Racing - 2013 Bethel CDR Gold Race

Sunday I was a bit discombobulated before the start of the race. I really wanted to try the red Tsunami, the one that used to be orange. I rode it on the trainer and decided that if I felt comfortable riding it at the race I'd be okay with not having power or anything - I hadn't installed the SRM wire and I wasn't planning on doing it on race day.

I did wrap the tape though and thereby decided that the levers were in their final-for-now position.

I also test rode the new-to-me wheels which I'll review later, but the important part is that the front is a HED Stinger 7, 75 mm tall, and the rear is a HED Stinger 9, 90 mm tall. Both have the SCT profile, the stability thing that comes from a rounded "peak". The rims look more U shaped than V shaped. I wasn't sure if I wasted a bunch of money buying the wheels but the data seemed to indicate that these U shaped rims should be fast.

Plus they look and sound cool so there was that.

I wanted to use those wheels because my goal this week was to help my teammate Bryan at the front of the race on the last lap. I figured I wouldn't be sprinting up the hill, my main focus would be drilling it on the backstretch. Realistically I knew I wouldn't be able to do much else - I've been struggling just to finish the races this year. I also knew it would be a big ask for me to be at the front on the last lap, but if I could do it I'd bury myself to keep Bryan out of the wind for another 20 seconds.

With that in mind I decided to use the super duper aero wheels. The Stinger 6s, my faithful 60 mm rimmed wheels, stayed in the pits.

I rolled to the start line with those 7/9 wheels but mounted on the black bike. Although I'll race new-to-me wheels off the bat I figured that racing the red bike wouldn't be smart - it would mean its first outdoor ride would be a race. The black bike is a known quantity even if it needs a bit of work. For example I regularly see 1-2 watts when I'm soft pedaling and the freehub body is clicking - that means I'm using that much power just to turn the cranks.

With all my thoughts on what bike, what wheels (the new rear wheel doesn't have a magnet yet), I decided I'd rely on Strava to record my ride. I even started Strava before I rolled out there, with the Record button prominently displayed in the center of my phone.

I forgot about my heart rate strap but again, with Strava, I was just getting speed, distance, and GPS location. The SRM sat on the bars so I thought it'd be nice to have heartrate but whatever, it was all good.

While I waited at the desk I also pinned my numbers.

Because I had to man the registration post I couldn't leave the registration desk until 8 minutes before the start of my race. It meant a quick bathroom break (which I couldn't take before either), changing with all that it entails when it's a chilly race, realizing my HR strap wasn't there (it was in the car), and quickly rolled out to the line. The race started almost immediately after.

I forgot to start Strava.

I even forgot to power on the helmet cam. By the time I did the field was strung out and we were already heading past half a lap into the race.

Just after I turned on the helmet cam. Yeah, oops.

I felt okay at the start. Fresh, of course, since as usual I hadn't warmed up. My legs felt a bit better than they did last week - I had my head better covered, I wasn't freezing cold, and I'd eaten some amount of food during the day. I even moved up into about 20th spot in a few laps. I started thinking optimistically - maybe I could get to the front and drill it to lead out Bryan.

I did notice that the big wheels seemed really fast. I wished I'd had power (meaning the SRM was hooked up) because I felt like I was barely pedaling and the bike just wanted to roll.

Even better the bike didn't feel terrible on the hill. I wondered if the slight weight penalty would be something I'd notice but apparently it's below the cusp for me, at least in the poor condition I have right now. Maybe in a summer race, at the limit, in shape, I might notice something, but here, in cold Bethel, out of shape, I'll only notice coarse differences, not fine ones. Whatever, the bike climbed willingly on the hill and I had fun climbing out of the saddle.

After about 20 minutes though I started to suffer. I know I'm hurting when I look at the lap cards. I hope to see less than 10 to go because that always seems possible. When I looked the first time today it said 22 to go.

Yeah, bad.

My teammate Joel said something to me but I was so out of it I have no idea what he said. I just focused on the wheel in front and told him to move right - I needed him to move over so I could get some more shelter.

Things looked grim.

By 45 minutes into the race I was suffering a lot. Someone let a gap go at some point after Turn One and I had to close it on my own. By the time I did I was cooked and we were halfway down the backstretch. Luckily the field eased that lap going up the hill so I didn't get popped but that was a really close call for me.

The gap I had to close.

Same spot as the first picture - note location of white house.

The gap really hurt me, zapping whatever reserves I'd saved up. My mistake though and I paid the price. As the laps wound down I reminded myself of my goal - to help Bryan out before the sprint so he wouldn't have to do everything himself. I tried to empty the tank so that I'd be near the front at 1 to go.

Unfortunately I couldn't muster the strength to get up there for the bell. I'm good doing a last effort going up the hill but if I did that at the bell I'd blow up at Turn One. Therefore I tried to go hard without exploding myself. This half assed approach got me nothing.

Coming up on the bell... not good.

With everyone flying I had my hands full just maintaining position. I think I only passed riders who'd blown up or had given up. Everyone else seemed keen on doing exactly what I was doing - trying to move up for the sprint.

On the backstretch it looked like one of the teams would get a leadout going up the left side. Although initially balked when the field spread out, a gap opened up again and I waited, hoping they'd drill it. I figured with one effort they could be inside the top 20. At that point I could move up to wherever Bryan sat and help him.

The leadout guy backed off though - I think he blew up before the balk and couldn't get rolling again. I watched the gap go away and realized that I wouldn't be able to get up there for Bryan.

Approaching the hill on the last lap.

Big hole center right. I used it to blast through to the next bunch of riders.

My next hope was to finish behind Bryan. I had faith that he'd be good in the sprint, maybe a top 6 to get in the points. Since every point can be important I hoped that if I could do a good sprint I could place right behind Bryan. If he placed higher up, like 3rd, and I could take one of the places behind him, I'd deny some rival those points.

Bryan, to the left in the red shorts, exploded.

I was too far back anyway but I still had a few pedal strokes left in the tank.

That all went to pot when I saw Bryan exploded and shooting backwards on the left side of the course. When I saw him sit up I also eased - I had no aspirations for myself so it wouldn't do any good to sprint for the line. When I crossed the line I was actually on my hoods, shifting down, looking for a path to the left side so I could turn around and go back to registration. No bike throw, no real pedaling, no nothing.

I couldn't find a path so I did a cool down lap before heading in to the registration area.

SOC and I both managed to "beat" Bryan. Unfortunately our goals were to help him and neither of us made it up there to do so. I likened our result to something like if Bernard Eisel and Mark Renshaw both beat Mark Cavendish to the line for a Tour stage. Beating the leader isn't cause for celebration even if it represented personal triumphs for the two of us (I wasn't sure I'd finish the race and even turned down an offer from someone to bring me to the front).

As it turns out Bryan had had bad legs the whole day and simply didn't have it for the sprint. Last week he won the field sprint on his own. This week, not so good.

At least for me there's a week break. I can do some training to get some hours in - I looked today and I rode just 8 hours in February. That's not enough to get in shape.

I can also get the red bike ready to race, train outdoors on it, get the SRM harness set up, install the magnet on the Stinger 9.

Then I can return to Bethel for the 7th ready to rumble.

Promoting - 2013 Tour de Kirche

I suppose the whole promoting gig started on Friday. The Missus got home from work, Junior went to sleep, and we immediately set about doing the pre-reg books, releases, start lists, etc. We had to double check the "exceptions" (like when I add someone manually) to make sure we had releases for the start list people and that the start list people really should have been on the start list.

Saturday got busier.

In the last 5 or 6 years, since I moved away from the Bethel area, I've driven down the day before the race to my dad's. Since we've had registration indoors, first at Panificio Navona, then now at the Retail Lab, I drove down to do minor set up tasks. Sometimes it's not so minor, like shoveling a few hundred yards of road shoulder clear of snow. Other times it's pretty basic, marking off the lawn or doing a quick drive-around to make sure nothing weird happened since the last time I was there.

The Missus works Saturdays at this time of year, even Sundays, so she normally can't make any races after the first one.

The new wild card for this year is Junior of course. Someone needs to look after him so with the Missus at work Saturdays that means I need to make sure he stays out of trouble. This means waiting until she gets home before heading out towards Bethel.

March 16th was a bit different. I've missed, for eight years, the one official's clinic held each year in the district. Most years the clinic happened to take place while I was training in SoCal. Last year the Missus and I had our hands full with Junior's arrival. This year I decided to make it a priority this year to attend the 8:30 AM - 4:30 PM clinic.

That times range meant that I had to have someone take care of Junior. One of the regular Bethel officials Meg volunteered to take care of him - she'd be bringing another Bethel regular Delaney to the officials' clinic. So I got to the venue at about 8:00 AM with a full day's of distractions packed in a few bags.

Junior hanging out before the clinic.

It ended up going well. Junior behaved himself, spending literally hours in the classroom (the clinic was at a local school) with all the potential new officials. He only really made noise a few times in which case Meg would take him out exploring the rest of the school. He even slept for an hour and a half in the class, waking up with his quiet self-babble, only getting excited when he realized I was there.

After a long day I passed the very reasonable test. My one error had to do with the free lap rule of all things. Never assume, right?

I headed home with Junior, the plan being to leave the Golf with Junior's stuff and take the Jetta. I had to finish packing the race stuff in the Jetta - my bikes were inside still, for example, as were the computers and such. Once packed I headed out... but it was late.

On the way out - this is about 10 minutes from the house.

I wanted to check the course and such but I didn't have time, plus I was exhausted from the long day (Junior wakes up at about 6 AM each day now). I knew tomorrow would be another long day so I made the executive decision to head straight to my dad's house, skipping checking out the course (which would add about an hour driving to the route). I had to stop for dinner - tonight it would be an egg sandwich and a calorie rich muffin.

I kept thinking of things that I might have forgotten. My shoes ("okay they're in my gear bag"), my helmet ("that's in the bag with the clean Leader's Jerseys"), the check book ("in the bag with the official clinic stuff... and it has Junior's log in it, oops"), finish line camera, race permit package ("in the plastic bin... and there it is in the rear view mirror"), etc etc.

My phone kept ringing (during the clinic as well as during the drive down) but I let it go to voicemail. If I took any calls about the race now I'd just forget whatever I promised to do and that's worse than the caller just thinking, "Oh he's not available".

On the way it started to snow.

Arrived at my dad's at about 9 PM. It's snowing.

Once at my dad's I brought in one laptop and my overnight stuff. I had to handle a few last minute questions about the race, mainly about the weather, and posted stuff to the site about the weather. The Missus and I had spent Friday evening prepping pre-reg so that was all set.

Then my brother and I talked, as we usually do, except this time we talked until something like almost 1 AM. I wouldn't recommend this with a 4:30 AM wake up alarm.

Arrive at the course at about 6 AM.

I managed to get to the race okay. I was on that race day adrenaline, my mind racing, thinking of all the things I had to deal with during the day.

The first deal was the ice cold conditions. We had black ice on the course, it was in the low-mid 20s, just bitterly cold. The Cat 5s braved the conditions for the clinic and the race and by the time the clinic finished the last of the ice was covered or gone.

Registration has really smoothed out. The Missus wasn't here for the first time this year but things ran well nonetheless. Our new crew for day-of-registration, Amanda and Joel, did superbly. I helped out here and there but otherwise it was all them. Delaney, as a newly minted official, handled the pre-reg folks perfectly as well.

The camera, too, went better, with Jonathan manning it. As another newly minted official he had a better understanding of the various priorities of an official so that helped.

The marshaling has really improved for this year. We still need help whenever we can get it but the main spots, by the start/finish and Turn One, the hill, and "Turn Two", had good coverage. A lot of racers stepped up and marshaled, getting comp'ed for their race in return.

Unfortunately the Tour de Kirche marked the first anniversary of a tragic crash. Last year Markus Bohler fell in the Cat 3-4 race, succumbing to his injuries early the next morning. VeloNews did an article named Death In The Family about the crash - it was their Editor's story of the year. In respect we had a moment of silence before the Cat 4 race and the Cat 3-4 race.

Rob Kelley of Pawling speaks briefly to the Cat 4 field before their start.

Finish of a silent lap in memory of Markus.

Someone put flowers at the crash site this year.

The Markus Bohler Memorial, in use by spectators as intended.

The cycling community really pulled together after Markus's death, raising funds in New York and New England. Ultimately the fund was used to build the Markus Bohler Memorial at the start/finish area of the Bethel Spring Series. Each week this year people have sat there to watch the races, exactly what the intent was when the Memorial was designed.

The fields were unusually large this week. I was happiest about the Women's race, hitting almost 50 racers.

The Women's field lines up.

The Cat 3-4 race was a massive 120 starters, the most I've ever seen at a Bethel. Three of the five missing starters were my teammates so it was very few people that couldn't make it. The other fields weren't as big so it may not have been a record day overall but it was definitely one of the bigger days. Hard to believe after that day's morning where we had black ice, frozen sand, and snow on everything except the road itself.

We managed to start breaking things down during the P123 race. I had suffered in the 3-4s (finishing 93rd out of 95 finishers) so I was around to help once I recovered a bit. We pack up stuff in the van, trailer, and whatever car I drive.

After receiving two birthday gifts for Junior I headed home.

View to the top right.

View to the top left.

Once we put the rack on the Jetta I've been very aware of the rack whenever I pull into the garage. Every time we go somewhere I stop and look up before I pull in, even if we didn't bring a bike. One day, after I stopped the car outside the garage and craned my head left and right, looking at the obviously empty rack, the Missus asked me what I was doing.

"Practicing."

I got home a little bit before 7 PM. I backed up to the garage, looking at the bikes on the roof and the garage entrance. Yes, I stopped before the garage. I quickly unloaded the race stuff from the car, the Missus putting Junior's seat back in place. Now if we needed to go anywhere with Junior we could - leaving the car packed meant that we only had one car available with a babyseat.

I knew the racers really wanted to see results up, including the GC, so I worked on that before I did anything else. The Missus tried to feed me dinner but I couldn't even feel hungry until I was almost done with the GC and I'd already put up the day's results. Only then did I feel like I could take a shower and relax.

Of course I was so tired I really couldn't do anything. I couldn't stay awake, I couldn't focus, and I could barely read a half dozen pages of a book before the blanket of fatigue covered my face.

I took off my glasses and fell asleep.

Promoting - 2013 Ris Van Bethel

Saturday evening one of my nephews came over to me, sitting at their kitchen table, a laptop in front of me.

"Are you on Facebook?"
"Yes."
"What are you doing?"
"Commenting on this picture I took before dinner."
"Is that a shovel?"
"Yes."
"Were you shoveling the road?"
"Yes, I had to shovel the sides of the road."
"Why did you have to shovel the side of the road?"
"Penance."
"What's penance?"

I grinned. I told him that it was something I had to do. With the first 2013 Bethel race and all its problems, fresh in my mind, I knew that I had to step up the game. So let's back up a bit.

Saturday morning went as usual with the Missus off to work (during tax season she works Saturdays and sometimes Sundays), me at home with Junior. The Missus and I had staged the stuff we needed for Bethel in the garage, and when she got home we packed the stuff we needed for Junior and ourselves. Then, with both cars loaded up, we headed down to my dad's place.

To put some detail on the situation at my dad's - it's the house that we moved into in 1978. I spent all my middle school and high school years there. My brother, his wife, and their kids live there too. When we head over I always think of the rooms as "our" rooms. My brother will say "Yeah, you're in your room tonight", meaning my room from when I was in high school.

I still had to do some stuff at the course - the surprisingly heavy snowfall during the week meant that there'd be snow on the course, or at least on the shoulders. I went directly to the course first while the Missus and Junior, in the other car, went straight to my dad's.

The first thing I did was to put in all the stakes to mark off the grass at Turn One. In the morning the ground would be frozen solid so it would be best to put the stakes in while it was 50 degrees out and sunny. With that done I focused on cleaning up the snow on the road, with emphasis on Turn One, the hill, and the backstretch leading to the hill.

The course was worse than I thought - the "few inches" of snow spillage on the shoulder ended up, at times, two or three feet wide. The snow was heavy wet slush and with temperatures expected in the low-mid 20s overnight it would all freeze. We could melt a little bit of ice but not frozen slush a few inches deep.

Therefore the slush had to go.

I cleared the left shoulder towards the top of the hill. That wasn't too bad. I also tried to sculpt the Turn One snow bank. I didn't have the time or energy to move it all so I tried to make it into a more "corner" type of shape instead of the disjointed "bang the plow into the bank" shape.

The not sculpted Turn One.

Since I threw out my back a couple weeks ago I played conservative and tried not to work too hard. That worked until I headed down the hill a bit.

The hill after the storm. Not bad at first glance.

What I didn't realize was just how much snow sat next to the curb. Once it started to melt it turned into this slushy wet mess. In the expected overnight temperatures it would all freeze, creating an unrideable shoulder.

The "Nephew Picture"

There was a lot more snow than I expected.

This is the right side of the hill and the snow had been piled up along the bank from the driveway opposite, a couple feet high and a couple feet out from the curb.

I had to abandon my conservative approach with all the snow on the hill. My back seemed up to it so I plowed ahead and did what work I could do. At some point, when I was next to the glass building, the Missus called.

"When do you think you'll be done?"

I looked around. I knew sunset was just before 6 PM. It was maybe 5 PM.

"Until the sun sets, for sure."

"Okay."

Cleared area just before the glass building, facing the same direction as the race goes.

By the time I got to the end of the glass building section, about 200 meters from the line, it was getting pretty close to that sunset time. I still had to get one more straight - the bit before the glass building. The backstretch was reasonable, and the stuff after Turn One was fine. So just that wooded section at about 350 to 200 meters to go.

Starting to clear the bit before the glass building at the bottom of the hill.

This one I'm looking backwards relative to the race direction.

I have to admit it was worse than I expected. I thought the snow only came out a foot or so from the curb, but you can see from the picture that the snow was more like 3 feet from the curb.

I started it so I had to finish so I kept going.

The cleared area.

I finally got to the end of that section when the Missus called. Everyone was going out to our standard "family is visiting" restaurant in South Norwalk. She told me that she'd stay at the house with Junior and I could head down there straight from the course. As I was starting to bonk this was a good thing. I said I'd leave in about 5 minutes.

Then I realized that there was literally an inch or two of slushy ice all along the shoulder. It really accumulated when I pushed it with a broom, and knowing it would be absolutely unrideable frozen I cleared it away, pushing it all to the grate at the end of the straight.

Some of the slush/water that I had to clear after I cleared the snow.

Before I left I took a picture of Turn One. Better than before.

I was a little late for dinner but they ordered for me but I was so hungry I think I finished my food before everyone else.

When we got home from dinner that's when that one nephew came up to me at the kitchen table.

With last week's fiasco of a race I was determined to have a better race this week. I asked for help, the Missus put in a lot of work to help prepare for the race, and she told me she'd go to the race one more week before leaving it to me (she normally only works the first week).

Sunday went much, much better than the prior one. Bitterly cold in the morning we used all the ice melt I'd brought (calcium chloride, the good stuff - the ice actually sort of creaks when the melt hits it because the ice melts immediately). I pushed a leaf blower to clear the dusty sand, grabbing a second one halfway through the backstretch, pushing two blowers clearing practically the whole lane in one pass.

The camera, working as it was at the end of the day last week, worked fine.

Racers stepped up to marshal in exchange for racing and the race was much better marshaled.

Of course it helped that the temperatures hit about 50 degrees by mid day and that there was practically no wind. We had crowds of people watching, unusual for a Bethel.

People at the finish of the M45 race.

In the Cat 3-4 race I decided to carry a marshal's radio just in case. I left it off except when I need to use it as a "roving marshal" so I wouldn't be able to use it as a "racer". A few laps in, when I saw a utility truck at Turn Two (he'd been checking underground wiring in the area), I called in a request for someone to keep an eye out on him. I didn't realize that someone was already on their way down there but having the radio was good. Going forward I'll keep one in my pocket during the races.

We broke stuff down before the P123s were done so we could get out of there quicker than we did last week, by over an hour. With the melting snow the floors were a bit dirtier but nothing that we couldn't clean with the cleaning kit we have specifically to clean up the registration area.

We headed back to my dad's where Junior had spent the day with his cousins, aunt, uncle, and grandfather. He seemed totally at ease when we got there. We celebrated his birthday - he turned one year old that day. I have no pictures but I'll have to get them from my brother. Junior had some pasta with no problems but promptly threw up when I gave him a bit of chocolate frosting. Oops.

We headed out after dinner and cake, a two car convoy. The Missus headed straight home with Junior while I had to stop for fuel (the light was on for a while), get some food for the kitties, and then head home.

After a long day.

The JSW (Jetta Sportswagen) was loaded down enough that the rear looked lowered. With the bike and a few hundred pounds of weight the car didn't get better than about 38 mpg. Arg. It was weighed down enough that the stuff on the front seat triggered the "no seat belt" chimes, the ones that tell you that your front seat passenger doesn't have a seat belt on. Well of course it didn't, it was left over cake and a pile of race stuff.

Pile?

I unloaded the car into one of the garage bays because the next morning I needed the car back in "Junior configuration" so we could take him to his one year check up. I decided to take a picture of the stuff I took out.

I don't know where the other tent is but the rest of it was in the car.

I think the second tent's still in the car.

My bike is behind the piece of wood. I didn't have the jigsaw, the ladder, or the rear privacy awning (the black thing in the back of the picture) but everything else came out of the JSW, or, in the case of the bike, from off the top. This makes my trailer/tow-vehicle thoughts much more real, dealing with this every week.

It was a long day but a good one. The race went off much better than last week, the primary short term goal for the day.

And, as the primary long term goal, Junior has been alive for a year. As we told each other about 364 days ago, our first task is to keep Junior alive and healthy. Everything else is to support this goal.

Promoting - 2013 Ronde de Bethel

I don't know where to start so I'll back track a little bit.

It all started falling apart back in January or so, when I asked the town to confirm that it would be okay to hold the races. I'd sent them a letter a while back but it got lost in the shuffle and never made it to the town's board. Instead of getting ready for the races I decided to wait until I got permission. I figured if I started to prepare then they would say no and I didn't want to tempt karma.

Because, you know, karma's a b...  well you know.

This set me back by a month since I had to wait for the next meeting.

And from there it just went down hill.

I was pretty sick for a while, which is okay, but then my back went out. Instead of building my bike and preparing for the Bethel Spring Series I was laid out, unable to move much, barely able to look after Junior.

Write off another couple weeks.

I wanted to have a meeting with our regular permanent staff, the people that the races probably recognize as "part of the race". I planned the meeting for a certain Saturday. Because I've moved since the Series started it would be a 90 minute drive, minimum, to get to the meeting.

Then my brother asked if we could babysit their kids that evening. I figured it would be tight but I could do it. Then it snowed that day, the worst snowstorm in recent memory.

Push the meeting back a week.

I met with the folks on Turn One. They put $15,000 buying sod for their lawn. They wanted people to stay off of it. I promised them we'd keep them off the grass.

In return they allowed us to use their driveway to route bakery customers and volleyball participants (there's a volleyball tournament place at the other end of the registration building). This was good except I needed three more marshals now.

I met with the bakery folks. They had painstakingly built a regular Sunday business over the last year and they didn't want to lose it. This meant I couldn't use the front door area of their dining area for registration - I needed to find a different place for registration. I steeled myself and the staff for a return to the bone chilling outdoors for registration. I mentally told myself to remember the heaters and the propane tanks.

Then someone called someone who called someone else. Word filtered through the grapevine that we may be able to do registration indoors a few doors down from the bakery. We'd have power, a bit of space, and heat. It'd be a limited space but hey, that's better than outside.

I headed down there one day to check it out. It seemed like it'd work fine. It was larger than I expected, it was heated, and it even had a power outlet in the wall. The location was a retail lab of sorts so it had to be pristine when we left it. In the past the racers absolutely trashed the bakery, damaging fixtures in the bathroom, ruining the finish on the floor, etc. We couldn't have this happen in this new location.

After the meeting I waited word from the higher ups. Ultimately the powers that be approved us using the new location.

Phew.

Suddenly it was time, the last week before the Series. I had to get things done now, no excuses. It didn't matter that I had the worst sinus infection of my life - coughing so hard I was yakking, coughing so hard I couldn't sleep, ultimately giving in and going to the doctor. Junior had something similar, snot and spit up everywhere, then had a round of pink eye when it seemed like he was finally getting better.

Inevitably things fell through the cracks.

For example, in the past we would drive the van down a week early, loaded up with all sorts of street sweeping accouterments. This year, due to me being sick, Junior being sick, and even the Missus getting sick (she never gets sick), each time we planned on driving the van down we had to cancel. It finally got to the point where we wouldn't be able to drive it down before Sweep Day.

This meant I had to carry the sweep stuff and the race stuff in the van.

Now, in the past I've carried some extra stuff in the van, extra finish line cameras, an old printer, and all sorts of stuff we never used. I'd bring it "just in case". This year, to streamline things, I took all that stuff out - when I started loading the van it was virtually empty.

Yet when I tried to get everything in there that I needed for Sweep and for the race... it didn't fit. I started putting non-essentials into the Missus's car, one that she would drive down Saturday afternoon.

The van, a huge 15 passenger size van, was packed to the gills. My bike ended up sort of wedged up against the ceiling of the van.

With Junior in the picture we needed a sitter for Saturday morning. Luckily we had one but this was a new thing for us - the Missus working and me driving a vehicle that wouldn't hold a baby seat, going to a place where I couldn't really take him. Junior had to wait at home, and to do that we needed someone to look after him.

I made it to Sweep okay, we cleared a lot of the course, and I even rode for about 20 minutes until my back went out. Apparently it wasn't as good as I thought.

Then I headed over to my dad's and printed stuff, set up the radios, set up the registration spreadsheet, started adding this person and that person, and finally fell asleep exhausted.

Sunday I hoped things would go better.

It started poorly. I mean we didn't even get into Sunday and Junior was up twice, coughing like mad, doing his projectile vomiting he does so well. The Missus had me sleep in the family room so I could sleep really hard instead of sleeping while sort of listening for Junior.

We got to the race and we unloaded the registration stuff from the van. It was less than I wanted. I'd left behind little things in some of those "unnecessary" bins, things like tape, paper (I borrowed some from my brother), binder clips, some pre-made signs on number placement, stuff like that.

Early in the day someone came up to me and pointed out the release forms didn't have a spot for a team or for the race entered. I had printed out a combination competitive and non-competitive form, not the standard competitive release form.

1200 copies. Of the wrong thing.

Crap.

The camera... what a fiasco. It was set to 1080i, not 1080p, so the images weren't clear. Then it focused on the people across the street. It auto adjusted the shutter speed due to the overcast conditions, blurring the numbers.

Finally, by the women's race, we had it all set. 1/10,000 manual shutter speed, manual focus, 1080p at 60 frames per second. For the 5s and 4s it was too late, we had incomplete results.

It had to be terribly frustrating. One racer complained twice to me in person, then emailed me, then called me, complaining about the results. Someone posted a negative comment on a YouTube clip. I got three hang up calls, and although they were hang ups (well it was just breathing) I never got them before so I'm assuming they had to do with the lack of results in the 5s and 4s. Heck I couldn't say anything because the camera didn't work right for those two races. Going forward for the rest of the Series and beyond it'll be fine, but that doesn't help the racers in those first two races.

I was short marshals, even with a huge number of volunteers. I had some very hard working volunteers around that Turn One building, on the hill, and out around the course.

I entered the 3-4 race but with two weeks of basically no riding I got shelled. (I rode 30 min Friday, 18 minutes Saturday, and about 20 minutes during the clinic, and before that it was 2 weeks of no riding). Somehow that seemed appropriate based on the way the day had gone.

The Missus had taken her one day off that week to help with registration. When things finally started to quiet down she went and retrieved Junior from my dad's place and brought him back. Seeing him put a smile on my face after a long and difficult day.

Other things worked well. The radios, more powerful than last year's, worked fine from Turn Two. I even had the channels set up properly. I got the numbers okay. There were enough pins. We had enough pens. We had some extra primes donated to us. We have new grate covers. The stakes and yellow tape worked well on Turn One, and I have snow fencing in reserve. We didn't need the area rugs for registration.

I need to do more though.

This coming week I have more reinforcements. The Missus said she'd return to help at registration - this meant lining up my brother and his wife to look after Junior. We have two more staff people showing up, two that were unable to make the first week (another will return on the third week and yet another will return on the fourth week). Our camera is working. I packed away enough binder clips for a decade. We have tape.

Personally my back is okay - I'm not walking weird, I can pick up Junior, but it's still a challenge to unload the dishwasher. I'm not that sick now - I finished my prescription stuff last week, I just blow green stuff out of my nose regularly. Junior is a bit better too, sleeping a bit better during the night, no recent projectile vomiting.

Friday I need to pick up the print job (the release forms) and organize the binders and the numbers. The Missus told me she'd help with that - she wanted everything ready to go on Saturday so I wouldn't have to work on stuff when I got to my dad's.

I'll head down Saturday afternoon after the Missus gets home from work - we'll do a Junior handoff and then I'll head south. I need to do three things at the course. First, check the course and do any major sweeping necessary. Second, stake out and mark the Turn One grass area. Third, patch any real bad potholes and smooth out any of the jarring dips I can find.

After that I'll head over to my dad's to meet up with the Missus and Junior. And, hopefully, Sunday we'll have a much smoother race.

Life - Promoting?

It's been a while since I put anything up here. I realized that when someone referred to Junior as Junior - I only do that here, and I sort of forgot I did that.

Obviously the big thing for me is that the Bethel Spring Series is coming up. The races start Sunday, Sweep Day is Saturday, but the whole promotion thing has been going on for a while now.

Each year it's about small improvements. Sometimes we get a big break, like when we first headed indoors at Navone Studios. Other years it's just a refinement on procedure, nothing major.

This year there were a number of things. First we had a slew of changes on the back end, stuff that's not really related to racing but more to the entity that promotes the races (i.e. the legal me). This all started last year and we're scrambling to finish stuff for Sunday.

Next we've moved our registration area over a couple doors. This also required some paperwork (and I just realized I have to do some more of that said paperwork). I put hints in the linked post but I want to let the racers experience the impact like I did, it's a cool space.

There are the tenants in the park of course, and they need to be assured that they'll have access to their offices, that we won't prevent them from getting to work. This involved a couple drives down to the course. It used to be easier when I lived a few towns over, not a couple counties away.

There's all the regular stuff, permits and such. That's sort of normal stuff.

Personally it's been tough this year. Of course we have Junior now so we don't have quite the time that we did before the stork dropped him off. More significantly he's been building up his immunity by catching colds at daycare, and in doing so he's been affecting me too.

I had quite the winter, from before Christmas until now, plagued with regular flu type illness, a sinus infection that got bad enough that I was yakking when I coughed (first time for me), and, to top it all, my back went out.

That may not sound like it's related to Junior but it sort of was - see, when Junior was cough-yakking he slept better when he was a bit more upright. I got into the habit of getting up when he cough-yakked (at 11PM or 1 AM or whatever) and then holding him while I sat in a recliner.

He'd fall asleep, breathing heavily.

I'd fall asleep too.

A few weeks of doing this somewhat frequently and suddenly I had a hard time getting out of the recliner when Junior woke up at 5 or 6 in the morning.

During all this I was trying to train a bit. I got some good hours in during January but fell apart going into February. I think I rode 4 or 5 times this month so far, due to illness, fatigue (like if I wasn't able to sleep through the night), and my back.

You know you put off training and Bethel stuff a week here, a week there, and suddenly you're talking some real time.

So Thursday and Friday are huge, huge, huge push days. No training probably but a LOT of getting ready for the races. Everything has to be ready by Saturday at 8 AM which is when I need to leave the house for Sweep Day. I won't be back until after Sunday's race so everything has to go, and I mean everything. It'll be interesting to say the least.

For now, though, bed.

Tomorrow we push.

Promoting - 2013 Bethel Spring Series Permits/Numbers

It's now getting to the nitty gritty for the 2013 Bethel Spring Series. When I think of the races I start thinking of all the deadlines, backwards. Meaning I think about by when I have to get things done.

The biggest things are race numbers and permits. Both require a minimum of 6 weeks lead time, with relatively heavy monetary penalties for violating them. I want to have the first race be on March 3 so that means mid January for permits and race numbers.

To get permits and race numbers I need more things. Permits (plural - one permit for each week of racing) implies permission from the town to hold the race. Due to some crossed communications, the town of Bethel won't be making a decision on their side until January 2, 2013. That puts me at only about two weeks before my 6 week deadline for permits.

Now, understand, I can start my permits with USAC without completing them, and I may do that shortly. By starting all the permits at the same time I can usually get consecutive permit numbers, like 2012-538 to 2012-543 for last year's Bethel Spring Series. If you look closely though I screwed up - I permitted the second week first, and ended up adding the first week last.

To start the permits (yes, still working backward) I have to renew the club's membership. Carpe Diem Racing is a club that promotes races. There are old members of CDR scattered around the country and I want them to be able to put down "Carpe Diem Racing" as a club if they want to. In fact, I don't mind if anyone that wants to lend moral support puts down Carpe Diem Racing as their club. Remember, though, if you put down Carpe Diem Racing you should either race in a non-kit or be a Cat 3-5. I think it's against the rules to race wearing one team's kit while writing down you race for another team, and I have no Carpe Diem Racing kits.

Or Sprinter Della Casa kits for that matter.

So, renew the club membership. In order to do that I have to be current with all paperwork and fees for 2012. If not then USAC will not allow a club to renew its membership. Believe it or not I have yet to submit the rider list from the Markus Bohler Memorial Ride. I'll be doing that shortly, then I can proceed with the various steps I laid out above.

That's the permit stuff.

Then there's the race numbers.

I use Rainbow Racing and buy the custom imprint cycling hip numbers. These are by far the best numbers I've ever used, and I've been ordering from them for maybe 15 years. The numbers are large, absolutely water- and smudge-proof, and they allow me to put words at the top and bottom of the number. My default line at the bottom is the year and Bethel Spring Series, so like "2013 Bethel Spring Series".

The top line is trickier. I usually put the sponsor up there or Carpe Diem. For many years it was not a heavy duty thing, meaning I didn't ask much for the top line. A couple years ago though, when the race was floundering fiscally, three potential sponsors popped up.

Now that top line is quite valuable. However this means renewing said sponsorship each year, and that is something I have yet to do.

Of course, if I don't have town permission yet, I can't get a permit, and if I don't have a permit, I don't have a race. This would make sponsor talks a bit premature, kind of like planning out in exquisite detail what you're going to do with lottery winnings before you ever win the lottery.

On the other hand I'm lucky in that we've had an enthusiastic supporter in the last couple years. I hope that they'll sign up for the 2013 Series.

Remember the 6 weeks though. I have to have everything squared away by mid January.

Once they get done then I can focus on other things like portapotties (from Chatfield Rental). We started using them a long time ago when one of the racers at the Series mentioned that he worked at a place that rented out portapotties. As he was (and is) a bike racer I decided to patronize their business. They've been excellent and we've used them for something like 10 or 15 years now.

But for now I have to focus on the two things preoccupying me - permits and numbers, and the things associated with them.

Racing - Boycott?

A few weeks ago I started thinking about permitting the Bethel Spring Series for 2013. This is later than normal - I've been a bit preoccupied with Junior and, honestly, I let time slide by before I put in my official request for permission to hold the race. At that point I'm waiting for the town to sign off on the races and then I'll start the rest of the process. I feel it's too presumptuous to go ahead and start working on stuff before hearing from the town.

Plus, in my eye, it's bad karma to start work on something before I know I'm allowed to do it.

All this stuff made me think of Greg Lemond's open letter to the UCI. He says many things but one thing in particular affects me - boycotting USA Cycling. He asks everyone to boycott USAC and not get a license for 2013.

This isn't like me skipping a year when licenses were good for 13 months, and where I could race for a year without actually paying for a license.

This is like not racing USAC for a year.

I've always believed in the system, forcing change through involvement rather than open rebellion. I don't know why but that's the way I am. I told other promoters that asked me about this that they should permit their races through USAC. If they really felt strongly about how USAC should be run they should run for the board of directors of NEBRA (or whatever local association serves their region) and, eventually, apply for a position in Colorado.

Other promoters have tried to hold races without USAC backing. Curiously enough they use USAC officials, USAC forms, and USAC rules. I attended one race that had always been USAC but, to my surprise, in 2012 the promoter went the non-USAC route.

It seemed a bit wrong - asking for my USAC license (why? what good is that in a non-USAC event?), using the same (USAC) officials as the other weeks, running by the same (USAC) rules...

For a moment I wanted to say that I wanted to do the Cat 3 race and I didn't have a USAC license with me. What would prevent me from racing without showing my license? What would prevent me from entering the Cat 4 race. Or a Pro/1 race for that matter?

I decided not to make waves and raced my race, somewhat unsuccessfully.

Apparently I wasn't as firmly entrenched in my support of USAC as I thought because I did that race. Generally speaking I wouldn't have attended an event that wasn't USAC permitted, but in that case I didn't realize they went non-USAC, it's a long time race (I think I did it in 1983 for the first time), and, although not necessarily the same one from '83, I wanted to support the promoter.

In fact I raced twice that day, paying the day-of fee for the first race. When someone at registration pointed out that I could have saved myself the day-of fee by registering online I pointed out in return that I would give more money to the promoter by registering on the day of the race.

Therefore that's what I generally do.

So anyway, that's sort of my thoughts on USAC vs non-USAC in a nutshell. I prefer USAC races, I generally don't do non-USAC ones, but I want to support the good people behind the races first and foremost.

This brings the topic back on track, to the Lemond's boycott letter. A while back I read the NYVelocity's posting of Lemond's letter, looking for other racers' and promoters' thoughts. Unfortunately I mainly found people sniping at each other. I didn't see many comments of substance.

In my family I was brought up to value the system more than the individual. I suppose it's my culture, infamous for cohesiveness and solidarity (the only looting that anyone could find after the tsunami in Japan was done by foreigners) but also known for its rigidity and inflexibility (failure means shame and shame means life is no longer worth living).

Although not as extreme as the second thought above, I still have this loyalty to USAC. To me USAC is not a faceless organization. It's not an evil board suffocating any hint of bad news. I don't know the board, I don't know what they do, I've never spoken with them.

However I do know some of the staff. I've spoken to at least three different people in Colorado, one regularly, and I speak with our more local Massachusetts-based NEBRA rep regularly but infrequently. In our conversations I've learned more about some of them than I know about some of my teammates.

There's also an infrastructure local here in Connecticut. There are officials that I work with regularly, folks I consider friends. They're about as anti-doping as anyone out there. Boycotting USAC would mean boycotting them.

I consider all those USAC staff and the local officials friends of mine. I don't want to do anything that would hurt them.

Mind you, I'm still trying to keep an eye on the prize here, the anti-doping efforts, the attempt to cleanse our sport. Unfortunately the staff members I know are sort of like the civilians in the doping war, innocent bystanders in the battle for clean sport. They're not in the news defending dopers or deflecting inquiries. They help promoters like me get their races to start on time, insured, with a reasonable infrastructure behind the promoter so that things work.

Casualties in the staffing folks would be, at best, difficult to justify.

Lemond's letter addresses racers, and I'm one of them. Unlike many racers I'm also involved in USAC as a promoter. If I stay with USAC and take out permits, and Lemond manages to convince 50k racers not to take out USAC licenses, I stand a big chance of having racers boycott my race simply because I took out USAC permits.

I, too, would become a "civilian" casualty, as would any promoter that looks to USAC for protection from litigation, for guidance on promoting a race, for a system that, at least for race promotion, seems to work well.

To me that doesn't seem fair.

On the other hand I'm a bit tired of the doping bombshells, the suspicious performances, the unfounded rumor talk.

I guess, in some way, I support USAC but I don't support the UCI. Is that possible? I believe in USADA absolutely (I was a chaperone a couple times) and that tempers any negative thoughts about USAC.

I have to admit that unlike other organizations USADA seems to do its antidoping work pretty well. We don't hear of positives before the rider learns about it. All the announcements have to do with races from months ago, not from two or three days ago.

If USADA keeps doing their thing then USAC will fall into their place. I don't see a problem there.

With that in mind I've decided to do is to go ahead with the USAC permitting, once I get word that the race is a go. I'll renew my USAC license.

In all fairness I'm going to post Lemond's full open letter. I've lifted it from NYVelocity, from here, in full.

Open Letter to Pat McQuaid from Greg LeMond

Thu, 10/25/2012 - 2:31am by Andy Shen

Greg LeMond posted this to his Facebook timeline this evening. Please pass it around. If you have a blog or a site take the copy and post it.

Can anyone help me out? I know this sounds kind of lame but I am not well versed in social marketing. I would like to send a message to everyone that really loves cycling. I do not use twitter and do not have an organized way of getting some of my own "rage" out. I want to tell the world of cycling to please join me in telling Pat McQuaid to f##k off and resign. I have never seen such an abuse of power in cycling's history- resign Pat if you love cycling. Resign even if you hate the sport.

Pat McQuaid, you know damn well what has been going on in cycling, and if you want to deny it, then even more reasons why those who love cycling need to demand that you resign.

I have a file with what I believe is well documented proof that will exonerate Paul.

Pat in my opinion you and Hein are the corrupt part of the sport. I do not want to include everyone at the UCI because I believe that there are many, maybe most that work at the UCI that are dedicated to cycling, they do it out of the love of the sport, but you and your buddy Hein have destroyed the sport.

Pat, I thought you loved cycling? At one time you did and if you did love cycling please dig deep inside and remember that part of your life- allow cycling to grow and flourish- please! It is time to walk away. Walk away if you love cycling.

As a reminder I just want to point out that recently you accused me of being the cause of USADA's investigation against Lance Armstrong. Why would you be inclined to go straight to me as the "cause"? Why shoot the messenger every time?

Every time you do this I get more and more entrenched. I was in your country over the last two weeks and I asked someone that knows you if you were someone that could be rehabilitated. His answer was very quick and it was not good for you. No was the answer, no, no , no!

The problem for sport is not drugs but corruption. You are the epitome of the word corruption.

You can read all about Webster's definition of corruption. If you want I can re-post my attorney's response to your letter where you threaten to sue me for calling the UCI corrupt. FYI I want to officially reiterate to you and Hein that in my opinion the two of your represent the essence of corruption.

I would encourage anyone that loves cycling to donate and support Paul in his fight against the Pat and Hein and the UCI. Skip lunch and donate the amount that you would have spent towards that Sunday buffet towards changing the sport of cycling.

I donated money for Paul's defense, and I am willing to donate a lot more, but I would like to use it to lobby for dramatic change in cycling. The sport does not need Pat McQuaid or Hein Verbruggen- if this sport is going to change it is now. Not next year, not down the road, now! Now or never!

People that really care about cycling have the power to change cycling- change it now by voicing your thought and donating money towards Paul Kimmage's defense, (Paul, I want to encourage you to not spend the money that has been donated to your defense fund on defending yourself in Switzerland. In my case, a USA citizen, I could care less if I lost the UCI's bogus lawsuit. Use the money to lobby for real change).

If people really want to clean the sport of cycling up all you have to do is put your money where your mouth is.

Don't buy a USA Cycling license. Give up racing for a year, just long enough to put the UCI and USA cycling out of business. We can then start from scratch and let the real lovers in cycling direct where and how the sport of cycling will go.

Please make a difference.
Greg

Comments appreciated.

Equipment - Aero Benefits

In the past I've extolled the virtues of aero road bikes. I felt convinced that aero road bikes would sweep the peloton. In a few years I expected everyone to be using frames with internal cable routing, somewhat built-in stems, and integrated brakes.

I went as far as to order a frame from Tsunami Bikes that I thought would fulfill some of the things I thought important. I couldn't get integrated brakes on my budget, nor could I get some cool faired stem-fork deal, but I could do a few things.

First I got narrow tubing. I later realized that I have such a small frame that the tubing really wouldn't make that much difference but if I was going to get an aero frame I wanted the tubing to be narrow.

Second I got a rear wheel cutout. It may not make a huge difference with a direct headwind - in fact I highly doubt it - but it should make for a better sail in a crosswind. I figured that in a cross tailwind it'd be even better. As a bonus I could get really short chainstays because I wouldn't be limited to what room the tube left the rear tire.

Thirdly I got internal cable routing. I dealt with such things enough in the bike shop days so routing cables and such isn't such a pain (although I probably wouldn't have agreed with you the first time I installed a front derailleur cable. The shifter cables travel through the downtube and the rear brake through the top tube. I had no "through fork" method for doing the front brake cable (like for BMX bikes) so that cable hangs out in the breeze.

(I have to admit the main reason I got internal cables is that it's much, much, much easier to clean. I read somewhere that a foot of exposed cable housing costs about one watt. With my very small frame I have maybe 2 watts of drag due to cable housing. That's not a lot. If I had a 35 inch inseam I might have approached things a bit differently.)

Fourth I got an integrated seat post (or ISP). I knew and forgot that BH bikes "invented" it. I think it has its place but what I have is more of a style thing. I think that a shaped ISP has its place, able to significantly reduce shock while presenting a minimal profile to the wind. My ISP does neither but it looks cool so I did it.

Finally I had the frame built with only secondary consideration for the water bottles. I knew that my frame thoughts gave me only "fine" benefits. This is significant so I'll explain why.

In the early aero days things were so conservative that a 16 mm tall rim was considered "aero". Seriously! Nowadays a 32 mm rim would be called "really conservative". When disk wheels and then tall profile rims burst onto the scene they gave tremendous benefits over things like a 16 mm tall "aero" wheel. You could save many minutes in a 40 km TT by using a true aero wheel like a Specialized TriSpoke (with HED selling the wheel, with a slightly modified rear hub, as the HED3)

I call that a "coarse benefit". What's the point of quibbling over a second or two when you can save 4 or 5 minutes? Suddenly aero brake cables (some were still being routed up in the air) seemed kind of minor. Aero wheels would make a huge difference.

I realized this a long time ago and used the TriSpokes in races where I expected the pace to be flat out all the time. In tight crits I would use my normal superlight 28 spoke 280/330g tubulars, but by the mid 90s I had a slew of aero wheels at my disposal - the TriSpokes, Zipp 440s (pre-404s), Zipp 340s (pre-340s), Spinergy Rev-Xs, a rear disk wheel (17 mm wide rim prototype and extremely light), Campy Ventos (all aluminum rim aero wheels - they were tanks), and finally my first aero wheelset, the 16 mm tall Araya ADX-4s.

Not everyone seemed so openminded, especially at the pro level. That held true for a long time. Even in the mid-90s most pros didn't use significantly aero wheels. Spinergy made some inroads with the Mapei, Rabobank, and Polti teams, with some very, very good riders on the wheels. Next to those wheels the relatively primitive, full aluminum Campy wheels looked heavy and outdated.

Then Mavic hit the pro ranks with the Cosmic. Aero wheels were still not totally accepted but some of the better Classics racers used the Cosmics to great effect. Well that and doping apparently, but still, if they were all doping then the aero wheels would help make a difference.

Finally Zipp hit the big time with CSC. After a year or two of disasters (wheels breaking on the cobbles usually) Zipp could boast some major tough victories on their wheels.

Now everyone uses aero wheels. Not only that, everyone uses pretty tall aero wheels. A lot of riders use rims initially meant for time trials in road races - the 80 and 90 mm tall rims.

That's great except for one thing - now everyone had to have aero wheels just to be even with the others. This means that any benefit from one wheelset to another, if they're both aero, will be minute. The very coarse benefits of aero wheels, the minutes saved per hour, have now become, between similar aero wheels, mere seconds.

Now the benefits are "fine benefits", minute ones. Got it? Good.


So what's that got to do with aero road frames?

Well, aero road frames, at least ones reasonably well designed, offer a small benefit over non-aero frames. Within the aero frame market though the differences are barely measurable. Velonews found less than 10 g difference in drag, about 10 watts worth, spread across four frames (if my word problem logic skills are correct - 4.3 g spread for the 2nd - 4th frames, 5 g spread from 1st to 2nd frame.) They claim a 20 watt difference from their control bike, a wide tubed Masi with Cosmic wheels.

The benefit seems pretty small when you stick a rider on the bike, a computer on the bars or stem, and, wait for it, waterbottles on the downtube and seat tube. Suddenly you get a whole bunch of things that coarsely affect drag. Yes, a seat tube bottle has been show to be more aero than not having one at all, but if you have a rear wheel cutout and a very aero rear wheel, I think that a bottle won't help much.

Regardless it's beyond dispute that a bottle on the downtube really screws up the aerodynamics. Cervelo, in their top of the line time trial frames, integrated a bottle into the frame shape, essentially proving that sticking a bottle on the seat tube is not the ideal solution for frame aerodynamics.

Therefore, although I detailed all sorts of things I did on my aero frame, they were all "fine" benefits. Minute. Probably not measurable.

Except for the bottles.

I decided that I'd race with no bottles at all. Instead I'd use a CamelBak for that year (2011). I figured that the little hump on my back would help with aerodynamics, filling in the space behind my helmet, and the bare frame would be more efficient slicing through the wind.

I hoped for a somewhat coarse reduction in drag. Not a lot, not the 2 or 3 mph that I see at high speed with aero wheels, but maybe just enough to save me 5 or 10 or 15 watts average in a race.

My "aero" frame. Note no bottles - that was my "coarse" benefit.

The thing I wanted to do was to reduce my average wattage just enough to give me a sprint. All too often I'd waste myself in a race just hanging on for dear life. I'd get to the finish having averaged 190 or 200 watts and have absolutely nothing left.

On the other hand if I finish the race with an average wattage under 180 I've usually done quite well for myself. Under 170 and I probably did really well.

My goal was to bring the 190 watt races into the 180 watt range. This would allow me to contest the sprint and get a place.

Pause for a bit to catch your breath.

(Jeopardy theme song)

Okay, let's keep going.

Today I realized something. All this is "fine" benefit stuff. The bottle idea was a more significant fine benefit but it was still a fine benefit. I realized this because of a couple things.

First, I've noticed a lot, and I mean a lot of racers who look like they're on a 3 speed bike when they're in a race. They're up in the air, they're on the hoods, they look like they're rolling down the boardwalk to pick up the Sunday paper. I almost always hold my tongue when I see this because I was told a long time ago not to offer advice but to wait for someone to ask for it. People who spontaneously gave advice usually didn't get received well since the advisee wasn't necessarily ready to hear said advice. The problem with the 3 speed position is that it's really upright and catches a lot of wind. It's not aero, and it's way worse than having a non-aero frame. You can't buy your way out of an inefficient position, not with wheels or a frame or anything. It's just bad.

Second, the riders I fit have done well. I have never had the opportunity to fit someone using a powermeter but I did fit a few riders using a trainer to make sure I was in the realm of reality. The racers I fit showed immediate improvement. My fits tend to be the same kind of thing. I couldn't describe it technically but I always found I did the same thing for each rider - extend them, drop the bars, usually raise and move the saddle forward. Basically they went from looking like a rider going to pick up the Sunday paper to a rider that looked like a racer.

I knew each rider would be better but I couldn't tell you why.

Now I can, for a couple reasons.

First, I read somewhere that Michele Ferrari told Armstrong to raise his saddle 2 mm, in order to flatten his back a bit. I thought, okay, come on, 2 mm, that's nothing, that won't do a thing for your back.

Then I remembered that when I put the 170 mm cranks on my bike and raise my saddle 5 mm, it feels like a new bike. I'm much lower in front, my back is that much more comfortable, and I can roll along just a touch easier. I never really quantified it so I just dismissed it as a minor benefit to 170s (and it was a reason I tried sticking with the 170s for a year, then for a summer, before finally giving up and going back to the 175s. The position was great but the long crankarms were an even more coarse benefit.)

Second I had a chance to sort of quantify why the 170s felt better. I saw this site today, for the first time. Don't mind the 1995 graphics. What's important is the link to "Real Customers, Real Results + Improvements". Take a look at what the riders look like before and after. Before - they look like what I described above - a rider on a 3 speed.

Okay, maybe not that bad, but look at any random picture of you (meaning you, the reader) in some random ride/race this year. Look at the picture with a discerning eye. Look at your back, look at its angle toward the lower back area. See how your hips are sitting on the bike.

Now look at the "after" pictures on that site. See how low their torsos are? See how their arms extend forward? See how their hips are angled forward on the saddle a bit?

They look pro now. It's not just a look though. Look at the numbers, how much wattage they're saving, how much faster they can go. It's incredible, the changes. Even an experienced racer saw a huge improvement in performance. Body positioning gives you a tremendous benefit - it is the biggest of the coarse benefits.

Finally, I saw some article somewhere (forgive me for not linking, I've followed so many links recently I have no idea where this was) where someone gave the benefits of a time trial frame, helmet, and wheels. The main benefit came from the frame but not because of the frame itself but because of the position.

Aha!

This is where all this starts to come together. I know that I know how to fit a rider, within reason. I couldn't even describe what I was trying to do, I just did it. Now I know that I fit a rider in order to tilt their hips forward, let them open up their hip angle, get their back more flat, drop their shoulders and arms, and get their head tucked in a bit more. The pictures from that wind tunnel site really illustrate the kind of results I would go for when I fit someone.

Next, the wind tunnel site quantified for me the savings on the position. They even comment somewhere that aero helmets are aero helmets, probably like aero wheels are like aero wheels. Get something in the right family and they're really close to one another.

At the same time the site illustrated to me that aero frames aren't where it's at. Aero frames may help incrementally but without a good rider position the frame won't be significant. In fact it's probably more important to get aero wheels, maybe some other aero stuff - flattened bar tops, even more aero shoes - before the aero frame becomes important.

So it's position. And position, for most of us, is pretty easy to adjust.

For me, not so much. I have limiters - I have short legs so my preference for 175s means I end up with my saddle back just a touch more than I prefer. I end up with my hips tilted up just a touch more than I prefer. And therefore my back isn't quite as flat as I like.

(I should point out I have a bad back and the flat back really feels comfortable. The other week I got on the bike specifically to help my back, it was really hurting for a few days. The ride really helped it feel better, and I was on the drops virtually the whole time. Another thing for people to open their minds to - the idea that a flat back could be more comfortable than one that's elevated a bit.)

I have been thinking of a third Tsunami, primarily to explore the use of compact drop bars. I really like the FSA Compacts but they're 3 cm shorter in reach and 2 cm shorter in drop. To fit me properly I'd need a 15 cm stem (not happening) which drops 2 cm (especially like that). A longer frame by say 2 cm (and a 13 cm stem instead of a 12 cm, to keep weight over the front wheel) would be good.

The drop presents a problem. The headtube is already as short as possible. With the Chris King InSet headset I could drop the stack height just a bit but I'd want to drop it about 2.5 cm, 2 cm for the bars and at least 0.5 cm for the cranks (since I like it when the saddle is 5 mm higher). The only way to get this extra drop is to raise the rest of the bike, i.e. the bottom bracket. That's not ideal but it would definitely work. A track stem would give me about 1 cm drop.

It's definitely just a gleam in my eye but the idea with this third evolution frame would be to hone body position. It's not as important to have an aero frame (especially for a frame with a 9.5 cm headtube) but having my body position adjusted a bit would really help.

Because on my bike now even I look a bit like I'm out for a stroll to pick up the Sunday paper.