Sharpening the Saw

One day, a long, long time ago, there was a woodsman. On this particular day the woodsman was running a little bit late to his job cutting down trees. To save himself a little bit of time, the woodsman decided to skip sharpening his saw, a bit of maintenance that he usually did every day. So the woodsman gets to work just in time and he starts cutting up some trees. The woodsman notices right away that his saw really isn't sawing quite as well as it should. It takes the woodsman an extra ten minutes to take care of the first tree. As the day goes on, the woodsman's saw just keeps getting duller. In the end, the woodsman finishes his work an hour and a half later than he would have with a sharp saw. The moral of the story: Think long-term. It's usually better to do something that will make you slower in the short term if it will make you faster later.

Today I sharpened my saw (really my legs) for the Race for Alex tomorrow. I felt pretty good - almost 100% - and I'm hoping that today's ride loosened up the legs enough to make a difference. Only six more points for my cat 3 upgrade!

-Russ

Perfect Ride

What an amazing day. 60 degrees, just warm enough to be comfortable, just cold enough that I barely sweat. Mostly cloudy so I don't get the sun in my eyes on the way home. Hard intervals, hard enough that I almost puked at one point, but I still finished them all. Eight stoplights, all timed perfectly so I never even had to slow down. The tire I found flat this afternoon and pumped up before I left still held 90 psi when I got back home after two hours. I live for rides like that.

In the humor department, I rode by this house today with a flooded front yard that hadn't been drained for probably a month. Next to the water, which was at most a foot deep, was a sign. It read:

Danger: New Pond

Private Property

Please No Fishermans

Signed, Mrs. Crazy

No, that isn't really her name, but yes, she really did sign it. Just though that was worth sharing.

-Russ

Faster Than A Speeding Bullet

This guy built a bike. It has a jet engine. His bike goes 50 MPH. Last year, my top speed was 55 MPH down Wheatley Road into the valley. I don't have a jet engine. That makes me feel good just thinking about it.

-Russ

Change of Plans

No Mid-Ohio for me this weekend. My legs felt super bad riding yesterday, pretty much anything over 275W burned pretty bad. So I'm taking the weekend semi-easy, maybe I'll try something Sunday, we'll se what comes up. My main focus right now is to get upgrade points, and since Tyler's races are ABR this year, they really aren't a big priority. Next weekend is either Race for Alex or Garrett Wonders Memorial Crit (hopefully both, if I'm feeling good). But I have to go to graduation that Sunday, so Alex might be out.

5 a Day + 30 mm = Mucho Speed

Yesterday was an amazing day for bike practice. I went on my second team ride of the whole season, since track has been gobbling up all my Tuesday nights for the past two and a half months. To make a long story short, Rich and I pretty much dominated. To make a long story long, here you go.

I started off from home about five minutes late, but somehow I managed to get to the parking lot a little early. That was a good sign. So just as we roll out, Ed shows up on his TT bike. I'm thinking "great, he just finished warming up. get ready for a thumpin'" but that didn't happen. We rode off down Riverview into a pretty good headwind and turned right onto 303. We started climbing out of the valley, and at first everyone was together. Kurt was at the front, taking a nice pull, but Ed was sitting second wheel. So Kurt pulls off and Ed does his thing, and soon it's just me, Ed, Rich, and Kurt. And then it's me, Ed, and Rich. And then it's me and Ed. So here I am just hanging on and we start to take turns pulling. Oh it hurt. But Ed gets to the top and I get to the top and we're still together. So that was good. And that took me within 2 watts of my 10 minute peak power.

So everybody regroups at the top and off we go down Olde 8. We're about 1/3 into the ride and ed decides it's time for him to go home. OK. Now it's me and Rich going back and forth over the hills and through the woods and all that until we get back onto Riverview. We've passed Ira, heading for the town line. Kurt takes a pull, Ted takes a pull, and Rich goes. I go with him wondering why we're doing this when we're still at least a half-mile from the finish. As it turns out, Rich thought the sign was around the wrong curve, so he gives it everything too early, and I scoot around and finish alone. Not really a town-line sprint, but I'll take it. I ride home for 60 miles in 3:05 and that's the end of that.

I attribute this ride to three things:
1) Hard training (duh)
2) I put on a new 120 mm stem, up from the 90 I used to ride (short stem = uber-quick steering and not enough weight on the front wheel, Shawn says that might be why I was crashing so much). It feels so smooth, like I could ride the white line for miles.
3) Eating the recommended "at least five servings of veggies daily". Any time eating more food makes me go faster, I'm totally down with that.

Anyways, since I've shared all my secrets (eat right and exercise? sounds familiar) I expect to have some stiff competition coming up soon at Mid-Ohio

-Russ

Props

go out to two people today. First to Drew, who won at the Can-Am Stage Race in NJ this weekend. A heated battle between Drew and his challenger Thomas Wrona came down to the final sprint, where Thomas got smoked by Drew's 35+ mph top speed. Way to go Drew, time to start racing cat 4's and get those upgrade points.

Second props go to my dad, who went for a ride with me this weekend for the first time in forever (not really, but close). We even got rained on, which is a thing he really tries to avoid. So, good ride dad, thanks for giving me someone to brave the elements with.

Time to ride, I have 2.5 hours to do and only 2 in which to do them.

-Russ

BTW: I'll be @ mid-ohio this weekend. I've never raced there so it'll be a grand adventure. Update soon. Like Sunday-ish, maybe.

RATL #4 vid

Sweet video by Chagrin River Cycling. That's me with the blue helmet. I've been told it really stands out. Whatever

RATL's 2, 3, and 4

#2: feeling prety good after hitting a new 5-minute peak power (for me to know and you not to find out) on Wednesday. the first laps were pretty uneventful until, with five to go, Nate, a Spin, and a Stark went off the front. SBR tried to chase, but couldn't put it together. Nate dropped the two guys with him and solo'd the last lap for the win. He had a pretty big gap, so I went right out of the parking lot, taking another guy with me. He came around right at the line and I ended up a solid third.

#3: should be called "Race In The Lake" for all the rain that was going on. Seriously, the stuff was at least an inch and a half deep in the corners. Anyways, everybody raced slow today, saving it for the finish. Definitely not my kind of race. The group split in half one time, but nobody really attacked and the dropped half just caught back on in a few laps. I tried the whole "go super early because I really can't sprint" thing again, but this time everyone's expecting it and they don't let me go. I get passed by seven guys, leaving me in eighth.

#4: beautiful day, even though it rained all night. We probably had about forty guys out, with seven representing Rainbow Inks. started off pretty slow, so I attacked to get things going. Nate and I took turns going off the front until lap 6. This time he goes off the front, gets pulled back, and a buch of guys counter all at the same time. So now there's exactly one guy from each team up the road, myself included. we atke turns like a nice break should and end up dropping SnakeBite and another guy. So now it's just me, a Stark, and a Spin left to TT for eight laps. We go. And we go. And we go. By the end we get about a minute on the field and end up in a sprint finish. I start up the hill third in line, waiting for Stark (sitting #2) to lead me out. He does, we both pass Spin, but I can't get around. Overall, good race for a decent finish. Back in the pack, Rich took a prime and came pretty close to taking the second one too.