Ubber dye broke?

I'm a little late to notice, but: It's good to see the return of one of the area's better bloggers -- a guy who writes as well as he rides (which is high praise): http://ueberdiebruecke.wordpress.com/.

- JN

I'm back. And almost back.

Sorry. I was sleeping.
It's been awhile since my last post. I'd say any blogger who has any semblance of balance in his/her life should write those words now and again, unless the blog pays the bills. There are some very good bloggers out there who write very bad blog entries, just to feed the beast that doesn't feed back.
I don't claim to be one of those very good bloggers, any more than I claim to be a good bike racer.
But I've had my moments in this forum. And I've been having my moments on the bike lately -- paradoxically.
I spent the first one-third of the 2008 racing season performing like an okapi at Churchill Downs.
The pattern: Too much fat, too many flats, a wreck and a lot of DNFs.
I undertrained all winter and maybe started to overtrain in the spring. It wasn't fun. And I finally gave up on the season about a month ago.
But if results from the last three weeks are any clue, it seems I've suddenly become stronger than I've been all year.
Not sure why. One obvious reason is that all my recent races have been at Westlake, which is flatter than flat. And it's somewhat obvious that the inconsistent level of competition there has been markedly lower than at RATL, Mid-Ohio etc. (although the 24- to 25-mph average speeds of the last few B races has been nothing to sneeze at).
But whatever the reasons, this is the upshot:
I have been able to do almost anything and everything I want to do in the last three races.
If there's a prime sprint and I choose to contest it, I win it. I've even won primes with attacks from 350 or even 1,000 meters out -- the kind of sprints that would typically blow me up and cause me to get swallowed and shit back out long before the finish line.
If a break goes up the road, I can run it down at will, if I need to. If I want to gap the field to wear down some chasers and spring a teammate for a counterattack, I can roll off the front so quickly that I surprise myself, and everyone else, it seems.
I think I've contested 11 primes in the last three weeks. As I recall, I won eight or nine of them (although I somehow didn't get credited for one of last Tuesday's three sprint wins). It could've been 10: I rode a teammate's wheel to 150 meters out on Tuesday and backed off to let him win, instead of coming around for the sprint, when we rode away from all the other sprinters.
Of course, all of this is relatively meaningless because I still haven't won -- or even placed or showed. That's because my sprinting, power and endurance have all come around, but my recovery hasn't. I wound up dropping out after 30 or so miles on Tues. because after the third prime win (and fourth sprint, counting my teammate's win), I couldn't rev it up fast enough to grab on to the peloton again.
I had plenty in the tank to contest the previous week's 40-mile race, but there wasn't really a race to contest: Two of my teammates rode away in a 3-man break, leaving me and a few other SBRs to control the front behind them. At least I finished: The week before that, I got dropped (again) after burning myself up chasing primes.
So I'm still out of shape -- way out of shape, perhaps. But these balls-out sprints have been giving me the workout I want. I maybe could sit on and wheelsuck and hope to sprint for a win or whatever at the end, but riding along at a below-threshold steady state isn't going to get me much stronger.
And the way my teammates have been racing, the races aren't going to come down to bunch sprints anyway; someone will break away more often than not, I'm betting.
If you're betting, don't put your money on me. But damn if I'm not enjoying myself a bit more lately.

- JN

P.S.: I still have given up the ghost on this season. But maybe I'll reconsider Troy and Tour d'Burg ...

Minne-asshole-is

BSNYC's post today brought to mind one of the more comical (or envy-inducing) things I saw in Minneapolis: A gleaming S-Works Tarmac SL2 with Ksyrium SSL wheels (MSRP: About $8,000) -- and a pie plate, a giant saddle scrotum and SPD mountain-bike pedals.
Overbiked? Yeah.

NVGP Wrapup (maybe)

Found some cool footage of the Nature Valley GP on YouTube (of course).

Here's Brooke Miller's win, and some more:



Try climbing this shit 18 times. And this is only one of two leg-breaking climbs in the last stage of the NVGP, a crit at Stillwater, Minn., that most of the field never finishes.



Here's the other Stillwater ramp:



Ignore the bimbo as you watch this next one. Instead, look at the hill and think about what Ben Jacques-Maynes said -- words to the effect of "I took a chance and left it in the big ring." The big ring? Jeez. I'd need a big ring on the back -- a 53T -- to climb this beast.



Finally, here's some footage from the NVGP a few years back that underscores why losers like me should never quit the race -- any race:

How I Spent My Father's Day

I was getting ready for bed in a St. Paul hotel room at 10:30 Saturday night when my wife called to say United Airlines called the house and needed me to call back. The airline wouldn't tell her why.
When the phonebots finally gave way to a human on the Indian subcontinent, I learned my 8 a.m. flight home, via Chicago, was canceled and United would re-book me on a flight that would leave Mpls. at 3:30 p.m. Sunday and arrive here at 9:40 p.m. on Father's Day -- roughly an hour after the bedtime of two little girls who hadn't seen their Dad since Thursday morning.
After I fussed, United "accommodated" me by putting me on the 6 a.m. flight. That way, I'd still get the original connecting flight to Cleveland, to arrive here at 1:20 p.m. Sunday.
The anxiety of dealing with arrogant, unapologetic morons kept me from falling asleep til maybe 12:30 a.m.
So after maybe 3-1/2 hours of sleep, I awoke at 4 a.m. to go to the airport.
Of course, I had to refuel the rental first. More stress.
I arrived with an hour to spare. Good news. Except that I was at the wrong terminal. After a 10-minute walk and a train ride, I was at the right place -- only to find a mile-long line at security (at 5:30 a.m.!!!)
It moved quickly enough that I made my flight. I arrived in Chicago about the same time as the thunderstorms that soon would turn my four-hour layover into something more. A lot more.
After an hour or so, I learned my connecting flight would be delayed indefinitely. After another hour or so, the airline changed the gate to one at the end of another terminal. I then had to walk about 1/2 mile (no exaggeration), schlupping my luggage and laptop and all of the useless books that folks foisted off upon me.
After two hours at my new gate, United decided to mix things up again: another gate reassignment. I then dragged my arse and my stuff all the way back to the terminal I'd originally been at, and beyond the original concourse to the next-farthest one. There, I learned my flight was further delayed.
The airline (United, I repeat) felt so bad about this that everyone in its employ was speechless -- so speechless that not one single United Airlines person apologized through all of this growing ordeal. In fact, I had to listen to United gate agents scold "you people going to Cleveland" twice, effectively telling my fellow travelers to just sit down, shut up and wait after our second gate reassignment and third delay announcement.
After eight hours of that hospitality, I finally got out of O'Hare around 2:15 p.m. CDT; a pilot broke United's consistency by apologizing for the delay.
Shit weather happens. But it's inconceivable to me that any person in any business -- let alone a floundering, failing, reviled one like United -- would be so disdainful of its customer base as United's people were. Bankrupt? NOO! You're KIDDING!
I arrived here in Cleveland an hour later (4:15, w/ time change). My wife picked me up at the urine-tinged University Circle rapid station around 5 p.m. - 12 hours after I left my hotel.
But the hassles melted away at the sight of the two little folks who were bursting with excitement over seeing their daddy. They made their own giftwrap for my presents, which they just could not wait for me to open. And they wrapped me, too -- with giant, giant hugs from little tiny people.
That's why I missed them almost the whole time I was gone.

- JN

Self-Flagellation

Watching the pros this past weekend inspired me to punish myself Monday for my flabby laziness.

So I went out for a little hill workout. It was no big deal to a fit rider. But I'm feeling it today. Here's the route:

Down Euclid Creek Parkway, then back up. Then back down. Then up the Chardon Rd. hill from Euclid Ave. Then back down and up the washed-out road in the Euclid Creek reservation that parallels Highland, up to Richmond and beyond.

Dropped down through the North Chagrin Reservaton onto Chagrin River Rd. Then up and back down Old Mill. Then up Cedar Rd. and home, battling the 168-mph headwind.

I feel like someone smacked my glutes with a baseball bat. I don't think I'll be a factor at Westlake tonight ...

***

The climb up Chardon was a little less steep, and less than half as long, as the Main St. hill in Mankato, at the end of the 90-something-mile stage of the Nature Valley GP. I realized as I reached the top of the Chardon Rd. hill I that might not be able to make it up the Main St. hill even once, even with fresh legs. Those guys and gals racing up there had to climb it four times -- after almost 80 wind-whipped miles of racing.

Gotta tell ya, they earned their salaries that day (all $10,000 of it, in many cases).

***

Another observation:

One thing that blew me away watching the riders sign in for Friday night's criterium is how damn young they look. We live in a place where every single one of the best racers is masters-eligible, where only a handful of under-25 racers are even semi-competitive at Cat 1-2. So it's kind of a jolt to see these upper-echelon guys who look like they're barely old enough to shave. Rock Racing's Mike Creed looks like he could've starred on "21 Jump Street."

(Creed and most of his pro-racing peers undoubtedly are too young to even get the reference to that show. Most of our best racers around here might not get the reference, either -- because when it aired, they were too old to care about watching it. That underscores the gulf).

Most of the male racers at Nature Valley looked like the interns at work: wet behind the ears, and full of youthful exuberance.

That made me a little less disdainful of supposed peloton "tough guy" Kayle Leogrande. Up close, he is a little pipsqueak. He looks like a kid who played too much with Majic Markers, not the brash, dickheaded felon he wants people to think he is. He also seems pretty personable. He didn't just welcome fan interaction -- he seemed to need it.

Young kids -- particularly those who really need attention and, maybe, love -- do stupid things. Most of us regret our stupidity and try to forget it. It's hard to forget the ink that covers every freaking appendage, though. I feel sorry for self-loathers like him sometimes, and hope he gets happy enough someday to regret his form of self-mutilation.

He and co-tattooed David Clinger (who unfortunately abandoned the laser surgery that was supposed to remove the ink that molests his whole face and head) look like youngsters when you're close enough to see past their ink inflictions. And they both seemed like nice guys.

Clinger before

Clinger after.

Who would you rather look like?

As gaudy as the tats are, their wearers were incongruously inconspicuous once the races started. You tend to get overlooked when HealthNet and Bissell eat you lunch and dinner and have your women in every race.

Michael Ball proclaimed that his Rock Racing philosophy would be "Win or be fired." Looks like he's going to do a LOT of firing. Rock Racing was a complete non-factor in one of the biggest stage races on the NRC calendar.

- JN

Twins are Hot!

MANKATO, Minn. -- You can't believe Kristen Armstrong until you see her race -- and even then, she leaves you dumbstruck by dominance that has probably never been seen in American bike racing.

From what I saw at the Nature Valley Grand Prix this weekend, no other woman could beat Armstrong unless Armstrong lets her. Not Tina Pic. Not the Europeans. No one.

Her unrelated namesake, Lance, was one of the all-time greats, of course. But he raced with the greatest teams ever assembled. She effectively races alone. If Armstrong raced alone, even at the height of his greatness, he couldn't have dominated like Kristen does -- not even against the domestic peloton.

To analogize in local terms -- and with all due respect to the rest of the pro female peloton -- Kristen Armstrong against the rest of the pro women is like Paul Martin racing in a men's Cat 3 field in Ohio.

Or maybe like Kristen Armstrong racing in a men's Cat 3 field in Ohio.

The whupping she imposed on the other women in the time-trial stage on Friday would've ruined the whole stage race if the organizers hadn't wadded up the rules in order to keep more than a few women racing.

The officials threw out the time cut instead of throwing out the 60-plus women who failed to finish within 120% of Armstrong's time. But with two stages left that favored power climbers, Anderson had already ended the race for GC. The time trial was short (about 6 miles) and mostly flat until the final 1/2 mile or so. That little aberration, though, comprised a climb comparable to Old Mill Road on Deca-Durabolin -- a 20% grade with three switchbacks and no place to relax.

Armstrong won by 47 seconds. Think about that: She put 8 seconds per mile into them.

The officials' leniency didn't matter, ultimately. The other women who would've been excised from the rest of the stages wound up watching from the cheap seats anyway on Saturday. Well, actually, they didn't: When Armstrong dropped the hammer, she was quickly out of sight, quite literally.

The women had already suffered through 80 miles of spirit-crushing crosswinds when they rolled in to Mankato in a tight bunch. Given the choice, most would've probably opted for another 80 miles of wind rather than what awaited them there: Four laps around a 4-mile circuit cursed with an inhumane mile-long climb at an average grade of 14 percent.

The emphasis is on "average": three flat intersections skew the number downward. Most of the wall -- including the last 300 yards -- is probably closer to 18-20 percent. The intersections are way too narrow to give a rider a break, but wide enough to dilute the grade number, and wide enough to cruelly crack a rhythm climber's steady pace. The top half is so steep that it hurt my knees to jog DOWN it, and I had to be careful not to pitch forward into the pavement.

The men, who came through an hour earlier, were climbing it at a walking pace, and a couple of the sprinters were zig-zagging from curb to curb like little kids.

This photo will give you a hint, but not a clear indication, because the sunlit bottom of the hill is obliterated by overexposure in this cell-phone shot. The folks down there were mere flecks when seen from the top.



The women were together for the last time when they hit the start-finish at the bottom of that hill. Then Armstrong looked like something at the Cleveland Air Show. She broke their legs and rode away like she was on an escalator and her competition was riding up a mountain of dirty laundry.

Re-read this post from the top to this point a couple times; the time it'll take you to do that would approximate the gap she built in that one-mile climb.

The bad news for the rest of the peloton was that three more trips up that hill were to follow, and all of the riders had to finish in order to race in Sunday's last stage to scramble for the scraps of second and third place. In the end, Armstrong had put a few more minutes -- and a few more bullets into the field.

***

On the men's side, HealthNet-Maxxis proved itself the full-team equivalent of Kristen Armstrong. Bissell's Ben Jacques-Maynes started the 95-mile stage with about a 45-second lead, and it evaporated when the men hit the 4-lap end circuit. HNM beat everyone into submission by then, and Rory Sutherland gradually inched away from Jacques-Maynes with each successive suffering up the wall.

But Kirk O'Bee and Jelly Belly's Nic Reistad know who to respect:

***

ST. PAUL -- Well, it turns out that the Twin Cities aren't perfect after all: I saw a few potholes yesterday.

Actually, I saw six, maybe seven -- in 460 miles of driving over three days.

Here where the temperatures reach 30 below (that's minus-144 Celsius, I think), and the freeze-thaw cycles are even more violent than Cleveland's, the pavement looks like Disneyland's. It's almost creepy, in the way a wax museum is: The roads bear an unsettling resemblance to what we know is real, but they are utterly unrealistic. It takes all the fun out of driving when you don't get to slalom through Cleveland, shaking like a cell phone on vibrate.

It used to confound me how Latin baseball players, coming from the most decrepit villages in the Dominican etc., would make their living here and then head straight back home to those hovels.

Now I'm not so confounded, because that's how I feel heading back to Cleveland from the Twin Cities.I spent most of my time in St. Paul, in the parts of it that the locals are worried about -- the "bad" parts, as it were. I'd heard, in my pre-trip research, of how these neighborhoods were on the decline and people were panicking.

When I got there, I was sure I must be in the wrong place. I drove for miles through these "troubled" neighborhoods, up and down both main streets and side streets.I saw one boarded-up house. One.

I saw no houses with bars on the doors. And the main street that I'd heard so much hand-wringing about -- all the "boarded-up storefronts" etc. This street was as vibrant as Detroit Avenue in Lakewood, with a lot more ethnic diversity. The "vacant storefront" epidemic comprised about one empty facade out of every 10 or 15.

Its crime rate is almost Disneyesque, too, compared to us. Cleveland has 2.7 murders for every one in St. Paul. The rates of robbery, burglary and vehicle theft there are about half of what Cleveland's are. And I saw only a single panhandler in the entire time I was there -- a guy in a wheelchair with no legs.

To be sure, St. Paul has a lot of ugliness. But it's aesthetic ugliness -- bad 1950s architecture, bad urban design and bad subdivision regulation. There are neighborhoods where ghastly Brook Park-type ranch homes seem to be dropped randomly from the sky. Haphazard lot lines and setbacks, total lack of architectural consistency, garage-centered house designs and general heinous aesthetics dominate more than half of the city. (The other half is idyllic.)

But it's just kind of unsightly, not unsafe.

The city's mayor confided, as politely as he could, that he was taken aback by Cleveland's desolation and the nonstop stream of moochers and bums who descended on him like pigeons. He'd heard about all the cool stuff, he said -- the Rock Hall, the stadiums, the alleged revitalization. By the time his visit last year was done, he implied, he couldn't wait to get out of town and take a shower.

He was almost apologetic to me about his city's comparative health. With some self-consciousness, he acknowledged that his "bad" neighborhoods would be the envy of most major cities."There is no place in this city," he said without boasting, "that I'd be afraid to be in."Here, the converse is almost the rule.

***

I won't even get started on Minneapolis. Long story short: Forget Seattle and Portland. No city has a better balance of cosmopolitan hipness and real liveability than Minneapolis. It is the trendy, cool and urbane twin, compared to its sensible, blue-collar sibling.

Eleven months of winter probably have a lot to do with it, but the cities embrace the outdoors with an almost explosive exuberance. A chain of lakes, each the size of Lakewood or South Euclid, runs through Minneapolis, and beaches and multipurpose trails ring the lakes. On Saturday, thousands upon thousands of people were swarming there -- rollerbladers, cyclists, joggers and walkers.

Windsurfers and sailboaters were all over the lake (even though the winds were intimidatingly high that day). People were just everywhere.

Then I went in town away from those obvious people magnets. It was the same everywhere -- cyclists, skateboarders, joggers and rollerbladers of every size and color.

There were thousands of people on bikes everywhere I looked. The subset of bike commuters alone was bigger than the total of all cyclists in Greater Cleveland, I'm sure. And, for better or worse, the cities have bike lanes all over the place -- especially St. Paul.