Uphill

I was tooling around YouTube the other day and watching people climb Mt. Ventoux, including some geriatrics who don't just look like they wear diapers inside their bike shorts, like the rest of us do.

Yeah, I'll get that little dig in, because those old farts really can kick my ass uphill. One guy looked about 80 or 100 and he did hill repeats on Ventoux -- climbed it back to back. Another old turd had panniers hanging on the side of a bike that looked as old as me.

Videos, as we know, tend to flatten things out. Sometimes -- especially on MTB vids -- you literally can't tell whether the trail is uphill or downhill. Much of the footage of Ventoux must bve like that, because you watch it and think, "That doesn't look so beastly."

So while I was looking at women close to my mother's age smirk at the camera atop Ventoux when they should be in wheelchairs, I started thinking, "Maybe a fatass crit rat like me could make it up there."

Now, it's no secret that I don't like climbing. My lightweight friends who are actually pretty committed to this sport that I disrespect do not understand why it is that I disdain being humiliated and hurt. But I think some of them have had so many bad relationships that they believe pain and subjugation are states of normalcy, so cycling fits their frame of reference, except without the priest, or the guy up the street 30 years ago who gave out the free Hardy Boys books to hardy boys who'd watch special movies with him.

Nonetheless, I do still go out to climb as much as I can, because everyone who has a keyboard and a bike writes ad nauseum that climbing will get you in shape like nothing else. Maybe they haven't seen me climb. I'm not sure how my form is supposed to improve from rolling backward, then falling over on my side and letting loose a stream of urine onto myself, like a dog that just got hit by a car. But it must have some benefit, because that's what they write and I believe everything I read.

So today, I went out at lunch with very little time to ride and decided to make it hurt -- er, count. I rode down into the Ohio & Erie Canal Reservation, then headed southeast to Granger Road. There I turned left up one of the most awful short hills around, suffering from the delusion that I'd do some repeats up it.

The idea of going up it again started to fade somewhere around the halfway point up. As the cars and trucks whizzed by, I felt exceptionally slow and weak. I thought of the guy who was climbing the same hill last year and got hit by a car and died, and for just a moment, I thought he was a lucky bastard.

Still, after I got back to the bottom, I turned around and started back up again, like an idiot. This time I didn't make the top. I've never managed more than two trips up that hill, but now I couldn't even do that.

So I started back north and turned up Warner Road -- not nearly as steep, but still a good half-mile climb. Then I went up and down E. 71st (short, not terribly steep) and E. 49th (ditto, but seriously fouled-up pavement), flying up the road like ... a penguin.

By the time I got back to my car, I'd ridden 50 minutes of my lunch "hour" and had to call it quits. I looked down at the odometer. Ten miles, it said. Even I could do that math in my head: Including 35- and 44-mph downhill plunges, I'd averaged all of 11 miles an hour.

Maybe the day will come when that will be a fairly easy 45-minute lunchtime workout. But that will probably have to wait for the afterlife. If only I could get creamed by a teenaged driver on Granger ... the lucky dog.

As for Ventoux: It would be akin to doing all four of those hills back to back about three times, with no descents in between. And maybe with an Oak Hill stretch or two thrown in.

Judging by the look of those old farts, I have a little time to prepare. But I have a feeling that ascent would be a one-way trip. I'd climb like Homer Simpson and then do a Tom Simpson.

- JN

Potpourri of Pish-posh

Page 1: Welcome back. Neither of us have been to this blog for awhile, eh? Wish I could say I missed it more ... But I hope you did.
If so, then you probably are sort of pathetic and have a warped sense of what is funny, so I'll welcome you back with this little treat. (Do not be like Steiner and assume you've seen this before because you've seen the first few minutes elsewhere on YouTube. Watch the whole thing.)



Page 2: I've hit one of those periodic spurts of enthusiasm -- mild enthusiasm, I'd say -- for editing video footage. It's kind of fun if you have the time. I don't. But I do have a new laptop, so I've been playing with it, and used it to dig up and edit some footage from a race back in 2006, my first year of "serious" racing.
This was the Tour d'Burg, down in Miamisburg, Ohio, just south of Dayton. The day before was a ballbreaker of a race in Troy, which is half an hour north of Dayton. I'd never raced back to back days before this, and my legs felt pretty dead when I pulled up to the line with the other Cat 5s. Then the referee announced that for some reason (never explained), the promoter was combining the 4s and 5s. Great. I'd raced with Fours only a couple times before, and those were races with a 4-5 field and a 3-4 field. In other words, the strong 4s were all with the 3s. This time, we would all be together.
Watch and see what happens.
Special thanks to my brother, who shot the footage.




- JN

Sat-Tue: 105 miles

Yee-haw. I rode with bare ears -- as opposed to bear ears -- this morning for the first time since it got cold here back in ... what was that, August?
And if you saw me on the way home, I'll point out that no, that blinding reflection was NOT from Illuminite leg warmers. That was from my bare white legs. (Not bear white legs, nor white bear legs.)
Yes, I pretended it was warm. This February thaw after the last many miserable weeks can do that: It got up to about 58, so I acted stupid. It felt pretty good, actually.
By the time I got home, the sun had been down awhile and I was still enjoying the ride, but frankly, my white bear legs were probably getting a bit chilled.
Yes, this is a time for self-delusion, soon followed by cold reality.
After only a few years of serious riding, I recognize a pattern: I ride alone a lot when other people aren't riding, then start telling myself I'm starting to feel some fitness. Maybe I'll go out and do some intervals at 97% of my LT or climb some hills and think they seem easier than I remember.
Then comes the reality check: I ride with other guys. And they smash me.
The last couple years, that bothered me. This year, my expectations and goals are low and July-oriented.
So when I got punked on Saturday, it wasn't a surprise or a disappointment.
A bunch of Cat 2-3 riders humored me by letting me tag along on an LSD ride to Burton and back. No problem for the first 35 minutes. Then we hit the climbs. Not even long or steep ones. Just the climb up the bricks, and then out of Chagrin Falls. Here I am, trying to hang onto Chris S's wheel while he cranks a bit too vigorously up those hills, and I'm watching my HR creep up, up and up some more, t0 95% of max. Chris is still chatting away, not realizing I've faded to 50 feet back, then 75 feet ...
Then, after a few more rollers on Music, we came to Munn and I was done. Well, I could've made it to Burton, but then on the way home, I'd be holding everyone up, running at the red line while they're getting bored. Nobody would've enjoyed that, and I might have actually cried when we got to Chagrin River Rd. and started up the climb up the other side of the valley.
So I peeled off. Kept riding, but did it alone.
That's what passes for "bad" news. The good news is that I rode for almost 3 hrs. and put in 46 miles -- pretty long for me at this time of year.
I followed that up with another 40+ miles on Monday: almost 16 on the way to work, 17 at lunch and then about 8 home.

... Maybe someday soon I'll start putting thought into these posts again. But I do too much of that at work, and frankly, I'm stick of it. Tonight I put new brakes on my commuter/beater. It was enjoyable. Maybe I should go to work in a bike shop ...

Escaping the Basement

I gotta hand it to you guys who are disciplined enough to sit on a trainer watching TV and doing a vigorous workout. You inspired me to try it again today.
It produced great results, which I'll get to later.
First, I want to thank Craig Griffin, the little Aussie on the CTS "Sprinting" video. The box champions this traitor as a USA Cycling coach. (Coincidentally, I'm sure, his wife was the head of USA Cycling ...)
Griffin walks around among the Riding Dead looking like a GED-test monitor with a stopwatch. He murmurs in Oz-drawl in the kind of monotone you'd expect to hear on a PBS show about how to paint miniature toy soldiers. The hapless riders around him look as frozen-faced and expressionless as the peloton from a charity ride for Bell's palsy. "Pick up your cadence a little there, Jim," Griffin said. I was taken aback until I realized he was talking to a guy on the video and not me.
Then I want to thank Performance Bike, which designed a fluid trainer that maximizes my results uniquely: by sitting lopsided on the floor, creeping toward its folded-up position when I sprint, moving enough to actually nudge my front wheel off its block in mid-interval and filling my basement with the acrid aroma of Akron. This one puts the "fluid" in fluid trainer, but not in the right way. I didn't realize staying upright on a trainer was supposed to give me a core workout, but riding mine could be an X-Games sport.
All of these factors helped produce the leaden weariness in my legs that today's killer workout produced. That's because 27 minutes into this latest foray into trainer riding, I got off the stupid thing, put on some dry clothes and my ski goggles, and went outside on my other bike.
It was 10 degrees with a wind chill of -14. But I did my workout on a six-block (.93-mile) circuit around my house -- never rode more than half a mile or so from my front door.
I did the same sprint-interval workout on the Carmichael video, but did it without the wheels slipping or the bike lurching. Ah! Intensity! Wound up riding outside for almost 40 minutes, and I did not get cold. Not at all.
But I did get my arse busted, in a good way. And I nearly got to that point where I was just about at the threshold of almost puking.
That might be possible to achieve on your trainer. Not on mine. Mine is Ex-TREEM! (or maybe I'm just putting out 2,000 watts.)
This encourages me to put my trainer to more use. I'm thinking of using it, for instance, to smash my computer screen so I no longer have to see photos on my teammates' blogs of them playing Rock Band. (If I hate you, please see this. But beware: It just may be the last thing you see before your eyeballs voluntarily and eagerly self-immolate.)
By the time I was done riding, my cloud of surliness and depression had started to lift. (Obviously, it started to, but didn't finish.) My legs are now as rubbery as my gut. And I have achieved spiritual wholeness. I'm already 5% of the way toward being ready for the Frosty Toes Classic!

JN

My new blog: What it should NOT say

OK, I'm blogging. I feel the world getting happier as a result.
This will be mostly a bike blog. I don't plan to rip the scabs off the open sores of my psyche for your entertainment unless it scores me some kind of reality show during the writer's strike: "The BIGGER Biggest Loser!"
I'll write about bikes, tell you things about my kids that maybe only one of us will think are cute and ramble on other stuff from time to time. But it will mostly be about bike riding and racing.
However, please do everyone a favor and shoot me if I start blogging like the stuff below. I mean, this stuff would be OK, I guess -- it must be, because a quick blog search for cycling would turn up a few thousand blogs that read like this.
They're fine. But they're below my standards because I personally wouldn't be happy unless I used more exclamation marks and crappier spelling.

Jan. 28: WAY 2 COLD 2 RIDE, DUDE! Did (fill in the boring workout routine here) on the trainer. Hope it gets me closer to my plan to peak for the (fill in the"A" race here).
Jan. 27: Here's my sweet new brake-cable set! (photo) First time I've used titanium cables. They cost $113, but shave 1.4 grams off the weight of my bike. And I hear they won't stretch as much. They're gonna be so awesome! I just know they'll be the difference at least once at the Covered Bridge race. I'm gonna get you, Stark Velo!!! Gotta get out to Bike Authority tonight so they can put these cables on and show me how to change a tube.
Jan. 25: I'm totally bummin about the latest doper news about (fill in rider name) and (fill in team name). I'm never watching another ProTour event again. Fuck those guys. Our version of the sport is pure. Theirs is corrupt. Bummer.
Jan. 20: Got my new Conti Gatorskins. Can't wait to ride them!!! I hear they're as smooth as tubulars only FLAT-PROOF!!! Great reviews on RBR! And I got them for only $46 each!
Jan. 16: Just got back from the 'cross race in (fill in southern state or county). I got thrashed. Broke 10 spokes, a chain and a clavacle and came in 22nd out of 24 in the C field. It is SO AWESOME!!! I'm thinking about making 'cross season my A races for '08!!! (Note: 10,500-word race review omitted here, as a public service. - ed.)
Jan. 15: Saw Dick Head on the road on his new carbon X-Peter 6969. What a wicked bike! Betcha it's 15 LBs tops! And it's so stiff but vertically compliant!! Those guys on Team Erectile Function get all the coolest stuff. I really, really, really hope they ask me to join them! (I've asked and begged!) That should motivate me to do my new interval routine: 10 reps of 40 min x 105% max HR, with 2 min. recovery between.
Jan. 12: Here's my dog chasing me around the yard (obligatory dog photo). He's so crazy!!! I wish he would stop biting, though. I won't make the Mid-Ohio race unless I take these stitches out myself.
Jan. 10: Placed my order for my new beater bike -- a Trek Madone 5.2. Got such a sweet deal on it -- only $2K 'cause it's an '07 and the Madone redesign and all. It will be my rain bike. Except that I, like everyone else in NE Ohio, am too big a pussy to ride unless the sun is out and it's 40+ degrees. But at least I now will have something I can call my beater bike that everyone will be jealous of. Gotta get a PowerTap for it.
Jan. 9: Only 4 weeks til our first team training camp at Bowling Green, KY. Yeah, it's not really "south," per se. But we fought against them in the Civil War, I think (and we KICKED REBEL ASS LIKE I'M GONNA DO AT THE STATE CRITS!!!). Anyway, warm is a relative thing -- gotta be better than shitty C-TOWN!!! Hope the ice isn't there this year. Climbing sucked last year when the roads were covered with half an inch of it. I so hate sliding backwards down a 10% slope. And I mega-hated sleeping in Joe's uncle's garage. But hey -- our team had a southern training camp! F--- you, Stark Velo! Yours sucked 'cause N. Carolina wasn't even Confederate!!! It's f---ing NORTH Carolina, idiots -- DUH!
Jan. 8: Sure is good to be divorced and have no freeloading, dead-weight girlfriend to bitch at me about doing stuff. I can spend 14 hours a week training and the rest drinking import beer and reading cycling sites on line ... (Note: God dictates this arrangement to prevent such gene pools from being passed on. - ed.)