Dog days

For more reasons as to why my blog posts have been few lately look here.

DG

Repeat after me "Rubber side down......"

Good luck to those at Stupor week, er, Super Week.

Unfortunately I'm super weak this season, so this is not my ball game. Not that road racing ever was, or will be, as I'm also chicken of large packs and tactically retarded.

Race smart, race safe, have fun.

DG

Also good luck to JS and SK on RAO this weekend.

New news, well not really

Blink, two more weeks gone by.

Last weekend were the Northbrook and Kenosha HPRA races. I went into them feeling less than up to par fitness wise. Especially considering that I was going to be up against Sean Costin, who has always been the man setting international records in stock class sprints. Only now he's trained himself into international stock class hour record setting shape(which he now holds as well at 28.4mph for the hour).
At least I don't have to race him in the fully faired category anymore.

So I started out by doing a pretty crappy job with the 200m sprints, getting second in fully faired and fourth in stock. Then after lunch we proceeded into the lap races. Temperatures were hovering in the high ninties which is always a thrill in the streamliner.


Next up was the 100 lap fully faired race, in which there was a whole herd of streamliners on the track. None of which I had a good feeling for what they were capable of, but most all of their riders have proven to be quite fast in the past. After wiping out at Waterford two weeks before I wasn't too sure how much I could trust my own streamliner on Northbrook's shallow banked velodrome, and it didn't help that I witnessed Warren and Rick crash here last year when there were a heck of a lot fewer liners on the track.
Anyways, I lined up behind Rick who got about a quarter lap jump on all of us right off the start as usual, and Warren got stuck in traffic right away, so I was off to chase. I worked my way up to Rick while testing my comfort level with the corners and dodging lapped traffic every lap. Then Rick tried to cut through some traffic towards the inside and got stuck, so I passed on the outside and maintained my speed. A few laps later I was riding Warren's tail about to put him a lap down. Eventually I made it past him, and lapped Rick as well. Frank, Jason, Rich, and Dave were doing a fine job handling their liners and staying low out of the way. The heat was taking it's toll on everyone and I was starting to get chills in the last dozen laps or so. I finished up in first with about a 36mph avg speed according to the chips, but that was actually closer to a 38mph avg since I was having to run above the blue stripe for most of the race due to traffic.
I'd post a GPS profile of this race but my Garmin was losing gps reception every lap for some reason?? Maybe I'll figure out how to run my Powertap and post that, I think it said I avged like 265watts and maxed out at about 780 or thereabouts. Like I said I need to get it downloaded, but I've yet to get that fiddled with and I'm not sure if the data is still on it since I cleared it to record Kenosha the next day.

20 minutes or so after the 100 lap race was the 50lap stock race. Lots of fast folks here too. Warren and Dave were the only other ones to do both races(Dave did the trike races as well). So we all baked on the starting grid for awhile for good measure, and then finally we were off. I stuck to Sean's wheel like glue trying to recouperate from the 100lap race. Lucky for me he was only holding 28-29mph.....I felt kind of guilty for staying back there so long, so at about lap 30 or so I came around and cranked it up to 34mph or so for a lap. Sean stayed on, I slowed back down to keep from wasting myself completely. I stayed on Sean's wheel again till the last three laps where I cranked it up again, but I could feel I was dying off. Sean made his move on the final streach and managed to beat me by .001seconds. And then he swung out and then swung back a little too quick, slid out and smashed into the wall at about 35mph.......err?? crap, Sean. 2nd place for me with a 28mph avg, thought that was mostly drafting.


Sunday was Kenosha. Like Saturday only hotter and windy. Sprints were crap again, but since fewer liners were racing due to the wind I finished first in Fully Faired and third in Stock. The lap race results were similar to Saturday's, only I had very little in the tank to start with and blew up immediately in the shorted stock race, bonking pretty good about 5 laps in, and then getting lapped by Sean once or twice, I don't remember. Still finished second, but that was a crap effort on my part. I felt faster after Calvin's. I wheeled the streamliner up to the track and stood there awhile trying not to black out. Crawled in the streamliner and rode around in circles trying not to get blown into the fence or the other liners till the fully faired lap race was over. Scraped the ground once, buzzed the fence once, 1st in the fully faired category by outhandling my liner in the wind.
Cripes, I've been doing ultra's for awhile now, you would think I would know how to avoid bonking by now wouldn't you? I will say these races were running waay behind, we didn't start the lap races till about 1:15 when the faired race was supposed to wrap up about then. But I still know better.

Some fuzzy pics of the races can be found here I can be found in the white and yellow streamliner, and in the red skinsuit behind Sean on the lowracer.

Anyways, that was that. My fitness needs improving. The good news is I have been making progress since then. I'm finally back down to working fourty hour weeks, so I've had enough energy to ride three times this week instead of the once a week ride I've been scraping by on. My blog is still suffering, and now I've got like five 80t chainrings to make in my "spare" time, but at least I've had some time to rest in the mornings.

Oh, and as of today I am a twice born again improved driver. Thank you IDOT, I highly recommend the drivers improvement course to all of my friends. It really is good fun....no really, it is kinda fun.



Newest training tool, mmm...fixed, lugs, and chrome

DG

Time Warp

Man I'm losing time lately.

Three weeks ago Saturday I raced the Crowder Crank and Cruise, one of my fav MO mtb race courses, and had a decent time other than losing my water bottle on lap 2 of 4. Finished fourth in the expert 19-29/pro/semipro, top ten or so overall. Good steamy weather and no rain for a change here, good times.

The following Sunday I lended some trail guide services to Amanda, Tracy, Dominic, and Andrea(for a little bit) at Decorah. Lots of riding, pizza, and ice cream. Real good times.
Two weeks ago I raced at the Waterford Hills road course in Michigan with the streamliner, lowracer, and Corsa. Which other than wiping out on the off camber corner before the hill when I bottomed the streamliner out on lap 4 and riding the first three laps with the rear brake dragging, went alright too. Thats what caused the road rash and body damage to the streamliner in the previous post. I would have been unscathed if the canopy would have stayed shut as I was sliding off the track at 30. Oh well, I'm getting quicker at doing body work. Time to rethink my canopy latch system. I managed to pull off a overall win in stock class and a second place in streamliner despite my crappy sprinting.

The following Monday I found a cut in the sidewall of my right front tire on the WRX. Went damn near all the way around the bead.....not sure how that happened, random vandalization or freakish road hazard, it sure did piss me off. I just bought those tires.....
Tuesday I got a letter in the mail from the IDOT stating that I won another chance to take the Driver Improvement course, yippee! One 72 in a 65 on the way to work late last winter, one 72 in a 65 in IL pulling a trailer where I should have been going 55(now I know), one going way too fast 2miles from my house at 5:35am on the way to work. I think it's time to rebuild the VWs, I never had this problem when I was driving 36hp.

Last weekend was supposed to be Landahl(or Proctor), but somebody left the water running down there and I ended up in Boone. Conditions were perfect, great turnout, great company, fun race. I have no idea where I finished other than slightly ahead of Squirrel and Pete, behind Maharry and the rest of the pros, and I had to work pretty hard to stay ahead of Meyers and Patty. I need to fire my mechanic and buy a new cassette, and knees after bashing them into the stem numerous times. The good news is I figured out how to keep it from jumping about a lap and a half in...just put it in the big ring to increase the chain tension and pretend it's a muscle tension workout. Oh wait, I'm at Boone, it already was.

Sorry about the lack of posted pics, but I've got to get back to sanding the streamliner for this coming weekend's high speed affair at Northbrook and Kenosha Velodromes.