College Search Round 2 + TdGrandview

Not much happening last week except that Mom and I went on a little road trip looking at schools.

Day 1: Bucknell, Lewisburg PA (Amish country)
Definitely my favorite. Everybody was nice. There's a little town only 3 blocks away, definitely riding/walking distance. I don't really like the big city, so that's definitely a plus. The roads are amazing, with smooth pavement and almost no traffic. I rode for three hours after our tour and got passed by at most twenty cars.

Day 2: Lehigh and Lafayette, Easton PA
Definitely my least favorite. Easton seems to be a very industrial kind of area, not good for riding. Nobody said hi when we were there, I know that might seem a little nitpicky but I think it says a lot about the people. In a bad way.

Day 3: Princeton, NJ
Decent, but disappointing. All the buildings look great from the outside, but they wouldn't let us go in anywhere. It almost seemed like they were hiding something. Maybe the insides of the buildings are kind of nasty, and they just don't want you to see. I hope that isn't the case, but that's what I have to assume I guess.

Day 4: Swarthmore, Philadelphia PA
Nice, but not what I'm looking for. The campus is beautiful, more like a park than a school, but the town of Swarthmore is dying and it seems like the big attraction for everybody is the proximity to Philly. There really isn't anywhere to ride within fifteen miles, either.

Grandview Crit: not much to report, really. I got down there in time to watch Jim G and Rich in the Masters. Rich looked to be in position to place until he crashed in turn three of the last lap. Kinda like me at Garrett Wonders last year. Anyways, in the 3/4 race we had six guys from NE Ohio rolling together: Me, Noah, Jim G, Cameron (RGF), Jared (Stark), and Matt (TT1, fresh off of RAAM). The start was insanely fast, or maybe it just seemed that way because I warmed up an extra lap and lined up last. I knew I had to move up, so I started working on that. Of course, I'd rather move up in the draft than go around in the wind, so that's what I did, just picking my way between the little gaps that opened up. That went great, until one guy moved over into me, which didn't really bother me but totally freaked him out, so he hit his brakes a little and came back into my handlebars (not on purpose, I hope). So that almost took me out within the first five laps, but it didn't, so that was exciting. Lap 7 or 8 there was a move that didn't look good for us so I attacked to try and bring that back. Lap eleven-ish there was a prime, and I was in good position so I went for it and lost. That totally wasted me for the rest of the race. I tried to stay up at the front where the cornering's easier but I kept sliding back. Fast forward seven laps and we have one lap to go. I've hung on for the whole race and have kinda recovered, when in the last corner, some guy rolls his tire and takes out a whole row of riders. Thankfully, I ended up scooting right between a guy and his bike, and I didn't go down. Unfortunately, that left me with no chance to sprint, securing my back-of-the-field finish. At least I didn't go down. There were at least four wrecks at as many near misses during the race. Try again next week at the Team Dayton Crit.

-Russ

New Site

The old Summit Freewheelers website was getting a little bit, well, old. So Bob Iden offered to help us out and set up a new one. It's not too much different, but it looks a lot nicer and a lot of the pages can be edited by club members. Real nice, I think. Thanks Bob.

-Russ

Like a Balloon

The quality of life on my end of things has only been going up lately, and now I'm convinced it's because of all the stretching, sleeping, and other healthy stuff I've been doing. This week was pretty amazing, once again. My dad and I rode the Great Ohio Bicycle Adventure (GOBA), a seven day ride with 50 miles/day and 100 on Thursday. The weather was perfect. There wasn't one drop of rain the whole week, at least not while I was awake. The Tour of Ohio always has a crit stage in one of the same towns (Mount Vernon this year) that GOBA is staying. That's always fun to watch. The course was Tym's "Mt. Vernon Classic", a great course around the square, downhill through an "S", up a brick section, and back to the square. After the Tour stage, there was a cat 4/5 race. I entered even though I already rode 55 miles, figuring it was my last chance to do a 4 race. The first lap was hot, but everybody wanted to take the corners slow and I was pretty sure I could do the whole course without brakes (thanks, cyclocross!). There was an early attack that brought out about five guys, including me. On the second lap, everybody hurt, and they slowed down more than usual for the corner into the bricks. I sprinted out of the corner, up the bricks and around the wide turn to the S/F, hoping to draw out one guy that I could ride with for a while and try to drop later. Well, nobody came with me, and I had already burned up too many matches to quit, so I went solo. I put about two seconds on the field per lap for about six laps just by not touching the brakes, then they quit chasing and I lapped everybody. It was just like a juniors race, now that I'm thinking about it. Anyways, I came away with a $10 prime, a pair of Tym's Torelli carbon handlebars , and my first win of the season. It's about time!

-Russ

PS: new party music

Unplugged

For this year's GOBA I've decided to unplug. The powertap's going to the shop to be trued, so I thought it might be a nice adventure to totally shut myself off from the bike computer world. This week I'll have no idea how fast I'm going, how long I've been riding, or any of that kind of stuff. It should be relaxing (at least after a day or so of getting used to it), and I'm hoping it will increase my mental endurance (not knowing how much further I have to go, especially on the century). This week should be a good tune-up for the Junior State RR, which will be a 60 mile race for the 17-18s.

I went down to Wilmington last night for Summer Solstice Stage 1. In a field of twenty cat 4's, there were nine Anthem guys, three Saturns and one of everything else. I figured "hey, Anthem has almost half the field, they're going to start a break." So I went with everything they sent, and we got away about four miles into the 36 mile race. It was me, and Anthem, and a Saturn, but we dropped Saturn in about a mile. Another Anthem bridged up, and we started to do work, putting about two minutes on the field over the whole race. Too bad for Saturn, they thought they still had a man in the break and didn't try to organize any kind of chase. My plan was to get away with a mile to go, but that didn't work and I got third in the three-up sprint. Better luck Tuesday at Mount Vernon, I guess.

Perfect Summer: stretching every morning helps me wake up, I think. It's making me more flexible, too. That's always good.

There's new party music this week, found here.

-Russ

Good, Better, and Best

Good: I've been volunteering at Bath Township Safety Town this week. That's where five-year-olds go to learn about fire trucks, how to not talk to strangers, and stuff like that. Today we went across the street to the police station, but as soon as we got there all the cars had to go to some big emergency. All the kids were super disappointed until we went back for snacktime. They sure do love their snacks.

Better: Mill Creek was pretty much amazing. We only had three guys (me, Rich, and Doug) but we controlled pretty much the whole race. I tried to start an early break off of a prime, but that didn't stick. Doug went off on the next one, but some guys decided to pull back their own team in the break. On the last lap, Doug and Rich get away with a Snakebite (I think), Rich goes from there, and Doug and the other guy get brought back right at the bottom of the hill. Rich takes first, and I get fourth for combined winnings of $140, more than enough to pay for entry fees and a good lunch. Delicious.

Best: So I was wandering through craigslist today, looking for nothing in particular, when I stumble across some guy's 2008 Cervelo P3 with SRAM Force and a ceramic BB for just $2100. It sounded a little cheap, so I clicked to see why he's selling. As it turns out, he's frustrated because he bought all this expensive stuff, put in 100 miles, and he's still not fast. Don't you hate it when that happens? Read it yourself here. It's amazing, really. Just amazing

-Russ

Mill Creek Criterium and Other Stuff

Short story: Rich and Doug broke away on the last lap, Rich stays away for the win and I get fourth. Total winnings (per person) for Race for Alex and Mill Creek combined was $66, for a net of $16. I also finished up with my upgrade points today, now all I have to do is send in my results and I'm cat 3!!!
Long story: maybe tomorrow

I've installed a new feature, the Party Music of the Week. This week's selection can be found here.

Perfect Summer Update: things have been pretty normal so far, but it's only been two days. I expect to see some improvement in my overall feel-goodness by the end of the week.

That's all for now
-Russ

Riddle Me This

Wow, three posts in a day. It's all right I guess since I'm out of school now. All that free time also means a lot more thinking time. A lot more thinking time has led me to a question. Which came first, the name "Victor" or the word "victor"?

Scenario #1 (the word comes first): A mother-to-be is thinking about names for her kid. She wants him - or her I guess, but who names their girl Victor? - to be a successful guy, so she names him "Victor", because a victor is someone who wins at something.

Scenario #2 (the name comes first): There's this guy named Victor. He's a real war hero in his home nation of Unpronouncablistan, the guy who saved his country from the invading Roman Empire, or something like that. So to immortalize Victor the War Hero, everybody starts calling people who win the "victors".

Just some food for thought.

-Russ

Reflections On A Broken Seatpost

So I was riding around today, minding my own business, when this car decides to pass me right before a patch of potholes. I can't swing out, and even with the cleanest line, I still hit one or two of the smaller holes. My bike made a little bit of a popping kind of noise, but I thought everything was ok. See, the springs in my brakes aren't as strong as they used to be, and they weren't good brakes to begin with, so there's a good bit of play in the levers. Usually they rattle around a bit when I hit something, so I thought that was it and just rode on. As I kept going, I noticed that my seatpost had a kind of vibration-dampening quality that I hadn't noticed before. Kind of unusual because I've used the same post for the four years I've had the bike. I thought it was no big deal until vibration-dampening slowly turned into mushy-feeling. I decided I didn't want to end up riding ten miles without a seat, so I went home. Turns out my post had a two-inch-long vertical crack, one inch in each direction from the collar. So now I'm using an old Bontrager Select we had lying around. I have yet to see how it rides, but I wouldn't mind it being a little harsher than the old one. I'd rather feel connected than not have a sense of the road.

-Russ

Perfection

I was going to wait until Sunday to write about this, but since today's my first day out of school and the official start of my new life, here it goes.

This summer I'm going to be perfect.

Yeah, I know you're thinking "What? It's summer break! Party time!", but no, it really isn't. This summer I'm going to do everything right. I'm going to stretch, every day. I'm going to eat right, every day. I'm going to go to bed by eleven, every day (unless I'm not home). These are just a few of the good choices I'm going to make this summer, every day. And I'm going to write about my journey to well-being every day I post, for a little bit of extra motivation to keep me going.

Wish me luck!

-Russ

Thanks Again To Chagrin River Cycling

They've just posted another video, this time of the Race for Alex. The one they took of RATL was pretty good, I'm hoping this one is too. I haven't actually watched it because the computer is acting up a bit, and I don't even know right now which race it is, but enjoy anyways.

A First-Class Week

What a week. Here's the breakdown by day.

Sunday: Race for Alex, with possibly the largest field I've ever ridden (54 to be exact). Except it wasn't any different from any other race, since I didn't go any further than ten back. I cleared the tracks every lap, much better than last year, when I just rode over them. Here's the breakdown. First lap, everybody's got ants in their pants or something, because they all want to go like 30mph. Nobody even tries to break away, they just ride a 5-man TTT on the front. Second lap everybody comes to their senses and they realize nobody can win after a 20 mile TT effort in the group. So they try a 20 mile TT off the front. Solo. So I tell everybody to let each one go, and they listen. Ten minutes later we just roll up, not really chasing, to the guy who fried himself off the front. So the strong but not too smart guys are taken care of, now I just have to worry about guys who are saving their energy. Lap three was pretty bad for me. A guy went off the front, and I thought he was somebody else. When I looked around to make sure he was ok to let dangle, it turns out the guy who I thought just went off the front was sitting behind me and the guy up the road was his teammate, who could actually stick it out solo. So off I go, trying to bridge, and I get away. But I don't have enough to make it all the way across. I hang out for three or four minutes but I know I'm wasting myself, so I let the pack get me. Doug keeps things moving and eventually we catch the other guy. Lap four and five I sit in, trying to recover some for the sprint. Lap five I float back a little too much, and Rich brings me back up to third wheel going through the last corner. I get in the line, but the two guys in front of me decide to pull off, so I'm left in the wind. We're real close to the 200m, so I thought I ought to just go for it instaed of pulling off. So I sprint too early and still end up sixth. I feel pretty good about that considering all the work I did in the race. And it was worth $55. Sweet!!!

Monday: Ok, so nothing really happened Monday biking-wise, but it was still an amazing day. I'm in AP Chem right now (well, not anymore, school ended today) and since we took the AP test in the middle of May, we don't have anything to do. So today, we made fun stuff with chemicals. Like smoke bombs and contact explosives. All in a closed, supervised, scientific environment of course, but it was still crazy fun.

Tuesday: One-hour rain ride. I'm trying to get used to riding in the rain a little more ever since I really sucked it up at RATL 3. So the ride went pretty well, and then I cleaned my bike, which is really relaxing for me for some reason.

Wednesday: Another 20 minute set of 30-30's, just like last week. And, just like last week, I raised my 20 minute peak power, which I use as my LT power. So far it's up 3% since the last time I did a power test. I think I could get at least another ten watts if I did a straight TT, well rested and no intervals. After my 30-30's, I did another 20 minutes at z4 and averaged the same as my LT power from the last test. It didn't hurt nearly as much as I remember, even after 20 minutes of intervals.

Thursday (Today): Last day of school. We got out at 10:06 and went across the street for the end-of-the-year Band Bowl. After about ten minutes The Man decided to stick it to us and said we had go further away from the school. I'm not really sure he can actually do that, we weren't on school grounds or anything, but we left anyways. The next closest place to play was the Bath Community Center, four miles away, so we went there. I had my bike, everybody else went by car. I got there while everyone was still getting out of the second car, no headstart except for the time it took for everybody to pile in. This just reaffirms my belief in bikes as the ultimate commuter vehicles, and hopefully riding to band camp every day this summer will win me some converts.

That's all for now, hopefully I'll get an update in after Mill Creek on Sunday.

-Russ