Early Bird #4

I was supposed to do the whole Early Bird series this year but for one reason or another, including the coast ride and work, this was the first and last one that I'd get to do.    I rode over with Billy, Jordan and Drew, we added Dylan Casey on the way.  We left Palo Alto around 2:20 PM for the 40 minute ride.

My legs weren't feeling too bad after the Grasshopper but there was certainly a bit of soreness deep inside.

The first few laps were fast enough with the Specialized guys trying to get a group away.   About half way through I made my way to the front and found myself on Dylan's wheel, he looked like he was moving up with a purpose and about 15 seconds later he attacked, I went straight after him and got on his wheel.  About half a lap later we had 5 other guys and were opening up a large gap.  This was looking great!  I did some big efforts and we had a good group rolling through, then something went wrong.  

An argument started between Dylan and a guy on the Safeway team, I have no idea what caused it but most likely it was over how hard Dylan was pulling through and how little work the Safeway guy was doing.  This caused everyone to sit up and our momentum was lost.  About a lap later we were caught.

A few laps later another big Specialized attack went and that was it, there was no way the remaining teams were catching that group of ex/current National and World champions.  From that point on I just sat in and rested.  

With 2 laps to go I moved to the front and found Drew's wheel, Billy was also moving up to have a go in the sprint.  I waited for Drew to launch but he never went so I rolled around him and found some clear ground.  I was close to the front but didn't contest the sprint.  It was a no points EB race and not worth the risk.  I was happy with where I ended up considering how big a weekend it had been.

We rode back to PA in a big group and I got back to my truck just before it got dark.

It was a good finish to a great weekend of racing.   Now it's a rest week and time to recover before the Valley of the Sun Stage race on Feb 9th.  Time for some bike cleaning and ceramic bearing upgrades on my race wheels.

Old Caz Grasshopper

The Old Caz Grasshopper is becoming a bit of a tradition as this is now the 3rd year that I've done the event and it just keeps getting better. I drove up to Occidental with Billy and Cyrus, we left PA around 6:40 AM and after a brief stop we arrived at registration around 7:30. A full hour and a half before go time. We met a few old friends and chatted to the new Sag Monkey guys before getting registered and geared up for the event.

The roll out was at 10:00 and would start with a climb up Bittner Rd to Joy Rd and then onto Coleman Valley road before we got to the dirt descent on Willow Creek.  As we were coming into the base of the first climb Barkow was riding across the yellow line when an oncoming car caused him to swerve back into the group smashing into my left arm and nearly taking down a bunch of riders, fortunately everyone stayed up but this caused a shouting match between Barkow and another guy.

As we hit Coleman Valley Road I lost contact with the lead group, I was in total shock with my heart rate at 190 within 10 minutes of the start without a warmup. Some guys with some major horsepower caused a split in the front group and I was drifting backwards. I just don't seem to have the horsepower to match the big guns early in the race but end up in a much better position once their edge has worn off.

I was now in the 3rd group on the road as we hit the dirt descent but dropped the rest of the bunch fairly quickly. I was catching a rider from the group ahead when he washed out on a bend and went down hard, his bike spinning across the wide fire road in front of me. I managed to avoid the riderless bike by going off the trail a little but that was no problem on a CX bike.

I caught the group in front of me near the bottom of the descent and we all worked together to catch the next group on the road just after the turn onto Hwy 130. The newly formed group was about 25 - 30 strong and working hard to catch the 10 guys who were up the road in the new lead group.

As we worked together we set a good pace on Hwy 130 to Duncan's grade. The start of Duncan's grade is really steep and I hit the bottom of it in the first 10 of our group. On the steeper climb I started gaining ground on the people around me and ended up in the top 5 with a gap opening up behind us. I was feeling good and holding my position even with some little surges. We started the descent and a there was no one behind us, even with the twisty little roads it seems we maintained our gap through the neighborhood onto the next climb.

We started the Old Caz climb and picked up a couple of riders from the front group and how had about 10 people riding together. As we got to the feed station near the top I pulled over to get a bottle but it appeared that someone had taken it. I just dropped my empty and started the chase back to the small group. I caught them just before the descent on the dirt to the creek but was held up behind some slower descenders. By the time I got around them and started to gain ground the rest of the group were out of sight.

I hit the creek crossing alone but could see the rest of the of the group about 20 seconds up the road. I chased them on the climb and the road descent, but didn't end up catching them for another few miles. Once I got up to them we were about 12 people and someone said that there was about 10 up the road in the next group. We started a good rotation with everyone taking part and had a good pace going. No one else was coming up from behind and we had no idea if we were gaining on the next group. We got back out into Hwy 130 and were pulling into a bit of a head wind. I noticed that 1 by 1 the group was getting smaller. By the time we hit the left turn onto the dirt of Willow Creek there were only 7 of us left.

I was rolling through staying in the top half of the group until the road started to go up, it was then I noticed that a gap had opened between 4 of us and the other 3 in the group. We kept it rolling and were now on our own.   At this point I went over a rock or root and I could feel the rear tire bottoming out!!  Then it happened again.   I had a soft rear tire, I'm not sure how long it had been like this but it was defiantly a problem and was getting worse by the minute. My 3 companions started to pull away from me and I decided that it was time to pull over and fix the tire.  Three more guys came past me and commented on my obvious bad luck. To get a flat at this point in the race just sucked. I was in the top 15 with only 3 more miles to go.

The tire wasn't completely flat which meant that it was a slow leak so I decided to just re inflate it with a CO2 and see how far that got me. I started off calmly and began to gain ground on the guys who had just passed me. I'd probably lost around a minute or so.

I passed two of the guys and one of them tried to go with me but only hung on my wheel for about 30 seconds before drifting back. I was alone again and feeling good on this section of the climb. The tire was holding up well so who knows how long it had been going flat.

I got onto the flat section of the climb and was spinning along when I could hear another rider coming up behind me. He was flying and there was no way I was going to stay with him so I let him go.

I could see the finish line ahead of me and it looked like a small crowd at this point. When I crossed the line I asked how many people were ahead of me and they said I'd finished in 11th place!! This was fantastic news, I'd never done that well in a Grasshopper and felt that good. There were a bunch of young kids in front of me and Scott Widoff came in just behind me. Barkow was next at about 5 minutes. We waited a long time for Bill and Peter Durham but they were no where to be seen. Jim and I rolled back to the cars and waited there. Bill came in about 45 minutes later and was hurting but happy he finished. He'd had a great day out. Cyrus was a little later. He'd had problems in the mud on his road tires and road cleats and at one point couldn't even unclip.

Billy Post Race

All in all this was a great day out and super fun fake racing. I felt really good and only lacked a little strength at the start. After that I was doing great and was solid all the way to the end. My whole mantra for the day was spin and save the legs. It worked!

Food for the day:
Breakfast: Two slices of Amicis Pizza - Probably not so good on the first climb
On the Ride: 5 gell packs and two regular bottles of Cytomax.
I could have done with another bottle for the 50 miles but someone took it.

Old Caz 2012 Route Card

Results
http://www.grasshopperadventureseries.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Old-Caz1.pdf

Coast Ride - End of Day 3

The third day was rough in so many ways. It's was an early dark wake up call and the coldest start so far. There was no coffee shop near the hotel so the plan was to have the group roll out into SLO and make a quick stop for breakfast. Hailey and I had already had breakfast in our room so we weren't really interested in stopping. For some reason the rest of the group must have been really desperate for coffee as they rolled out at about 28 mph. At one point it was single file and a couple of guys nearly got guttered into a guardrail, all on the name of getting the morning brew. It was madness.

After breakfast things mellowed for a while but on the ride across the valley floor, on the way to Lompoc, the action really started. There was a tail/cross wind that had the group strung out at 32 mph, people were popping off the back left and right. I managed to keep Hailey in the group with a combination of good drafting, pushing and just plain screaming at her to close the gap. She didn't like the Ast art very much.

This may have been the fastest she had ever been in a group and when things slowed down for a quick bottle refill she had a stunned look on her face. After the bottle stop things only got harder. The road started to roll and the wind turned to more of a cross wind until we turned on Vandenburg Airforce Base, where the road started to go up hill and almost directly into the wind.

At this point I was still in the lead group and giving Hailey healthy pushes to keep her in contact, but all this took its toll on my legs. As the road started to go up for the first big climb of the day I popped off the back and ended up rolling the next 15 miles into the lunch stop with just 2 other guys. My legs were toast. I'd done a lot of pushing and riding into the wind and used way more energy than I should have, especially after all the work I did on the previous day.

At the lunch stop I followed Drew's lead and headed straight to Wendy's for some fries and a drink. I needed something to refuel me as we were only half way through the day and still had another big climb to ahead of us. Hailey rolled in about 10 minutes back and immediately hit the little Thai restaurant for some curry. I couldn't believe she decided to eat a curry in the middle of a 125 mile ride. She insisted it was the right decision and I was certain that she would puke half way up the next climb. Unfortunately I wouldn't get to see it happen.

We rolled out to the climb at a moderate pace and I was making sure Hailey was tucked well out of the wind, when my good buddy Silent Jim Barkow (SLJB) got a flat rear tire. It's was about a mile from the start of the climb and just as things were about to get exiting.

I stopped to help Jim and it took about 7 minutes to change the tube and check that nothing was still stuck in the tire. We got back on the road and started the long chase back to the group. We passed a lot of people with Jim pulling like a train at the front. I didn't actually do any work in the wind for about 10 miles until we hit Highway 101 South. At is point Jim was tired enough that I was actually able to pull through and give him a little break. Up until that point there was nothing I could o but slow him down.

We were intent on chasing back to the group regardless of the cost on our legs. We were flying past small groups of riders and eventually came up behind Hailey and my good friend Mike Foley. I yelled Hi Babe as we stormed by but apparently she didn't hear me as I got an ear full back at the hotel about how rude I was for not saying anything.

Unfortunately we never made it back to the group, I have no idea how far ahead they were at the end as I had to pull off the main route to go to the airport and pick up the rental car we needed to get home.

I met up with Hailey and Drew at the finish hotel and we wasted no time loading the enormous Nissan Armada with our bikes and gear then set off in search of food. We found a great taco shop about 100 yards up the road and loaded up for the 5 hour drive back home.

We were home by 8:30 PM having clocked up about 375 miles in 3 days.

Food for the day:
Breakfast: Banana, packet of almond butter, pecan pie.
Ride: 2 tortillas, 3 Honey Stingers, Large Wendy's Fries, 2 curried potatoes from Haileys lunch.

Location:Home in Bed

Coast Ride - End of Day 2

We started the day just as it was getting light, we'd had a good breakfast and had dressed warmly for the cold start.





The ride rolled out at a fairly mellow pace, there were a couple of short, sharp climbs to get the legs warmed up but nothing too bad.



Things broke up a little on the way to Big Sur with a fairly large group still together over the initial smaller climbs to the first rest stop. I rolled into the rest stop with the lead group and we quickly refilled our bottles. The scenery had been fantastic and there was more great riding to come.



As we left Big Sur we started the climb with a fast group of about 20 people. Hailey and her friends Beth and Katya started to drift back and eventually started to drop off the back. I started pushing Hailey to keep her in touch with Beth but we were losing ground.



Jim Barkow was with me for a while but had to leave and bridge up to the group to avoid getting left behind on the descent.



We started the descent and I picked up Beth and Katya and started another long bridge back to the group. We flew down the descents and I tried to keep things rolling on the smaller uphills. We rolled up on two other riders but it seems that they were tired and sat on while I pulled for a while.



After about 20 - 30 minutes I could see the group about a minute ahead of us on a short climb. We didn't catch them on this climb but after bombing another descent we could see we had halved the gap at the start of the next climb.



I led the group half way up the climb until most of us were in easy striking distance of the back of the lead group. Everyone made it on except Hailey who had been dropped off the back again with the acceleration to bridge up.



I drifted back to help her again and gave her another push up the next climb and on the next descent. As the road flattened out we made it onto the back of the group to cheers from Drew and Barkow. We stayed in this group to the next rest stop at Lucia.



After the stop at Lucia the group was in a different mood with attacks and hard riding on all the climbs. The group was whittled down to about 15 guys and they were obviously looking for Strava points. On a number of occasions a couple of guys would roll off the front only to be brought back by a hard tempo on the next climb. I was hanging with the lead group, suffering but not in trouble until we reached the top of what was to be the last climb of the day. I fell off the back of the lead group of about 10 guys by about 20 yards. I pushed on the descent but could only maintain, not close the gap. I was in luck though as in another 1/4 mile we hit the lunch stop at Ragged Point.



We were 80 miles into the ride and the last 20 had been hard. Getting Hailey and her friends back to the group had cost me more than I thought and I hadn't had the energy to close the gaps on the final climb. I probably needed something easier than a 23 tooth cog on the back too.



Team DODOcase at lunch.







The girls left the lunch stop about 10 minutes ahead of us thinking we would easily catch them during the remaining 45 miles of the day. We had a small group on the road and after about 25 miles we still hadn't caught up with the girls, but we were caught from behind by a large and fast moving group. We eventually caught the girls and had about 30 people now and we were flying.



The last 15 miles flew by as we rolled into Morrow Bay with a total of 125 miles and about 8000 feet of climbing. Once we'd found the hotel we didn't even check in, Hailey and I went straight to the convenience store and bought protein shakes, then hit the Taco shop across the street for some fantastic tacos and chips which we demolished in short order.









After that it was back to the hotel for a shower and a nap. The only thing I wanted to get up for was more food.











Food for the day.

Breakfast: Egg sandwich, cinabun and OJ

Ride: 2 Tortillas, 2 Honey Stingers, Bag of Lays chips, handful of French Fries, 4 bottles and one Curly Whirly from the UK.

Location:Days Inn Main Street Morro Bay

Coast Ride - End of Day 1

What a great day of riding. A fast 126 mile blast straight down the coast with only a slight headwind to hold us back.We stopped just north of Santa Cruz for lunch with a lead group of about 20 people. I was in this group earlier but dropped back to see Hailey as we went down into Pacifica. We both ended up in the 3rd group on the road and about 2 minutes back on the leaders as we came into the main town of Pacifica. At this point I told Hailey that we needed to move up. I took the lead and we started the 15 minute bridge up to the next group. I dropped Hailey off into the 2nd group on the road with her friends Beth and Kataya right at the bottom of the climb up to Devils Slide, and then proceeded to try and bridge the gap to the front group. Both Drew and Barkow were in this group. They had about a minute lead and after a while the only other guy trying to bridge up was a friend of Drew's named Jonathan. I could see them a few hundred yards ahead. As we crested the top of the hill they still had 10 - 20 seconds and it felt like Jonathan was easing up. At that point I decided it was now or never and hit the descent hard, using the "caravan" of cars lined up behind the lead group to help me bridge the gap. As the road flattened out at the bottom of the descent I made it onto the back of the group but Jonathan was nowhere to be seen. If I'd had waited any longer it would have been a rough case back on the flat that wouldn't have been good for the legs.

Jonathan eventually caught back on about 20 miles later with a bunch of the Fusion team. I apologized for leaving him on the descent.Here is Hailey taking a lunch break with chips and a coke as usual. She was a little frazzled when she arrived but recovered quickly ready for the second half of the day. I guess the coke really works.














Barkow, Hailey and I at the lunch stop. Love the DODOcase kit today.After lunch we took a little detour through Santa Cruz on what Drew liked to call the scenic route. It took us past all the great surf spots but added about 6 miles and a whole bunch of time. The main group was going straight through town. When we got back onto the main route we came out right behind Hailey and 3 of her girlfriends. We ended up riding the rest of the way with them, protecting them from the headwinds as we crossed the open fields of the Monterey Peninsula. The last 20 miles were windy and not very interesting.

As soon as we arrived in Seaside Hailey and I took a quick shower and went straight out to find a protein shake and some instant food. We found Muscle Milk at Safeway (love our new sponsor) and I then went straight to Burger King for a chicken sandwich and some very salty fries. I even came away with some extra salt for later.There was a package waiting for us at the hotel from 3GO Magazine full of a bunch of new products for Hailey to test, including a really nice Rudy Project helmet and sunglasses as well as a bunch of clothing and food stuff. Its all really nice gear but there in nowhere for us to put it right now. We're going to have to borrow an extra bag from someone.About an hour later we went out for dinner again with the Barkow's and Drew to the Chilie's that was right behind the hotel. Exactly what we needed.Sunday, day 2, is probably going to be the biggest day, there are a few climbs and not much flat riding on the way to Morrow Bay. It'll be another 125 miles.Now we're relaxing back at the hotel. The bikes are all cleaned, chains are lubed and ready for the road tomorrow. I also inspected all the tires for cuts and embedded glass but they all look good right now. I took some time to enter the VOS stage race this evening so it's official, I'm racing in AZ in February.



Ride food for the day:

Breakfast - Assiago Bagel with cream cheese and a banana

On the ride - 4 Totillas, 4 Honey Stingers, chocolate bar, 1 packet of Almond Butter. 1 bag of chips for lunch.

Location:Monterey Peninsula Recreational Trail,Monterey,United States

Coast Ride Night Before

It's the night before the start of The Coast Ride and everything is set up and ready to go. We're riding from San Francisco to Santa Barbara mostly via Hwy 1 along the Pacific Coast. This will be 389 miles in 3 days with two separate groups taking the same route, one of about 70 people and the other with about 50 people. I've ridden a large chunk of the route before, mostly what we'll do in the first 2 days then I'll be in unknown territory for the roll into Santa Barbara. The whole thing should be captured on iStrava but I'm not sure there'll be an opportunity to download anything until we get back. We're having to pack light as we're only allowed one small bag for the sag wagon. I'll be posting a link to the route later. We have an 8:00 rollout from the GG Bridge so we'll be up early for breakfast.

Location:Golden Gate Ave,San Francisco,United States

French Ridge

A New Years Day climb up to French Ridge from the Tallman Hotel. Spectacular but a little rough for the cross bike. Tried to get to the Crabtree Hot Springs but needed at least another hour for the out and back from the top of the Ridge. Probably better with a Mountain Bike from the trailhead. Still a good 40 miles from the hotel.