Mount Hood Cycling Classic: Crit

As previously noted, I was fairly anxious heading into this race.  Not only for the sheer speed of the race but also the fear of doing something stupid and causing a crash.  Yeah, it sucks to crash but I realize that it happens.  What's even worse than crashing (in my mind) is crashing someone else.  Call it chivalry, call it stupidity, call it what you will but I'd hate to crash another person.

Ok, crit time.  After some aggressive maneuvering I was able to get a start position about mid-pack.  Not the best but still a lot better than I usually fare.  The race went off and it was just like any other crit, full gas, except these guys have a lot higher top end.  After about a lap I almost started having fun, then I slowly lost about 2 wheels/lap.  I knew I had a cushion as my goal was simply to finish 20 minutes but I didn't want to spend any more time off the back then I had to.  Wheels kept slowly slipping by me but I was holding my own.  When I did come off the back I made the cut and stayed upright.  Mission complete.

Stage result: 124th; 3:08 back
GC after 124th; 40:36 back

Hey, at least I've got consistency going for me.  But I get to start the stage today and that's all I care about.  I'm going to finish this race and I will be going one with one big learning experience.

Mt Hood Cycling Classic: Stage 2 TT

Photo courtesy of Pat Malach
at Oregon Cycling Action

Ok, so the above photo is from the prologue but whatever, I'm on the TT bike, same thing.

Mt Hood Cycling Classic: Stage 1 RR

Wow.  136 racers, 84 miles, almost 8000ft of climbing and a 32mph 'neutral' rollout.  Talk about baptism by fire.  I always knew this day would be harder than I anticipated but I never really expected it to be that hard.

Here's how it all went down. Mile 8, first climb of the day, we go tearing up it like we were running from the rapture.  I'm already cross eyed and am slowly losing wheels and it's 8 miles into the race!  I hate to say it but I came unglued.  Part of it was poor positioning and part of it was too much testosterone on the front of the race.   Still, I came off and spent the next 76 miles chasing.  Great, it's San Dimas all over again.  Then again, the time cut was a little less merciless this time around so I didn't have to worry about making the 105% of the winner's time, instead just a cushy 130%.  That I can do.  I don't really know what else to say so I'll just let the numbers do the talking.  Normally I wouldn't share power data but at this point there's not a whole lot for anyone to gain from it.
Final results on the day:  finished in 4:01:58, good for 124th on the day, moving me into 128th overall.  Like I said, quite the change of scenery.


Oh, the one condolence for the day came upon my arrival back at the team car where the entire Peanut Butter & Co. Cycling Team was lined up having a team meeting right behind us.  Hey, it's life's little victories, right?

Oh, one last note:  today's course was awesome!  Besides the fact it was ball-bustingly hard all the climbs were longs, steady and hard, the descents were fast, twisty and never ending and the combination of sunshine and Gorge scenery was absolutely breathtaking today.  Overall, not a whole lot to complain about today.

Survived another day, TT tomorrow morning and crit in the evening.

Mount Hood Cycling Classic: Prologue

Dictionary.com defines a prologue as "a preliminary discourse; a preface or introductory part of a discourse..."  Instead, I define it as "as exercise, equivalent to repeatedly striking oneself in the head with a hammer, in which one wastes an entire day to go race for less than 10 minutes for the simple purpose of establishing who sucks more."

Mt. Tabor. Cat 2.

Sweet baby Jesus that hurt.  The picture above describes about where I spent just about the entire race.

Cat 2 is a whole different ball game.  Just like my just from B to A last cross season I was blown away by the speed and smoothness of the riders there.  The Pro/1/2 road field is no different, I don't know why I expected it to be.

Silverton: RR State Champs

After 2 of the most hectic weeks of my life to this point it's off to another race.  This one the OBRA Road Race State Championships held at Silverton, OR.  Never heard of it?  Me either.

Gainful Employment!

Someone recently told me that the average college graduate must send out 38 resumes/applications before obtaining their first job.  I don't know if I refused to believe this because in my mind that was an obscene number or because I didn't want to admit that I was fast approaching that number.  SRAM, Acumed, Stryker, Johnson & Johnson, Biomet, Miosek, Specialized, Trek, Nike, Oakley, Intel (just to name a few); they all had my resume and all I'd received were polite emails (read: form letters) explaining that although my skills and background (I have no background) were impressive they've chosen to go with another candidate.  And then out of nowhere I receive an email from a teammate essentially say "send this guy your resume."  End of message.  After a blind email thinking I was throwing my resume into yet another abyss I received a prompt reply and an interview the following day.

Shortish story even shorter:  I'll be working at Renovo Bicycles as a design and test engineer.  I had to choose between working at a bike shop mindlessly adjusting derailleurs and building kids bikes and a real, honest-to-God engineering job.  No contest.  Work starts Monday.  Welcome to the good life.