"Nothing sexier than a Schleck chest"

Those are not my sentiments, but the tongue-in-cheek comment by my friend Jenn, as we watched the flapping open jerseys of the "men" in the peloton in their vain attempts to adjust to the 37 C (100F in old money as Phil would say) temps in Spain. Just a plane ride and 24 hours earlier they were coursing through a typhoon of leftover Belgian Spring Classic weather and praying to remain upright in a stage that saw repeated crashes and one final catastrophe that made NASCAR look childish; and one fatal to poor Chris Horner's hope of simply finshing the bloody season upright - truly Chris, my heart and all the Curad Hold Tite I have go out to you. (Maybe it's just the Astana curse?)

(Speaking of crashing - if you want a nice look inside the pros-eye-view check out David Millar's recap of the crash stained run-in to Liege, over on CyclingNews The insider's guide to crashes)

But back to those Schleck chests. For the brothers Andy and Frank, and many others in the peloton, those gaping jerseys revealed how long the season has been - you could nearly grate parmessean on those ribs they're so pronounced - for some of these guys the season has been a very long one. During a break in Universal Sports' coverage (mucho gracias) I departed to esponge a bit more of the flu breaking up in my chest, when I looked in the mirror and thought, yes, I am pretty skinny, how do those guys survive this late in the season?

I've been sick for a week now, part of the slow fight and delayed recovery is I have no reserves, so I ask, how do those guys survive this late in the season? Worst, today I had to admit there will be no Everest Challenge for me in 2009 - it really sucks! I was really psyched for this one - no race for a victory podium - just looking forward to a wonderful two days of suffering on high eastern Sierra mountain passes with a bunch of like-minded small gear pain junkies.

The long-season snaked its way through the peloton again today; we saw it in Tyler Farrar's legs, or lack of them, come the final 100 meters. Maybe you can say the Vacansoleil beast Bozic is just a fine sprinter, no doubt, but faster than Farrar? Okay, I'll admit I'm a touch of a homer here, the kid does come from just up the road in Wenatchee, WA, but still, c'mon? Columbia HTC has won 74 races this season and I'd venture to guess whether it was Cavendish, Greipel, Henderson or Renshaw, it was also Garmin's Farrar just behind one of them; sooner or later the body says uncle.

This week mine said uncle and I don't put it through a fraction of what these guys do (of course they could be my kids). It's time to embrace the coming fall, cooler mornings have arrived, and enjoy long lazy 100 mile rides with no finishlines, cut-off times, feedzone fights, or eating food you can't remember what it tatsted like. And finally time to gain back a couple pounds and think about cross season. Ah, pubs, cafes and baguettes! To Andy and Frank, enjoy the Vuelta and remember the Worlds are only a few weeks away, after wards you too will then be back to pubs, cafes and baguettes. And that brings me full circle - there's just "Nothing sexier than a Schleck chest"

Summer Sick Sucks!

Ya know, few things suck more than being sick on a gorgeous sunny, 82 degree, last Sunday in August in the Pacific Northwest. I mean we ride all stink'n winter long in rain and low 40's just for these days - days you roll off the porch for every ride; days when your kit is as near nothing as possible: shorts, jersey, socks, shoes and helmet; days when motorists are low stressed enough to actually concede you part of the road; days when morning rides finish at the cafe or afternoon rides at the pub.

Woke up in the middle of the night to a throat that felt like it had a five-alarm blaze going off in it, fever and the fear that this was going to mess up a week of training for the Everest Challenge. Was really looking forward to a couple wonderful lazy hours on the bike Sunday - nada.

After spending the morning catching up on sleep robbed night, turning down an afternoon ride with Hammer and trying to sooth a throat en fuego, I decided to rob a few issues from my winter reading stash - issues of and articles from Rouleur and Cycle Sport horded away for those crap winter days when a 90 min. ride on the fixie is all your extremities can bear, dark falls at 4:30 and you're rationing your pub nights to save your pocketbook and liver.

So I find myself reading articles about the Spring Classic in the cold and wet of Belgium - the Hell of the North, the pain of 25% on the final climb of the Mur de Huy - somehow it mitigates the insult of all this sunshine pouring down from a perfect azure sky.

But then all that blue sky reminds me of those chopper shots of the coast travelling along the Ligurian Sea en route to San Remo in la classica di Primavera, Milan-San Remo, and a realize on a sunny Sunday in August - Sick Sucks!

Taking it all too seriously

The last couple of weeks on the bike have been nutso - all getting way too serious. I realized that this morning. Maybe that's the price you pay towards the end of your first year of racing; hours in the saddle, too much time at threshold (kinda like hanging at 13,000+ ft too long), screwed up diet (i.e. elephantine amounts of GU and Heed) and then all that lactic acid seeps up, up into your brain, where it feeds cyclodragons, that rear their 53-toothed heads and lash out. Maybe that's why its best to do this racing thing when you are 17 or 22. I mean at that ripe old age most of the people around you are just as screwed up as you are so probably don't notice whatta total dumbshit you are being or don't really give-a-shit because they are equally in the mental dumper too. At the Masters 45+ age taking yourself that seriously and starting to let it enter all the other aspects of your life - relationships, friendships, health - is just frigg'n stupid. Ah, but recognizing it? Not so easy with cyclodragon roaring about breathing fire and torching everyone you care about.

That doesn't mean I love racing less or need to be less competitive - just need to look at the Jens Voigt socks more often and say to myself, "Vroom Vroom Vroom" and smile.

I don't regularly quote others blogs, after all the idea of a blog to some degree is to write your own crap, not spread everyone else's, but I bumped into "Jim" of The Unholy Rouleur when I was trying to understand the upcoming cross season from the eyes of crossers - and to make sense of Judd's bubbling-over-5-year-old-excitement about the first cross crusade race of the season Oct 4 here in Pdx. I'm trying to make sense of it because I'm planning on giving it a whack and see what all this mud and beer is about - and maybe just that - mud and beer - and that's why it's so fun? Anyway, the the following struck me for multiple reasons, but the most important was it reminded me the past couple weeks were starting to get "wayyyyy to serious" and with the upcoming Everest Challenge it was time to regain my sanity before I go to California and annihilate myself on some slope of the high Sierras.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Crash Like a Child

"Beppo said something really interesting to me riding back from 'cross practice today: "Cross is nice and different because it's about the only thing you can do on a bike where you're riding along and you crash and then you sit there laughing."

That's true. There's something nice and child-like about cross. We take to it in innocence, like a 5 year-old wants to race everywhere. You don't need to have a reason for it, you just do it. It's fun to do it. So you act like a kid and that's just what you do.

I'm thinking about this today because maybe we cyclists are about to dick up cross like we've dicked up mountain biking and dicked up road riding and maybe track and just riding to work.

At times, we take ourselves wayyyy too seriously. "

Click on the title if you want to read the rest - it's a nice reminder to stay connected to the fun-factor in what we do. Maybe even draw on my French lessons and read it outloud so the words stick with you a little longer and seed themselves under that bike helmet for a later date when they need to be called upon.

From Sunrise to Paradise

Over the past few years I have been lucky enough to ride each September in the mountains of Europe; I love climbing the serpentine one-lane roads in the Alps, Pyrenees, Dolomites. Part of the reason is simply we don't have them in North America. Ya, we have mountains, but, as I explained to a Frenchman once while riding in the Pyrenees when asked "don't you have mountains like these" gesturing at the craggy summits between the Tourmalet and the Col d'Aspin. "Yes," I said, "but we don't pave every squiggly little goat path crossing over their tops."

Well, this weekend I road one of the few places in North America that can hint at those roads - the climbs in Mt. Rainier National Park. There are four that can be nicely knitted together to form a great day in the saddle and a wonderful "stretch of the legs": Cayuse Pass 4,694 feet (1,430 m), Chinook Pass 5,430 (1,655 m), Sunrise summit 6,400 feet (1,950 m), it is the highest point in the park that is accessible by road bike and Paradise pass 5,400 feet (1,600 m) on the south slope. I needed some long climbs in my legs in prep for the upcoming Everest Challenge, down in the central Sierra Nevada mountains. While Rainier's summits and passes won't be collapsing my lungs at 4-6,000 feet, the climbs are plenty long - Stevens Canyon entrance to Paradise is a leggy 23 miles and 2,500 feet of vertical.

It was perfect weather on the mountain for cycling/climbing, low 70's and as you can see from the photo above taken at the summit of Chinook Pass, looking across Tipsoo Lake to the dome of Mt Rainier (14,410 ft), it's days like this that make all those base miles in the cold spring rain worth it.

The beauty of this ride in August and September is while its hot in the valleys if it's at all decent on the mountain it is great cycling/climbing temperature. And just like its Europe cousins, this little four pass route leaves you either climbing or descending - forget about anything flat - the only thing absent are the pain au chocolates.

We generally have our grand depart from Stevens Canyon via Hwy 12 east from I-5 (from Portland about 2.5-3 hrs drive). Just before the National Park entrance are a few wide pull-offs to park, or at the Ohanapecosh campground day use parking - you still have to pay $5 to enter the park with a bike, but saves paying $15 for the car.

From Stevens Canyon it's south to Sunrise summit via Cayuse Pass, with a right detour up the extra 800 feet to Chinook Pass and spectacular views across the canyon to Mt Rainier and south to the jagged spine of Goat Rocks Wilderness. It's a great little extension and you really get a "top-of-the-world" feeling. The return back to Cayuse again congers memories of Alpian Col descents, including little 18 inch high stone guard rails "protecting" you from the several hundred foot plummets should you over shoot a corner.

The descent continues to the entrance of Sunrise where you flash your park receipt (or pay for the first time) and after a couple miles through the forest along the closest thing to a flat road on this ride, you cross over the White River and begin in earnest the wonderful zigzagging climb to Sunrise visitor center (water available) at over 6,400 feet. This is a great climb! It's an up and back, with a descent that's worth a bit of caution on weekend - lots of Detroitasauruses that rarely see hills apparently.

From there it was back up over Cayuse Pass, another 1,200 ft of climbing, and the 10+ miles drop back to the Park entrance at Stevens Canyon (water available) and the ascent to Paradise. Usually this is a wonderful climb, late day sun, and open southern vistas the entire last 10-12 miles, but among other things this day I forgot to eat regularly and was having serious energy issues - not a good climb for that. After Box Canyon half way up the climb a headwind added insult to low energy and I was out of the saddle every few minutes and doing everything to maintain 10 mph.

Despite the desperate call to the "engine room" for more power (apparently no one was home) on that final climb it was a spectacular day and ride like few you will find on this "side of the pond".

For maps, pictures and more details on this ride check out September's Ride of the Month over on Bicycling Northwest. Also, if you want the official Mt Rainier event ride version check out RAMROD.