final hill and caught a few lapped riders, who were in the middle of the road and not going so fast. I was moving backward in the bunch anyways, but I did get caught behind a couple of lapped riders and didn’t dare pull out beside them for fear of running into somebody else winding up for a sprint. So I took my lumps and finished well back.
After the race, I caught up with JP who related his story. He was working hard with two very strong riders in the break, and somehow his rear dérailleur jammed while going up the hill. His rear wheel locked and he skidded to a stop. He managed to clear it and jumped back in the race before the main group came around again, then caught up with the break. That’s some impressive riding! Crits have a free lap rule for mechanicals, so he finished third. Ari got 5th, and we’re not sure where #4 came from. I suspect that maybe the officials miscounted a lapped rider, but it’s entirely possible that I missed another guy who rolled off the front at some point.
Even though I feel like I should have done better in the finale, I’m pretty happy with our outcome. Putting two teammates in the top 5 is pretty cool, and I like to think that I did some useful work in helping JP get away and setting Ari up for his sprint. It sure did feel good to stomp the pedals in anger; it’s been a long winter, and last year wasn’t very satisfying from a riding point of view. Historically I’ve done fairly well in training races but not so well in the real thing, but I hope I can turn that around this year. We’ll find out in a few weeks!

Of course, now that things seem to be relatively settled, I had to go rock the boat. Last Friday I woke up a bit early, fired up the computer and signed up for the Mt. Washington Auto Road Bicycle Hillclimb, to be held on 16 August 2008. This is a very popular race; registration filled in less than 30 minutes this year. Mt. W is known to have the “world’s worst weather,” which merely compounds the challenge of riding 7.6 miles up a road with a 12% average grade. In fact, last year’s race was canceled due to 70 mph winds and driving rain at the summit. Yum.
And I know exactly why I signed up, too. I hate heights. I tend to climb OK in training but not so well in races. There’s only one way to know if I can overcome those weaknesses and make it to the top.
In the few days since I registered, I played around with the various online calculators to try to get an idea of what my finishing time might be. Given reasonable inputs for weight and power, I’m coming within a few minutes of a “top notch” finish. So, now I have a more concrete goal – get my bike and my butt up the mountain in 1:20:00 (an average speed of about 5.7 mph). That’s going to require some weight loss, some hard training, and some good old fashioned luck. I’m borderline obsessed with that number now, because I’m not sure I can do it.
Come August, I’ll find out.

I was saddened today to learn of the death of Sheldon Brown; husband, father, musician, and quite probably the most accomplished bike geek ever to pedal the earth. He has suffered from multiple sclerosis since the fall of 2006, but apparently succumbed last night to an acute myocardial infarction.
Though I could not find evidence of them via Google’s archive (which only goes back to 1996), I recall reading Sheldon’s usenet posts as far back as 1990 or 1991. Though the signal-to-noise ratio of the rec.bicycles.* newsgroups varied over the years, his contributions never wavered from the clear, informative and amusing, particularly his April Fool’s Day posts. As long as I have been interested in the technical arcana of cycling, he has been a leading resource. He leaves behind a true encyclopedia of bicycles at www.sheldonbrown.com. I consider it the best general-purpose bike website in existence, and I’d venture to say that’s a widely held opinion among bike nerds. He did it out of his love for bicycles, and in that is a true role model for “giving back” to a community of like-minded folks.
Though he was a manager at the relatively local Harris Cyclery (and, I assume, the prime mover behind their considerable Internet business), I only had the pleasure of meeting him once. Like so many others, I know him primarily through his writing. But I’d like to think that he’d appreciate this quote from Robert Heinlein’s Time Enough for Love:

Whatever God there be, please take care of this fine person. He always did his best.

Farewell, Captain Bike.