Why I Hate Cycling

I Hate Cycling

Yea, weird huh....me being a coach and all....

so, why do I hate cycling....

it's too damn expensive, too hard, too dangerous, too sweaty, too many posers, too many slackers...

Expensive - ok, I COULD just race crits, or track, or 'cross, or mountain bikes, but nooooooo...i gotta try it all - D'oh!

Hard - I was pacing Peter Bohl today at the track. he was dong points race practice with JA Mendonca so I sat about 10m behind them and rode tempo at ~30. It wasn't hard. Taking that pace up about 2 or 3 mph without any draft after firing a ballistic start..then holding it for about 3minutes and 40 seconds - hoping it's enough to get top 5 in MASTERS pursuit.....danngit that's hard! 1:13 kilo's at Hellyer, 3 of them....that's hard

Danger - ok, that's just a place holder. I'm pretty safe, don't take stupid chances, and don't like to fall off my bike.

Sweaty - this is an article in itself...think about how much of your life is spent sweating if you ride. How many showers do you take each day? How many times a week are you sitting in your house with sweat in every crevice - waiting to go to sleep and do it again!

Posers - ok, another place holder...most everyone I know in cycling is ok. Most posers...not all, but most...are just newbies looking for some help or feedback..so get off your 'i'm a real cyclist' kick and say hi to each other out there...I've met more people just riding easily along foothill and saying hi at the lights....it's not all about rushing around everywhere...

Slackers - I go to races and continually see guys that don't do anything in races...I mean they don't ever see the front, the don't attack, they don't chase...they just ride around. Slackers. Same for those guys that go out to 'train' and end up just doing half assed efforts for no real purpose. By the way - i felt like a slacker today at the track...

So, I hate cycling....but it's still pretty fun, so i'll keep doing it...

Here is the link to the Livermore Cyclocross Series Race #2 Course Map. We'll try to add more courses as we get the info...

Game On - where in the world is Sterling?

Our first entry in the 'where in the world is Sterling' contest - Steven on top of Mt Wilson!! - Send your entry to me and we'll get it up pronto...do I hear Canada in our future? Italy?

Team Bike Update

We've been working with Leopard to refine and finalize the look of our team bike - so, here it is. Classic black carbon weave, silver logo's mixed with the burnished red of the Sterling Logo. Pro!

'Cross Calendar Coming Along

The clock is ticking - only a month or so til the first CX race in nor-cal...
if you haven't seen the schedule check it out - online!.

There are great events from Pilarcitos, including a NIGHT RACE!! I love those....

The venerable Central Coast Series is back this year with a FULL schedule...I mean events til January '09!!!!

Who can forget the Sacramento CX Series....certainly not our Sacto contingent...

The Velo Bellas are throwing down an event or two - specifically the Surf City Halloween Spectacular (yea, yea spooktacular...whatever)...just check their site/blog to get the details.

There are several other series that are yet to be webinized...but we'll keep looking - Lion of Fairfax, Livermore Series, and more..

so check back for updates and more....

The Valley Ride

those of you living in the Palo Alto, peninsula area are certainly aware of the Wednesday night Valley Ride. Wednesday worlds, good training ride, or waste of time - this ride is a staple of many a riders week. Like most group rides you get out what you put in - sorta. This past week I thought I'd try a little experiment on the valley ride and see how LITTLE work I could do on the ride...as measured by average watts, normalized watts, and maximum watts. So to make it somewhat reasonable I had the following criteria - I had to ride the whole time at/near the top 10% of the field, I had to finish in the top 20 up the Huddert Park climb, and I had to at least position well for each of the three sprints on the ride. So off I went...

The ride started easily enough - I averaged 160'ish watts til the turn onto Arastradero, for point of clarity my LT Power is about 315W so this wasn't too tough. I admit being a bit worried about the climb over Arastradero and up Alpine to Portola Valley. It seems, however, that my ability to not work very hard was pretty good! I hit the turn to Portola at approximately 170W (now this is average, not normalized, but we'll get to that), so it wasn't going too badly. True to my 'rules' i'd stayed in the front 10% most of the ride - although to be truthful I was probably a bit farther back on the Arastradero climb. Into the first sprint and I rolled to the front, but let the hard chargers go ahead...still I was not more than maybe 5-10 riders from the winner. Over Mountain Home and I found myself feeling pretty good, riding at the front and even taking a couple of hard pulls. From there I took it easy to the base of Huddert - quite a different feeling to hit the base of the climb feeling somewhat fresh. Knowing peak watts was a criteria of my ride, just like average watts - I started the climb slowly but managed to hit the top in about 7th - averaging just over 300W for the 6 minutes of the climb. On the return to Los Altos I took a couple of pulls, including over the two small bumps that preceed the third sprint. Anyway - the long and short is that I averaged 202 Watts and 267W normalized for the ride. My Max Wattage was just over 1000W (My 5 Peak is about 1300W). I'll post the power file shortly with a few more details...but in the end...the ride was pretty easy for about 90% - and kinda tough for 10%.

More 'Cross? Are You Serious?

Yep...I don't know what's wrong with my mind...probably just can't remember how much cyclocross hurts, but it just keeps ramping up in my brain!! Then I come across this from cxmagazine.com's website - kid outta Boulder who put together a CX movie that is pretty darn good. Take a minute to watch it, then drop some coins in his coffer so he can pursue the next project...


Little Belgium - The 2007 New England Cyclocross Season from Andy Frothingham on Vimeo.