White after Labour Day?

Cyclocross really beats a bike up. Well, that is to say it really beats my bike up. Old Bess is a real trooper but 'cross leaves her just as, if not more, battered and bruised than me.

Fortunately, Old Bess is old school and hence is all about cup-and-cone bearings that even a mechanical klutz like me can fix. All it takes are a couple of pretty generic spanners per item, some patience and you're off to the races.

Just as I'm swiftly becoming a martyr to my knees, Old Bess is a martyr to her head-set and wheels. The head-set is an old-fashioned threaded one, but is an n=1 for having the prototype "self unscrewing" headset; it seems whatever I (or the various mechanics at Cyclesmith who've tried) do, the lock-nut unscrews itself in short order. Old Bess has a threaded-to-threadless headset adapter and so I just got a spare washer which I will place between the locknut and the brake-hanger. Hopefully now, the only way the locknut can work loose is if it can push the brake-hanger off the stem!

Next the wheels. These aren't weirdo prototype self-unscrewing ones. No magic here, they're just old and creaky and prone to the wobbles after too much exercise. Just like my knees.

I keep on having to strip them out, espcially the front one. It looks like the bearing cone is got a ding; no wonder I can't keep it in line.

There's something satisfying about doing your own bike mechanics, even if it means trying to keep track of what feels like a zillion ball-bearings.

As long as you can keep track of them and one doesn't go and roll under the washing machine or something then you can just re-pack it and reverse the steps to get a working wheel.

I decided to bling Old Bess up a little for this season. I picked up a pair of Vittoria cross tyres on sale at Ski Velo in Magog last July. They were 50% off so how could I not?

I just put them on and as you can see, they are a fetching shade of off-white.

Not the best colour for 'cross perhaps, given the copious amounts of mud, but they do bling out Old Bess nicely, and complement her eyes, or at least her decals.

I was taken by the "mounting instructions"

Which in case you can't make that out say that "to gravel, and glass; these may damage the casing of the tyre". Which us ironic seeing as these are off-road tyres. Can you imagine the whole field stopped at the entrance to the straightaway on Sunday saying "I can't go down there; the mounting instructions on my tyres say I could damage them if I go down there".

What do you think Too much perhaps? No white tyres after Labour Day?

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Marathon Doom Impending

Do you think that's a reasonable acronym for MDI?

Swings and roundabouts here. The motel is right on the start-line, by which I mean it's a ten second walk to the line, you can see it from the door. This was the first thing we saw walking out to find a breakfast spot this morning;

This is great as it means we don't have to spend twenty minutes finding a parking spot, another twenty walking to the start and yet another twenty in the line to use a particularly noisome portapotty!

Picked up our kits today. I got bib#60, which seems frighteningly high given it's a race of 2000! Remember how I commented on the officials' and voluntolds' freebie at Edinburgh being a rain-coat? Same here, the race-day freebie for runners is a rain-smock! It's been raining quite a bit here and that Edinburgh coat has come in useful. Actually at the Expo someone asked me about it after seeing my Du Worlds coat as she was a triathlete from Montreal and and just come back from Tri Worlds

More impressively, la belle got F18, yup she got seeded! Yahoo! What this is doing to her presumably fragile pre-marathon state of mind I don't know. She's not the only seeded Nova Scotian. Leah Jabour is F4 in the ladies, Kristan Gough is F11 and Shawn Deleu is M19. Good luck to them all. Try and beat your bib-numbers guys!

It's funny being here in Acadia National Park. I was pretty sure I was at Acadia last week! This place has the same name, just more Moose.

After the expo we spent the day mooching around Bar Harbor. Funnily, we spent quite a bit of time in bike-shops. It's funny because we're here for a marathon. Maybe it's our (well, my) way of distracting myself from what's to come tomorrow! I have to say, I was mightily distracted by a carbon Specialized Tricross single-speed on sale (about 15% off) but, as usual, had to be removed from the shop kicking and screaming. Now I think about it, this is how many bike-shops see me leave.

Off to the pasta-party now. Funnily, it's a bit of a drive away in a high-school, but I suppose on Mount Desert Island, there's a paucity of places to seat 2000!

Will post more pictures when I get back to Halifax, the interweb connection here isn't the fastest.

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Red Lined in the Granny

Still getting out on the bike, just don't call it training 'cos it will spoil the fun. I look at it more as "mental health" maintenance. I seem to be progressively wearing more and more layers to the point I'm losing what little flexibility I had in the first place. Having said that I, as I can still reach the drops what more flexibility do I need? The occasional frozen toe notwithstanding, an hour in the lanes before work is infinitely better than spending an hour indoors on a bike clamped in to the hamster-wheel, especially when you see the leaves...

I finish my rides at work most mornings. I have to admit that I am lucky that the college is well prepared for cyclists! I don't think they meant to, but we ding many of the cycling-friendly points that cycling-activist groups say are important for encouraging bike commuting. The big one is changing and shower facilities. No more getting changed in the bathroom, hopping around on one foot trying to sponge-bath the grungy bits and hoping a colleague doesn't come in! The staff-lockers are fairly underused which is a good thing as you can see, I do have a tendency to spread out, especially when everything is wet. No-one has complained yet though!

The reason we have these facilities is because the college is essentially a small farm with a lecture-theatres and a tissue-culture unit built on the side. The lockers are there for staff to wash the smell out of their hair before going home. However, asides myself, the only person using the staff lockers is a colleague who works on ruminant reproduction. In the best traditions of James Herriot, he has a fine collection of coveralls with manure down one side only! So between my running shoes and Helly Hansens on one side and his James Herriots on the other, the staff lockers smell a bit like a cow's gym!

Speaking of a cow's arse, my performance at the last 'cross race was at about that level. As we discussed previously, I had never thought of my Kona socks as my "lucky cyclocross socks", a fact that was borne out only too well in by dint of the sheer amount of time I spent on my arse. Something needed to be done. Going back in time to practice a la Bill and Ted wasn't an option so instead I approached the wall of DeFeet socks at MEC to see if I could find something luckier. I plumped for a pair of gray but sunny "Life Is Beautiful"s and decided to see if they were any better.

Perhaps in addition to being not too long, kinda mud-translucent (even after the race they don't look too bad, non?) and having a funky but not outrageous flower motif, they were luckier than the Konas. Round two of the Cyclesmith Cyclocross was distinctly better than the first. Besides, what with the the complete inability to clean anything other than my own clock and more Limanda limanda than the North Sea what could be worse? The total suckitude exhibited my yours truely is probably exemplified by the following shot showing how not to negotiating the barriers.

Never mind bunny hopping these things, or even progressing over them at speed without breaking too much of your rhythm, I'm apparently stepping daintily over, lifting my bike high (by the saddle no less!) as if to keep it out of the mud! Don't want to get dirty! What a wuss!

Anyway, the last race was a lot better. The laps were longer and more technical with some gravel thrown in as well as another little muddy pitch, this little beauty here.

It doesn't look much but it claims scalps every lap! The trick is to take the line on the outside, even if it leaves you with a sharper turn once you're on level ground.

Of all the scalps it claimed, it didn't get mine, but goodness knows it tried.

Perhaps it was the socks, but it was also down to a hefty dose of "less haste more speed". Last time I was just a bit too frantic. I slowed down a bit this time and thought each obstacle through and slowing down to nail the muddy bits (and the gravel!) I kept the speed up. Cleaned everything every time (well apart from one little Limanda spp). The final finishing position still sucked (as expected) but I managed to finish on the same lap as most people, albeit at the end of that lap. but the same lap nonetheless. As you can see, it still hurt!

Which is why I'll be there next week, red-lining on the flat in the granniest of granny gears.

Speaking of being there next week the race organisers are thinking about putting on a kids race at one (or more) of the three remaining events. Spread the word!

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Cross-Dressing

OK, so I took a bit of a break. After all three weeks of updating twice-weekly can get a bit much for a guy. Anyway....

The local cyclocross season started two weeks ago. This was imeadiately followed by a week's break during which I discovered that in addition to having the best tunes, the seventh level of hell also has the best chicken. We're back at it this weekend (cyclocross that is, not music and chicken). Three weekends in a row of mud, sweat and tears and I can't wait. Java Jim Diakos sexed up some photos of last years cross provincials and the gravelly sound of Johnny Cash's voice complements not only the event but the sound of my headset and hubs afterwards.

I had to get Old Bess in shape first; the poor girl was still in touring mode and needed to be 'crossed up right quick! She's versatile, but not that versatile. Off came the pannier rack, lights, bottle-cages and any pretense of a placing. On went the 35Cs, SPDs and a generous coat of oil.

Before and after; ready for a relaxed meander in the lanes (above) and a not so relaxed meander off the lanes (below)

Race-day dawned windy and wet. The clouds blew over and the sun was out by the time we rolled to the start. It turned out to be sunny and warm in direct contradiction of http://www.weatheroffice.gc.ca/ and as this is an official government website, it would appear that the weather was flagrantly disobeying the party whips! After a night of rain the ground was a disgrace and this was before twenty-plus bikes had been all over it ten times each. Well, we say disgrace, I think we were all secretly glad it was muddy, probably because we all also secretly wish to be the star of our own "Sunday in Hell".

The course was very similar to last year; fast and not too technical. One carry and two sets of obstacles. The planks were close enough that for v-diff bumblies such as myself it was easier to run between the two sets rather than mount and dismount twice. This was complemented by juicy climb with a totally gratuitous 90-degree bend at the muddiest spot and, purely for recovery purposes, three descents; one on tarmac, one on mud and one on grass. As all three were liberally covered in leaves with a corner at the bottom they felt a tad manic and I think my HR was higher going down than it was going up!

Doesn't look bad from this angle, but it felt positively suicidal at the time! I don't think going off-line helps either!

I say twenty bikes, but there was a record turnout of some thirty-five. As a mass-start, the first lap was always going to be nervous, especially as we quickly funneled into singletrack and an obstacle within 100 m or so. I self-seeded myself into the final third of the pack, a conscious decision and always one that was going to be a risk. On one hand I didn't want to hold up the race. I'm not exactly the most technically adept off-roader and the last thing I wanted to be was a moving roadblock. I don't mind contributing to the outcome of a race but not when people complain the break got away because they were stuck behind fat-boy before the first climb! On the other, you're at the mercy of the bunch in front, concertinering back and forth, taking the line you're given and not the line you want and are generally more likely to get caught in a crash at the back. I'm not dissing any of the people around me, that's just the way it is.

And so it was. I rode into some guy's wheel on the first obstacle. He didn't crash all on his own, rather it was a concertina effect as he'd run into someone else, who'd ran into someone else and all the way up the chain to the guy who'd originally dropped it! Coincidently it was a guy I knew from back before at Dal and it was good to see him again, but its generally better to do the social stuff over coffee, not when your handlebars were tangled in his spokes!

I pulled myself out of the mess and started chasing. I may have lost places and was dangerously near DFL but at least I was on my own. I made a few places up straight away and then was pretty much in no-man's land for about 35 minutes when I started to lap the very occasional back-marker. I got lapped a lot though. It is always amazing to see the bike-handling at the front; the leaders (Andrew Esperance and Garrett McLeod) were drafting up-hill, down-hill and over the obstacles with nothing to separate them (Espy eventually won). It was also very polite, I guess it has to be with so many people of varying abilities packed into a short loop at the same time. A short "on your left" or "coming through" is all it takes. Oh, and not storming through a non-existant gap or cutting someone off. For your turn, all you have to do is hold your line when being overtaken (roadies are big on holding your line!).

Funny thing; that first-lap snafu totally cursed that obstacle. We'd gone down the park the day before for a bit of practice and I nailed it every time. Same on the warm-up lap. I'd round the corner, point her straight ahead and pedal. At the top there'd be what Tom Wolfe would call an "adrenal moment" when the bike was perfectly stationary where the gravitational pull back down the muddy slope would be exactly balanced by the forward force through the pedals. You'd hang for a second wondering "will I won't I?" and resisting the temptation to dab a foot before the rear dug in a bit more and you were off. That was then. Now, nada. The lap-counters say I did nine laps and I swear I didn't clean that obstacle once. Didn't matter if I went left, right or centre, either the wheels slipped out from under me, I dabbed a foot or on one lap I'd forgotten to change gear (too much fixed!) and couldn't even get the damn pedals 'round.

Evolution of a scar; 1 hr post, 1 week post, 1 year post.

One thing they say about 'cross is that you should expect to crash. Last year I picked up a nice three-suture job at the first race, so happy first birthday scar! In no way confirming the myth of "triathletes as tricky bike-handlers" the only two triathletes in the race last Sunday (I haven't done a tri since Yarmouth '06 so one wasn't me) both walked away with road-rash and/or stitches. To be fair however, it was also the first 'cross race for both of them and they were both truely entering into the spirit of 'cross. And by "spirit of 'cross" I don't mean insanely strengthed Belgian beer. Well not this week!

Pink Elephants on the course: cause or effect?

You should also bank on writing off your socks. This is no place for a nice pair of gleaming white DeFeets. The Mud Caveat is in effect here and it is acceptable to wear dark coloured socks at the 'cross (or MTBing or even a wet road-ride).

I went for a pair of gray-and-red Kona socks. I actually got these as a draw-prize at the 'cross a few years ago and even though I've worn a hole through the toe, I still wear them. I've certainly never thought of them as my "lucky 'cross socks" and given the amount of time I seemed to spend off the bike they certainly didn't bring luck on Sunday! Despite being red and (shudder) gray they do have a couple of things going for them.

Mud? What mud?

Frankly, they match. This really is important but you'd be surprised how many people don't try to match their socks with everything else. Sure, when the socks are white they'll match everything, but with colours you have to exercise some judgement! In this case the red goes well with either the Cyclesmith jersey or my Crest CC jersey (nothing goes with the Heartland Tour jersey). They even match the shoes! The length isn't too bad either; sure they may seem long but shorty short short ankle socks look silly when there's frost on the ground! Secondly, even after ten or eleven laps in the mud (or a long loop around Victoria Park) they don't look that bad either. Admittedly this may be a minor point but whilst muddy white socks at this point would look a disgrace, muddy grey-and-red socks don't and are definately the better of two evils. Speaking of acceptable socks, check out the sweet Roubaix following the race!

Now that's what I call a Roubaix sock!

I remember reading somewhere that cyclocross was "an excellent way of maintaining post-season form". This may be true, but why spoil what would ordinarily be a good time by thinking of training? Firstly, its fun. Another 40 minute ITT to the turnaround and back singing along to your mental jukebox it isn't. Every minute there's a distraction, something to do and something to do right! Unless you have a flat-lined learning curve, 'cross will improve your confidence and your bike-handling skills. Despite the naysayers who will maintain that the ability to stay upright in the mud does not translate to better bike-handling whilst in "the position" in an ITT, I think that there is some truth to this. You can also enjoy it as a true "B" race! For me, I know I suck so just getting to the end without a broken scaphoid is victory enough. For many however, the real reason may be that after 45 minutes balls-out in the mud you can eat like a goinfre, and as you can see, I did!

Post-race food is the tastiest food

Round #2 is this Sunday, Seaview Lookoff park at 11:00. It's $5 a race or 50c a lap so it's really too cheap not to. No studded tires, bar-ends or, and this should go without saying, no tri-bars! Come down and have a go, or come and have a laugh! I mean this thing makes DILB seem absolutely sane....