Author: sexyhermit

The Proctor Classic

Today was the Proctor Classic criterium bicycle race in downtown Peoria. I, along with six other Wild Card Cycling riders, did the Cat 5 (i.e. beginner) race. The good news was that we had a pretty sizable group of very good riders who can work well together. The bad news was that it was a criterium, by far my least favorite type of bike race. The course was a one mile loop on closed (unlike West Lafayette) city streets. There were eight turns each loop, most of which were only separated by one block each. This is a lot of turning, and the speed was high, and that always makes me a little bit nervous.

Rob before race

Mark & Rob on lap two

Karl & Thomas

The race started well enough. I was near the front. I dropped a few positions each turn and I moved up a few positions on the longer straight sections. On the third lap I was near the middle of the pack when the guy right in front of me (it’s always* the guy right in front of me) slid out in one of the turns. I had to brake hard and turn sharply to avoid running into him. This crash split the field in half. I accelerated as soon as possible, but at the point it was too late. The front half of the field had a gap and they were going too fast for me (or anyone else behind the crash) to catch them.

I rode the rest of the race by myself. It kind of sucked to watch the leaders pull farther ahead of me each lap, but at the same time it was a bit of relief to not have to worry about other riders in the turns. Nobody passed me the rest of the race, while each lap I would pass one, or two, or three riders who dropped from the lead group.

Mark, Stew, Tom, & Dan in the lead group

Mark, Dan, Tom, & Stew in the lead group

Tom & Stew

Rob chased alone almost the entire race, but never caught the leaders

Tom finished 2nd, Stew finished 3rd

I don’t know all the details how the race unfolded at the front, but Tom finished in 2nd place, and Stew finished in 3rd. Dan and Mark also finished in the top dozen or so. I’m 95% sure I was the first person to finish behind the lead group, but the results showed me near the bottom of the field. I questioned the race official about this and she agreed this was incorrect. She went to go re-figure the results while we waited around and watched the next couple races. I never did hear back. I wonder what my official place will be…

After our race was a junior race. Next was the Masters Cat-1,2,3 race, which was won by Dave Stone, a guy who sometimes trains with us. There were many other races throughout the day, but Melissa and I had to take off at this point to visit her parents before heading back to Urbana to walk Ravage (we were dog-sitting).

Dave Stone (who sometimes trains with us) won the Masters Cat-1,2,3 race

So the race went well for the team, as well as other local riders. It was only so-so for me, but at least I learned a few things. Next time I will be a little wiser and hopefully a little luckier.

* As a side note, a rider directly in front of me has crashed at some point in five of the seven mass start bike races I’ve done (all four criteriums and one of the three road races). Fortunately, only one of them took me out as well. The lesson is don’t ride directly in front of me.

Update: The results have been posted and they correctly list me behind Mark, which as it turns out was 17th.

The Confirmation

After ten years of running (1993-2003) and two full seasons of triathlons (2002 & 2003), I tore cartilage in my left knee while running in the spring of 2004. This put both my running and triathlon enjoyment on hold. After months of trying to get back to running and arthroscopic surgery a year later it became clear that running was no longer an option for me. While giving up running was very hard for me, my consolation was that I was still able to bike. Bicycling (which I really only started as a means to an end, triathlon) became my only fitness outlet. Since that time I have biked most days, traveling tens of thousands of miles by my own power.

Last August, after nearly four years off running, I decided on a whim to run a bit. It went well. A few days later I ran again and it went well again. I started running once a week, then twice a week. I mainly ran on grass and dirt, rather than concrete and asphalt, since it is easier on my knee. I slowly started to get my speed back.

By the end of October I felt ready to do a race, the Deuces Wild Duathlon. It had a 2 mile run, a 20 mile bike, then another 2 mile run. I made a good effort and ended up 7th overall and 1st in my age group. At this point I was pretty sure I could make a full return to triathlon.

I did several short races (and one loooong one) over the winter and spring (with some success), but I was really just biding my time until summer. I needed to compete in a triathlon to confirm to myself that the old Rob was back.

Last saturday was the day. Melissa & I travelled to Indianapolis, where I did the Indianapolis Sprint Triathlon at Eagle Creek Park. It was a short race, with a 500 yard swim, a 10 mile bike, and a 3 mile run. I did this race in 2002. In that edition I got a flat tire, which took about 9 minutes to fix, and still finished respectably. I was pretty sure I could do better this time around.

The race was packed. There were over 600 people registered and there was huge, slow moving, line to pick up packets before the race. This caused me to completely miss my warm up before the race.

The swim was harder than it should have been. It was only 500 yards, but I had only swam 4 times this year prior to the race. Yes, this was dumb. I was underprepared and it showed. I swam kind of slowly. In the past I would typically finish roughly 60th for the swim in a race this size, where on Saturday I finished 86th. Not terrible, just a little rusty.

My first transition (swim to bike) took an eternity. Not only did I not practice swimming enough, I didn’t practice using my wetsuit at all. After nearly 5 years I had a really difficult time taking the damn thing off. The transition took about a minute longer than it should have.

The bike went amazingly well. The 5 years of practice I’ve had really showed. I passed way way way more people than I’ve ever passed in a triathlon bike leg, and I was passed by far fewer people than any other tri I’ve done. In the past the bike leg was always by far my weakest, but that is no longer the case. I finished the bike with the 30th fastest split, averaging 22.2 mph for a not particularly fast course. The beginning of the out and back course had lots of turns. The middle section had big bumps every 50 meters.

The second transition went much more smoothly. Nothing notable to mention.

The run was okay. Running after biking is always a little weird. Even though I never practiced this in training, my body handled it pretty well. My legs felt great, but I started to get side stitches while running. This generally doesn’t happen to me, and it was unfortunate that when it did happen it was during a race. I would have liked to have run faster, but I’m content with how it went. My run split of 19:33 (6:31 pace) was the 39th fastest. I was hoping to run under 19:00, with a pie in the sky goal of closer to 18:00.

I finished 36th overall (out of 559 finishers), and 8th in my age group (for which I won a race towel). At some point in the past 5 years triathlons changed age grouping from age on race day to age at the end of race year, meaning I was competing as a 30 year old. The 30-34 age group is typically much tougher in triathlons than 25-29.

I did well, but I had room for improvement. The good news is that the old Rob is back. Surely I will have a few more chances this summer to compete in other triathlons and hopefully continue to improve.

The Marin Headlands

We were in San Francisco for seven days. I was able to go on a bike ride five of those days. Every single bike ride I did I crossed the Golden Gate Bridge. There are (at least) two reasons for this. First, the path along the northern coast of San Francisco combines with the bridge to form several miles of continuous roads/paths with very few stop lights or stop signs. Riding through the city is fun, but stopping every other block at a stop light is not the best way to get a workout. Second, just on the other side of the bridge lie the Marin Headlands.

The headlands are the hilly area at the southern tip of Marin County, just north of San Francisco. San Francisco is known for it’s hills, and while many of these hills are quite steep they are typically only 200-300 ft high. Hawk Hill, in the headlands, is 920 ft high. This is the closest big hill to San Francisco. Additionally, it provides an absolutely spectacular view of the city, bridge, and bay.

One of the routes I took to Hawk Hill

Approaching the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco, with the Marin Headlands in the background.

The bridge has wide paths on both sides. One is for pedestrians & bikes, the other is for bikes only.

The hills rise up immediately from the bay on the north side of the bridge.

The climb up Hawk Hill is 1.8 miles long and ranges from 3% to 12% gradient with an average of 7%.

I rode Hawk hill three times last week. The first time I had a meeting immediately following the ride, so I was really moving, around 9-10 mph. The second time I wasn’t quite as pressed for time, but I still needed to make it back in a timely fashion and averaged 8-9 mph. The third time was a much longer ride (3 hours) with no tight schedule so I rode a more leisurely 7-8 mph. At the rate I was getting slower each day it’s a good thing I didn’t stay another week or I may not have been able to maintain forward motion…

The view from the top did not disappoint. It was crystal clear on the first trip.

The second trip was a little foggy.

“Classic Rob” according to Meli

With any luck, this will be an interactive 360˚ panoramic view from the top of Hawk Hill. Click on the image and drag the mouse left and right to change the view.

The Telegraph Hill

On Wednesday morning I headed out towards the Golden Gate bridge for a bike ride. I headed north on Kearny intending to turn left onto Columbus when I saw a monster hill. Kearny St. headed up Telegraph Hill is steep. It is closed to auto traffic. I tried to ride up this street on the Dahon a few years ago, but after slowing to a complete stop I had to get off and walk the bike the rest of the way. This time I was on the Pocket Rocket, so I figured I’d give it another go. It was still steep, but I made it without too much difficulty (though I’m kind of glad it was only one block long). From there I was close to half way up Telegraph Hill and I had never been to the top, so I figured why not go the rest of the way.

Coit Tower is at the top. This was built as a memorial to the firefighters who died in the 1906 earthquake fire. It is an impressive building, and Telegraph hill provides beautiful views of the city.

Coit Tower

San Francisco from Telegraph Hill

San Francisco from Telegraph Hill

A statue of Columbus is in front of Coit Tower. Alcatraz can be seen in the background.

Lombard St. from Telegraph Hill towards the crooked section at the top of Russian Hill

The Flooding

Rains of biblical proportions hit Champaign County last week. Champaign county is very flat and the water doesn’t really go anywhere, so there was a lot of flooding. I spend a lot of time bicycling through the country side and I have seen standing water in just about every field. Several roads were under a foot of water. The flooding was even more apparent when viewed from above, as I was flying out of Champaign last Sunday morning on my way to San Francisco.

A lot of fields in Champaign county were flooded last week

The 2008 WWDC Keynote

Yesterday was the keynote presentation for the 2008 Apple Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco. The big news Steve Jobs announced during the keynote was a new iPhone revision with faster cellular networking (nice in theory but only available in major cities, i.e. nowhere near where I live), GPS (yay), a lower price tag (yay), better battery life (yay), a non-cracked screen (I suppose the original model has this feature as well, until you drop it on concrete), and a higher monthly service fee to AT&T (boo).

2008-06-10-Cracked-Screen
Stupid cracked screen

Even more interesting to me is the iPhone 2.0 software (which will also be available for first generation iPhones) which allows 3rd party applications to be installed and run. This was originally announced a couple months ago but a few more details were provided during the keynote. There were also lots of demonstrations from 3rd party developers who have been working on games, productivity, and educational applications for the iPhone. Who knows, maybe the DataBook software will be available on an iPhone in the future…

The Landprint

Z Corp, a company who partners with my employer, recently launched a new online printing service called Landprint to create 3D maps of user selected regions of planet Earth. The full topography is printed in 3D and colored to match satellite photos.

I love maps, so I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to try this out. The choice of locations was clear–my former home, Ometepe island in Nicaragua.

Landprint of Ometepe island in Nicaragua

Profile view of the Landprint

Here’s my hand for scale. It’s kind of small.

It’s made of a hard sturdy resin. I knew it was going to be small, but I underestimated just how small 4″ was. That’s okay, because the thing is really neat. They make objects slightly larger but they get prohibitively expensive pretty quick. The 4″ model was priced closer to the impulse buy range.

The End of May

Just a week or two ago we had low temperatures in the 30s and now we have highs in the 80s. It’s like we skipped Spring this year and went directly from Winter to Summer. My May bike mileage was slightly up from March & April, but still not quite as high as that of 2006.

May 2008

Bike Distance # Rides Avg per Ride
Bianchi 36.14 Mile 6 6.02333 Mile
Big Red 8.95 Mile 1 8.95 Mile
Bike Friday 23.03 Mile 1 23.03 Mile
Dahon 46.43 Mile 6 7.73833 Mile
Litespeed 20.23 Mile 3 6.74333 Mile
Thundercougarfalconbird 530.28 Mile 19 27.9095 Mile
Total 665.06 Mile 36 18.4739 Mile

Jan – May 2008

Bike Distance # Rides Avg per Ride
Bianchi 328.77 Mile 53 6.20321 Mile
Big Red 31.09 Mile 4 7.7725 Mile
Bike Friday 23.03 Mile 1 23.03 Mile
Dahon 158.13 Mile 28 5.6475 Mile
Litespeed 73.33 Mile 5 14.666 Mile
Thundercougarfalconbird 1715.81 Mile 53 32.3738 Mile
Total 2330.16 Mile 144 16.1817 Mile

The Bike Friday

Five weeks ago I placed my order for a custom handmade Bike Friday Pocket Rocket. Today the waiting ended. The Bike Friday was delivered around noon to a very excited Melissa. I had to wait until I got home around 7:30 pm to play with it, but it was worth the wait. It arrived packed up in it’s suitcase. It took only a couple minutes to assemble–it packs much more easily than my old Dahon. I was riding it up and down the street in no time at all.

Bike Friday in suitcase

Bike Friday in suitcase

Unpacking Bike Friday

Partially assembled Bike Friday Pocket Rocket

Fully assembled Bike Friday Pocket Rocket on work stand in bike hole

Rob test riding new Pocket Rocket

Rob test riding new Pocket Rocket

Custom built for Ragfield by Green Gear Cycling, Eugene OR

Wow, it is sweet. The bike weighs 23 lbs, rather than the 33 lbs of the Dahon. Folding bikes do look a little strange, but this one does not feel strange. It rides just like any other road bike. The gearing is similar to that of other road bikes despite the smaller wheels due to the Shimano Capreo cassette & hub. The cassette goes all the way down to a 9 tooth cog, rather than the traditional 12 or 11 tooth cog on road bikes with larger wheels.

I will probably take it on a long ride tomorrow, but so far I’m very pleased with the Bike Friday.

The Dahon

It is with mixed emotions that I write about my 2003 Dahon Helios XL folding bike. I’ve had this bike for 4 1/2 years and it has served me well, but I’ve decided to replace it. Tomorrow I should be receiving a brand new Bike Friday Pocket Rocket.

The Dahon was never my primary bike. I got it to ride around town and to take with me on trips (both auto and plane). The wide, low pressure tires do better on bumpy city streets and sidewalks than the thin, high pressure tires on my road bike. It has fenders and an internally geared planetary rear hub to deal better with the nasty weather I sometimes encounter riding to & from work. The rack allows me to haul my computer or other miscellaneous items. It folds up in about 15 seconds. It fits into a nylon bag that can be carried around. In about 15 minutes it can be disassembled further to fit into a standard sized Samsonite Oyster suitcase for airline travel.

2003 Dahon Helios XL

2003 Dahon Helios XL folded

Dahon Helios XL frame inside suitcase

Dahon Helios XL inside suitcase

Dahon Helios XL inside suitcase

The bike has been great and it has served its purpose well, but it’s far from perfect. It works well to get around town, but it’s not great for long rides… or fast rides… or uphill rides… or downhill rides. It’s a bit on the heavy side. The internally geared hub is low maintenance, but it has a lot of friction, it’s a pain to install and remove from the bike, and it’s difficult to adjust properly. My new Pocket Rocket should shine where the Dahon has fallen short.

I have flown to San Francisco with the Dahon 3-4 times and taken it on numerous car trips. It is my usual transportation for marathon watching (Madison, Green Bay, Des Moines, Chicago Lakeshore). Aside from that I ride it to work on a rotating basis with a couple of my other bikes.

I’ll leave you with some photos of the Dahon in action:

Rob on the Dahon during Chicago Lakeshore Marathon, 2004

Melissa next to the Dahon after Chicago Lakeshore Marathon, 2004

Rob after crossing Golden Gate Bridge on the Dahon, 2004

The Dahon on Lombard Street in San Francisco, 2004

Melissa running Green Bay Marathon with the Dahon’s rear wheel in background, 2005

Rob with the Dahon at Marin headlands with San Francisco in background, 2005

The Dahon folded up under Rob’s desk, 2008