California - Travel Day

It's been a long day - the clock on the laptop still sits on Eastern time, and it's saying it's past midnight. I went to sleep about 24 hours ago after a long night of packing, waking up just 4 hours later to get to the airport.

The Missus dropped me off at o-dark hundred at the local airport, a nice 20 or so minute drive from home. I dragged my little baggage train into the airport - 48 pounds in one bag (bike kit, street kit, some bike parts), 22 lbs or so in another (bike parts, WaterPik, Sonic Care toothbrush, some bike parts), plus my carry on (about 35 lbs of my long term project, laptops, external drives, and cables/cords), and of course my bike (about 40 lbs). It was a bit awkward but I made it.

Luckily my flight just beat out the apparently big snowfall - the weather thing shows snow falling at home even now.

Unusual for me I had a talkative neighbor (or rather I was talkative and he listened). I'd been editing a friend's report and he couldn't help but notice the cyclists in the included pictures. A cyclist of sorts (aspiring racer), he and I talked bikes for the couple hours I was conscious.

Luckily too my flight (which I recalled as being direct but it was more accurately a "stop but don't have to change planes") stopped over in a well-cleaned off Chicago area airport. Apparently something wasn't good with the plane so we had to deplane.

This made me worry about my bike - last time I was rushed from one plane to another my bike got lost in the mix.

Once on the plane I watched helplessly as we sat on the taxiway as THREE enormous sweeper machines rolled by over and over again. It was a "if I could have anything I wanted at Bethel" kind of shot for sure. I really, really wanted to take a picture but phones had to be off, not just in airplane mode, and I was trying to be good.

I realize now I had an HD camcorder/camera but I just plain forgot at the time. I'll remember in the future though.

I have to admit the machines were awe-inspiring. It was pretty incredible, power broom wheels a good 15 feet wide. Think of how quickly Bethel would get swept!

(The piles of mud on peoples' lawns... that'd be a different problem we'd have to tackle.)

A de-icing spray paused us a bit too. I felt kind of nervous, I have to admit, since I don't remember ever getting a de-icing spray. It's not like I never fly, but to get sprayed down with some alcohol spray or something... Worse, on a different area I saw another plane getting sprayed and they were using a different technique that sprayed the lower parts of the plane. Our plane didn't get that treatment. Would it fly?

Of course everything worked out okay, else I wouldn't be writing this now.

I'd pulled out my friend's race report and started working on it again.

Fell asleep again.

(Mind you it was me that was tired, not the report causing me to fall asleep with boredom.)

This time my neighbor (a different one) asked me if I was an editor.

I wish, right?

Well, although not necessarily a "cyclist" (I use that term in a loose way as she rides but she doesn't have racing aspirations), I got to enjoy another neighbor's company for the slightly longer flight bringing us to good ol' Southern California.

I have to admit that, between my two neighbors, I got very little editing done.

After we arrived at the much, much warmer than home airport (it was 45 degrees warmer than home), I collected my gear. My bike made it through fine - in fact I peeked through those rubber flap things where the bags come out and I saw my bike sitting nicely on the cart.

The black bag at the front of the cart is the bike!

Once I collected everything I got my baggage train going, and struggled a bit to get through a couple elevators, some long stretches of airport floor, and finally onto a curb where I got a Cloud9 shuttle.

It's amazing, the driver's knowledge of the area. I noticed a few developments that seemed new-to-me - he could confirm that, yeah, they started that one almost a year ago. This one was finished up just recently. That building got built half a year ago.

And this is all 40 minutes away from the airport.

If you drove me 40 minutes in some random direction from my house, I wouldn't know what was built in the last 20 years, forget about the last 10 months or so.

I got to the host family's house, got in using the double-top-secret access code and key combination. I'd describe it to you but then I'd have to kill you, but let's just say it involve retinal scans, palm prints, a thumb print, and then a slew of codes and one very special key.

I may have to strike that as it has too much detail.

Um, nope, it's okay.

Anyway... the warm weather, the sun streaming into the garage... let's just say I was tired and very melty-feeling. I felt lethargic and tired and sleepy and didn't feel like assembling my bike.

Eventually I got around to it, finishing just in time for the hosts to return. I'd been worried about the wheels - I flew for the first time with two pairs of wheels, intending for them to act as buttresses to the integrated seat post on the new frame. The wheels really filled the bike bag, giving it shape, but they seemed vulnerable to damage.

No worries. Southwest came through again. The bike rolled fine. A short test ride with part of the host's family (their younger test riders, ages 5 and 8) confirmed the bike worked as expected.

I tweeted and facebooked a lot while all this was going on. What I didn't tweet is that I learned that the kids had been exposed recently to little parasitical creatures that live in hair and rhyme with "mice". They got checked over, we've been throwing everything in the dryer, and I've carefully avoided contact with any fuzzy stuffed animals (now in quarantine), hair (all soaked in oil), etc etc.

So, after quite an eventful trip, I'm at my temporary home for the next couple weeks. I have my bike. My kit. Maybe a few little friends getting fried in the dryer.

And, just a little while ago, I got yet another piece of info in an email.

A FedEx tracking number.

Tomorrow my frame should arrive.

Booyah!

Life - URT "Deepest Knife" show clip

So...

One of the common themes in the SDC helmet cam clips is the music. In case anyone missed the memo, the music has one thing in common (save a few samples from early on in my clip-editing life): they're performed by bands associated with one of my two brothers. Between the two of them they could be a band - they compose, sing, and play guitar, bass, and the drums.

Inevitably riders will ask one another what kind of music each listens to when pedaling on the trainer. I can honestly answer that my brothers' music has been motivating me for years and years and years - I listen to them in the car, on the trainer, and when I watch, well, the helmet cam clips.

Ultimately I made them using my brothers' music because that's what I find inspires and motivates me.

Unfortunately I only ever managed to video one brother at one of his band's last gig in Chicago, IL. Because of a mistaken assumption, I thought I'd have a clean recording of the sound (via a third party). However this wasn't the case, and since I didn't worry about sound quality in my own recording, I never took into account sound quality when videotaping the show. For example, for parts of one song i put the camcorder on top of the amps lining the stage.

Obviously that didn't do well for the sound.

It was worse when I reviewed the clips - the muddy sound was terrible, the volume just overwhelming the tiny built-in mic.

Coulda, shoulda, woulda. But there's only one take in life, and in this case the show sound was pretty bad.

Frustrated, I gave up trying to make a clip out of the very long, very awesome, very emotional show. I had no way of fitting the two together, not well anyway, not with the applications I had at hand.

Then along came iMovie on the Mac, with all sorts of high end editing capabilities. Suddenly the sub-second synchronization required of a music video came within reach. I found I could synchronize the live footage with a studio recording of the same song.

Although I find that there's some lag in playback (compared to the "master" in iMovie), it's still a lot better than I could ever have dreamed.

As a present for my brother I edited the following clip, the brother who happens to play my helmet cam clips' now standard closing theme song (Sato - "Walking Away"). In the clip he plays as part of URT, performing "Deepest Knife".

Enjoy!

Tsunami - 2.0 Updates

Today I finalized some plans for the upcoming trip. Specifically I finalized plans for the Tsunami#2, the new frame I'm buying, and the parts that go along with it.

For various reasons I'll be doing a training camp with two Tsunamis. I'll be flying out with the Tsunami#1 complete, meaning my 2010 bike as it is now (albeit packed):

Pictured in Edwards, CO, just before Interbike 2010.
I hate the gel tape so it'll be normal tape when I pack the bike.

I'll be bringing along a lot of parts for the second bike, many of them stripped off my old primary race bike, the carbon TCR.

Carbon TCR in CT.
Most of the parts are still the same; just wheels/tires are different.

This includes the levers, brakes (good thing I'm writing this - I'd have shown up without brakes), the derailleurs, probably a seat post, and all the Nokon segments I can save.

I'll also bring out some parts I've bought or saved for the Tsunami#2.

Tsunami#2, from a previous post also.

This includes a fork, headset, a set of new crit bend heat-treated 3ttt bars, tape for the same (I'm gonna use some well aged Cinelli), my default 120mm 73 degree Ritchey stem, saddle, tape, front chain guard thing (the N-Gear unfortunately won't fit the new frame - the seat tube is definitely not round), Nokon cable housing, some BB30 bearings, and I'm sure some odds and ends I've forgotten.

Of course I'll be very close to some really big shops, superstores really (the kind that advertise in national magazines), so if there's anything big I forgot I can always ride over to one of them and buy whatever widget I need.

Once Tsunami#2 is up and going, I'll get Tsunami#1 shipped home. Ultimately it'll be my backup bike, perhaps my primary bike for certain conditions - wet, rough, or otherwise not ideal for standard road bikes. I'm saying this just because it has a longer wheelbase and a bit more room for larger tires - I seriously doubt it'll give up anything in performance.

(Ultimately, if the shorter stays make a huge difference, I may look into "shorteningfying" the Tsunami#1 to get close to the shorter stays on the Tsunami#2.)

I thought about waiting until after the trip to get Tsunami#2 going, but after a bit of thinking I realized that I just couldn't do that.

First off, I want to get some hours on the bike before the 2011 season. I'd like to get an idea of how it differs from Tsunami#1 - I think the radically shorter chainstays will affect the weight distribution (a desired effect), the aero downtube will (should?) adversely affect stiffness, and the aero seat tube (with integrated mast) will be the joker - I don't know if it'll do anything but I'd rather not find out in the first race at Bethel.

Second, I always try something new out in the training camp - leaving behind the frameset would gnaw on me, driving me nuts with "I shoulda". Plus I'll have a lot of time on my hands in California so I can hone the bike fit or build while I'm there.

Finally I know that my detail-oriented SoCal host will be curious about the frameset knowing some of the driving ideas behind it. Leaving it behind in Connecticut simply is not an option. It's the least I could do to satisfy the inherent fascination he has with all things bicycles.

So, yes, I'll be bringing out the new frame. But it comes with that catch phrase that parents on Christmas Eve just dread.

"Some assembly required."

Bethel Spring Series - Outdoor Sports Center!

I just finished filing permits for the 2011 Outdoor Sports Center Bethel Spring Series.

Yeah, say that one fast 6 times in a row.

Before I keep going forward on the surprising-to-everyone name (since I only told like 2 people, and one's the Missus), let me tell you that just filing the pre-filed permits (I started them all much earlier but at the same time so I'd get consecutive permit numbers) is a royal freakin pain in the butt.

Seriously.

It's not anyone's fault. It's a lot of pertinent information, and it's presented in an easy to fill out format. But it's a lot of information on a few pages, and doing 6 of them in a row gets really tedious.

Almost as bad as doing a 20 minute FTP test.

(And, I just realized, son of a gun. I forgot to file the clinic permits. I'll have to do them separately, later.)

Right now my eyes are bugging out and I'm dying to get on the bike and do some actual riding. With about 8 or 10 hours in for the month, I'm not in a good position to start doing mega miles next week.

(That means postponing a promised call till tomorrow... I can't think straight right now.)

Yes, next week I'm in SoCal.

As you can guess from the new name of the Series, we got a huge bit of support from a local business. Outdoor Sports Center (on Route 7 in Wilton, CT) is where it seems that everyone in Wilton goes to get their ski and sport stuff - kayaks, canoes, bikes, hiking stuff, jackets, cold weather gear, running stuff, so on and so forth.

Part of their sponsorship includes some products they'll be giving away as primes. They're still figuring out a final list but that Cannondale CAAD10 frameset I mentioned elsewhere is the biggie, the end of the Series drawing.

Since I don't like to pick out a particular category of racer/s, all racers will be eligible for the frameset, and if you don't fit a 54 cm, you get to order the size you want to receive.

There's a slew of products from other companies as well, but I'll announce those as I get more details.

Anyway, Outdoor Sports Center has been involved in the bike world for a long, long time. As kids when we went there we just got jackets and stuff - they didn't have bikes at the time.

But then they got a bike guy working there, he set up a bike section, and now... well, we try and get there when we can.

Last year's Race Leader helmets?

Courtesy Outdoor Sports Center.

This year they'll be really, really nice - Giro Atmos helmets. They ain't kidding around here!

As for me, I've been doing some sporadic business when I'm down in the area. We bought our tandem roof rack mount there, as well as some parts for a prior rack (since gone on to better places).

That rain jacket that saved my butt a few times, the one you see pictured in some of the wet and rainy Bethels?

That's right, OSC.

Even some new bottle cages, yet to be installed, sit in reserve with their OSC tags on them.

It does help that sometimes (okay, it happened just once), when I walked in to the store, one of the younger guys working there pointed at me and whispered to their boss.

"That guy, he has an Olympic team shirt on. Was he on the Olympic team?"
"Him? Nah! He's just a Cat 3."

Okay, so I'm a 2 now. But still. It's kind of funny to be mistaken for an Olympic team athlete.

So for all of you race fans out there, please welcome OSC warmly to the Bethel Spring Series.

Sorry, the Outdoor Sports Center Bethel Spring Series.

Booyah!

Promoting Races - The Flyer

Oh the flyer. It's such an innocuous piece of paper. Or used to be. Now it's an innocuous pdf file that you can print out if you feel like it, but it can also sit on your phone or tablet or other portable geewhiz whatchamacallit you have nowadays.

But for whoever wrote that flyer, well, it's a bear.

I just blew away every bit of my available thinking brain power reserves working on a fresh flyer for the 2011 Bethel Spring Series.

Correction, fresh flyers. Plural.

I have yet to file permits, yet to file bikereg, and I have a gazillion things to get done before next Tuesday night.

(My totally inflexible deadline has to do with flying out to SoCal at o'dark hundred the next morning, so it's really a "can't forget" kind of a deadline).

Of course I still don't have the bike I'm bringing out there, nor are many of the parts ready for assembly - they're hanging off of an already-somewhat-stripped down Giant, my good ol' carbon Giant, formerly my main bike, and the bike that won TWO Bethel Spring Series overalls - once under me, and once under a different rider when she won the Series on my (borrowed because hers broke) bike.

So, yeah, I have a lot of stuff to get done before Tuesday night. And it's already Wednesday night the week prior.

Anyway, the flyer.

The flyer has a lot of requirements. There are some actual stated things like entry fee, either "Permit pending" or "Permit xxxx-yyyy" (usually that format).

Hm I think I forgot the "Held under USA Cycling" in front of the permit phrase.

Anyway, there's also distance, start times, directions, date, prizes, stuff like that.

In other words the person writing the flying has to know everything, and they have to have all the information in front of them at the time they make the flyer.

You'd think that after umpteen years of Bethel that I'd have the flyer down, but that's not always true.

Changes that occur every year include date changes (it's not going to be March 3rd every year, it may be March 7th or 10th or whatever), perhaps some adjustments to categories or distances or prizes, usually an adjustment to entry fees, and finally any sponsorship things.

For 2011 the Bethel Spring Series has changes in dates (although it's going to be the Sundays in March plus the first two Sundays in April), categories (no Junior race), distances (P123s are going much further), a clinic, and prizes.

Clinic?!

Yes. I've decided to do the clinic, finally, and committed to it mentally. It's going to be a roughly framed thing, with required reading before the clinic and reviews of the reading while on the bike. Although aimed at new riders, there's nothing to stop anyone from signing up. Well, I want to limit it to 50 and I figure that there'll be an extended Q&A period afterward. The group will ride together at a somewhat controlled pace, then "race" for 5 laps or so at the end of the day's clinic. The last clinic will be basically a race, although no one will score and such.

As for credit for upgrading, I need to look into it. I would suggest that the clinic will not replace racing experience though. It'll just get you going in the right direction.

Prizes...

Yes, prizes. There's a slew of product prizes coming in, all because of a main sponsor that has popped up in a delightfully surprising way. I'm still waiting to announce the sponsor (and the name of the Series) but let's put it this way - it's on the flyers I made and it'll be on BikeReg.

So it'll be soon.

We'll be giving away a frameset at the end of the Series, with all race entries counting towards a drawing entry. I'm still figuring out if we should require someone to be present or not to win - I'd prefer it that way because it's easier, but it's also hard for everyone to wait until the end of the day to see if they won something.

(If you have any suggestions I'm all ears. For now I'm inclined to require winners to be present.)

I hope that all this will be out there in the next 24 hours, if I can get my brain wrapped around the flyers.

Because although they may seem kind of mundane to you, it represents the race to me.

And that's kind of important.

Racing - Promoters -> Racers, Racers -> Promoters

Yesterday I posted about how to form a club. Well, not really, but it gives you an idea of what you'll need to think about if you want to form a club. It's really pretty straight forward. You fill out some registration fields in an online form at USA Cycling. You pay some money.

Voila, you're a club.

But the big thing is that if you want to renew your club next year, you need to hold an event.

Eh... what? Why is that?

Well. Gather 'round all y'all (that's plural for "y'all" according to a person that spoke that stuff... but he told me back in the mid 80s so if it's not right feel free to correct me) and let me explain.

Why Clubs Hold Races

You can register as a club or team and then not hold a race. The only catch? You cannot renew the club license the following year without proof that you held a race (permit#).

Nowadays, with USAC you have one year grace period to hold your race. Realistically it's very hard to hold a race. Not because it's very hard to hold a race, it's because the inertia you have to overcome to hold a race is really significant.

Let's put it this way. If it weren't so significant I'd be promoting more races.

Therefore most clubs "race" on race permits for races they do not actually hold - they either pay money or volunteer some help or sponsorship to the actual promoter. For example you could offer some help to a local promoter in exchange for being listed as a (co-)promoting club. USAC limits the number of clubs per permit to two for this reason - it used to be 5? I don't remember, but the two is recent. In the old days it wasn't unusual to see 6 or 8 clubs on one permit. I think one roller race that attracted only a half dozen riders had probably just as many clubs on its permit.

This "have to hold a race" mamby pamby is a real pain. It's just another way for the Feds (as the USCF used to be called by some of its members) to get you, right?

Wrong.

The whole reason for requiring clubs to hold a race is so that there are races for racers to enter.

That's important so let me repeat it, this time in bold.

The whole reason for requiring clubs to hold a race is so that there are races for racers to enter.

If everyone acted in a similar way (race but not promote) there would be very few races. Promoters tend to promote races because of the love of the sport, not because it makes money. I know a promoter that spends upwards of $15-25,000 a year to have racers yell at him, complain about his hard work, and ask for more prize money or lower entry fees.

I don't spend that kind of money to have the honor of holding a race - it's closer to $0 to $2000 a year for me to get yelled at. (I say that facetiously - people seem to understand and appreciate what I do so I rarely get yelled at and I really appreciate it. So thank you all.)

In Belgium (and perhaps other countries) the cycling federation helps subsidize races. Entry fees remain largely symbolic (a euro or three) and prize money seems to be equally high (a few euros for a place). A license, though, costs a lot of money - a few hundred dollars worth when I raced in Belgium.

(When I raced in Belgium I thought that would be the way to race - get a license in the US, about $30 at the time, then race in Belgium for free. I'd basically race for free. The worst scenario is a Belgian racer of that era coming over to the US. They'd be paying the subsidy for Belgian racing but gain none of that benefit in this country - they'd pay for their racing twice.)

We're not like Europe. Clubs have to promote the races.

Become a Promoter

So how do you become a promoter?

Usually by accident.

Seriously, most promoters I know got into it because they ended up the one doing the work when a group of people decided to "promote a race".

I promoted my first race because someone else did a lot of work to create it and I felt like I owed him the effort to keep his race going. He was also my first leadout man, my boss at the shop, and he taught me a lot about what I know about bikes and bike racing. When he moved away he asked me to hold the races. I've done so since that year (1993). Carpe Diem Racing has been in existence for a long time because I promoted races for a long time (that's the name of the club/promotion-group that promotes the race officially - I'm just a member of Carpe Diem Racing).

You don't have to promote a race, even as a club. That whole "race on someone else's permit" works just fine for many clubs around. Heck, if you want to be on the Bethel Spring Series permit, let me know. Just ante up some cash (I'll start at $1500 and negotiate from there, and that's PER RACE, not the Series) and I'll be glad to put you on one of the two very precious "promoting club" spots on the permit.

You'll help racing in Connecticut, that's for sure. The way I see it, there's nothing really wrong with that. Giving money to a race (and, if possible, a bunch of volunteers to help out as needed) is one of the best things you can give a promoter.

But it's not really the best way to approach racing as a whole.

I'm not saying that no one does it. I'm just saying that if you give a little to the sport (by helping an existing promoter, for example) you won't have to worry about the club "name changing game" thing.

And you'll get an appreciation for what it takes to hold a race.

If You Haven't Promoted A Race

If you don't hold a race or help hold a race, then one thing I'd suggest - if you have any complaints about a race, any at all, I'd keep them to yourself until you've promoted a race.

Most "problems" races have are due to compromises the promoter had to make to fit budget and demand into a workable box. This mainly refers to categories (i.e. which categories are racing) and prize money.

Day of race problems can often be traced to a lack of help (i.e. organization). If you realize when you're in the portapottie that there's no TP left, the promoter probably forgot because they had to focus on other things. If a promoter has 30 extra helpers (like, say, your club's members), one of them could easily keep an eye out on the TP situation, including buying more if, say, the coffee in the area is stronger than expected. Heh.

With no helpers it's a lot tougher. I know I send people to buy things I forgot or ran out of, and I've been doing this a while. When there's no help, or very little help, it gets really crazy really fast. That's when the complaints start pouring in.

A benefit to those that assist is that helpers usually get free entry and some level of "VIP" treatment. For helpers at my race that means parking in the reserved spots close to registration (the rest of the lot is off limits to racers due to other tenants in the space), a place to sit/hang-out, indoor bathroom, free food, stuff like that.

You want to use that beautiful, heated, well lit, comfortable bathroom (that we promoters diligently clean up at the end of the day)? Just help out for a few races and you're welcome to use it.

Co-Promoting a Race

Co-promotion of races is very, very standard. I think in 8 years the club I belonged to (1983-1991) promoted 1 unique event, a great road race that had an excellent course winding through a few towns in lower Fairfield County, Connecticut. But it left such a sour taste in our mouths (police chief commented he ought to ticket every single racer for not riding single file) that we just rode other permits until 1992. After that I've always promoted an event personally.

Clubs Need To Promote Races

On the other hand the philosophy of clubs promoting races is the essence of grassroots racing. It's an obligation at some level. A lot of racers complain of the "talent dilution" where teams split into multiple teams due to something. Then each team gets really small. It multiplies the work required to keep a given group of racers racing, but for some reason (usually self promotion) the racers want their "own" team. If the whole "club has to put on a race" thing really worked out, the teams would remain larger, have members whose passion is holding events, and they'd all hold events. When teams start splintering but fail to contribute to the scene (through holding races, especially in race-scarce areas), it hurts racing. The larger club, the one with the promoter, loses a lot of free help and ideas and motivation. The smaller clubs look to other promoters to get a yearly pass on doing an event. So no new events, more stress on existing events... it's not good.

In CT there are a LOT of races that are gone. A lot. It's kind of depressing but the costs and effort aren't worth it. I know a local road race (one day event) has a budget of over $100,000. And that's just a regular road race, not anything special. It takes many clubs to hold that one event, or, like last year, one large club with a lot of available help.

So I think new clubs are okay with "permit passes" for a few years but they really ought to put on an event at some point. Something to contribute to the sport.

Regarding help at races. Since volunteers are less reliable than paid people, I decided it was worth the stress reduction to pay for help at my races. I pay substantially less than $600/year which is the 1099 threshold so that no one has to claim stuff on their returns.

Only one helper races (and he races for free). Three don't have bikes. Four actually. They're mainly family of people who are involved in racing. I also allow volunteers to race for free and I get a LOT of help through that channel, especially on sweep day (we hand sweep the 0.9 mile course, and coming at the end of a Connecticut winter, there's a lot of sand and sometimes ice/snow).

I also grandfather in the folks that helped in the past - co-promoters and very involved helpers. So if you work the race for 5 or 10 years, every week, every race, with the passion befitting a promoter, then you race for free at my races for the rest of my/your/race's life.

There are only a few people who qualify for this perk. Like one person, at least for the last couple years.

I also try and let guys who've raced the whole series (meaning from 1992) race for less or free or get their second race gratis or something. I talked to one guy in summer 2010 who has raced every year at my Series since its inception. He actually apologized for not making the 3 hour one way drive more often when the weather was iffy and such (he lives up near Canada).

Promoting is a living, breathing co-existence with the venue folks (tenants in the area), racers, and officials. Things go both ways.

Promoters -> racers.

Racers -> promoters.

See you out there!

Racing - What It Takes (Kind Of) To Form A Team

Around this time of year more than a few racers start thinking along the lines of, "You know, I could just do my own club instead of dealing with -fill-in-the-blank- that's happening at my current club."

It may be a new thought (instigated perhaps by the email going out that says what the club expects from its riders for this upcoming year) or it could be a festering one (instigated much earlier, perhaps at some race in June where the individual thought something the club did could have been handled differently).

Before I go any further I should clarify that the club is the organizing body of a group of people, sort of. It's the "corporate name" if you will. The team is the sponsored name. In the old days the club had to be amateur (no company names). So the 7-Eleven amateur cycling team was the team that belonged to... the name escapes me but I think it was the Southwind Velo Club or something like that.

Nowadays a large club may have many separate teams. In this area the New York City club CRCA (Century Road Club Association) has a gazillion "teams", usually listed as "CRCA/Team", i.e. CRCA/TeaNY or CRCA/Radical Media (where Columbia pro Evelyn Stevens got her start).

Anyways, that's the club and team thing. You have to have a club before you can have a team so I'll just refer to the "group" as a club going forward.

So...

Why would you want to form a club?

I can think of a few reasons:

- You and a few of your close friends who happen to race with you in your category and age group (if applicable) want to race together in a separate kit. Perhaps you all do rides together but have never raced. Perhaps you're used to running organizations so it's no biggie to start a new (small) one. Usually a driving idea is to identify to others that you all are associated in some way.

Look, there's something to be said for matching kits at a bike race. A lot of people (me included) like being in a group. You support the group, even if you don't really "belong" to it. If that wasn't the case then the Yankees wouldn't be able sell a single baseball cap. After all, just because you buy one doesn't make you anything more than a proud owner of a Yankee cap. I don't own a Yankees cap but I'm using them as an example because I think they're the best marketed baseball team in terms of money.

- You want to spend some of your business's marketing money and you think it'd be cool to put it on the kit you wear at races. Or your boss wants to help you out and give you money towards your club. Both of these applied to me in the past. And many teams have made it because of this. The big pro teams Phonak (what used to be Phonak) and currently BMC exist mainly because of Andy Rihs's passion for bike racing. Locally many clubs exist simply as a vehicle for one of the member's business. A good example? Bike shop clubs.

- You think the current club isn't doing things the way you think they ought to be done (you a politician? That's what all "challengers to incumbents" think). Whether you're right or wrong is besides the point. You just want to give it a shot, do it on your own. It could be as minor as buying different socks or as major as holding an event. It's very hard to find a large group of strong-headed and individualistic thinking racers that get along well. I run my own promotion club and it's always been mine, so I can say that about people who start and run clubs.

I can't think of any others at this point but feel free to pipe up if there's another couple few reasons for starting a club.

I think a central concept behind ALL clubs is that they want to have their own kit, their own uniform. The Yankees play in their uniform, even though it has no real advertising on it. The uniform itself is the commodity. In cycling the kits get covered with advertising, so your classic Festina jersey from 1998 still advertises Festina Watches every time you wear the jersey on a ride. A grey shirt with "Jeeter" on the back of it doesn't do much for some, will infuriate others, but won't advertise specifically for a particular company (like, say, Festina Watches).

Therefore the kit is key.

This is where USA Cycling gets you. They understand this kit obsession. Everyone does.

According to USAC rules, if you want to wear a kit it needs to belong to a club. You can't go out and race in your classic Festina Watches jersey, no more than I'm allowed to go out in my Mapei one.

Well, technically I'm not supposed to, although I raced much of a particular season wearing Mapei shorts. But that's a whole different story.

If you want to wear your kit it needs to be connected to a club. Some officials will make you wear a plain kit if you're officially unattached. I've seen a lot of racers that have raced with their jersey turned inside out because of this.

And, here's the kicker.

If you have a club it needs to hold a race.

If your club does not hold a race, it cannot renew its club registration the following year.

Of course there's a workaround to registering a team. You can register using a different person, different address, and different club name each year. Since many race rider lists whatever you put as the team, the club name can be just remotely related from one year to another.

For example I belonged to a team based in the Silvermine area of... Norwalk? New Canaan? Because we effed up for a few years we were Racing Team Silvermine one year, RTS another. Heck we might have been RT Silvermine another year. We would screw up a year, change names, then be okay for a year, then we'd have to change our name again, etc. One year we weren't a team at all - I raced in a plain blue jersey that year (1988 I think - that's when Carpe Diem Racing originally started, and it existed by helping out with races, promoting a 'cross race, a mountain bike race, and, finally, the Bethel Spring Series in 1992).

(To give credit where it's due, I did NOT organize those races. Mike H did, and he's half the people that thought of and made the Bethel Spring Series a reality. Rit G is the other half. I only helped out until the end of the 1992 Series.)

You can make the club a business (LLC or something). Heck you should do something just to cover your butt in terms of liability. But as far as money goes, if the sponsor needs to write a check to a club, you need to have a club legally, as in government-wise.

Don't worry as much about taxes. As long as the money going in and out is about the same you'll be even steven money-wise.

With an LLC you don't have to prove non-profit or even not-for-profit. The minimal taxes you pay will be painless, maybe the cost of a few tubular tires. The rest of the costs are costs and can be deducted. I think I paid about $400 to set up my LLC, and that was with my very risk-averse-self hiring a lawyer to write up some document for the state (it describes my LLC's business).

The other way you do it is you connect the club to a current business, like a bike shop. But then you get into some potential conflicts and stuff.

I haven't tried to get the business side to help my hobby side, but after running a few simple ideas past my wife (the accountant, and she's on the up and up) she says that there are ways I could conceivably write off some of my bike expenses as related to the promotion business. I'd have to do some extra work (promote stuff using my hobby) but it'd be pretty straightforward. Since I'm of the mindset that taxes aren't necessarily bad I haven't started to plan on this aspect of cycling.

Anyway my point is that setting up an LLC would be pretty easy and allow you to receive sponsor checks. If you use all the money, minus some seed money for the following year, you'll be good. You can even sponsor/seed your own LLC - it's where I personally put 3? pairs of HED wheels worth of money (and no I haven't seen it back yet).

With an LLC income is treated like personal income. You file a Schedule A for your expenses or something like that (ask a good accountant - I can give you a contact if you need one... just remember that accountants bill by the hour). Keep a good record and make sure your income>expenses (for the LLC) so that the IRS doesn't get on your back.

Remember, it's not a business if it loses money all the time.

So, yes, you can just register a club with USAC and race in your kit (with your club name on it somewhere). It'll cost just $150 a year to register your club, at least for 2011. You'll be listed as your club, not unlisted. If you don't hold an event you can just do some finagling to get a new club name next year.

But for now you'll be able to wear your kit in races. And since it's your club you probably should wear it when you train too.

Isn't that so cool? So pro?

Yeppers.

Racing - 2011 License

Jeezum. Lookit the size of that sticker!

It's really official, at least for now. I'm a Cat 2. It even says it on my license in print.

Depending on your view point this could be a bad thing or a good thing.

It's bad because it means the license holder will have to race Cat 2 races. For someone (me) not used to that I think it'll be hard.

It's good for someone that, about 20 years ago, said to everyone and anyone that I wanted to get my upgrade to Cat 2, "lose" the license, get a replacement, then frame the new license and hang it on the wall. Then promptly downgrade to Cat 3 again.

See, back then, I felt totally outclassed by the Cat 2s. Heck, I felt outclassed by the Cat 3s.

Then again, in that era the Cat 3s that outclassed me often wore National Champion jerseys. They regularly place top 3 in Cat 1-2-3 races, after winning the Cat 3 race as a warm up. Because of some of the inefficiencies of the then-called USCF, they never upgraded.

Racing against those guys meant it became incredibly difficult to break into the top 6 in a crit.

Another one of the prime reasons I struggled with earning a Cat 2 upgrade was that in those days you had to be a complete rider to upgrade. No specialty upgrades. None of this "I don't do road races" stuff. It was all or nothing.

Typically you'd hear some very good riders (who wanted to upgrade) lament the fact that they could only get 7th, 8th, 9th, or 10th in the road races, some of them being really, really hard ones, and because they never earned points in a road race, the local rep rejected their upgrade request.

So, for me, who never finished a single road race with the group (ever!), an upgrade seemed highly unlikely.

Nowadays it's a bit different. Points are points. Earn them in crits or road races, it's okay. Just remember where you earned them because if you earned your upgrade points in crits, chances are that you'll get totally spanked in the road races.

(Since it logically follows that you couldn't earn points in a road race, upgrading will make the now-harder road races impossible to conquer.)

What this has done is dilute the Cat 2 ranks.

What?!

I can say this because, frankly, I'm one of the solvents. A "diluter" if you will.

See, if you lined me up against a Cat 2 of yesteryear, I'd fall pretty short in many respects. Climbing, for sure, and time trialing, another "for sure". Steady state power. Power to weight ratio, at least for more than a minute.

But put me in a crit that's reasonably flat...

Yep.

I've held my own in 1-2-3 crits. I even infiltrated a 10 lap long break as a "strong" 3 (with two either current or former Cat 1s).

And, as a friend of mine likes to reminisce, I even bridged to a young (1992) George Hincapie in probably the fastest flying lap I've ever done (and ever will do) at the Naugatuck Crit.

Lil' ole me, bridging up to the star of the National team.

Imagine that.

(To be fair I dropped out. Hincapie, marked like no one else's business, managed to place but didn't win.)

Now, last year, when I earned all my upgrade points, I was riding about as strongly as I've ridden in my life. I'd say it was perhaps my third or fourth best year ever. I'd count my Belgium year as my best, with a couple others around there as being just below the Belgium year.

After that would come 2010, it was that good.

I don't know what will come of 2011 but it'll be interesting. I'm both intimidated and excited about the prospects of racing the 2s. I'm looking forward to entering a 50 mile crit, even a 40 mile one.

I want to experience a 40 mph attack again, or even a 42 mph attack as one Gene C launched at a New Britain in a forgotten time. It was so fast we both came close to flying off the course in the first turn at New Britain - yes, the turn that you can go through at any speed you want.

And we had to brake to stay out of the woods.

I want to experience a race where the tempo never eases, where I wonder who the eff is pulling so frickin' hard.

I want to feel like I've hit the aero wall... and I'm still sitting in the field.

I want to look up and see a single file line of racers, all with good form, all doing what they have to do, all cooperating in a game of survival.

And then...

Well, I've only ever placed once in a Cat 2-3 or harder race, and it was a 6th.

I've forgotten what it's like to fight it out at the end of such a race.

I remember one year, at New Britain, with half a lap to go in the P123 race, someone unclipped their foot and started kicking another rider.

Kicking!

To do this in the middle of a crazy wound up field is insane.

Well, of course it is. The kicker I think crashed. Incredibly (or not) I'm pretty sure no one else went down.

But still, watching some of those P123 or P12 races roar down to the finish... I try and watch at the 200 or 300 meter to go mark. That's where the action finalizes, where the final jumps go.

And it's always crazy.

Everyone knows how to ride. Everyone figures the others know how to ride. Everyone pushes the limits, trusting one another to make it through.

I'd like to say that I've been in a bunch of races like that in 2010. Unfortunately I was in a few races where stuff happened in the finale. Cat 3 races aren't quite as homogeneous as a Cat 2 race, at least not so I notice.

So for 2011 I expect it to be a bit wild and wooly in the final laps. If I have the engine to drive through to the final sprint then it'll be a whole different ball game. Higher speed for the run in to the finish, harder jumps, and faster sprints.

And that, depending on how you look at it, could be a good or bad thing.

Tsunami - 2.0 Ultrasound

As you probably know I've put in my order for my second Tsunami frame from Tsunami Bikes. I've come to refer to the frame as "Tsunami 2.0" so that's what it is. Recently I had some developments on the frame so of course I have to let you all know about them.

First, although I hinted that I was thinking about this frameset long and hard, I wanted to give you an idea of what that means to me.

Sketches.

Rough sketches.

Some really rough sketches. I was fiddling around with cable routing.
This was during the summer of 2010. Note the bottom of the downtube.

More rough sketches, this on the way to Interbike (fall 2010).
The notes include thinner seat stays ("aero" works), lighter top tube, aero downtube, attempt to use only a CamelBak in races, and a possible aero seat tube.

The main issues for me had to do with cable routing. I wanted internal cables to keep things clean and to keep the cables, well, aero.

Brakes, they're pretty straightforward. I knew how to do the top tube so I felt set with the rear brake. The front brake, well, that's kind of set too because either I buy a new brake caliper or I route the cable the same way. Since I won't buy a new caliper just yet, it's just a regular set up.

That leaves the derailleur cables.

Hm.

I knew that I'd have some exit room at the bottom of the downtube (see sketches above). The opening at BB end of the downtube would be perfect for directing the bare cables into the under-BB cable guides.

The problem was how to get the cables in there.

After fruitless sketches (unaided by the fact that I couldn't just machine a part and mail it to Joseph to weld in), I gave up. I asked Joseph (Wells, the guy behind Tsunami Bikes) how to get bare cables inside the downtube. He replied he had a way.

I decided that "the way" would be "my way".

When I got over that hurdle, I placed the order for my frame.

The other day I checked my email and found one from Joseph. He'd attached a picture of the frame in progress. He did this for me before, and once again I got to see the frame before it was even welded up.

This is a really cool part of buying a Tsunami Bike - you get to see it as it gets built. It's your frame, not just any frame, and you get to see it from start to finish.

With the tubes cut and tacked together, the frame already looks like a frame. All my race bike philosophies become plain to see here, open to anyone and everyone to examine and then copy or reject it. It's not really like Formula One where the aerodynamic intricacies stay hidden from view. In F1 you can pick out the large pieces, the outside ones, but not the way a lot of the internal channels work; a lot of stuff remains a mystery.

In bike racing, at least with aluminum frames, what you see is what you get.

What I am getting, sort of.
Obviously an aero road frame concept.

I'd said in an earlier post that I'm looking to make some changes to the bike. Along with the sketches I made (and that Joseph never saw or even heard of), you can see how this frame took shape.

The most obvious thing, to me anyway, is the aero seat tube. It's got to be aero because it's so long, and I certainly am not going to be sporting a 54.2 mm seat post. The cut out in front of the rear wheel area gives it away. You can see just how much the rear tire will intrude into the seat tube area. Note that the tire will clear the tube by only a little bit, perhaps half a centimeter.

Chainstay length?

390 mm.

Oh yeah!

The frame bears some Sharpie marks where Joseph will put some housing guides. You can see the downtube is "aero", although, to be honest, it doesn't look much more aero than my downtube right now. It's okay, I figure it will psych me up to look down while I'm riding and not see it.

Heh.

The seat stays look much longer too, another oval profile tube.

Now one thing that I denied planning, and my sketches back this up, is that I'd have an integrated seatpost (ISP), one of those seat tubes that extend upwards and replace much of the seat post. The problem with them is that you can't really adjust much once you've cut, and it's also much more difficult to pack a bike when the seat tube sticks up really far.

Therefore I decide not to get an ISP.

That was the plan.

Joseph asked how the frame looked because I could request changes at this point. I replied that I liked it. He then asked if I wanted him to cut down the seat tube or if I'd want to have it end so I'd have about, oh, perhaps an inch of my seatpost exposed.

Of course, now that I had the option of an ISP, I decided to think about it. I've been debating whether or not I should buy a super aero seat post and adjusting the frame to fit its aero height. That would involve precisely measuring where the round bit turns aero and exactly now much post I'd need. Since in all my travels I have yet to find a zero setback aero top 27.2 mm seat post, I decided against the aero post for now. If I find one then my next frame may have a regular seat tube height designed to have a particular post sitting so that its profile narrows as soon as it juts above the seat tube.

Anyway, with the thoughts of an ISP frame dancing around in my head, I went downstairs to measure my current Tsunami. Trusty tape measure in hand, I measured from the bottom bracket (center of the shell) to the point about an inch below the top of the usable bit of seat post.

580 mm.

(Okay, go ahead, laugh. Continue reading when you're done.)

I also measured my bike bag to see what 58 cm of seat tube would look like sticking up from the BB clamp thing built into the bike bag.

Not bad.

In fact, if you think about it (and I did, then measured to verify), a 700c wheel is a bit taller than 580 mm. The bead diameter is 622 mm, so it's maybe 80 mm taller overall when you include the tire. Figuring in the BB mount's height, the top of the tires should be about even with the top of the seat tube.

I ran upstairs and told Joseph to cut the seat tube at 580 mm.

Okay, I didn't do it that quickly. I thought about how I'd mount a blinkie light back there. I'm still not sure, but it'd involve using the very top of the post, the one inch exposed bit.

I thought about holding a little seat bag for a couple tubes, multi tool, levers, and some money. I decided that I need to "smallify" the bag I have now and do with just a little tighter packaging.

Finally I thought a potential camera mount back there for a potential rearward facing camera. I decided that I didn't have an idea on what to do. That means that for now I still need to think about how to mount a potential rear-facing cam.

I can deal with those problems when they come up.

But for now, it is what it is. I can't wait.

Racing - 2010 Stats, 2011 Outline

For whatever reason I have my SRM set so that a season starts on October 1. It would make sense that the season therefore ends September 30th. I'm not sure why I left it like that other than maybe I got the bike (with the SRM on it) at about that time.

Whatever, the fact that the 2010 season ended "officially" for me means I could check out what I did. It helps that my SRM is working again so it kind of motivated me to look at my past performances. For me that means looking at the big picture stuff. I'm less concerned about exactly what I did on a particular day. I'm more interested in the workload I did during different parts of the year. This is most important when looking at races where I felt particularly good or strong. In order to try and replicate those good days, I need to look at what I did in the prior two or three months, week by week, and see how that differs from other two or three month periods.

Okay, I really need to look at the prior two weeks (a "tactical" period) as well as the prior six or eight months (a "strategic" period). My overall fitness gets decided by my training for the past half year or more, but my freshness on a given day usually gets determined by the amount of rest, the type of diet, and the training I do in the prior week or so.

Remember that training breaks your body down. You don't get stronger by training, you get weaker. If you got stronger by training, you'd feel better the day after a 6 hour ride, and you'd feel great after a dozen consecutive 6 hour rides.

Unless you're a freak of nature, that's not the case.

If you're anything like me then you feel like a waste product the day after a 6 hour ride. If you did a dozen consecutive 6 hour rides, you'd barely be able to get out of bed. I couldn't tell you because I've never done anything like that.

Anyway, I just wanted to point out that training isn't where you make your gains.

Resting is where you gain your strength. Resting rebuilds your body, refuels, refits, revitalizes, renews - all those Re-Re-Re things. It gives your body time to adapt to the stresses it's just seen, the 6 hour rides, the 10 intervals, even the jog from your car to the registration table. Rest is where you build your strength.

Therefore the resting prior to a good day is key ("resting" doesn't necessarily mean resting the day before, it just means the rest you get in general).

The goal for anyone seeking to peak on a given day is to carefully break down the body by training as hard as possible while still giving it enough time to recover in time for the Big Day. You have strategic plans, big picture type schedules, and you have tactical plans, the day by day small picture schedules.

For me it's pretty straightforward. For all Big Days, I need to take it easy the day before, do maybe an hour or so. If I've been riding a lot, 4 or 5 days a week or more, I need to do a similar ride two days prior, with a day off the bike three days prior. The easy ride helps loosen the legs, else I feel like I'm pedaling with Pinocchio legs.

If I don't have a lot of miles on my legs then I don't ride at all two and three days prior. I don't need a couple days to get back into it. The only exception is if I've taken more than a few days off, due to illness or real life things. For example I had to take over a week off just now due to illness. It took three rides before my legs felt anywhere near resilient - the first two days were horrible.

For the big picture it's also pretty straightforward. I have a couple season goals each year, and they don't change very much. In fact they haven't changed for 15 or more years. Those goals then determine my overall schedule.

1. Go hard January. Go hard part of February. End one big ("macro" as coined by Lemond and I think Paul Koechli) cycle. This is my big build phase where I get my base miles in. I try and do some long hours here, even in a short-hour year. I've done over 30 hours in a single week while averaging about 10 hours during most of the other weeks. I hope this year to hit that 30 hour mark one week, and I think that 10 hours in the other weeks is a bit much for me. We'll see how that affects the rest of my season.

2. Finalize promotional prep for Bethel Spring Series. Race March and first half April, focus on recovery and not getting sick. I typically train only 2-3 hours a week during Bethel so I basically build reserves the whole time. End second big cycle. Take second half of April easy.

3. May, June, part of July, go hard. Take a week or so easy before Nutmeg State games (CT Crit Champs). With group rides, Tuesdays at the Rent, I did consistent 2 hour daily rides in 2010, a lot for me. I hope to repeat this at some level in 2011. This ends my third big cycle.

4. July, August, September, go hard until the end of the season. I have no particular goals so I use whatever form I have to do whatever I can do. At the end of that I ease for the year, so it's my last big cycle of training. I'll do Pedal4Paws, a charity ride to benefit Forgotten Felines in Connecticut,

In 2010 I accomplished something along those lines. In some raw numbers I did the following:

- Rode 293 hours
- 4913 miles
- 30 races

The first number is high for me, especially considering that I lost a lot of days towards the end of the season due to logging things incorrectly (SRM wasn't charged, no magnet, couldn't find SRM, etc - all errors on the part of the nut that holds the handlebars, i.e. the rider). In prior "working" years where I had a job, 150 hours for the year seemed like a lot. 450 hours for the year I didn't work was a lot - I actually got tired of riding - and I raced worse than I did on shorter hour years.

The second number is kind of just interesting. Miles don't mean anything, really. I didn't know that when I "tried to be a pro" so I tried to pile on miles, even riding up and down my street to round out a ride's mileage. I managed to do 10,000 miles that year and finished one race. I believe I DNFed 44 races.

30 races - that's 30 entries, with dual entries on a few of the Bethels. I think I had 27 race days overall. Not bad, all considering. I thought I raced tons, and to me tons means 40 or 50 races. My record year was 55 races or so, and I was a racing lunatic. So 30 races is a lot, just not at a lunatic level.

The fact that the Missus was at virtually every race (once her work season ended) is pretty incredible.

I'm a bit worried for 2011. I probably need to train more, especially since I struggle once a race hits the 60 minute point.

Well, okay, the 35 minute point.

Doing a 25 mile crit is fine. Doing a 40 or 50 mile one... I haven't done that much crit racing in a single race ever. For me that's a 2 hour flat road race, not a crit.

When I thought about upgrading many years ago, a Cat 2 told me that I'd have to double my training miles. He'd had to go from doing 200-250 miles a week to 400-500 miles a week, and he told us so.

My then girlfriend laughed and asked if that meant I had to train 90 miles a week instead of 45. The puzzled Cat 2 had a look of concern on his face. She explained that I'd usually train about 45 miles in a week. Since the Cat 2 had just taken me across three lanes of pavement in the last 200 meters of the race to beat me, he must have figured I trained more than his easy day mileage.

(That day he technically beat me but was disqualified for his swerve from one edge of Limerock's main straight to another. I feel that even if he hadn't panicked and made his drastic move he'd still have won the sprint, but the officials didn't like his 30 foot wide swerve.)

Whatever, his reaction to my mileage was worth a chuckle.

(To give that same rider props, he attacked at New Britain in the 1-2-3 race, with me on his wheel. We both almost went off the road in Turn 1, a long, gentle sweeper. We had to ease hard and brake. Then we looked at each other to make sure the other guy had to do the same thing - we started laughing when we realized that we'd each done the same thing. We'd entered the turn at 42 mph after attacking out of the field, pedaling furiously, and couldn't lean hard enough to make the turn. I've never had to brake to stay on the road in that turn, before or since.)

I do have one thing going for me as far as miles go.

What my then-girlfriend didn't mention is that I did some mad hours (or miles) on the bike in the winter, building a base, breaking down my body. I still do this, albeit a bit more focused. I cram a winter of training into about four weeks, maybe five, doing long trainer sessions and my now-regular SoCal training camp.

Then, in the spring and summer, to allow my body to be as strong as possible, I'd do weekly micro-cycles, riding hard just on Monday or Tuesday. Then I'd rest ("double secret training") until Saturday, doing a short 20 or 30 minute spin to loosen the legs. I'd feel great on Sunday, race day.

After four or five weeks of this I'd be way behind in fitness because I'd only ridden 300 miles or so. This would force me into doing a hard week, maybe 250 miles, recover while doing another 150-200 miles the next week, and start my distorted macro-cycle again.

For 2011 this last bit won't work.

I'll need to be constantly building my form to remain even slightly competitive in the Cat 2s, and when I say "slightly competitive", I mean I just want to finish a race. I figure I'll be okay in the races that truly suit me, the ones that force those at the front to work extra hard compared to those sitting in. They include races like Bethel, New Britain, even Ninigret and Keith Berger. It's the races where it's harder to sit in where I'll be in dire straights - Red Trolley in San Diego, New London, maybe Fall River.

If I ride a full season as a 2, it'll be interesting what those stats read at the end of the 2011 season.