Stan

Early last year Bp, Reed, Stan Crane and I went on a training trip to St. George. We put in some big miles on the Mesa near Hurricane and the next day rode the area around the St. George race course. The whole trip was filled with laughing and chit-chat about everything, but especially bike racing. Stan was getting serious -- devotedly following a training schedule, reading books on training, even switching to soy milk because Carmichael said it was healthier. He legs were trunks and his fitness was looking good.

A couple weeks later Stan was dead.

It wasn't anything he did or didn't do. He was born with a time-bomb that could tick so many times and then bang -- wife alone, boys with no dad. Lots of people get this same treatment due to unfortunate choices they or someone else makes, but in his case it was the mistake of a little segment of DNA encoding some protein a little wrong even before he was exactly a person yet -- the product of an imperfect world. Or something like that.

I don't think Stan looks back on his life and remembers cycling first and foremost as there were several other, higher priorities. He was a man that knew his priorities. Nonetheless, I'm sure he appreciates the fact that today, on Memorial day, we raced the Stan Crane Memorial race in Draper, in view of his final resting place.

His family was there, his best friends were there, and who knows? Maybe he was too. I like to think so.

You might be a cyclist if...

(Sorry for not attributing whoever put this graph together. I don't know who it was.)

Since people ask...

(f). Expert: A mountain bike racing category where racing skills, strength and stamina have reached an exceptional level; racing is very competitive
(g). Semi-Pro: A mountain bike racing category that allows riders to fine tune their racing stamina and technical skills before entering the Professional ranks.
(h). Pro: the highest category for both men and women in mountain bike racing. All MTB PRO racers must purchase an International License.

Comments welcome :)

Soldier Hollow

In 2003, I almost quit MTB racing at Soldier Hollow.

I had spent the previous year finishing well, but never really able to compete with Ian Harvey or Todd Henneman. At the end of the `03 season I decided I was going to step it up a level and hire a coach so I could race at the front.

My coach put me on a steady diet of high-intensity intervals on the Computrainer, starting in about February. I should have given him more feedback, but didn't and I was quickly over-trained and life wasn't good. I felt tired all the time. "The price of speed" I thought. But I wasn't fast. In fact I was slower than I had ever been the previous year.

I went to St. George, and raced in the rain/snow with chain-suck every turn of the cranks. Cold, miserable, and 25 minutes behind Dave Harward, whom I had never heard of, who won the race. Someone had told me it was his first year MTB racing...Anyway, I think I flatted or something at 5 Mile and walked in to the finish, dead last.

Then came Soldier Hollow. I'd hired my coach, I'd followed his instructions precisely, and I'd sacrificed a lot (I thought). David Harward took off like a bullet at the start, and I looked at Ian - "Either that guy is fast, or stupid!" "He's fast," Ian replied. He was right. I didn't see David (or Ian) again that day, and he beat me by 14 minutes. I was miserable. "Maybe I just don't have it" I thought. "Maybe this coach put me on the plan that works for real athletes, and I'm just not one. Maybe its time to quit." It didn't take me long to realize my thinking was absurd, especially considering I'd raced pretty well the year before. I fired my coach and adjusted my attitude, with the new attitude returning to the old -- I'd find gratification in the training, enjoy the races but not focusing so much on placing, and let results come as they may. It took the rest of the season to recover from the over-training, but I had a lot more fun after that.

This Year I came to the race with more confidence than usual. I've felt pretty good all week and been looking forward to the race, even though I've never felt like this has been a good course for me in the past.

We started fast. Orange Leader took off with the rider formerly known as Big Shark. OL lead the race for about 10 minutes, then I went by followed by Brad (Bp) and Hooptedoodle (HpD). Initially I had a some seconds, then Bp and caught up, then fell behind. On the upper section of the first lap I looked back and saw HpD blasting up to us. I think that took some serious effort, and he rode even pace with us on top after catching up. He then fell back a little on the descent, and Bp passed him somewhere in there.

I tried something new this race in that instead of bottles, I had Scott hand up CamelBaks. I have two, and Ian has one. It worked quite well, although getting them on is a little tricky. It was pretty warm (maybe 80? not sure), so I was glad to have easy drinking on the bumpy course.

At the bottom of lap 2 HpD disappeared. Turned out he had a loose wheel skewer and he stopped to fix it. Bp continued the pursuit, so the pace stayed high. We passed several pros by the end, including Bart Gillespie, who seemed to have a really lousy day. Bp was slowly backing away. By early lap three I could catch glimpses of him only here and there. At the top of the climb it was clear I had a large gap, but late in the third lap I saw a new face behind me and thought perhaps someone unknown in my class had hit the gas, passed the others, and was coming for me. I increased the effort, and he didn't gain any more time. I crossed the line.

It turned out the unknown face was the winning pro who had just finished his 12&under lap after doing three laps, so he was about 10 minutes ahead of us.

Then I saw HpD and Bp coming in. HpD had ridden a great race and I was surprised to see he had passed Bp. They were sprinting for the finish, and HpD maintained the advantage across the line. Turned out Bp's shifter had not been working properly on the last lap. Might have been different otherwise, but it wasn't.

I felt good today. Even after the race I've felt good. I'm glad I didn't quit in 2003. Bp and I had a nice time at Granny's with Scott and Ian after the race, too. I really like the guys in our class. They are fast riders, but are also intelligent, interesting people. It makes it a lot more fun.

Kim had a triathlon in Bountiful today so she was not at the race. She doesn't really know how she did because they had timing problems. Supposedly they have some way of going back and figuring it out, but it sounded questionable. All she knows right now is that she gave it a good effort.

Reed was at the race, but he DNF'd due to health issues. He thinks he had food poisoning on Wednesday, although it sounded a lot like what I had before 5 Mile.

Mr. Fatty

Since my low 143.5 weight at the end of my ride on Saturday I've been constantly hungry. I might have supposed that hunger meant I was loosing weight, but now I've ballooned. Where is it all parked? Guess I'll be respirating large particulates behind the faster climbers Saturday.

Or maybe not? I rode Suncrest last night while the rest of the biking world was racing the Soldier Hollow Wed Night Worlds. Watts were quite good despite some residual fatigue from Tuesday and a long, tiring day at work that started unusually early. Have to wait and see. Perhaps the new team kit that arrived this week will make me faster?

I have not had time to mail my broken MP3 player in yet. In the meantime, I will tell you a story of a horse. I had a mormon bishop some years ago who told me about an endurance sport he liked called a ride and tie. In a ride and tie, you have one horse and two riders. While one rider rides, the other must run. They go through the mountains just like a trail run, but there is an additional element of strategy in that the fastest pace is attained when one rider rides the horse ahead of the runner, then ties the horse and runs on. The other team member runs until reaching the horse, unties it, and then rides up to and past his partner, and so the pattern continues. Obviously, all three team members require great fitness.

Well, at one point my bishop had this horse that was not a real "flashy" (that was his word) horse, but it had great stamina. Despite the stamina, he kept thinking about getting a new horse, always looking around, etc. After some time, he finally realized he had a great horse -- one that could ride all day -- and really he ought to just train himself and the horse he had rather than casting around, constantly looking in case something better was out there.

Think about it.

Alpine Touring

I thought about racing Lava, but instead today I did the Alpine loop with an extended approach to get to Provo Canyon. I thought it would be interesting to measure my sweat rate for the ride. I once read a rider can loose something like a pound of glycogen, etc. during a ride. I'm not sure how that works, so ignoring that:

I drank 5 large bottles and lost 5 pounds during the ride, so the weight total, almost all of which should be water, was 5.4 liters, or 1.4 gallons. I never really felt all that wet, but I was plenty salty at the end. Dry day and 90 F in the valley.

This is a great time of year to ride the Alpine Loop. The road is still closed and the pavement on that section has all been resurfaced, so except for some poachers on motorcycles the top section is fast, smooth, and safe.

The other interesting thing I did was put some soy protein in my bottle (can't do whey for lactose problems). I didn't really like the taste, but I was surprised how strong I felt at the end of the ride and wondered if the protein was responsible. No stomach issues from it. I just mixed it in so I was at 10% protein (by calories).

Before the ride I spent about an hour fiddling with my Sansa MP3 player that is locked up. It appears to just have a bad file on it, but when powered on it seizes and the USB won't recognize it either. No reset switch. So I called their customer support and they are sending me a new one. This is the latest incident in a string of experiences that has left me thinking a lot about quality lately.

I think Americans just don't care about quality very much, or even expect it. Particularly with electronic devices. Some would claim Microsoft has lowered all our expectations, but I don't think it is just Microsoft. I rode past the old Wordperfect headquarters/campus today and thought about Wordperfect 6.0. It was so buggy I switched to Word because at least it crashed less. Before the PC years, I had an Amiga. Laughable stability.

Unfortunately, it goes beyond just computers. Why do power locks on cars ever fail? They are so simple. It is because they are manufactured on the cheap, I guess. Maybe the designs are poor. When I bought our last washer, I told them I wanted one that would last 30 years and I'd pay for it. "Sorry, can't buy those any more. No one will pay for them so no one sells them." The last three Timex Ironman watches I have purchased all failed because they were not as water-resistant as claimed..."takes a lickin, keeps on ticken?" Not to mention much of the stuff on the shelves at Walmart.

Whine, whine, right? We've had some quality concerns at work lately too. I think American engineers have gotten a little lazy and often choose to take the first or easiest approach when only a few minutes extra thought might yield a far more robust solution. A small amount of extra planning while coding can yield source that is far easier to read, comprehend, and debug, all leading to better reliability.

Bike products often exhibit the same issues. Graber Powertap products definitely have quality issues. They usually work, but not every single time.

A few companies buck the trend. Toyota immediately comes to mind. My Garmin 305 is also like that. It works really well. Not once have I had it loose data, fail to download, or crash, hang etc. The HR monitor works better than any others I have too (they all have problems on dry days with static, but the Garmin seems better than even the polar).

I'm out of time before I talked about what I think the solution is. Maybe some other day.

5 Mile Times Seven

I first raced the 5 Mile Pass race in 2000. I got fourth place in the sport class. Bart Gillespie got 2nd in the pros, right ahead of Jarom Zenger. Since then I think I've done it every year, with the course coming in close to 35 miles.

One year I had a memorable DNF -- I picked up a 4 inch nail in my tire. I layed my spare tube on the ground, pulled out my punctured tube, and threw it down next to the spare. Next thing I knew, I was looking at two tubes and didn't know which was the bad one. This was especially bad because I had only one CO2 cartridge. What could I do? I guessed...wrong. Walked home mad. I still remember the feeling as the guys went riding by for their second lap. I should have been in it with them. Still, with fitness like that, it is only a matter of time...

Not only have I done this course many times, but it is one of my favorite courses. I like fast, rocky downhills and this has several. It has one good steady climb and then a hike-a-bike (which I don't really enjoy, but it does add variety), and a bunch of big 100 foot rollers.

This Year
With all this in mind, it was with considerable disappointment that I woke in the middle of the night with the flu early Thursday morning. I hoped it would pass quickly, but I didn't eat or drink much of anything Thursday and very little yesterday until Kim made a good pizza dinner last night (no cheese, which I can't eat). I was pretty iffy on whether I'd race, but figured I'd get ready and then see.

Five mile is bumpy and rocky, and with the illness I figured I'd rather ride the FS Spider over HT Niner, so bought some new brakes from Revolution. I stans'd a light weight rear-tire for it, put on new Grip Shifters, and installed the front brake, but half-way through the rear brake I discovered the package was missing the hardware for mounting the rotor and the brake hose. I called Bp and Keating at 10 PM, and arranged to get the hardware to the race in the morning.

In addition to the bike issues, the weather has been cold and rainy. The forcast looked really bad, and Five Mile can be a tire-jamming, clumping clay disaster when wet. So on that count too, I figured I'd show up, assess the situation, and decide whether to race, but I wasn't looking forward to a 30+ mile slog-a-bike.

When I woke this morning my stomach felt so/so. Scott decided to come and watch, so we got the stuff packed, including both my bikes, and made it to the race on schedule. It was cold at about 50F with a humid wind, but I registered, Keating had the HW, and there was no mud...excellent. But I forgot the rotor! I attached the hose and pulled the rotor off my Niner. I was still going to have time for a short warm up, and then discovered the aluminum Stans rotor on the Niner is a little bigger than the Avid for the Spider, and the wheel wouldn't fit. Now it was panic time.

While Scott switched my number plate to the Niner, filled my CamelBak, and affixed my name tag to the CamelBak, I swapped the rotor back to the Niner and got dressed. After a bathroom stop (stomach still not normal), I lined up with no warm up at all.

I was glad to talk with Reed was at the starting line, and he seemed in good spirits. They changed the starting order this year, so us 30-39ers started 1 minute after the pros, and the 19-29ers started 1 minute after us.

As we started, there was a minute or two of sorting, and it pretty quickly came to an orange guy from Jackson off the front by 20 seconds or so, then Brad Pilling, Chad Harris, and I following. Brad, Chad, and I rode together most of the first lap, but I was dangling off the back of the group until we got to the hike-a-bike. The lack of a warm up was uncomfortable in the legs, and my stomach was complaining. Still, I was staying close and figured if I could hold the first lap my legs would warm and I'd probably have a good chance. I lost track of the orange guy for a while.

In the first half of the second lap Bp dropped off. Where did he go? Turned out he'd forgotten his CamelBak and only had one bottle, so he was off to the car for his pack. It was lucky he was parked near the course, but it cost him time. Meanwhile I was chasing Orange guy, and when when I finally caught him near the hike-a-bike, he had a red tag (not our white ones), so I figured he wasn't in our class and I was confused. We went back and forth for a while, passing several pros. As I was passing one pro on the downhill, his tire exploded and he went swerving off the trail. He was trying to get out of the way, but I almost hit him. After getting past him the downhill went well, and the Orange guy was still there, so I finally asked him what class he was in. After establishing our mutual 30-39 expert status, I lifted the pace a bit and he couldn't quite follow. I dropped him in the rollers on the front side finishing out the second lap.

For the third lap, I just tried to keep the pressure on. I figured if my stomach hadn't killed my race yet, the discomfort probably wasn't important and wasn't going to slow me down much, and my legs felt tired but steady. I passed a few more pros and tried not to ride too crazy on the downhills after watching the explosion on lap two.

At the bottom of one of the big front-side rollers on lap three there was a guying rolling around on the ground groaning and clutching his chest. I slowed. "Are you OK?" I asked. "NO!" he replied. We had just passed a quad-based official at the top of that roller, so I yelled, "Hey! HEY!" A pro in blue behind me looked back after the second call and saw the official coming, so we kept going. I was glad the guy was there and heard us so we didn't have to stop.

From there is was really just a cruise in to the finish, and, for me, a surprise win. My lap times turned out to be very consistant. My second lap was actually a few seconds faster than lap one, and lap 3 was about 25 or 30 seconds slower than the first two.

Chad Harris came in about 3 minutes later, outsprinting Orange guy for second, and Bp came in shortly after in 4th. He didn't really have a great day. He's had little problems at every race so far this year. His fitness is good, but the races haven't quite come together for some reason, so I think he was a bit disappointed.

BTW, Bart Gillespie (easily) won the pros. Some things never change. Jarom Zenger also showed up to race our class, but I don't know where/if he finished.

Not at all disappointed was Reed, who finished first in the 19-29 expert class! Awesome. Fun to take the 19-29 expert and the 30-39 expert on the same day and exciting to see Reed have a good race.