Coach Adam & Evo's Elite Team
One of the things I'm excited about for the coming year is that Adam Coon is coaching me. As Robb Hampton has pointed out to me (when he wasn't calling me out for being a tool) I'm one of those guys that is tough to deal with if I can make it to the end of a race, but particularly on some courses, that is a big ask for me. For instance, I soloed across to the break in the 3/4 race at the Poolesville RR this year, but when there was an attack on the final 'climb' (more of a longish hill), I was dropped. I won Bunny hop the next day so if I had any abilility to climb at all, I would surely have been placed better than the 13th place that I did earn there.
As our national sage Donald Rumsfeld has pointed out, there are known knowns, and unknown knowns, etc. In this vein, Adam Coon (no relation to Mr. Rumsfeld) has agreed to help me work out my blind spots. It isn't so much that I don't know what they are, rather Adam's particular talent is giving me a plan to address them. Then it is up to me to follow the plan and make the gains. So far it seems like it is starting to work. I'm not about to predict a win in next year's Giro di Coppi, but I do think his plan will help me make my transition to cat 2 as successful as my move from 4 to 3 was. That is my goal for 2007.
What would that look like? I had a fistful of podiums including a win last year. I'm going to hold an intention (any Wayne Dyer fans out there?) that I can achieve that kind of success again in 2007. I don't 'expect' this to happen. I'm not saying this from a place of either pride or hope, but I know that I have to set goals to motivate myself to make the sacrifices I need to make to make that possible. If I'm not dangling a race win out in front of myself as a carrot, then I neet to take up competitive chess. There are some local race courses out there that I'm well suited to, and it is possible I could take one of them out. It is up to me to do a great off-season so I can make that happen.
One of my other primary goals is to become an indespensible member of Evolution Cycling's Elite Racing Team. We really really do have one of the best teams in the region. We deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as Rockville Harley/M Street, (maybe) Snow Valley, NCVC, and DC Velo. We've got sprinters like Nima, Todd Hipp, and Nigel. We have breakaway artists Warno and Fuentes. Experienced stalwarts Hijar, O'Malley, McGill and Dickason. I want to learn from these guys and become one of them!
Mike Garcia Wheel
I have enough miles on my new rear wheel to comment on it. It was built up on my
DT 240S hub which I had had for 2 years. First, he was great to email with to figure out the best way to build it up to suit my needs. We ended up using
DT bladed spokes and the same kind of rim that I'd had before, an R1.1
DT rim. 32 holes, 3 cross, black spokes with silver brass fasteners. It was a bit heavier than the previous build but that build wasn't so sturdy. So I wanted something that was still responsive and fun to ride, but that wasn't up on the truing stand every other week.
I mailed him the hub and had the wheel back in 2 or 3 weeks. The wheel was perfectly true and round out of the box. Upon putting it on the bike, I was real impressed by the feel of the wheel on the first ride. It was
impeccably tight feeling. What I mean is that it was stiff without being too stiff. And - this is weird - the wheel felt like it lowered the center of gravity of the bike. It was so non-floppy that the bike handled better. Pretty dang amazing.
After riding a couple hundred miles on it, I decided to try abusing it some to see what would happen. I hopped off a couple curbs, bunny hopped some debris on the road, stuff like that. I managed to loosen up one of the non-drive spokes and put the wheel significantly out of true. But I got home and
retensioned that one spoke, and it went right back into true/round and it has stayed that way ever since. In my
experience this kind of thing is fairly normal with a new wheel as everything settles into place. Most
wheelbuilders will tell you to bring it back after a bit to let them deal with this kind of situation, so it doesn't bother me at all.
I'm impressed with his wheels and when the funds become available I will probably get a low spoke count Mike Garcia
wheelset for my
tt bike, and get him to rebuild the front wheel of the
DT wheelset in a year or so. His website is www.oddsandendos.com if you're interested.
I think with his stuff you get a better deal than on
boutique pre-
builts, you can get them a bit lighter, and they are easier to service. Yet the performance is comprable.
Saturday Ride in SD
Well since I stepped on a piece of glass on Thanksgiving, I decided to forgo the SDBC ride as I didn't want to overdo my foot. I spent all Friday on the couch watching NFL replay and Inside the NFL, also the Floyd interview on Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel. My 2 year old can now say "Touchdown"! And my dad taught him to pound (touch fists). So that meant the Friday plans (go to San Diego harbor to see some ships) were pushed back to Saturday and I wanted to save some energy, so I decided to do 2 hours on the bike.
I rode out past Fairbanks ranch in ritzy Rancho Santa Fe and was pleased to find that where that road used to dead-end, it continued. So I kept on going, enjoying the gentle rise of the road which made it easy to hit the target HR. The road finally T'd so I turned right and I stopped for a nature break. Right after that I saw a group coming down the road so I went and caught up to them. They were some kind of team or something because they were all aboard Bill Holland Titanium bikes, all eight of them. We meandered into Rancho Bernardo as they went exploring for a route that would take them inland and then back down to Point Loma, where they had started. All these roads were new, in perfect shape, and had wide shoulders with bike lanes. I reached my time limit and turned around after chatting with them for a bit. Real nice folks, I'll try to hook up with them again next time I'm out there.
Later I went and saw a Soviet Submarine B 39 I think it was called and the replica Age of Sail British Frigate HMS Rose aka Surprise as seen in Master and Commander, the Far Side of the World. Also we went to the San Diego Maritime musuem which is aboard the old steam ferry Berkeley. Great fun, there was a pirate exhibit aboard the Rose, as well as a modeled lay-out of the Battle of Trafalger, a famous sea battle that featured something like 60 Ships of the Line. The neatest thing was to go into the Captain's cabin. The most spacious room on the ship, it was still only about as 12'x16' or something, and featured two gun ports.
Forecast: Sunny and 70
Greetings from San Diego where the forecast is always sunny and 70. I've been here for about 10 days and it has been that way every day except for the one I arrived, which was foggy and misty. I've done three good rides since I've been here.
The first one had to be after a full day working our convention here. The motivation was that we were having our staff dinner that night. So I wanted to be able to eat guilt free so after I worked 7 to 4 I put on my lights and went out and rode for three hours. I got kind of lost as San Diego is now an unfamiliar place to me and I almost rode onto interstate 8. It was this road that just dumps you onto the freeway with little warning. Then I rode by a Costco and waved to all the people waiting for Playstation 3s, and fortunately I heard no gunfire.
Then I stopped in at the Bicycle Warehouse to pick up a book about riding around here as I've evidently forgotten how. That led me to the ride I did today. Out from my Mom's house in Del Mar, north through Camp Pendleton past many many banners welcoming home Dad, the pleasant smell of Turkey wafting across the road. Quite a barren looking yet living landscape here compared to the East Coast. Far, far less green trees, but the hills are alive, if rather brown.
They have bike lanes everywhere here but although it seems like that should be heaven it isn't. Runners use them. Slower bikes use them. So if you want to keep going you've got to pull into the road to get around. Some guy in his car was less than pleased about this and followed me as I stopped at a bathroom. Anytime anybody starts in by saying "I don't mean to butt (yes, two ts) in, but..." that you are in for a lecture. I'm standing there urinating as he starts in on me. It wasn't long before he started condescending to me, calling me son. The lecture was basically that I have no business being out in the road since there is a bike lane for me and that I'm going to get myself killed. My best retort was when I called him dad after he called me son, and rode off. This turned out to be a questionable decision when he drove about three miles up the coast and cut me off at the pass, trying yet again to pick a fight with me. I told him to go pick on somebody else and just kept riding. Yet again I forgot to take down the plate number until he was gone.
I'll tell you what. You hear that there is all this good juju here in SoCal, that people are so laid back here but they check there mellow at the door here just like they do most places. In fact, the speeds on the roads are so high on the highways that I spend half the time riding the imaginary brake pedal in the passenger seat when we're not sitting in traffic. Anyway I'm sure the cagers here are no meaner to bikies here than anywhere else, so I'm not going to go any further than that, but it is not a mythical paradise. On par the bike lanes are a good thing but they have their dark sides too.
The book also helped inspire a nice ride last Sunday up to Cabrillo national monument. Here is a photo I found on Google that gives you an idea of the great view it affords. You can see downtown San Diego's rapidly changing skyline there on the right, next to the tree in the above picture.
I'll sample the SDBC ride on Saturday. Bet they mark me as a Phred, as I'm riding with hairy legs and on my Dad's circa 1990 Trek 1100. A triple chainwheel. Bar-end shifters: Seven speed Suntour. The cool thing is that I brought my own shoes and pedals, as well as my own saddle. And the bike has a a Look Ergostem - an adjustable stem - so I can get the reach and height right. I'm sure it will be sunny and 70 so the rest is up to me.
Update Schmupdate
I will sit down and do a bit of musing here this weekend.
Topics of interest.
1) November means time to start training again.
2) About to do some travelling
3) The Bike Lane is a great shop
4) Adam Coon is coaching me
5) My wife got a new job and this impacts my cycling in a variety of ways (good ones).
6) Basso signed with Discovery
7) Run Lance run
8) My son turned 2
