Woo Hoo Hoo Speed: 51.5

Great ride this morning. I'm told that Coxcomb Hill Rd is one of the fastest descents around the Pittsburgh area. The 51.5 my Garmin recorded is certainly as fast as I think I've ever gone anywhere else.

I suppose that means I have bragging rights on this guy:

Yeah, buddy.

HBR Addendum

Some additional notes from the Hilly Billy Roubaix:

• I Frankensteined a crankset from some parts I had laying around. I swapped the 36t ring from my Gossamer 'cross crankset with an extra 34t ring that wasn't being used. The result was a 46/34 coupled with my existing 11-28 cassette. I probably would have been fine with the 36t ring, but the 34t had to have helped at least a little. Having the 46 in front worked out well, too. I was able to make use of it a lot more frequently than I would have expected, but there was never a point where I was out of high gears. It's not like I'd have been going any faster with a 50t big ring, and sticking with the 46 meant that I didn't have to screw around with the front derailleur.

• There were descents where I thought my knees would explode and my hands would fly off of my hoods. I've never done any downhill mountain biking, but I can only imagine what kind of punishment that entails.

• Overall I finished 58th of 116 (not including DNFs). In the Men's Under 40, I was 26th of 50. I could have been 2nd among Clydesdales and 7th in Women's. Just saying.

• My Blue CX6.5 probably weighs five or six pounds less than my Trek Portland. I think that probably helped this year, too.

• The Blue got a bath yesterday. It's squeaky clean again. The only reminders of the HBR are a scuffed shift lever and a little notch taken out of that hood. I picked a line on one rutted road where the rut just ran into my line. Before I could come to a complete and stable stop I fell over. Oh well.

That's all I have for now.

Hilly Billy Roubaix - The "Finished It This Year" Edition

Yesterday was the Hilly Billy Roubaix in Morgantown, WV. It's a 72 mile race on some stupidly nasty "roads" in northern West Virginia. Supposedly they're all recognized by the state as valid roads. I'm not too sure about the creek crossing, though...

I started last year, but threw in the towel at mile 40. At the time, I said there would be no way that I’d race in the 2011 event because it was just silly and I didn’t need to prove anything to myself or anyone else. But then Robbie talked about wanting to try it this year. And he wasn’t sure about how he’d get down there. Who was I to keep him from being able to race? If I could redeem myself for last year’s showing, so much the better.

Here are some things I took with me:

• Camelbak hydration pack with 72oz. bladder (filled with ice and electrolyte water)
• Handpump
• 3 C0₂ canisters
• C0₂ pump
• 2 tubes
• Tire levers
• Multi-tool
• 3 packs of Clif Shot Bloks
• 3 Hammer gels
• 1 Pro Bar
• 1 Clif Bar

Here are the things I used:

• Camelbak hydration pack with 72oz. bladder (filled with ice and electrolyte water)

For various reasons, none of the other items were necessary. From a technical standpoint, I consider myself extremely fortunate to have been able to avoid any kind of mechanical malfunctions. No flats, no broken parts, no nothing. Pretty amazing considering the number of people who flatted after the first hill of any consequence.

By "hill of any consequence", I'm referring to the first descent (of many) comprised of large, loose gravel. This was maybe three or four miles into the race. At that point, I was probably somewhere toward the back of the middle of the pack. I think I passed seven or eight people on the side of the road wrestling tires off of their wheels. I’m not sure if all of these people were running their tires too low or what. My tires (34x700c, incidentally) were at about 55 psi, but it’s probably also important to note that I weigh a little less than 125, so that may have still been more air than I really needed. Either way, I was flat-free on that hill and all of the others. Being a little guy has its advantages sometimes.

In regards to the nutrition situation, there were aid stations every twenty miles, and each one was well-stocked with water, Heed, Hammer gels, Raw bars, bananas, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, cookies, Little Debbies, pretzels and more. 1st class all the way. I never needed to dig in to my own personal stash because JR’s volunteers took such good care of all of the racers.

When I got to the second aid station at mile 40, I still felt great, unlike last year. There are at least two reasons for this:

1. The weather. Last year, temps were in the mid-80’s all day and it was really sunny. Yesterday, highs were somewhere near 70 and it was cloudy the whole time. On a few occasions, rain seemed imminent, but that never happened. It was basically perfect.
2. I’m in much better shape this year than last. I’m already about 1,500 miles above where I was at this time last year. Working from home for my last job was really nice, but I wasn’t able to get time on the bike like I have this year. 22+ miles every day for my commute makes a big difference.

I finished the whole thing in 5:41:39. I’m not sure where that put me in the standings. JR posted the top 20 and No.20 finished in 5:18. It’s conceivable that I might have finished in the top 40, but who knows. I hope that full results are posted later this week. Finishing 40th out of 120+ riders isn’t like winning or anything, but I’d still like to see how I did compared to everyone else.

Will I do it again next year? That’s a good question. Now that I’ve successfully completed it I don’t know if I’ll have as much motivation to consider it. If I thought I had any chance of actually winning (or even placing in the top ten), maybe I’d be more drawn to doing it again, but since there are very few categories (Mens <40, Mens >40, Womens, Single Speed, Clydesdale) that’s not going to happen. When the A, B and C racers are all in the same category, it’s going to take a lot of mechanicals from the top riders to give any of the lesser guys a chance. I say all of this now. I won’t be surprised if I end up doing it anyway.

Regardless of placement, I was really excited to finish and happy to have done so without feeling like I was going to pass out when I crossed the finish line. As much as I tried to convince myself last year that I wouldn’t try the HBR again, I’m glad that I went back and made it all the way through. It was nice to be around for the awards ceremony, and unlike last year, you actually had to finish to get your pint glass. I couldn’t leave without another pint glass.

Before I go, I have to give a huge thanks to JR Petsko, ABRA Racing, and all of the volunteers who helped make the event possible and run so smoothly. The whole course was well marked, volunteers were present at potentially confusing turns and held up car traffic so racers could continue without having to stop, and the aid stations were great.

Love/Hate

Love/Hate: My Nokian Hakkapeliitta W106 studded tyres. Really, it's more like Hate/Love, because they're just so heavy. You put them on, and you know you're not going to go anywhere very quickly. At the same time, your chances of staying upright in crappy weather like today are infinitely better. All of the extra effort you have to put into getting the bike to move isn't wasted when you're going uphill in crappy conditions.

Love: Moose Mitts. I'm rocking the road version on the Portland right now. I can wear PI Cyclones in 20° weather and my hands are toasy warm. Love these things. Seriously.

I guess that's it for now. I love/hate/love winter commuting.

Don't Know What You Got (Till It's Gone)

Where "it" is crappy shifting, the result of dirty old cables and housing on the mountain bike. It had gotten to the point where the chain basically just refused to drop onto the highest gear in the back.

I swapped everything today with a set of Gore's sealed low friction cables and housing. Granted, even a plain old new set of housing would have felt sixty or seventy times better than what I was running, thanks to a long, wet, muddy spring, preceded by a muddy/snowy winter. Those poor cables were definitely ready for retirement.

Installing the Gore system was a little more involved, with the extra steps added for running the liner, but beyond that it was pretty easy. The hardest part was threading the new cable into the rear shifter. I think that was mainly due to the cable being a little stiffer because of the plastic coating surrounding it. I ended up using some wire from a twist-tie to thread the cable through the channel in the shifter and out to the barrel. It took some time to figure out, but it worked pretty well.

Once everything was in place, I started running through all of the gears, and at first I was worried that I had somehow screwed up the shifters because I hardly had to exert any energy at all to shift the rear derailleur. It was ridiculously easy. And smooth. And I could shift up and down through all gears, front and back.

Coming soon: a new (2009 model year) fork!

Fingers: 10. Chainrings: 0.

Having just watched A Sunday In Hell at Morning Glory Coffeehouse, and being a little bored, I decided now was as good a time as any to start converting the Portland from a tripe to a compact double. I've been collecting parts since late last year, and at this point I have almost everything I need.

I decided to start with the biggest piece - the crankset. I was determined not to let any chainrings get the best of me this time out. I put the bike up on the stand and got started. Just like when I switched cranksets on the Bianchi (the stock FSA Gossamer from that bike would be replacing the 105 triple on the Portland), I had Crank Brothers Eggbeater SLs installed.

The one annoying thing about the SLs is that they don't have a wrench face on them, so you're forced to use an allen key to remove them, putting your hand on the inside of the pedal and in direct view of your carnivorous crankset. I wasn't about to rip up any of my fingers tonight, but I had already removed the chain from the bike and there still wasn't a really easy way to get decent leverage on the crankset.

Enter the rubber mallet. I set my Pedro's 8mm Allen Key Pedal Remover into the drive-side crank arm and gave it a decent whack with the mallet. One more time and the pedal loosened. No harm done to the bike, the pedal, or me. All I had to do was repeat the process for the other side and I was out of the woods. I was pretty happy. And relieved.

Now the Gossamer is installed on the Portland and the 105 triple is in a box in the garage. Next up: front and rear derailleurs (again, stock parts from the Bianchi that have since been replaced will allow for the conversion) and new cabling and housing. I've never messed with cabling at all, so that should be interesting. I hope this next phase isn't something that I start and have to let Pro Bikes finish.

Celtic Cross

Celtic Cross was this afternoon on the slag heaps in (slightly outside of?) Frick. Heather came along to cheer for me, which was awfully nice of her, especially considering the great trek from the parking lot next to the Irish Center up to the slag heaps. She was the only spectator with a cowbell, and most of the racers had no idea why she kept ringing it.

Tough course. It was about a mile, with a fair amount of loose gravel, two nasty mud bogs, one set of triple barriers, and a really steep run-up. After the second (and easily more punishing) of the bogs, there was this little hill. I think I might have made it up the hill while still on my bike for the first lap. Maybe the second. After that, I got off and slowly trudged up that crappy little hill, too spent to pedal.

The race was an hour long, and the idea was to finish as many laps as possible within that time. I managed eight, which was more than I thought I'd have been able to do. There was one guy who got eleven, four others with ten, not sure of how many with nine and then eight.

Either way, highlights for me were:

• Not wrecking
  
• Not falling off of the edge of the slag heap in multiple and various places
  
• Grabbing the mud money from whoever it was from Iron City Bikes who was offering it to whoever was willing to grab it. After the race, I dug it out of my back pocket and realized that it was only $1, but hey, a dollar's a dollar, and no one else seemed to want it. I am not a proud person.
  
• Gorgeous weather. They had been calling for rain today, but that didn't even come close to happening. The sun was shining all day long.

Lowlights:

• Losing my bike computer. It popped off somewhere. I tried keeping an eye out for it after I noticed it had gone missing, but no luck. It's gone and now. Bummer. At least I have a dollar to put toward the cost of the new one.

This was only my second cyclocross race, and I think it was probably more physically draining than the Murrysville 'cross race, although I think that may have only been 45 minutes long. I wasn't crazy about all of the loose gravel, especially after wiping out thanks to some cinders a few weeks ago, but as mentioned earlier, I was able to avoid wrecking, even if it meant a certain measure of caution when approaching some sections.

So much mud.