Tour the Gila pt 1

So I’ve been slacking a little bit on the race reports. Two weeks ago I did the Old Pueblo Grand Prix. A cool little crit in downtown Tucson, one of the best promoted races I’ve done so far in Arizona. Not to mention there was $12,000 of prize money, unfortunately I had some repertory infection acting up and was feeling pretty shitty. I managed to hang on for 12th in a pretty uneventful race, so I’ll just leave you with some videos of the gnarly crashing going on in the races.

Last weekend was the Focus Crit in Phoenix. It was a pretty typical AZ crit, abandoned office park with pristine concrete.

It was super windy so the small race totally exploded. The highlight of my race was when I was caught between the breakaway and what was left of the field and the announcer said he’d give me $50 if I caught the breakaway in 5 laps…I did it in 2. I took the field sprint in the end for 2nd place.

On to the Gila!
The Landis-Trek team based out of Phoenix asked me to guest ride for them after one of their riders crashed pretty bad last week. I was originally just going to go out and ride solo for Panther but riding for the Landis guys has been a huge help in terms of support. Having people in the feed zone on a 94 mile day is priceless, not to mention a ride back from that same 94 mile point to point race is a big help as well.

We just finished up our second day of the Tour of the Gila. Yesterday was the 94 mile stage to Mogollian (ghost town). The race was pretty flat and tame for the first 88 miles. There was a few field splits going on caused by some pretty sudden gusts of cross winds, although nothing compared to what it sounded like last year. I got caught on the wrong side of the second field split the second time round and we formed an echelon to chase. I narrowly avoided a big crash in our echelon that was probably a result of people riding cross eyed. Our group caught back on pretty quickly and it was back in the pack till the finish. There were a few pretty nasty isolated crashes going into the finishing climb, but luckily nothing that happened in front of me.

With 6 miles to go we made a right turn and it was all uphill to the finish. There was a mile of short steep (10% climbing) followed by a pretty shallow plateau. I stayed in contact with the main group through the first steep section then got dropped as we crested onto the shallow plateau. There was a mile of false flat where we almost caught back on then it was straight up the last 3 miles to the finish. I just rode my own race from there on out to roll in a little over 4 minutes off the winner: Paco Mancebo from RealCyclist.

A quick word about altitude: it sucks. Its effects might be slightly exacerbated by being a little sick, but racing at 7000 ft is damn hard. You don’t notice it just walking around or sitting in a field that’s just cruising along, but as soon as I hit any climbs and go into the red zone there is no recovery for me. My heart rate is no where near what it normally is, I can put in about 5 minutes of hard effort then blow sky high.

And that’s exactly what happened in Stage 2. The second stage, called the “Inner Loop” made a 80 mile circuit around the Gila Forest. The tough thing about this stage is that at mile 6 there is a Sprint point, followed immediately by climbing/rolling terrain up to a KOM point, followed immediately by the most technical descent of the race. So the race starts out more like a Crit than anything else. My legs felt like crap as soon as I woke up so I knew it was going to be a fun day.

I made it through the first bit of the climb but couldn’t recover enough on the smallish descent before the final push to Palos Altos (KOM). I got gapped out with a bunch of other riders. Fortunately we were able to chase back on through the very technical descent off the Wolf Mesa. The descent itself wasn’t very technical, just a few tight steep switchbacks, but my group was doing most of it through the caravan of cars, which meant we had about the width of a bike path to work with on the descent.

We caught back on at the bottom of the descent, but someone forgot how to corner and opened up a large gap on like 20 guys that had to be closed again. Finally around mile 38 we caught back on. Fortunately, after a pretty gradual climb up to the continental divide it was all downhill to the finish. Unfortunately there was one last KOM climb before the finish at mile 62. If it was just one 2 mile stretch of climbing I’d be ok, but the climb went up 2 miles, then descended a mile, then went up another few miles to the KOM point, before rolling back into town.

I was hanging on to the coat tails of the group, but holding on none the less, until a Rio Grande guy sitting in front of me swung right abruptly and took out my front wheel. Luckily we were only doing about 10 mph and I managed to unclip and keep from crashing, but the group was long gone by that point. I rolled in the last 10 miles of the race solo in the caravan, which I still have not been able to figure out the protocol of how to ride in. Can I draft the cars when I get dropped, which side of the road am I supposed to ride on when I’m passing them, when their passing me, and most importantly can I draft the cars when I get dropped.

However hardest race of the day goes to Ben Damhoff, who double flatted before the first climb (@ mile 7) and had to chase the entire 80 mile race to catch back on. He got his TT practice in today so the 16 mile TT tomorrow should seem like a piece of cake.

All I can say is that I can’t wait for the crit, and to get down to sea level.

I don’t even want to talk about Sunday yet.

It's official I'm officially really joining the Real Ass World

Yup, you have heard me right. Yes way, Hell has frozen over, Pigs are in orbit, It has happened in a Million years, I now officially have a job.

Alright so this has been in the works for some time now, and I've pretty much told everybody by now except for maybe my blog which was feeling a little left out (I've been seeing other blogs). I was in Greenville, SC for an on site interview last January, but a little over a week ago I got all the papers signed and payroll stuff taken care of. I will be moving to Greenville, SC and starting the job May 16th.

These coming weeks will be the criss cross tour of America for me. This Tuesday we leave Tucson for good and head to Silver City, NM for the SRAM Tour of the Gila. After 5 days of the toughest stage racing in America, it's clear across the country for another week long race series SpeedWeek (which I hear is like Superweek, but faster and with more crashes, if that's at all possible). SpeedWeek is pretty central to the Greenville area, and since most of the crits are twilight or night time crits, I'll be able to do some apartment hunting during the days. Little do they know it yet but I'll also be recruiting the people I'm staying with there to help me move in, haha. After SpeedWeek is over on Sunday, it's back to Indiana to drop off Joey, then back up to Michigan for a week. I'll get all my crap packed up there, hit up the Tour of Washtenaw (followed by a shower and some traditional send off Coney Island), then head back down to Greenville for good. All in all this trip will constitute 3,500 miles of driving and cross 13 states at least once.

Don't be fooled, this is an actual job, not the kind of job I'm used to. A full time job where you get there at 9 am and leave at 5 pm (that's 8 whole hours!)

Let me point out some other important differences between this job and job's I've had in the past.

Past Jobs New Job

Attire Greased clothing Polos

Tasks Fixing bikes Building Jet Engines

Schedule Whenever you 9 - 5

wana come in man

Vacation Just let us know a 2 weeks, give a week of notice

day ahead of time

Benefits Discounted Bike Parts Dental

Salary Bike Parts Wheelbarrows of scrillas

(compared to my current income of $0 a month)

A lot of people worry how a full time job will affect their cycling performance. I'm pretty sure I'll be able to keep things balanced.

So I'll be trading in my Canyon for something a little more my new speed. If anyone wants a sweet bike and set of zipps just let me know, I'll take a trade for some pocket protectors or ties (only with sweet graphics like pianos or cartoon characters).

Ok, so that's a slight exaggeration (not about the pocket protectors and ties though). I'm still going to race. A whole new region of racing awaits my domination. Not to mention that Greenville, SC is the home of American superstar cyclist George Hincapie, so I'm sure we'll be training together all the time.

Even better is that I'll be down there just in time for Pro US Nationals (in Greenville). I'll be able to do some serious spectating (beer drinking) and cheering (screaming jiberish while running next to the pack up hill with my shirt, and possibly pants, off).

However if any Pro teams out there need a guest rider I know a guy who's willing to give up all that weekend of drinking and yelling at you to race with you! I'm even a cheap date since I'll be living in Greenville, and you can even stay at my apartment for free (unless you're Bissell, then you have to vacuum my floors).

To be serious for a moment. I have been working at the whole cycling thing for a while, and it seems like while things aren't quite stalled yet, it's pretty hard to make it as a amateur level cyclist. Trust me when I say I spent some time hemming and hawing about whether or not to take the job. I love spending my summers couch surfing and waking up every day with a McDonalds Big Breakfast before getting kitted up to bump shoulders at the day's crit. This isn't going to end by any stretch, I just won't be able to spend weeks on end doing Superweek crits in Milwaulkee. The fact of the matter is once September hits what would I do? (Not Cyclocross) I could have headed back to graduate school at either USC or Huntsville Alabama, but this job is pretty much as ideal in every way as I can imagine. It's in a great location, it's doing something that not only I studied in school but want to focus on, and it's a small company which is something I'm pretty keen on (even though I've only had one real engineering job). The benefits kinda sorta greatly outweigh the negatives of not being able to race my bike all summer long.

My one major regret is that I won't be able to race as much with my team as I'd like to. With the bulk of the Panther team in Indiana and Michigan, it'll be tough to make it to the big team races, but I'll put in the effort. Fortunately though, Greenville is really well located for a bunch of big races. Speedweek obviously, but Elite Nationals are only an hour and a half away now. Plus a few of the late season NRC Crits are in pretty easy striking distance as well.

Eh we'll see how it goes, and I'll try to keep the blog updated through out the whole next month of madness.

Kitted out like a Boss

In the process of the past few weeks we've received nearly all our equipment for the upcoming season from Panther pb Competitive Cyclist. So it's time for another in depth analysis of our equipment.

Alright so the in-depth analysis will not poses the same depth as last years article, mainly because there is no major classic on the horizon. You see, since being out west I've turned into a regular Lance Armstrong GC rider after winning the prestigious Colossal Cave Stage Race. After a grueling 2 days of racing on Go-Kart tracks and windswept roads of Tucson, I feel transformed. Fueled by my diet of only carrots and celery, I've dropped my weight and body fat to about 1% and feel ready to tackle more stage races:

Anyway I'm getting off topic. Back to the not so in-depth analysis, which is not entirely true. There is one aspect of my new Canyon bike that I've contemplated for some time...What is this hole for? (a question I commonly ask)

Here's the bike in it's glorious entirety. Notice if you will that you've probably never seen a Canyon bike before in America unless it was under Panther rider. There is good reason for this, Canyon's aren't sold in America. You can't get one, don't even try. Just gaze at it's awesomeness in incredible envy:

Alright you might be able to get one through Competitive Cyclist, but only if you're really cool.

Weighing in at a blistering 15.08 lbs, which is probably 23.5 kg based on my calculations for all you Euro's out there, this bike is nice, I mean really nice. I'm not going to lie it's probably by far the best bike the world in it's short 10,000 year history has ever created It's supple on the order of feeling like you always have a rear flat tire thanks to the hair thin seat stays, and super stiff up front thanks to the ridiculously large downtube, and 1.5 - 1.25 in steerer tube. Yes the increased diameter of the steerer tube makes the front end incredibly stiff, it also makes it impossible to find a stem with a 1.25 diameter. Don't worry the correct size stem is on it's way direct from Germany, in the meantime I was able to fab my own stem out of a Specialized stem with some of the tastiest shims ever made.

With all these design changed made to the bike I was pretty curious why they didn't go with the BB30 in the BB department.

My own theory is that Omega Pharma Lotto (one of the only other teams cool enough to ride Canyon's) rides Crapangolo, who doesn't yet make a BB30. Don't worry they will, resistance is futile. Don't worry any stiffness lost on this inferior BB deisng is more than made up by the bling-ing Zipp bottle cages, who's bling-ness is shown by my own gang sign:

Another feature you may or may not have noticed on our bike is a brand of wheels that I have smashed several times on this blog(with the notable exception of the 2009 season for some odd reason). However, again for some unexplainable reason, Zipp has totally redeemed itself to me. We've been supplied with the new 404 Firecrest rim shape for this season. But for reals, Zipp did something that the whole bike industry should have done long ago: use some computational fluid dynamics to figure out what's the best rim shape (OMG NO WAAAY). The results are pretty legit, and wheels have performed pretty well in the cross winds so far...I mean I DID win the Colossal Cave Stage Race on the Zipps.

But it still has dimples.

We also received our kits finally which look, I'm going to warn you, pretty sexy.

Yeah I'm pretty dorky, but lets be honest, the only way it could be sexier is if it involved some sort of bear rug:

Unfortunately the whole bear rug wouldn't interface too well with a bike saddle I don't think.

Colossal Cave Stage Race and Hiking

Last week Joey and I hiked to the highest peak in southern Arizona: Mt. Wrightson. Mt. Wrightson formed at least 10,000 years ago as part of the Santa Rita mountain chain when the dinosaurs decided to build a big mountain so they could see the Sea of Cortez without having to walk 200 miles. Although back then it was the Sea of our Conquering Warlord Littlefoot.

But really it was a volcano or something like that back in the day. Anyway we decided to do this hike on our 'easy' day, however it turns out a 5 hour hike up to 10,000 feet isn't too easy. The trail started out pretty sheltered at 5,400 feet hiking through the big Pondorosa Pine forest, then it cleared out for final few miles into pretty open rock faces scared by a forest fire.

The trail was wickedly steep for nearly all of it's 5 miles. It only leveled out at two saddles that connected a few of the peaks.

It was a pretty cool hike getting to the top. Once at the top there was a whole congregation of people chilling, we sat down with our Subway BLT and had lunch and talked to some of the other hikers. One of the guys was really, I mean really into watching the crows flying around the mountaintop (not making any of this up)

"Man it's like watching an airshow up here."

"What I wouldn't give to trade places with a Crow for half an hour."

"Look Bill, I found two more flying around"

I told him about some sparrows I saw flying around horseshoe bend and his head just about exploded.

"What? Sparrows! Bill this kid said he saw Sparrows, that's awesome"

Joey had to show some skin for all the nice retired ladies on the trail.

Anyway since Redlands was all filled up and too good for the Trek-Landis team I stayed local and did the Colossal Cave Stage Race here in Tucson. Pretty much your typical 2 day three stage race. TT Saturday morning, which I sucked it up in as ususal, Go-Kart track crit Sunday afternoon. Then 80 mile RR Sunday. The only downside was there were only 12 guys registered to race.

The upside was I won 2/3 races plus the overall. In the Go-Kart track crit I broke away and soloed for most of the race by out-cornering the field.

By Sunday I was one point out of the overall. I attacked a few times but mostly spent the race chasing down the other two guys in the top three. By the end of the race only three of us were left at the front of the race after 3 hours of some pretty brutal 20 mph winds. It came down to a sprint where I edged out Nick from Landis (who was leading in the points by 2) by just a wheel length. It was the first ride on all the new equipment: Zipp Wheels and Canyon bike. It all performed really well and I'm looking forward to putting it to some good use in bigger races.

Tour of Arizona

Psyche! There isn't one.

But since I'm on perpetual vacation here in Arizona I decided last week to road trip around and see the rest of the wonderful state before I leave. I was sure Arizona had a lot more to offer than just desert and cacti.

My childhood friend Lizzy came to visit form Michigan and also wanted to see the wonders of amAZing Arizona. We were slightly let down in the fact that Arizona is pretty much all desert. We started on Monday heading up through Pheonix then East to Tortilla Flats through some pretty awesome park area.

We were unfortunately driving through the single rainy day in Arizona history which made Superstition Mountain look like Sauron's castle, it's just missing the giant flaming eye.

After a brief stop to admire a ghost town/tourist trap, we headed out east on the ApacheTrail

It was a beautiful area, and the road was awesome, definitely worth a trip back to hit up on a road bike. Then the road turned to dirt for a full 22 miles. I was pretty skeptical of my own cars abilities at first but after seeing a few retiree's in their boat sized caddies' going the opposite direction...well I couldn't be shown up by the elderly.

So for about an hour I was tearing up the road rally car style, and by tearing up the road I mean babying my car along the super rough road at a blistering 20 mph. It was quite the scenic drive, including a stretch of super rough one lane road called Fish Creek Hill which used to be a dirt race course, some plaque they had said only like 20 people died racing up it. That's pretty weak if you ask me, if you're not crashing you're not going fast enough.

Anyway after a pretty laborious hour of driving we finally made it to the Rosevelt Dam! Wohoo!

That night we made it all the way to the Wigwam motel in Holbrook, AZ.

Yes finally I fulfilled my lifelong dream of living in a tepee. Given these tepee's were made of concrete and had cable television, I'm still counting it as my Native American experience. Actually my Native American experience was just beginning as pretty much the entirety of the next two days were spent in the Navajo nation. But before the whole Navajo bit, we went to the petrified national forest.

Let me tell you my thoughts on the petrified national forest: it sucks. Really don't bother going out of your way, even the 30 mile drive through the park was too much for me. It's pretty much just boring grassland with some old logs scattered around. Plus if all you want to do is see some petrified wood, any gift shop within a half hour has plenty of petrified wood made into cheesy folk art for $1000 or more.

So after that disappointing experience I had high hopes for our next stop Canyon de Chelly which was supposed to be a beautiful canyon with a lot of Navajo ruins, AND was the place where the last Navajo that hadn't surrendered to America were slaughtered (history is fun!).

The canyon was actually really beautiful, and there was a cool hike that we did down into the canyon to check out some of the Navajo ruins. We also experienced some of our first Indiana culture, which is pretty much selling as much crap to tourists as possible. Canyon de Chelly is one of the few national parks owned by the Indians, so the base of the canyon is actually private land. This means that pretty much EVERYWHERE in the Navajo nation parks there will be people set up with folding tables selling Indian crafts.

They even have Indian sweatshops where they force ancient Indian Grandma's to make rugs all day

Ok so it's not a sweatshop, but a rug of this size will cost upward of $2000. And for good reason, after watching her for a few minutes I got the impression that this is incredibly complicated to do these rugs by hand and take a long time.

Anyway on to the next attraction...well we didn't make it to the next attraction that day. So we stopped and got some Indian food: Fry Bread. Fry bread I guess is just dough deep fried in lard, which is delicious. Lizzy is below demonstrating the proper way to eat Fry Bread: soak it in Honey

And also a Navajo taco, which is nothing like a taco, just fry bread with a bunch of taco ingredients on top.

Monument Valley was the next stop. I tried hitting up some MTB'ing but since it's all Navajo land there aren't any trails anywhere in the park (which is all private land again).

What no trails?

Pretty beautiful

This is where Eminem grew up, and he was Navajo in case you didn't know.

Yeah had to shoot some banditos off a ridge, no big deal. Thanks to my trusty steed "Lightning" at 28 years of age, he can still get me to the action.

After all this we went to the Glen Canyon Dam:

Dam!

Then it was off to horseshoe bend, a really awesome section of the river that is a half mile from the highway.

Then we went to the Grand Canyon...which had snow. Wait I thought this was the desert what the hell is snow doing here.

The Grand Canyon had some interesting ads running on their buses, but they know best so I've been trying to follow their advice as best as possible since I got back.

After the Grand Canyon we drove back down through Flagstaff, then Sedona, then back through Phoenix to Tucson on Thursday.

The next day we went to the San Xavier mission, which was way cooler than the Petrified National Forest.

Come to think of it every park I've ever been to is way cooler than the Petrified National Forest.

So the moral of the whole trip I guess is don't go to the Petrified National Forest.

I learned a lot.