Thursday, March 28, 2013

They Survived the Maiden Voyage

Tonight I put the quality of my build job to the test as I took my new wheels out for their maiden voyage. I must say they passed with flying colors! The feeling of rolling on wheels that you built yourself is amazing, not to mention the fact that they are wayyy lighter than my old set of wheels.

Here she is after returning:

Next up is a double dose of circuit racing on Saturday at Marian University. In the morning we'll have our MWCCC Men's C's collegiate race in the morning followed by a USAC Cat 4/5's race in the afternoon.

And They're Done!

I put in a bit of a marathon effort last night to get these buggers ready to roll.
They took me a little bit longer than I'd like since I made a few really dumb lacing mistakes, but alas they're put together. I wanted to have them ready for today (Thursday) so I could put a good ride on them before the weekend. I want make sure they're good to go and to catch any detentioning issues as the spokes settle in before the race since a race isn't exactly a good place to be trying new things.

They've given me a pretty nice sense of accomplishment though. Wheels are one part that most people are scared to touch in fear of messing something up, so it was cool to build some from a pile of parts. Pretty crazy that a bunch of weak, bendy spokes can come together to build something that can haul my big self around.

Here's to hoping they don't explode on me during tonight's training ride!

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Reinventing the Wheel

Well now that Gravitas Libertas is all pretty it appears that its time for the next step in making her a more respectable race bike. That means time for new wheels!

But I couldn't just buy some, no, that would be too easy (and expensive). Instead I'm building them myself with parts from Bike Hub Store.


Hopefully they'll be done soon, but I'm not going to rush it since I want them done right.  

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Makeover Complete!

She lives! After some issues getting the headset good to go (we put it in upside down) I was finally ready to get her all put back together today. Everything went fairly smoothly considering it was my first time adjusting a rear derailleur from scratch as well as replacing shifter cables. Here she is in all her glory:

I'm really happy with the way it turned out. Everything was working in tip top shape on tonight's ride so it appears that I put everything together correctly. A $4 eBay special blue seatpost collar was supposed to add some extra flair, but its way too lightly colored (almost aqua) and doesn't match the blue spacers and chainring bolts at all. Oh well, I still love it and I'm so happy its not red anymore.

Friday, March 22, 2013

Gravitas Libertas is Getting a Makeover

The steed is getting a bit of a makeover. What was once this:

Is currently looking like this:


Thanks to Julian at Bean's Best Restoration the frame is stripped down to the raw aluminum following a media blast treatment. She's getting a nice once over with the steel wool and will come out looking nice and shiny. The left chainstay (at the bottom of the picture) has already gotten  the steel wool treatment and is noticeably better looking.

Don't worry, I'll post an update after it gets all prettied up.


Sunday, March 17, 2013

Have you ever wondered if there was more to life, other than being really, really, ridiculously good looking?

New kits!
 We just got our new kits from Jakroo and they are looking pretty fresh. Nice and comfy too. Definitely can't wait to rock the new kits at Marian on March 30th in my first C's race.

Saturday, March 16, 2013

To the Victor Go the Spoils

During the winter trainer sessions Coach Kurt debuted his system of rewarding us for winning races. And those rewards were none other than cheap sunglasses! It's a bit hokey, but nevertheless is a fun little something for doing well.

I won the road race at DePauw, so last week at our Tuesday interval training I was able to collect my prize. Here they are in all their glory:


Thursday, March 14, 2013

GEORGIA! Spring Break Training Part 3

After Thursday's effort many of us were debating just taking the day off on Friday to get some recovery in our legs. However, the weather had other plans as the brilliantly warm and sunny day lured us back out to the roads to get in one more ride before we headed back to the frigid lands of the north.

Friday:


After sleeping in and debating whether or not we wanted to ride the weather ultimately won us over. With temps in the 60's we just could not pass down the opportunity to get out in just shorts and a short sleeve jersey. Sun's Out, Guns Out was the mantra of Friday's ride. After all, gotta get a jump start on those razor sharp tan lines that we'll be sporting during the summer. Gotta obey rule number 7 you know. We wanted to take it easy, but ended up keeping a pretty nice pace throughout the ride. The legs were definitely sore and quite tired, but the gorgeous weather made it easy to momentarily forget about that and just enjoy the ride.


Friday's ride would prove to be the last of the trip as we had to get out of town early on Saturday morning in order to make it back to the homeland Ann Arbor at a reasonable hour. Despite necessary pit stops at Chic-Fil-A (first visit in 5 years, absolutely delicious), McDonald's (shamrock shakes!), and Taco Bell (Doritos tacos) we were able to get back to Michigan before it got too late.


Overall I had an absolutely great time on the trip. Sure moments of it seemed like they were terrible (I'm looking at you Hogpen ascent), but those moments of difficulty were met with rewards of accomplishment at the top. In hindsight I would have liked to climb Brasstown (highest point in Georgia) and do the 6 gap, but It just didn't happen this year. I guess I'll just have to come back next year better prepared and have another go at the mountains.

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

GEORGIA! Spring Break Training Part 2

Wednesday:
Wednesday would prove to be the toughest day of the week due to a multitude of reasons. Most notable was the weather, which was cold with temps in the low 30's and wind chills in the low 20's. And that was in town, the tops of the mountains were even colder and covered in snow. Next off my derailleurs got all gummed up with something that also got cold and very viscous so my shifting was pretty much restricted to my 6 or so easiest gears. That was fine for climbing, but I couldn't keep up at all on the descents. And to top it all off my legs were tired and not interested in riding which made everything that much harder. Wednesday was definitely an exercise in  mental toughness.

The route was the same as Monday's 3 gap ride except in the opposite direction. Unfortunately this meant we didn't get the fun Unicoi descent and we had to climb up the steep side of Hogpen. At the top of Unicoi I was really tempted to just turn around and call it a day, but the guys convinced me to keep pressing on. Next up was Jack's which was even easier going the opposite direction (probably the easiest gap of the trip.) After descending Jack's it was time for the big one: Hogpen. The climb was only about 2.4 miles, but holy cow was it steep as about 1,200 feet of climbing were packed into those 2.4 miles . A tough headwind on one of the final sections didn't help either as I struggled my way to the top. Those 2.4 miles took me 33 minutes to climb while I averaged a blazing speed of 4.2 mph.

I thought my struggles were finally over as I reached the top, but unfortunately I was mistaken. Less than a mile into the nearly 7 mile descent I heard a weird popping noise. I figured it was nothing, but a few seconds later John yelled to me that I had broken a spoke. Sure enough I looked down and my rim was wobbling all over the place. Thankfully my 32 spoke rear wheel was strong enough to still be rideable, but I took it easy the rest of the way home just in case. Eventually I made it back to the cabin and began the task of putting 3,000 calories back into my body so I could be ready to go for Thursday. John saved the day and let me borrow his spare rear wheel for the rest of the week so I didn't have to miss a beat.

Thursday:

Wednesday may have been the most mentally difficult day of the trip, but Thursday was definitely the most physically difficult. The plan was to meet up with the guys from Michigan State's team since they were staying somewhat close to us. However, they got impatient as we rode around 20 miles out of the way to meet up with them and they left without us. Oh well, we weren't going to let that spoil our ride and we pressed on towards Neels Gap.

Neels actually ended up being my favorite climb of the trip. It was long at almost 7 miles, but it wasn't overly steep with about 1,500ft of climbing, the roads were nice, it was scenic, and overall just an enjoyable experience. And better yet there was a store at the top to load up on goodies (aka candy) to help us get through the rest of the trip.

We decided to push the pace while descending Neels which unfortunately made us miss our turn towards Wolfpen Gap by about 2 miles. After backtracking we made the turn onto the creatively named Wolfpen Gap Road and started our way up the hill. Wolfpen was pretty cool too as it was really windy and mostly situated in a forest so there was tons of stuff to look at. Wolfpen lasted for about 3 miles and included around 1,100 feet of climbing. The descent off Wolfpen was cool too as it was also windy and all of the turns were banked nicely. We had to be careful as there was gravel here and there on the road, but overall it was fun.

Next up was Woody Gap which was over with pretty quickly with only one really steep section presenting a challenge. The descent off Woody was also a blast as it seemed like we were riding downhill forever (5.5 miles). At the bottom we stopped at another cool little store and bought more supplies (more candy!!!). Unfortunately we had another 20 or so miles of backtracking to do in order to get back to Helen since our failed MSU rendezvous took us so far out of the way.

We made it back to Helen where the group split up. A few of our really strong (read: crazy) guys decided to go tackle 3 more gaps to complete the infamous 6 gap while 3 more of us decided to call it a day and ride back to the cabin. When it was all said and done the 3 guys who went back ended up riding a total of 85 miles with 8,000 feet of climbing. Good for over 4,500 calories! The other guys ended doing about 120 miles with around 12,000 feet of climbing. Crazy!

Despite being tough, Thursday's ride was definitely rewarding. We were dead tired afterwards and spent the rest of the day not doing much of anything besides eating.

GEORGIA! Spring Break Training Part 1

After the races at DePauw we loaded the cars back up and started the trek down to Georgia for our Spring Break training camp in Helen, GA. After stops for some awesome BBQ and coffee in Tennessee we arrived at our cabin in Georgia pretty late so we were content to just go to bed to prepare for the copious amounts of riding bikes up mountains that the week would bring. My report from the trip is going to have to come in 3 parts since apparently I can only include 2 Strava logs per post.

Monday:
Morning came all too soon and it was time to get down to business (after a quick run to the store for groceries). We hit the road around 1:30 pm to go find out what this whole mountain thing was all about with our first 3 gap ride of the week. A gap is essentially another word for mountain peak. After a quick trip through "downtown" Helen to get to the base of the climb we got things started with our first gap of the day: Hogpen Gap. This would prove to be the hardest of the day by far. Hogpen is about 7 miles long with a vertical elevation change of nearly 2,000 feet. Needless to say it was rather difficult to tote my big body up that hill. Once we got to the top it was time for fun though as we had quite a descent coming. Going down Hogpen I hit the fastest speed I ever have on a bike as my computer told me I was going 54 mph. Strava was a little less optimistic at 52.7 mph, but either way it was properly fast.

After Hogpen we refilled water bottles before heading towards the Jack's Gap, our second gap of the ride. Jack's was a lot more manageable with it standing at 4.1 miles long with 850 feet of elevation change. After regrouping at the top of Jack's it was time for another descent before hitting our last big climb of the day in the Unicoi Gap. Unicoi was pretty easy in comparison to Hogpen as well as it was about 2.3 miles with 750 feet of elevation change. The descent off Unicoi was an absolute blast though. Probably my favorite of the trip. Following that we regrouped in Helen and headed back to the cabin for the night where we proceeded to feast in order to replenish the roughly 3,000 calories we burned in the day's 58 miles of riding.

Tuesday:
The weather took a turn for the worse on Tuesday as rain was in the forecast. We didn't feel like pushing our luck in the mountains (and we were tired) so we opted to go for a much flatter ride instead. The weather was still dry when we headed out at noon, but that quickly changed as it started raining. It still made for a good ride though as we were able to get a nice 30 miles in without having to climb over any mountains.

Monday, March 11, 2013

DePauw University Criterium

With Saturday's win in the books it was time to shift my focus towards Sunday's criterium. After another breakfast of waffles and bad coffee we headed out to the course. As we arrived we encountered a bit of a difficulty; the course was dusted with snow. Packs of riders pushing it through corners and snow don't exactly mix well, so the race organizers got to work and dispatched a team of leaf blower toting guys to clear off the track. This took a while, so the start of the D crit got pushed back from the scheduled 9 AM to around 9:30. Unfortunately I didn't get this memo so I was all warmed up and ready to go at 9. It wasn't the end of the world though as I just rode around trying to keep warm and limber until we were told to line up at the start line.

The race got underway and thankfully we skipped the stage of pointless meandering that was present at the beginning of Saturday's road race. I was feeling pretty good and worked to stay in the top 5 or so as to stay clear of the chaos that is a D's field in a crit. After a few laps a guy from ODU (Ohio Dominican? I'm not sure, I just know that he had a sweet Bianchi) went off the front on a solo break. The field wasn't really too eager to chase him down right away so he was able to stay away for 2ish laps before a guy from Illinois-Chicago freaked out and insisted that we chase him down immediately. I found his urgency quite funny since there is no way that the ODU guy was going to stay away the whole race, but I was more than content to just sit there and let him and his teammates chase down the break while towing the field behind them.

After the UIC guys pulled the solo break in I looked back and noticed that about 2/3 of the field was gone. We somehow managed to drop most of the field without really going that hard or making any attempts to get away. No complaints though as I was now pretty much guaranteed a top 20 finish. I just hung out at the back of the group now as most of the sketchier riders were gone and I didn't really feel like doing any work. We had a few prime laps mixed in there, but since the reward for getting them is essentially nothing I didn't waste any energy going for them.

Before I knew it the 4 laps to go sign came up. I was still just content to sit in for a few more laps as the pack got more tense. John was yelling at me to move up in the field (which I probably should have), but I didn't feel like working quite yet. Memories of being at the front and getting boxed in at the Lindsey Wilson crit were still there so I made sure to avoid putting myself back into that situation. As the one lap to go sign came up I started making my move.

As we hit the backstretch I started moving up the field until I was at the front with 2 turns to go. I stayed there as we went through the little uphill section and through the turn onto the home stretch. I started thinking that I might make it two wins in a row when suddenly a guy from Case Western Reserve University jumped out from behind me and went early on the final sprint in a bit of strategy that would pay off for him. I started my sprint a little later with the slim hope of running him down before the finish line. Really though, I was just racing to save 2nd place. I wasn't able to catch him, but I was able to hold off the rest of the field and cross the line in second. And to make things better 2 guys from MSU finished in the top 10 as well, so the state of Michigan made up almost 1/3 of the top 10! Top 25 results shown below:
Needless to say I was pretty happy with a second place finish in a field of 40ish guys. That combined with Saturday's win definitely made it a successful weekend by all accounts.

This weekend also marked the end of my career in D's as I have since upgraded to C's! I can't wait to race with all of my teammates in C's as we can potentially field a team of 8ish guys and pull all sorts of strategy to get our guys on the podium. I'll be making my C's debut on March 30 at Marian University. Due to the setup of the Marian race having both a collegiate and USAC race back to back I'll also be racing with my teammates in the USAC Cat 4/5 race the same day.

Well that wraps up the weekend of racing at DePauw. Next up was a trip south to Georgia. I'll be writing an entry for that trip so check back soon!

Sunday, March 10, 2013

DePauw University Road Race

The weekend of March 2nd brought forth the second race weekend of the Midwest Collegiate Cycling Conference season. The weekend's races would be held at DePauw (Yes, its DePauw and not DePaul) University in Greencastle, Indiana. I'm going to split up the weekend's two races into two separate entries as to not present you guys with a massive wall of text that would surely be met with some serious tl;dr since it was quite an eventful weekend.

As soon as classes got out on Friday the team loaded up the cars and set forth on the journey from Ann Arbor to our hotel in Indiana. We eventually arrived, feasted on the obligatory Friday pre-race Subway, and settled into our hotel for the night since my Men's D's race started bright and early at 8:30 AM. Thankfully our hotel had a continental breakfast with those nifty waffle makers and coffee so we were able to get up and moving in time for the race.

The race course consisted of three laps of 8 miles each around a small lake without a whole lot of elevation changes per lap. The lack of climbing made this race suit me and my large self a whole lot better than the road race at Lindsey Wilson. The temperature on Saturday was pretty darn cold as it stayed put in the high 20's/low 30's. This could have been somewhat of an advantage for us from the northern schools since we were used to it, but I doubt it really made a difference.

After a talk from the race director the race got underway heading counter clockwise around the lake. No one was in any kind of hurry though as we plodded around at about 15mph. It was kind of comical how slow we were going for a while as everyone was just hanging out and having a nice chat in the peloton. After a few miles of this I had gotten bored of it and decided to spice things up a bit. After cresting one of the short climbs I attacked and went off the front of the pack. The field reacted quickly and caught me within a few minutes, but a message was sent and the race was underway.

After attacking off the front and getting caught I decided to just hang out in the pack for the remainder of the first lap to save some energy. I stayed there for about half of the second lap too before trying to go off the front again. I didn't get away this time either, but that doesn't mean my attack wasn't successful. Upon catching me an Indiana guy launched a counter attack. I quickly caught up to him, towing some of the field behind me. As soon as we caught him a few other guys attacked yet again. He got caught too, but these three consecutive attacks blew apart the field and narrowed the lead group down to about 20 guys from the original 60ish.

We crossed the line a second time and started on our way for lap 3. Things started getting tense as everyone was trying to position themselves well for the inevitable final sprint. I worked to make sure that I was not going to get boxed in and ensure that I was near the front. As we hit the last 1k or so I started moving up on the left to get into good position. With about 500 meters to go I heard the terrible anthem of the "Dangerous D's" as bikes and riders hit the ground (and metal guardrails) behind me. I was careful to not let their crash distract me as the finish line was just ahead. With just under 200 meters left I was on the front and started sprinting for the finish line. I really didn't want to get caught from behind so I locked in on that finish line and just kept the legs spinning. Eventually that line came and I crossed it.

I won! I sat down, thew my hands up in some sort of probably uncoordinated looking celebration, and went to meet my teammates as they congratulated me. After a phone calls with my coach and parents it finally started sinking in that I had won a race in only my third try. Sure it was only D's, but it was still great for morale and confidence. After last week's 27th I had not really expected to win a race any time soon, but alas it happened. The top 25 can be seen below:

After watching the rest of the day's races (shout out to John for getting 2nd in B's) we headed back to our hotel, went out for dinner at some Mexican place with great shrimp tacos, floated in the pool for a bit, and settled in for bed.

As I was trying to fall asleep I was hoping that Saturday's success would carry over to Sunday. *Spoiler alert* It did