Equipment - N-Gear Jumpstop

A short one today.

During races and rides you'll sometimes (hopefully infrequently) experience a somewhat normal bike riding experience - dropping your chain off the front ring. If you go "over the top" of the big ring, you can recover the chain just by pedaling lightly.

However, if you drop the chain off the inside, it can be a bit more dramatic, especially since you usually shift down because it's getting hard and you're pedaling harder than you want to pedal.

For some reason it seems much easier to pick up a chain dropped off a Shimano drivetrain. Campy seems much more difficult.

For the longest time I've been extra vigilant with my front derailleur adjustment, careful with dumping the chain fast (I don't), and I've been rewarded with maybe one chain drop on the Cannondale.

Of course the chain broke my SRM pick up mount, got jammed up down there, and stopped my ride (with SOC) for about 10 minutes.

Because dropping your chain is somewhat normal, and because it can be really inconvenient, there are a number of companies out there selling devices to prevent the chain from dropping down.

Okay, if you look, there are about two devices out there - the "Third Eye Chain Watcher" (under various names), and my favorite, the N-Gear Jumpstop.

Third Eye Chain Watcher. I find the black plastic inevitably slides a bit, exposing the hose clamp, and allowing the jagged hose clamp to dig into the delicate seat tube. Plus I've cracked the few Watchers' "shark fin". (Image taken from Excel Sports)

Professional pictures are so... professional.
(image taken from N-Gear)

I like the Jumpstop because:
1. No chance of metal on seat tube contact.
2. Nice stainless guide for chain.
3. Adjustable in a very fine way - you can adjust angle and distance, and the guide had an inch of "guiding" length because it's flat (not rounded like the Watcher).

Drawbacks:
1. Proprietary nut (I lost one and trust me, you need their nut).
2. Pain to install.

I used these for a long time until I got my first Giant (and with it, its oversized seat tube). For whatever reason I lost interest in preserving my chain's bottom bracket virginity, probably because my racing really toned down.

Plus, I figured another way of avoiding dumping the chain - never put it in the small ring. So in the most important races, like the 2005 Bethel Series, I'd keep it in the big ring the whole race.

I haven't mentioned this device before because the Jumpstop only works on round seat tubes (i.e. below the front derailleur), and my Giant's seat tube base wasn't round. Yeah, I know, I have a Cannondale now, and I bought a Jumpstop, but I only decided to put it on the other day. I mean, I knew I had it, and I knew it was sitting around in the new house, but I never mentally pictured the Jumpstop on the Cannondale. So the Jumpstop lay there, forlorn.

When I finally put Jumpstop and Cannondale together, there was no stopping me.

The Jumpstop has one parculariar difficulty when mounting it, otherwise there'd be no illustrated steps on its installation. Basically it's a totally pain in the butt to put on the bike. The screw needs to go through two long, straight holes, so the two ends of the strap clamp have to be parallel. Since the plastic strap stretches a bit, N-Gear is nice enough to give you a slightly undersize strap.

In other words, it's a pain to install.

I turn the clamp sideways, stick the bolt in, and clamp together gently with channel locks. Make sure some threads are sticking out the other end.

Turn it so it faces the correct direction (bolt head forward).

Thread on proprietary nut and tighten bolt.

I'll test it out in California.

After I clean the bike.

(You can purchase the N-Gear through their site. And, no, I'm not getting credit for this review - I bought my N-Gear through a shop.)

Bethel Spring Series - Pre-Trip Stresses

I know, I know, the post frequency has dropped significantly in the last month or so. I'm attributing this drop to my more consistent training, house organizing, shoveling snow, chopping ice, and, of course, kitty petting. Plus the sometimes shockingly-cold weather exhausts me to the point that when I get home I have the energy to only eat and then I fall asleep.

Oh and spending some time with the missus. Ahem. Right.

With my trip to California coming up soon - I fly out next Wednesday at dawn (that's 4 days to get things done) - I'm rapidly running out of time to do stuff that I need to do before the Series gets off the ground. With less and less time left, the soup pot of things to do seems to be boiling, and only the most important things rise to the top.

The Series is naturally taking a lot of my free time. I've been busy the last few weeks - Carpe Diem Racing, LLC is now officially a Connecticut state company, I have a brand new company bank account, and I even have some checks (even if they came off the bank's printer, they're still checks).

I've also been accumulating things we need for the upcoming series. For example, in the big fossil fuel category, I've paid for two small, quiet generators. I've learned that their prices are apparently inverse in relationship to their size and decibel output. The van is at the local garage getting its vent and defrost things working, both critical, as the missus pointed out, for driving in cold and wet weather. Okay, not for really driving, but for seeing where you're driving. It'll cost a bit of money but less than, say, a new van. It's hard to believe that the van is ten years old but it is.

I have ten 5-gallon buckets (with lids) to hold sand to anchor down the tents. I got that idea when I walked around Interbike East and saw tents semi-staked with buckets of concrete, eye-bolts fixed in them. Concrete is nice but sand is free, and free works for me. So the sand is salty, so what? That's what the lids are for.

We'll collect the sand on Sweep Day, and to help do that, I've managed to get my hands on a Power Broom to sweep the road. I even have a Wet/Dry Vac to suck up that sand to dump into the buckets (and I may need to borrow one or two more). We'll use the quiet generators to power them.

(I can say I thought of that idea myself.)

The poor missus is driving around with two folding tables (for inside the tent) in the back seat of her car, and if we see more of them, we may get two more (and ditch all the busted banquet tables we've been using). Plastic tops, water-proof, and since they fold in half they store much better than the jagged-edged non-folding tables.

I have two big "to-do" things left - test the finish line camera with a laptop and make sure the wireless network works as I hope it will. Both of these tests will occur, hopefully, on Sunday. We have a back up if either of the two big "to-do" things don't work - the TiVO for the finish line camera (our old set up), and if the network doesn't pan out, we can just run back and forth with flash drives and such.

I've put my "trailer for a registration tent" fantasy aside for now, but that doesn't mean that the wind won't be around pushing the tent sides into the propane heater. Since this is one of my race day stresses, I want to fix it. This means I want to figure the wind stuff out as soon as possible. I've been grappling with various ideas, frames with lattice, plywood, and other off the wall ideas.

Heck, we could even use the old banquet tables as wind breaks. Which, come to think of it, we did last year.

I've also lined up some help for the race. The worst thing for me is running around looking for people to man certain positions at the race, and having a reliable crew that shows up week after week goes a long way towards reducing that stress. I'll still rely on volunteers for marshals and other duties, but the most important positions will be filled by regulars, some returning, some new, but all folks that I think are friendly, polite, and trustworthy.

So, yeah, I'm feeling some of that unpleasant stress kind of feeling, but I've tried to deal with the most important things, to deal with the big problems so that when the smaller problems pop up I'll be okay.

Now I have to have some dinner and to work on some of those things.

Life - Furnace and Laptop

Last night I came home wanting to rest, relax, and do a bit of training on the bike. I'd been feeling cold at work and I wanted to go home, warm up, and do a good ride.

I also thought I could also initiate rebuilding the troublesome laptop we bought recently - I think one of the updates failed midstream and left the laptop in an unstable state, and we have little enough saved on it that rebuilding it would be painless.


So when the missus called just before I left work to report no heat in the house, well, it put a brake to my plans.


After trying the emergency reset button once (and only once), we sat and waited for the oil folks to show up. I didn't feel like training in the room next to the furnace - my double secret training meant hiding my training from the oil folks.


Now, contrary to the other night, we could get hold of them, and they promised a technician in "2 to 4 hours".


Arg.

We all bundled up. You could tell it was cold because the kitties would tuck their paws under their bodies, resembling a furry little corning hen with a cat head. The missus made some hot coffee and, while warming up dinner, I added 30 to 60 seconds to my standard microwave times.


About an hour later a guy showed up. And like our previous experiences, he was polite, professional, and got the job done. I may not like the oil company's way of doing things but their staff has always been exemplary.


He replaced a bad solenoid, one that prevented the furnace from firing, we had heat, the furnace rumbled comfortably, the pipes did their "tick ticking", and the kittens could sprawl out again.

With that out of the way, we could get on with life. I think it'd dropped to the low 50s in the house, and we were both too tired to do much of anything. For sure I was exhausted, and I called off my ride. I decided that it would be a good time to rebuild the quirky laptop. It had a lot of weird symptoms - can't bring up Task Manager, updates fail, doesn't reboot, all sorts of "virus-like" things (yes, there is antivirus on it). So I backed up data onto CDRs and an SD card, kicked off the rebuild, and waited.

I spent the next hour or two installing various drivers, unwilling to let it on the network until it was mostly built. This morning I still had about six drivers to install, but after that I can start running updates and such.

In real life, in real projects, there are only so many hours in a day. If something unexpected pops up and starts taking up that time, you lose it. It's gone, never to be recovered. When things like that happen I mentally shift my calender over one day. It could be car related, maybe computer, even bike related, but my schedule moves over to the next day.

(Bethel can't be moved over, hence stressing over it.)

Yesterday felt like one of those lost days. I had a few things planned, written down, stuff I wanted to do. But with the unexpected tossed in my face, I had to write off the evening. My calender shifted over one day.

It's tough when these things happen, but you have to get back up and keep going. I didn't think of it too much until a little incident today, a good incident.

Today a guy came in, introduced himself to me. Ends up he's the father of a Junior racer, former 'cross champion to be precise. We saw the kid riding on Sunday, spinning along, Verge gear on, 80 pounds of bike racer taking advantage of a 40 degree day. The dad told me a short story of one of his races.

His son started off well but took a tumble, apparently bending something up front - the front wheel rubbed the brakes hard. He ran to the pits and climbed off the bike, ready to give up. His field was gone, and the following field also passed him.

That's when someone pointed out the wheel was just cockeyed in the frame.

They straighted out the wheel and the kid jumped back in the race. He spent a lap lamenting his crash, complaining the whole time, but at the bell he woke up. Gritting his teeth, he raced the last lap of the race.

In that last lap he passed 22 racers. His tally? 46 racers in two laps.

He got 6th.

He could have easily given up after that crash and perceived mechanical, but he didn't. Instead he got up and kept going. And though it took him a lap to mentally recover from the setback, once he finally got into the groove, he was unstoppable.

The kicker? He was all of twelve years old.

So, tonight, I'll go home. I have to do some kitty stuff, move some little stuff around, and then I'll ride. I'll do a good, hard ride, like I wanted to yesterday.

Because I can learn a lesson from a 12 year old's experience. You may experience a setback but that's okay.

You just get back on the bike and keep pedaling.

Tour of California - 2009 Palomar Predictions

This year is the first year (I hope not the only one) that the Tour of California goes over Palomar Mountain. When I first heard that ToCA would hit Palomar, I just assumed that they'd end the stage there. It would be a spectacular and tough finish, on par with any Grand Tour mountain top finish.

I did lament the lack of space at the top for all the finish line stuff, the various team spots, facilities, power, VIP tents, etc.

The organizers, though, decided that Palomar would be an appetizer, not the main course. I suppose this makes sense logistically as well as from a race point of view. February shouldn't be one of 20 km climbs to a tough mountaintop finish. It ought to be one where guys can work on form, not worry about losing an hour at the finish.

So I checked out the course. And, wow, what a course.

First off, there's East Grade (aka Palomar), about 12-16 miles of climbing (depending on whose map you check out). Although Palomar proper is about 7 miles, there's a lot of climbing leading up to East Grade.

A quick descent down South Grade (wide, gentle curves), a run down 76, then a left turn onto the viscious, steep (more so than Palomar) Cole Grade. Rollers leading to Lake Wohlford - the descent off Wohlford is pretty crazy, although if the road is closed I suppose it won't be too bad. Narrow, lots of Jersey barriers last year, tight blind turns.

Unless something weird happens, I think a small group will be away at the top of Palomar (small = like 20 or so). This includes the guys regrouping on the descent. The pre-climb to Palomar sees a bit more wind so the climbers will want to stay sheltered. This means the field will want to stay together, with the strong teams and lone climbers near or at the front. Then Palomar and the tree protected climb... attack attack.

I just read that Floyd flies up Palomar.

Okay, now I have to rethink things. If it takes Floyd 29 minutes (!!) to climb Palomar, I can't see more than a 1 to 5 minute gap to much of the field at the top of Palomar. Many of those riders should be able to close that down before Cole.

The descent off Palomar is not super steep so it encourages chasing as a group. If I were a Jens Voight type domestique (climbs reasonable and TTs like mad) then I'd fit a big ring on - 55 or so, to chase harder and to be able to chase down a 30 minute descent without spinning myself out. The roads back to Cole are reasonable too, good for chasing. Then it'll be really sharp up Cole.

Cole will split the group a bit, but not crazy so. I think the sign on the hill says 3 miles but the ToCA map says 2 miles. If it's 2 miles, that's like two Manayunks, and Manayunk is just a bump in the road to the pros. Mind you, that's basing it on a 29 minute Palomar, or a 53x15 Manayunk kind of rider (Raul Alcala, back in the day).

Some nasty (good for attacking, not for chasing) rollers on Cole but it's mainly fast to the end, Valley is fast, both good for shutting down gaps that open up on Cole. Wohlford is reasonable but lots of twisty descending for the second half, not really a road for a chasing field. The roads after that are wide open, flat, fast, good for chasing. So it would seem that pros would be able to close down quite a gap after Cole.

Who knows, it might be a sprint finish! Imagine that - Boonen (or Cavendish) winning the mountain stage in the ToCA.

heh When I searched "Tour of California, Palomar" to get the course, this SDC post ended up third on the list (Google).

Bethel Spring Series - The Final Month

I'm starting to stress a bit about Bethel. I know I have things to do, and I've done some of them, but now that we're at the end of January, the list became all that more real. I started typing an email and realized the magnitude of what I have to get done. This is part of that email, modified to make up for post-ride haziness.

(Note: keep in mind I have Wednesdays and Sundays off, at least for the next week and a half, but I otherwise work 8 - 5:30 or so.)

Saturday - Verify new generators on order. Verify power broom order. Reserve some calcium chloride for melting ice at Bethel. Set up easy way to feed cats under work since the owners don't like to crawl under the building like I do. Put out third shelter, put more straw out for them. Pictures.

Order SRM harness (mine is still broken). Possible order 175 Cannondale crankarms and tool to install same from CCC sposnor. Experiment with wheels since I think I'll take the blue AL wheels to CA, not DV46s. Swap pads. Verify chain works with cassette, change cassette if it doesn't. Prepare Titanio saddle for CA since I want to experiment with that. Cinelli tape (still have a bad wrap job on my bars... not good). Ride.

Sunday - uncover van (ice etc), install driver sideview mirror (current one is broken), get van to garage to have service done. Work order: tune up, fix vent and blower, check rear end, potential $1k bill. Also start figuring out what I need to do for CA - I want to be packed next Sunday. Order laptop drive. I hope to do some video editing in CA, and I'd like to have a fresh drive in the laptop (it can hold two). Ride.

Maybe experiment with wireless network, install print drivers onto both laptops. Experiment with finish line camera and laptop. Verify first printer is still working, cartridge is okay (we'll have two printers for Bethel, two laptops, two generators, etc etc).

M-Tu - ride, check equipment. Receive pellet stove at house. Check condo association if we can use another contractor if necessary. Load DV video/s onto current hard drive (I have a number of camcorder tapes to transfer to the computer, with each hour taking 1GB of data, give or take).

Wed - Potential pellet stove install (doubtful). Open CDR, LLC bank account (I went last Wednesday to figure out what I need). Ride.

Th-Fr - Ride. Do more DV to hard drive transfers while riding. Whatever I didn't do from the above list.

Sa - Ride. Laundry for trip. Finishline camera experiment. Bring home 5 gal pails for Bethel sand.

Su - Finish packing clothing bag (one carry on TUMI for both bike gear and regular clothing). Pack bike, the only luggage I'll check. Verify that flight is still okay.

Experiment with standalone wireless network (i.e. no modem, just router, like it will be at Bethel). Two laptops. Potential monitor, keyboard, mouse.

Work on carry on bag - mainly electronics (like helmet cam, camcorder, various chargers, surge protector, cell phone, USB and flash drives), personal spares (glasses), notes, flight info, snacks, wallet, key holder (i.e. trade show badge holder), etc. Put any toiletries in TUMI or bike bag. Usually I can buy whatever I need in CA.

Mon - possibly go to CCC meeting (that's where I'll pick up cranks, maybe). It would be 3+ hours of driving after work and difficult to do, with only one more day before I leave for CA. If team gear has arrived, I'm definitely going since I want to bring some of the new stuff to CA. If no meeting then ride Giant since Cannondale will be packed.

Tu - AM - check flight status. Finalize carry on bag (laptop, its power cord). Ride Giant. Pick up van if not already picked up from garage?

Wed Feb 11 - Fly to CA early AM, arriving at noon. Try to ride before 3 PM local time. Stay warm.

Wed Feb 11 - Wed Feb 25 - Ride like mad, watch some Tour of CA, fiddle with helmet cam, work on Bethel, work on blog, work on project, etc etc. Fly out Feb 25th night.

Feb 26 (Thursday) - arrive back in CT at 10 AM. Unpack bike, start setting up Bethel van (with various equipment necessary for sweep and race). Laundry if necc. Fill all gas cans, propane tanks. Get radios, charge batteries/radios.

Friday - Pack up all equipment necessary for sweep and race, including bike etc. A lot of it is in the garage in front of the Z so I'll have to pull it out to get to stuff. Check new generators, camera, etc. Stay @ family in Wilton. Pick up pre-reg stuff from NY if necessary.

Saturday - Sweep day. Fill 5 gal pails with sand for weight for tent anchors. Easy spin. Stay at Wilton.

Sunday - First race at Bethel.

Yikes.

Training - Baseline

I just climbed off the trainer. I brought down the DVD/VCR combo and started playing a bunch of DVDs I made off of my bike tapes. I've realized just how much of a pain the VCR is, especially since watching a tape basically erodes it just a bit (not to mention that VCRs erode too). Problem was that I recorded the DVDs in such a way that I can't play them in any DVD player except the combo unit.

Hence the combo unit migrated into the bike room. So it's now the Dungeon V 3.1.0.0. The increase in functionality? Being able to watch all my old bike tapes and skip forward through the commercials (they're off of TV).

The DVD player opened up a whole world of available tapes to watch because I've been loath to watch 10 or 15 or 20 year old tapes - they may spontaneously break or jam or do something bad like that, so I pull them out only on special occasions (like making a copy of it). Suddenly I had all these cool tapes from back in the day.

So, properly motivated, with good music cranking from my laptop (through ear buds), I decided to do a 20 minute effort. I started out "easy", 300 watts, my goal for the 20 minutes. With a prior best of 255 watts, I figured I could handle 300, and if I failed and hit only 275, that would be fine.

I exploded after 5 minutes.

So much for "just" 275w. I struggled and pushed and spun and stood and sat and finally, at about 14 minutes, started seeing the possibilty of making it for 20 minutes.

249 watts.

Well, I don't have a season of training behind me. When I did my 255 watts I did. And I did much better than 225w or so, last winter's best 20 minute effort. But part of that low number was because I sat up for a few minutes, soft pedaled, and started up again. I basically did a 10 minute effort and an 8 minute effort, with 2 minutes of easy pedaling in the middle.

With my ego properly deflated, I figured my legs would be fine for a 60 second effort.

35 seconds later I exploded. I stopped pedaling for a good 10 seconds (or pedaled at about 40 watts anyway), then started spinning a bit at 150-170 watts for 10 or 15 seconds. My minute average?

424 watts.

100 watts or so below a race effort. This is more indicative of what I can do in a race, since a race like Bethel (one with a short hill) is a minute on, a minute off.

My average for the ride was a normalized 202 watts. That's about right for me.

So for now, I'm slightly heavy and in average shape.

I hope I can improve dramatically in California.

Time to sleep.

Training - Automatic TLC, or Who Not To Use For Oil

Instead of spinning on the bike, I've been on hold with our heating oil and service company, using two lines, one for service, one for oil.

Why am I calling them?

Because we have virtually no oil in our tank.

A short time after we bought the house, my "low oil" sense got tingly. It's served me well in our last house, and I checked to see if we'd been getting any kind of delivery in the past weeks or month.

Negatory.

We ran out of oil that night.

It was cold.

They came and delivered oil, through a technician that had to be called to bleed the system and such. Nice guy actually, friendly, quick, efficient. He put 10 gallons of fuel in and asked us to hang on until the next morning. He was friendly enough that he negated the cold air, the bad experience, and he made us feel like he cared. And if they have workers like that, the company had to be okay. Right?

We waited the next morning. They finally delivered, carefully, unwilling to risk damage to the steep driveway, dragging a hose up to the fill pipe. The guy was cheerful, friendly.

Not a bad company, right?

Our system was on its way out, we knew that when we bought the house. So we bought a several thousand dollar system through them. They promised us service. They promised us automatic oil delivery. They had nice service personnel. I believed the company. I believed that spending thousands and thousands of dollars would make them put me just a bit higher on the list of "recent big spending clients".

But no.

My "low oil" sense started tingling last week, but due to some bike guy (moi) stacking up a bunch of bike parts boxes in front of the closet door hiding the oil tank, I never made the effort to check. Two nights ago the tingling started jangling. I moved the boxes and saw the red oil level marker sitting at the bottom of its range.

We had virtually no oil.

No automatic delivery obviously. It's been a few months since we received any oil, and we've had some of the coldest weather the area's had in recent history. Lots of snow. Power outages caused by ice. All sorts of cold weather. They claim they calculate our oil needs using a "Computerized 'degree-days' system". Right. They don't bother delivering unless they feel like it.

Yesterday we duly called to request oil, they promised us oil delivery the next morning.

That would be this morning.

This evening we met after work, confident that we had heat for the next few months. We went out for dinner, did some shopping. With a big storm forecast for tomorrow, we wanted to be able to bundle up and weather out the storm without having to go buy basic necessities.

When we got home, we didn't find the oil delivery slip in the door. I went downstairs and checked the tank.

Empty.

We have a contract with them, and yes, they arrived when they had to, but man, do they suck otherwise.

Am I alone in this experience? I don't think so - some other opinions:
The first complaint
Complaints by the dozen

If you are considering them, I am telling you that I'd look elsewhere. We have a service contract with them, but that won't necessarily stop us from buying oil elsewhere. In fact, that's probably what we'll do - COD oil delivery.

For sure, as soon as our contract runs out, we'll find someone else.

It's frustrating enough that I can't work on a normal post. So now we have three lines calling them, all on hold (the missus joined in).

Chalk up one rest day for today. Tomorrow? Either I'll be wearing tights and a jacket in the basement or I'll be ripping off some 20 minute efforts in shorts and a jersey.

50 minutes and counting.

Racing - Growing the Sport

My post the other day on "growing the sport" came up because our local association, the New England Bicycle Racing Association, has precisely this problem. They want to grow the sport, and they have money with which to grow it. It's just that the path to enlightenment is unclear.

The annual NEBRA - slash - promoter's meeting ended up a long discussion on Junior and Women's racing. Since I couldn't stay longer than the 90 minutes that the Jr/Wm discussion took (I never got to be part of the promoter's meeting), that's all I know about that meeting.

Although initially perturbed by the tangent off the meeting schedule (the Jr/Wm discussion erupted between the financial report and the Board elections, pretty much the first two items on the meeting after attendance), I realized that people had very strong feelings about the whole idea of growing Junior and Women racing. I also heard a lot of good ideas (and some that I would consider less useful).

And it made me think. I had a few hours of driving to think about things so ideas could really percolate. A week or so later things started simmering pretty nicely.

In a follow up comment to my "growing the sport" post/question, I put some solid numbers to the goal of "growing the sport". I just threw one out there, a nice figure, not too complicated. Double the number of racers in 3 or 4 years. Since the sport grows at about 3 or 6% a year, increasing it to 30 or 40% a year would be significant.

As someone pointed out, the largest segment in USAC membership is in the Masters ranks. And as someone else pointed out, that part of the population is the part that normally have kids. And if the parents (or, rather, fathers) aren't getting their kids into racing, who will?

Let's skip the motivation to race for a second. It's important, critical even, but I'll address that in a moment. Let's look at obstacles to racing. A few come to mind right away.

Obstacles to Bicycle Racing

First, the cost of equipment. Not just the bike (everyone focuses on the cost of a bike), but look at all the gear you need. Pedals (not part of a bike, not really anyway), shoes, shorts, jerseys, helmets, gloves. Now consider you're racing as part of a school (high school or college). This means winter and spring, and this means even more gear - tights, jackets, booties, warm gloves, head gear.

Oh, right, and entry fees.

Second, training time. As a cyclist a student receives no recognition for the amount of time and effort needed to train. It's easy to say to your mom, "Hey, I need to go to swim practice!", because it's official, there's a schedule, and a lot of other people show up. But when your kid tells you, "I need to do 2 hours today, be back at dinner!", you, as a parent, really don't know what's happening. No coach, no chaperone, not even the security of knowing exactly where your kid is riding.

Third, legal aspects and getting to races, especially for Juniors. I lump them together because Juniors cannot sign waivers alone. They must have a guardian sign for them. Back in the day, when I wasn't 18 yet, I'd get a teammate to sign my waiver, but I think that such things wouldn't fly nowadays. Likewise, a kid under 18 would have a hard time getting to races. Borrow dad's car for a whole day? Getting to races is tough because most Junior races are early in the schedule, with Masters (if Dad races) later in the day. The few hour gap between races kills a whole day unless, of course, it's used as bonding time between parents and kid.

Fourth, safety in training. A racer and a dad said that he felt unsafe allowing his kid to train on town roads. I suppose I understand that at some level - riding around in, say, the heart of Hartford would be no fun, no matter how much you may like riding in traffic. Other cities are better, but from a safety point of view, even such bucolic areas as Canton and Barkhamsted have their share of bike fatalities. Fine, in one case an underage kid mowed down two riders, and it ends up the kid was so drunk he didn't know he hit anything - not the two cyclists, not the 50 feet of barrier, nothing. But still, you get the point. A lot of parents don't want their kids out there riding their bikes around.

Fifth, there is a distinct lack of information out there on how to start racing a bike, or how the whole process works. A good friend of mine saw the Tour of TV back in high school, a novelty back then, and felt thrilled and fascinated by the whole spectacle. After the show ended... he didn't know what to do. He went to school the next day and everyone was talking about stuff like football and track and swimming and everything except cycling. I heard a lot of talk about "I have a great program" or "I have all the information" or "I've been doing it for years", so the information is out there. But I heard very little about where such information is available to anyone and everyone.

Everyone says Junior racing is important. Why so? I think the importance of Junior racing is a bit overplayed, at least in its present form. With a wide disparity in ability and small fields, a Junior race is about the hardest race you can enter. Single file, Cat 1s and 2s at the front, going ballistic until everyone is about to fall over from oxygen debt. Toss a Cat 5 in a Cat 1-2 race with a 15 rider field limit and you can imagine just how long that poor 5 will last. It doesn't matter how old you are - a Cat 5 or 4 simply doesn't belong in a Cat 1-2 race.

I experienced this phenomenon personally for three years. There'd be some hotshot junior killing the field, and we all prayed that he'd go to the OTC (Olympic Training Center) to give us some respite. Every time the current hotshot got snapped up by the National team, another kid would show up and kill us all over again. This way I had the privilege to get hammered on by George (Hincapie), Frank and Mark (McCormack), and by a host of kids that you probably never heard of, like Pat Morrisey or Rob Lattanzi.

So is Junior racing important?

Only if the Junior learns about racing. That means riding in a field, tactics, working together, not working together, moving up in a field, drifting back in the field, stuff like that. And you don't learn about racing by getting dropped 2 laps into a 20 lap race. Junior races are more like time trials. Naturally, with such events, the talent bubbles to the top - the Georges, the Franks, they would do the Junior race to warm up, then they'd do the Cat 1-2 race to win. Why didn't they do the pro races? Well, back then being a pro was illegal - yep, if you were a pro, you couldn't do USCF races.

But, really, Junior racing is more about raising kids to live in a respectable and dignified way. It's important to coaches, maybe, for discovering new talent, but that seems like less of a reason to focus on Junior racing. It's nice to say "Oh, Hincapie grew up racing around here" but it doesn't mean anything in the grand scheme of things. And, yes, it's important to raise kids in a respectable and dignified way, but I can't say I'm embarking on a nationwide program to teach kids that you reap what you sow, and sometimes not even that.

So what is important?

What's more important is to get folks into the sport who feel connected to it in some way, the ones that find themselves inexplicably drawn to bike racing. They're the folks that race no matter what, train, teach, promote, officiate, and volunteer to do things like marshal a turn or coach a team. Age isn't that important - the media made a lot of to-do about that "older" woman at the last Olympics. Guys like Mike Engleman got into the sport about when the regulars were retiring, so it's possible to find talent older than, say, 18 years old.

Passion, though, is key.

If you get kids into a sport, they may enjoy it for the structure, the discipline, the camaraderie, but take away those ancillaries and their desire to participate diminishes. Look at those Juniors that rode so well, so much, for a few years, then disappear from view. I look at pictures of the good Juniors in the fields when I was a Junior and hardly any of them are around now.

What's important is growing the sport, making it bigger, making it a lifelong sport, making it something that's big enough to permeate the hallways of the high schools.

I have a few ideas that could help address all these various things. All have their obstacles and I'm sure some will disagree vehemently with what I propose, but if we can implement even a little of the following, it can make a big difference.

1. Juniors

A - Make cycling a scholastic sport. In Connecticut, according to a local shop run by a retired teacher, it takes seven (7) high schools to request a cycling league to make it a state-supported sport. The last time someone (said retired teacher) sent out letters regarding cycling, only four schools responded affirmatively (and two of the hits came from the sender and a school where one of his students now teaches).
B - Use running tracks or other fields as venues. Virtually all high schools have a running track, a football field, and/or a cross country trail. High school driveways and such work too, but I haven't done any surveys of high school driveways so I can't say for sure.
C - Mandate maximum gear costs and specifications. Helmets, gear, etc. This can be helped by equipment sponsors and such. This means that you can't use a top-line Giro in a high school race, but you can use any $50 helmet.
D - Mandate a high minimum bike weight, perhaps 20-22 pounds. This would make the bike reasonably competitive in USAC competition, readily so with a simple wheel swap, but allow students to use older, obsolete race bikes (not that the bike makes all the difference). Perhaps limit gearing, like the Little 500 (the race in Breaking Away), to limit gearing disparities. A freshman won't have the power of a senior, at least not normally, but aerobically will be closer in ability.
E - Link high schools with local USAC or collegiate teams. Cross polinate. The local club gets Juniors. The club, in return, provides some adult supervision, coaching, and event insurance (through USAC).
F - Draw in sponsors to help provide equipment to racers, perhaps on a website. Have an authorized, login-required website for schools to purchase equipment. Tax ID and all that stuff would be necessary. Equipment can be surplus or off-year product so it would be a good venue for manufacturers to clear out unsold equipment.
G - Have said site detail the basic process for getting into bike racing. Equipment, gear, license, entry, races, etc.

2. Collegiate

A - Link collegiate and USAC licenses so they're not quite so separate. This way it's clear that a collegiate racer can enter USAC races.
B - Draw collegiate racers in to local clubs. Those clubs will need to emphasize teamwork and camraderie much more than normal because, as a collegiate racer pointed out, collegiate racing really emphasizes that stuff. It emphasizes individuals much less.
C - Encourage promoters to have team oriented prizes and awards. This will help foster the team spirit that collegiate racers find lacking in regular USAC races and therefore help retain collegiate racers.
D - Have a similar site to the high school site to draw in sponsors and provide equipment.
E - Just like Juniors, have said site detail the basic process for getting into bike racing. Equipment, gear, license, entry, races, etc.

3. Women

A - Need to get into the mainstream fitness magazines and online. Articles on racing etc. Cross promote with running races, tri- and dualthlons.
B - Encourage promoters to have separate women's races. Categorize if possible. The big issue is field size, or lack thereof. Emphasize entry level (Cat 3-4) women's races since that's where 80% of the racers sit.
C - Season long points series, especially for the Cat 3-4 women. Encourage steady participation instead of peaky participation.
D - Possible entry fee rebates from higher up organizations for steady participation, i.e. you must do 10 races to qualify for the first rebate.
E - Ditto on site. Sponsors (maybe "pay on the site, pick up at the shop"), info, etc. Women specific information.

4. General

A - Emphasize races which are beginner-friendly. Such races would be ones like time trials, allow lapped riders to stay in, long courses which don't force riders off who get dropped, etc.
B - Reward consistent participation, more so than winning.
C - USAC specific blow out product sites, similar to chainlove or other close out, super deal sites. A percentage of sales would be put into USAC's "grow bike racing" budget.
D - Share information. Don't hoard it unless it's a published, costs-money kind of thing. If it's advice dispensed freely, then freely dispense that advice. Use websites, maybe USAC could have a portion of their site devoted to uploading advice and such.

Things I don't think will help that much:

1. Free entries for whoever (Juniors, women, etc), at least those which are under $15-20. Although I'm sure everyone appreciates the gesture, bike racing is much more than just entry fees. Having spent $2000 or more to get into the sport, $20-50 in gas, food, bars, drink mixes, etc etc, getting $10 off of entry seems a bit ludicrous. However, perhaps USAC or NEBRA could implement a rebate policy - up to $10 rebate per race for Juniors, not to exceed the cost of actual entry. Seriously, though, the gas to get to a race will cost more, so I think this would end up nickeling and diming down the sponsorship budget significantly.

2. Giving product to Juniors. Sure, money is tight, and I've heard of some crazy things Juniors do to save money, but as I say, "Hey, they're Juniors". Learn to suffer, learn to make do. And don't make fun of them. Look, if you couldn't buy winter gloves, what would you do? So riding with garden gloves, sweatpants instead of tights, duct tape booties, that's all okay. Maybe a Senior (18+) rider will take pity and give the shivering Junior some booties or something. That's how I got my first set of booties - did a few weeks of group rides in sub freezing temperatures with only socks and shoes (albeit the thickest socks I had). One guy, after listening to how I liked when my feet started getting waves of pain as they thawed out 10 or 20 minutes after I got home, showed up with booties that cost 10 times as much as my toe clips and gave them to me.

Having said that, in the past Carpe Diem Promotions has given individuals money to help pay for racing expenses. And although this helped a few riders, and it makes me proud to think we could do that, I think that spending that time and money on organizations focused on development would be more efficient. Instead of a few hundred dollars to one rider, the money could be used to hold a clinic that benefits 10 or 20 riders. CDP has also given thousands of dollars to programs specifically geared towards growing Junior and Women's cycling, and I think that was a much better use of the money.

Most of these ideas percolated to the top of the pile recently. I'm not the contact point for money and (perhaps unfortunately) I didn't feel like trying for one of the NEBRA Board positions, but I really think that getting a plan in place is important. Then the powers that be can focus on accomplishing the plan goals/tasks, revising them as necessary, and therefore grow and hone a system that regularly feeds new racers into the system.

Unlike many of my posts, this one hasn't percolated in my Drafts section for months or years (yes, I have some posts started in 2006 that I have yet to publish), so it's by no means complete. But I think I have most of the important stuff in here.

Questions? Feedback? Contrary opinions?

Racing - What Would YOU Do To Improve Racing?

Say I had a lot of money to pitch into the bike racing scene. How would you use it? Your goals can vary, but the basic one is to grow the sport. Cycling is not broadcast on prime time in this country, but it is in others. How would you make it so that the powers-that-be would find it worthwhile to broadcast the Tour live on one of the major networks?

Here are some ideas to get you started:

- Recruit racers from the collegiate scene.
- Have some kind of program to encourage Juniors and Women to race.
- Clinics to teach new racers how to race.
- More weekday training races.
- More National level races in the area, including the National Championships.
- Build an indoor velodrome.
- Build bike-only trails.
- Build permanent training race venues.

Think of specifics. If you want to recruit some of the collegiate racers in the area, think about what draws them into the sport. What graduating from school does to their life. What appeals to the student about the sport? For Juniors, why would they want to race? Ditto women.

Although I pose this question hypothetically, the reality is that there is some money out there. It's to be spent to grow bike racing.

Unfortunately, the money's just been accumulating for years because, get this...

NO ONE KNOWS WHAT TO DO WITH IT!

To make sure there's no misunderstanding, I don't know what to do with it either, at least not in a concrete way.

But maybe if we do the Wiki thing to attack this problem, we can find some potential uses for the money together. Spread the word and let's get some ideas together.

Training - Post Cramp Ride

Two things.

First, my post-cramp trainer spin lasted about 1:15 more than I thought it would. I felt fine. I climbed off after 1:45 on the bike. This morning I couldn't put a lot of weight on my right leg. By midday it was just sore. Now it's fine.

Second, I was in such a haze when I started thinking about 175s that I forgot a critical thing - Cannondale SI SRMs are modular. The crankarms are separate from the SRM bit (the spider). I just need to buy new arms. Yay for modular.

Anyone have any 175 Cannondale SI crank arms?