Eugene Celebration: TT/Crit (Day 2)

I remembered my number! I picked some Americanos for Cole and I from Supreme Bean (DELICIOUS!) on the way out. I put a cassette on the 808’s and got out the aero helmet. Jaime pinned my number while I was on the trainer. Andrew Bennett’s mom Lynn Coody talked to me. She likes my blog. I’m famous! Not really. (A little?)

The aero bars I was going to borrow wouldn’t fit my 31.8 handlebars… no good. I had a pretty good warmup. The TT went… okay. I got 20th, losing 1:52. The course was fine. It was windy. Eh. I dropped to 17th overall.

We went to the The Original Pancake House and I demolished some blueberry pancakes, part of Jaime’s omelet and a bunch of homefries. Soooo good.

I took my PowerTap to Hutch’s. It’s not happy. It’s fixable, but it needs to be rebuilt. That means no crit or Wolf Creek data. I’m… I’m totally lost without it, you know?

Crit time. I talked to Mike McCabe a bit. There were some fierce looking clouds about. I warmed up a bit. Time to ride some circles. Cole attacks. It feels pretty easy. I hang out towards the front. Cole attacks more. It starts drizzling, uh oh. More laps. More Cole attacks. Davis pulls some. Erich pulls some. It starts raining. Cole attacks with a few to go. He come back. I attack hard with two to go. Nobody jumps. I get the gap. I get around the corner, and I can’t see them- big gap. I nail it, all out, head down and I unconsciously slide forward on the saddle, perched on the tip. Gap is there still, but smaller. Click, one more cog. My face smushes up. It’s raining hard with huge drops. Do it do it do it…

Hmm. I get caught. The big acceleration goes at 500m. I hang on and finish at the back of the field. No time lost? Sigh.

Tomorrow’s another day. An epic day. A huge, badass, awesome day with enough climbs to beat the crap out of everyone. I’m really excited. Am I going to come back from a minute and a half down to win the overall? I’m not sure, but probably.

In all seriousness, tomorrow’s going to rock. There will be some epic throw-down, and I hope I’m there. I’m super pumped.

There will be a picture post soon. I’m just lazy right now.

Eugene Celebration: Maxon RR (Day 1)

I n00bed out and forgot my number at home. Seth May bailed me out with a temp (thanks!). What a start. At least I registered, right?

We rolled out nice. I put my Vittoria CX’s on last night, and they felt rad. Good day. I chatted up some of the guys I hadn’t seen in a while. The weather was a little chilly.
The next half an hour to the bottom of Sprinter’s was pretty chill. There were a couple surges and little hills. Blah blah blah. Sprinters wasn’t too bad. Somebody attacked at the bottom. We chased. I stayed towards the front. The next half hour was also pretty chill. Then we go up Welders again. There was a big split in the group. We nailed it at 27+ mph for a while to open the gap up, then everybody got tired and sat up. We went 18 mph for a while (a lot of people got back on). The weather was warm and perfect at this point.

The “leadout” didn’t work, meh. I got 5th at +0:00. TT tomorrow, 9:39:30. Awesome.

Summary:

My PT hub is freaking out. It’s loose? I’m not really sure. I don’t need it tomorrow morning (borrowed 808’s!), so hopefully Jaime can get it fixed by 3:15 for the crit… :-/

Sidney’s car got broken into earlier today. It was parked on the street in front of my house. Sketch! New window = $$$. Yikes.

Crazy!

Wake up at 8, work, go home at 3.

Fancy new router is at home. Play with it for a bit.
Drive to bike shop. Buy tires, more Perpetum.
Drive to pool, visit Jaime.
Drive to Wes’s, pickup aero helmet.
Drive to Matt’s, pickup jersey.
Mom calls. Need to pickup pizza for dinner.
Go to Cole’s for aero bars. Cole not there. Hmm.
Brother calls. Needs to be picked up.
Drive to gas station, buy gas. Eww.
Drive to pizza. Park. Get pizza. Car smells soooo good, but can’t eating. Continue driving.
Drive to little bother brother. Push him in car.
Drive home. Eat 5 pieces of delicious American Dream Pizza.
Watch Obama.
Answer emails.
Write blog post.

I’m leaving tomorrow evening for Eugene.

Annotated Power File from Saturday (Pacific Power team ride)

I thought some of you power geeks might be interested in this. Riding with Wes? Fast.

So much email!

Answering emails about the UO Cycling Club is pretty awesome.

Hilarious Spam

The zip file contains “photo.exe” Virus!

uocycling.com

I think I finally have uocycling.com up and running. It took some CSS hacking, but it looks pretty nice now.

Mini updates

I was down in Eugene on Sunday to preride Wolf Creek. My bikeshop-working roommate told me my KEO’s were some of the ones that were recalled. I guess I should get on that- I don’t really want them exploding.

Wolf Creek was epic. I can’t believe I didn’t ride it all of last year. I think I’m going to do it every week next season.

I’m really excited for Eugene Celebration this weekend. Speaking of Celebration… I haven’t registered yet, and I realized the pre-reg cutoff was yesterday. I’m dumb.

Pacific Power had an awesome team ride on Saturday. We rode over Decker Rd. I attacked at the bottom. Wes Stein came with me, which made me think “oh crap.” For those of you who don’t know Wes, he’s in high school, Cat 2, and freaking silly fast. Even though he dropped me with a crazy attack after my little-baby attack, I still set a new 5-min power record that scored me a “Cat 2″ rating in WKO. Awesome. (I also set that new 5-sec power record. I like setting new power records.)

Mayhem! Mangled puMp Manages Major Meltdown, oh My!

Our aerosol instruments sample air through long inlets. In order to draw air though the inlet, you use a pump- simple enough. A few weeks ago we had a pump freakout, stall, and die. No big deal, all the major sampling was over. We switched the other pump over and after some calibrations, everything was fine. Fast forward a week. We’ve been busy processing data and preparing for the presentation (which was yesterday). We finally go check on the site, only to find that the pump has CAUGHT ON FIRE. Needless to say, it wasn’t pumping any more. I don’t have pictures, but I intent to get some tomorrow if possible. I’m not sure exactly what caused the fire (which may have just been melting, not actual flames). The plastic inlet and exhaust lines to the pump were thoroughly melted, the power cable to the laptop had melted through, but thank god that the pile of (damp?) sawdust didn’t ignite and burn down my co-workers shed. Really scary.

I’m going to ride my bike today. Really. Incredible, I know.

SAM READS MY BLOG!!!!!

In other news, I cannot will myself to put on my arm/leg warmers, rain jacket or any other of that winter crap to go ride in the rain. It’s the middle of AUGUST. What the hell.