Feeling guilty on Sunday

OK, lots of carbs in form of beer lately, and too much dessert last night at the party. So I decided to go for a fast training ride. 4.5 hours at avg 18.5 mph, mostly on dirtroads. And just when I got home the big rain started. Perfect timing!

This week was the biggest training week since the Transalp.

On a sad note: The freewheel in the Scalpel is acting up, sometimes no torque flow... gotta bring it to the doctor.

Alex

Tour de 'troit

Downtown Detroit by bike - only recommended wiht Police drivingt along. And that's what it was.


That's where I spent my Saturday morning

Saturday at 10 am, start in the bottom left corner of the picture, then along the lake towards Belle Isle (the island you can see), past the Football Stadium Ford Field (hosting the Superbowl in 2006) - the big white thing just to the left of the center, some more zig-zagging and back to the start.

35 miles at a blistering pace of about 8 (eight!!!) mph. That is freaking slow. OK, no complaints, I knew it's going to be slow, and it actually was a lot of fun.

Never seen so many old-school bikes as on this ride, and most of the riders actually thought they have a nice ride. I guess there were about 200 riders.

The police was there to close intersections and stop-signs, their Harleys are LOUD (and the horn goes like : uiiip, uiiip, uiiip - maeeeeee) . All we had to do was pedal slow and not worry about the traffic.

Free beer and food afterwards - what a great way to start a Saturday!

Party at a friends place in the evening - more beer. Looks like the bike season slow's down, haven't had as many drinks as in the last two days throughout the whole year.

Alex

Cheq 40

Raced 40 miles last weekend in Wisconsin at the "Chequamegon 40" - it's a land far far away from Michigan. Jim, Tom and I ended up putting 1500 miles on the Minivan, but it still was a fun weekend.

We stayed at a cabin of Tom's friend, awesome setup, in the middle of nowhere right on one of the thousand lakes of Wisconsin.

The race itself was close to what I expected: only 40 miles, not really my type of racing, way too short. The good thing was that I got in the prefered start group, you were chosen based on current race results. I heard it was crazy further back in the middle of 1500 racers, all leaving at the same time.


The preferred start group of 200 riders (I was in there somewhere) leading the other 1500 out of town.

The strategy was to go full out until I explode, which happened about 1.5 hours into the race. Took out some speed, recovered for about 15 minutes and dropped the hammer again. With 6 miles to go I was about ready to pass another rider, but for some reason he didn't seem to like that and cut of my line.

Three roots in a 45 degree angle on the trail caught my front wheel, and I high sided of to the right. My body landed in a mud puddle, but my helmet hit the ground hard. I must have been out for a couple of seconds, since once I could see again I didn't know for a second what was going on. That's when a group of 10 riders flew by me and I remembered that I was in a bike race.

My head was humming pretty well, so I took it easy for the next two miles. Once everything seemed to be OK I increased the speed again and made a decent finish, ended up 23rd out of 235 racers in my age group. Race time was 2h29:21

Stopped in Chicago on the way home for some deep dish Pizza, very yummy!

Alex

Impressions from Virginia

Heading out to Wisconsin this weekend, so before I get pics from there I still owe you some from the Shenandoah race from 2 weeks ago. Enjoy!


beautiful Virginia (as long as you don't have to climb those hills)


lots and lots of superfast singletrail downhill


gotta go up before you go down


hanging out with Scott the night before the race


some people obviously have very interesting opinions...

Alex

10 000 km

Big news - broke the tenthousand on the first recovery ride after Shenandoah! (Wanted to let the world know right away, but had some internet issues...)

First hard ride was 5 days after the race - bad idea, legs were toast. Felt bad on Saturday while riding with a Josh (who lost 3 of the screws of his small chainring during the ride and crashed hard 2 x - bad day for him as well. In case you read it I hope the poison ivy didn't get too bad).

Sunday brought perfect bike weather, but I just couldn't ride. Too bad - at least I feel better now.

Alex

(oh, and it's my birthday today)

Successfull: 13 / 335

These wicked numbers mean: I finished 13th out of 335 riders. Woo, that's pretty sweet! And 100 times better than I would have ever expected.

Sorry to complain now, but I had no fun at all during that race. The weather was perfect, the trail in awesome condition, all signs for a good day - but I was in no racing mood at all when the gun went off at 6:30 in the morning. Just too much race-time on the saddle lately.

While riding up and down the Virginia mountains I often though about just stopping, maybe pretend I have a knee injury or I could simply ride down one of the steep cliffs and then pretend I crashed - luckily I realized these are fairly stupid ideas.

So I kept suffering until aid-station 5, at about mile 75. That's when the girl that handed me some food said to the five riders currently hanging out at the station: "Congrats, you guys are in the top 20", and when 2 more riders pulled in she said "and they are also still top 20".

I couldn't believe it, I always was under the impression that I was way further back. Now there was only one thing to do: Get back on that bike and ride as fast as you can to stay ahead of those 7 from the aid station and approximately 300 riders further back.

In the final following miles I was only passed by 2 more riders, finished 13th overall and finally had a little more fun than early on!

Some stats:
3560 meters of climbing, 156 km in 8:41. I beat my time from two years ago by 40 minutes, and my heartrate was 147 (compared to 148 in 2003).

I'm especially proud that, once the race was over, I only had beer for the rest of the day (free beer for all racers!). I was pretty much wasted at 5 in the evening... cheers!

(Pictures to follow soon)

Alex

Shenandoah 100

Another race just around the corner, the so called Shenandoah 100 - Jim, Scott and I will hit the road tomorrow for the 550 miles trip to Virginia.

It's a nice race, did it two years ago. 100 miles long, and almost too much singletrail (I remember 2 years ago wishing for some easier terrain). One big loop through the mountains, with almost 14000 feet of climbing.

Don't expect too high of a finish - my legs just don't want to seem to recover. So we head down there for an nice ride on fun terrain.

Weather forecast is looking good, bring it on!

Alex