…Faster than Last

“Bones heal, pain is temporary, and chicks dig scars…”

recent posts

about Jason Kayzar:

Unprofessional Cyclist

  • The Puker – “You must be this tall to ride”



    Remember the Scrambler??  Of course you do!  It sucked.  Especially if you just got off the Tilt-O-Whirl.  Holy hurl-fest.  Kind of reminds me of the Puker this morning.

    I had a little time, so I rode in and picked up Mark Lampe on the way.  It was nice to arrive at a hill repeat session and actually be warmed up for a change, since it’s a nice downhill 11 miles from my house to the start.  I did 21 laps (just shy of 11.5 miles) before we called it.  63 right hand turns.  If the effort doesn’t make you dizzy, all those turns sure will.  I felt good today, but not powerful.  High cadence instead of big gears.  I think I did just about every lap in a lower gear than normal, but spinning faster than usual.  Whatever gets the job done.  Winkel and Janisch kept me company on the front as we pounded out lap after lap of lactic acidocity lovin’…

    Lactic Acid is your friend you know: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/16/health/nutrition/16run.html

    Some Starbucks coffee and small talk with my fellow Spokesmen, then rolled back home to get the workday started.  Add another 33.5 to the 2010 tally.

  • Zack de La Rocha… (just for you)


  • 6am Cedarburg Cobbles Crash in the dark


    A great morning for me, but not a good way to start the day for 1 rider.  I headed to Whitefish Bay this morning for the 5:30am beat down ride.  Rolling out in the darkness 2-up, we picked up the pace right away.  Roads were wet and riding that fast in the dark, even with lights, definitely puts you on high alert.  Without a computer on my bike, my guess based on previous rides is that the pace averaged upwards of 23 mph.  As we rolled a right turn through an intersection in Cedarburg with decorative cobblestones, one rider coming through a little hot must have tapped the brakes and his bike immediately squirted one way and he Supermanned the other way onto the wet pavement.

    One bloody arm and a quick realignment of bars and brake levers and we were off again.  Chip Pieper was keeping the pace hot all morning – this ride was not for the weak.  Pre-ride Wheaties were required.

    Felt like July; 75 degrees and super-humid, except for the fact that it was dark most of the ride.  Post-ride coffee outside in the beautiful morning weather capped an awesome start to the day!

  • The other Dirty Dozen


    Lee Marvin is badass.  Undisputed.  But I’m talking about a different Dirty Dozen… one that involves push-ups and sit-ups.

    Very simple; do 1 sit-up, flip over and do 1 push-up.  Then do 2 of each, then 3, etc.  Hammer through it as quick as you can until you get to a dozen of each.

    My lovely wife challenged me to do this with her during half-time of the Packer game yesterday.  She works her abs daily – I work my abs once per lifetime, during Packer/Bills games on September 19th, 2010.  Push-ups were cake… Sit-ups were not.

    I was dominated.  But now I have a new mission in life; a daily ritual of Dirty Dozens to strengthen my core and restore my rightful place as Head of Household during football games.

  • I’m bringin’ splatter paint back!


    Annual eppstein uhen architects ride yesterday – http://www.eua.com/bdbt/– 102 miles of bicycling bliss.  Wish I could say the same for my bike and for the other riders in the lead group with me.  There was only 1 small group of 20 mph riders this year, and no 22 mph group.  In years past, there were 3 separate fast groups that went off before the general population took off at 18, 16 and  .  Our group had: me, all around nice guy and 3 time Ironman competitor David Staab and racer and ToAD organizer Billy Ochowicz along with about 9 or so other riders.  When I saw one of the riders lining up on his TT bike with a sleeveless uni-tard (heavy emphasis on the TARD) and his Ironman tattoo and number still on his bike, I figured it would be an interesting day… especially since he was carrying about 30-40 extra pounds of what looked to be bacon and cheeseburgers around his mid-section.  Clearly, he’s never read “The Rules”.

    We got off to a nice easy start and headed west into the hills of Lake Country.  It was chilly and overcast at first, but as the day wore on, the temps climbed and the sun eventually came out for good.  Perfect weather for a long ride.  I started on the back, making sure we didn’t drop anyone.  After the first rest stop, I was feeling pretty good, so I decided to go to the front and help Billy and Dave with the pulls.  It became a familiar place for the rest if the ride, with most riders getting more and more gassed after the halfway point. I wasn’t sure how I’d feel since I hadn’t done 100 since the Bone Ride http://www.pelotonstar.com/2010/05/bone-ride-2010.html back in May.  Fortunately, I felt stronger with every mile.  The hardest part was stopping at all 5 rest stops.  It makes for a much longer day than just plowing through and hitting one or two to re-hydrate.  At 75 miles I felt like I had just started and we had to regroup after each of the hill climbs.

    I made it through 100 of the 102 miles before a nasty tear in my tire finally blew.  My good friend George Washington slipped in and fixed it so I could finish off the last 2 miles.  Kind of anti-climactic.

    At one point early on, I noticed that the white line on the side of the road looked pretty fresh.  I crested a hill and saw the line painting crew right in front of us.  That’s when I realized I had just ridden through a fresh coat of road paint.  Today’s project – removing paint from my bike and kit…

    I’m thinkin’ of just leaving it and bringing the whole splatter look back from the 80’s, since my bike and kit are perfectly matched now…

  • Warm ups are for winners?


    We all know how important it is to warm up before you ride or race, but how many people do it right?

    Not me.

    The more I race and ride, the more I continue to learn about racing and riding – and about how I work.  I usually try to warm up at least a little before most group rides (time permitting).  When I ride alone, I never just get on the bike and hammer (unless I’m late for the monthly Networking ride…).  But at races, apparently I am out-to-lunch when it comes to warming up.

    I always warm up before a race – but my warm-ups usually consist of heading out on whatever the closest road is and doing a few laps.  Without fail, the first lap of any race leaves me wanting to die.  I have a habit of going out hard and paying for it later.  But on the second lap I can always recover and find my rhythm and by the 3rd lap I’m golden.

    Why am I always so miserable on that first lap?  First of all I’m old.  Not really old, but I’m not 20, I’m 41.  The older I get, the longer it takes me to find the groove when I ride.  I usually don’t feel truly warmed up until about 45 minutes in.  Second – my warm-ups are usually 30 minutes at the very most.  They are never tough, and usually include a stop or two to take care of any last-minute business.  I might as well wake up and walk to the start line cold.  I really noticed this at the last 2 WORS races – we go balls out at the start, and I’m sucking wind half a mile into it.  I know that the start of WORS races are one of the toughest sections, but if I had warmed up adequately, I think I’d be feeling a lot better coming off the line.

    Maybe I’m way off base.  I’m certainly not looking for excuses to explain my slow-ocity, I’m really trying to make myself a better rider.  Last year I pounded my weakness (hills) and I made big gains.  This off-season, it’s recovery I need help with.  I’m just wondering how much better I could be if I was as diligent about the warm-up as the rest of the race?

    What do YOU think?

  • Pterodactyl bites and whambulances at WORS #10…


    Pictured below is the actual thing that stung my arm 2 miles into lap 1 at Treadfest yesterday:

    It hurt like a mofo, then I forgot about it until after the race.  Today my arm is as swollen as Oprah at an Old Country Buffet.  I must be allergic to pterodactyls too, because I haven’t been able to stop sneezing or blowing my nose for the past 24 hours.  I get bee stings every year and have no allergies.  I seriously think whatever bit or stung me might not have been from this planet.

    On to the race itself:

    Definitely a favorite course of mine.  The only sad part of this course is the fact that it’s on private land and aside from the pre-ride on Saturday it’s not available to ride.  Lots of climbs, although none too crazy.  Lots of flowing single-track and ample passing lanes.  Certainly not as many as Iola, but not as few as Crystal Ridge.  5th place for me boiled down to lack of effort.  I wasn’t racing for 1st yesterday, that’s my only excuse.

    That’s not to say I couldn’t come up with a truckload of crap to complain about, it’s just not the real reason I lost.  The biggest compliant people had (and legitimately so) was the fact that everyone’s race was shortened just before the start.  The justification was that lap times were too long, so I understand WORS decision, but there was really no communication that went out to the crowd about it (that I was aware of).  When you prepare for an X-lap race, and on the line you find out it will be a W-lap race, it can throw you off.  I made a last-minute decision to change out the rear cog on my single speed before the race started (based on 3 laps), and I would not have made that change had I known it would only be 2.

    The gear choice, or the sting/bite or the shortened race or the fact that I blew out my fork seal is not why I lost.  I rested when I got behind the pokey people in the single-track sections.  I didn’t make all the moves I should have.  I got caught with my pants down on the first lap recovering and 4 SS guys blew past me.  I never made that time back up, and finished 5th.  I was still riding a 3 lap race – I never made the adjustment in my strategy or pace to a 2 lap race.

    People were definitely complaining about the lost lap.  There were crashes.  There were slow pokes in the single track where there was no opportunity to pass.  It was dusty and dry (and warm).  In the end – who cares?  The fastest guys (and women) still won.

    And that’s what it’s all about.

  • Whatever doesn’t kill you…


    I just got this quote in my email:

    “It’s easy to do the right thing when you are on top of the mountain. But true character is exposed by how you act during the climb up.”

    Thursday Mornings mean “The PUKER”!

    Laps of goodness this morning with 1 thing missing… a seat.

    New seatpost is scheduled to arrive via USPS tonight, so I decided to do the Puker hill climbs this morning without it.  Normally I ride the road bike for this, especially the morning after a 65 mile day, but I was kind of ready for a little punishment.

    I did NOT set any speed records today, those belonged to Winkel (he was possessed), but I definitely got my workout in for the day.

    I REALLY hope that post comes tonight.  I prefer having a seat on my bike, and there’s only a few more days before Treadfest.

    On another note, the Networking ride went off as scheduled yesterday, and it really was an awesome ride.  Riding with people who know how to ride in a group makes a huge difference.

    Not pictured; Super-John Fleckenstein on his 48×16 Milwaukee single speed.  Animal!

  • 80’s Metal Motivation


    Is there anything better?

  • September means long sleeves and lights


    So much for heat, humidity and sunlight.  Get ready for dark/work/dark.

  • The secret to winning EVERY mountain bike race:


    RECOVERY.

    It’s not really a secret, but it’s probably the one thing that people spend the least amount of time on.  I don’t mean “sleepy-time, take a week off the bike and eat doughnuts” recovery, I mean the “30 seconds between sprints, my heart rate maxed out 20 beats ago” recovery.

    I’ve put in a lot of rides this year, and I’ve really focused on sharpening my climbing skills from last Fall through now.  It has paid off big time, but the difference between my spot on the podium and the riders one or two steps higher has been their ability to recover.  It makes no difference who makes it up the hill faster if you can’t drop the hammer once you go over the top.

    This flaw of mine was pretty obvious to me during the last WORS race, but subconsciously I chalked it up to the heat.  This morning was a “Puker” morning – just over a half mile loop of hill repeats.  I showed up expecting an hour of moderate intensity climbing, and Ben Barbera showed up with his game face on and illustrated just how important recovery is.

    Ben is a strong climber – he holds the lap record for the “Puker “Le Mans” at 36 in one hour – but once he got warmed up I was hanging with him.  The difference in my laps vs. Ben’s though was his recovery.  Apparently he doesn’t need any.  We’d jam up the 3 block long hill together and take a hard right at the top only to have Ben downshift and pick up speed on the down hill.  Doesn’t he know that the downhill is for recovery??  What the Hell??  I didn’t sign up for this kind of torture at 6am today!

    After (?) laps, I pulled back and went back to my “normal” pace.  It was a big kick in the head.  Sure, I could have hung in there for a few more laps.  I could have faked a smile when I passed the slower riders, and then gone back to sucking wind like I just finished a pack of Marlboros as soon as they couldn’t see my face.  I could easily think of a million excuses why I didn’t hang with him all morning, but the truth is – I’m not as a strong a rider as Ben.  We all did our laps and when we left, Ben was still at it.

    I guess know what I’ll be doing this off-season, and I am NOT looking forward to it…

  • Don’t be afraid of the dark



    4:50am alarm clock wake-up, and no sunlight for a long time this morning…

    Rode to the Spokesmen ride and back this morning, just a quick 30-35 (?) miles, and I picked up a little coffee on the way home.  It’s nice to be done riding at 7:20, have some coffee and then start my day.  It was still hot as  a camel’s buttcrack out there, even in the dark.  Weather’s supposed to break soon, and then everyone can go back to complaining about the cold instead of the heat.

    I guess it’s truly the end of summer.  Time to get the winter gear ready.

  • (Bad) WORS choices


    “It’s all about the game and how you play it
    All about control and if you can take it
    All about your debt and if you can pay it
    It’s all about pain and who’s gonna make it”

    Motorhead

    Crystal Ridge was a blast, and by blast I was thinking of a blast furnace.  You know, the kind they use in factories to melt lead.  Holy HOT!  This year the Alterra crew served up another awesome race, and once again it was dry as a bone and hot as Hades.  There were new sections of trail and a new prologue lap designed to separate the big boys (and girls) from the wannabe’s.

    Running my single-speed, I wasn’t super excited about the time-trial-like start of the race.  I do like the uphill start, and I do like the rollout to the woods, which gives us a little bit of distance to determine pecking order going into the single track.  The problem (for me) was that the single-speeds started in the 4th wave.  There were already lots of pokey people on the single-track before Don even yelled “GOOOOOOO!”.  The extra spinning my brains out seemed to just tire me out early, not give me an advantage.

    I ran a 32:16, and last year that felt just right at CR.  This year my intuition said 32:17, but I didn’t listen – I stuck with the :16.  (Funny, I over-geared at the last race too…) I could have spun a 17 just about as fast on the few flat sections, but it sure would have helped with those climbs in the heat.  That’s the real opportunity to pass for me, and I didn’t have as much energy as I would have liked.  The balls-to-the-wall pace at the beginning in that dusty heat kind of caught me off guard.  I was expecting the speed, and I had warmed up, but my body acted surprised when I ramped it up.  I could feel my heart beating through my helmet.  My usual strategy is to start fast, settle into “my” pace and then try to pick guys off one at a time.  On any other course this strategy works pretty well, but Crystal Ridge’s super-tight single-track means if you’re not out in front, you’re just behind.  At one point Rob Hofmann and I were joking out loud about “…seen any good movies lately…?” because you just couldn’t get around people.  Finally somebody would either move over, crash or hesitate enough for me to make a move.  The atmosphere at WORS races is a fun one, especially in Sport class – last time I checked no one was being paid to race – so it doesn’t make much sense to get pissed at people who are trying their hardest.

    During my warm-up I noticed a creaking coming from my seat tube.  As the race got started it became more prominent, and finally I heard what sounded like someone breaking a handful of dry spaghetti noodles.  It was actually my FSA carbon seat post letting go at the seat bolt.  That was lap 1, and there was still lots of racing to be done.  I did my best to hover over the saddle without putting any weight on it for the better part of the next 1 1/2 laps until the post finally fell off climbing garbage hill.  As badly as I wanted to cross the finish line with no seat, and go down in some kind of folklore (in my own mind), I was completely gassed.  I rolled down the hill and handed in my tag as a DNF.

    Credit to “Tyson” Hausdoerffer for once again CRUSHING the field (by over 5 1/2 minutes) the day AFTER placing second in the Single Speed category at the 75 mile Unnamed Epic.  I think he’s a robot.  Thank God he’s bumping up to “Open” at the next race.  He’ll crush it there too!

    It was a great day, saw a ton of people I know and had some great competition.  I really wish I could have finished, but I guess that’s racing.

  • Crystal Ridge WORS pre-ride report…


    First let me say the long sleeve jersey was overkill this morning.  I was expecting it to be much cooler.  Second, I apologize for the crappy cell-phone pix.  Third, HOLY CRAP, this is gonna be FUN!

    A word to the ex-BMXers, you’re going to tear it up Sunday.  A word to the roadies – stay home.  You’re just going to hurt yourself out here.  Sure, you’ll haul ass on the new “Prologue” lap, (which will definitely give the early advantage to the Jens Voigts of the WORS world), but once you hit that single-track you might as well be on the moon.  This is a Midwest mountain biker’s course – SUPER twisty and fun, but nowhere to pass in the tight stuff.  The MMB and Alterra crew have done a fantastic job, and by Sunday the course conditions will be about as near perfect as you could hope for.

    I swapped out the giant 36:15 on my SS last night, back to a “normal” 32:16.  I also had the foresight to add a little grip, so I took off the Stan’s Raven on the rear and slapped on a Nobby Nic.  Good call.  I’ll be swapping the front tire too.  The dry-looking trail is deceptively muddy and sticky.  The trails twist and turn like we have all come to know and love, but there is a BRAND NEW section of single-track that is my hands-down favorite.

    Tons of 2x4s and flat rock “bridges” and a sweeping, twisted roll through the woods was a surprise for me this morning.  Sadly, I rode CR one time in Spring, but with all the rain we’ve had I’ve just taken it off the map.  Big mistake.  This is some of the most fun riding around, and despite all the crappy weather, the trails are in primo shape.  Again, can’t say enough about all the volunteers who’ve hauled rocks, lumber and shovels around those bug infested woods all summer.

    Everything is clearly marked, with the exception of the Start/Finish gate, which will go up this weekend.

    Same uphill start, same half climb of Garbage Hill for Sport and full climb for Comp/Expert.

    My brake pads are almost completely shot, so I took it easy on the downhills – headed to Ben’s shortly to get the Home-Boy Hookup.

    Make sure you tighten every bolt and have lots of brake power, there won’t be a time when you’re cruising down a nice sloping fire road recovering like Suamico.

    This course will rattle your teeth out.

    Good Luck to EVERYONE!!

  • Facing my fears, WORS-style


    I’m not afraid of lining up against anyone at a WORS race, not afraid of big climbs, or pushing the pedals till I puke, or getting all muddy.  What I haven’t been able to do for 41 years is… a simple Farmer Blow: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=farmer’s+blow

    Call it irrational, call it lame, call it whatever you want.  For as long as I can remember I’ve been afraid to commit to one of the essential skills of all endurance athletes.  Instead, I’ve suffered through constant nose to glove wiping.  Well, no longer.  The proudest accomplishment I had yesterday was not my 3rd place finish, although that was a great feeling, it was the fact that halfway through the first lap, I blasted my first snot rocket all over my right arm.  The highly inaccurate aim of a  first-timer.  I was able to follow that up with a clean left side blow that cleared everything out.  It was kind of hard to finish the race with the tears of joy streaming down my muddy face for the next 18 miles, but somehow I managed.

    All kidding aside, the race was long, hot and very fast.  A pretty good showing, and some tough competition made it that much harder.  No real “recovery” spots, unless you wanted to get passed, and it seemed like there was always someone right on my wheel.  I ran a huge gear (for me) 36:15.  It was pretty good for most of the race, but when I gave up 2nd place with only a couple of miles to go, I didn’t have the legs to turn it fast enough to catch up.  A 34:15 probably would have been perfect.  It was great to see 4 of my team-mates racing, 2 of them also getting 3rd place podiums.

    Looking forward to Crystal Ridge this Sunday, I hope the dry weather holds out.

  • Friends… with benefits


    Not THAT kind of benefits, I’m happily married.  The kind of benefits you get from jumping on a bike with a group of people you don’t (or hardly) know and making instant friends.

    This week I had the pleasure of doing a recovery ride with a few “recreational” riders.  Recovery rides always seem like a great idea, but never really seem to happen.  They always start slow and either take off, or go much farther than anticipated.  Let’s face it, it’s fun to go fast.  But this week, I brought the 69er to an organized ride that I normally would never do.  2 guys on mountain bikes (one was a Diamond Back from Target that was too small) and 1 woman on a woman’s Trek commuter that had to be one of the first one’s off the assembly line in 1976.

    This ride was not about skill or ability, it was about the ride – and man did I have a good time.  Turns out the woman on the commuter is a grandma, but also a college professor with a love for World music.  We talked for half the ride about bands, musicians and music that no one else would even care about (3/3 time Japanese music…).

    One of the mountain bike guys, the one on the “too-small” was proud to show off his war wound from his latest trail ride.  He was also pretty jacked to be doing his first WORS race (Alterra) in 2 weeks.  I would have never guessed that – I thought he was kidding at first.

    Point being, I did not think of these riders as “cyclists”, at least not the cyclists I stereotypically think of.  But the truth was, they were cyclists in the truest sense of the term.  They weren’t riding to train for something, or to commute, or lose weight or for any other reason than they just love to ride.  They may not do it very often, or have nice bikes, or compete or any of that crap, but it didn’t matter.  That day we were all the same.

  • SPINNING Eye for the Straight Guy


    “Always do everything you ask of those you command.”

    General George S. Patton

    Taught my Wednesday 6am SPIN class today.  I’ll admit, Patton probably never took a SPIN class.  You don’t exactly think of MMA and cigars and Monster Trucks when you think about SPIN classes, but they do have some value for “real” cyclists.

    I started teaching SPIN for the Wisconsin Athletic Club about 3 or 4 years ago.  I did it for 2 reasons: 1) It would force me to get up each week at least once, even if it was -35° and snowing like crazy, and “ride”.  2) I would get a free membership to a gym by being an employee.

    What I found was that most people who take SPIN classes are there for a workout – they are not cyclists.  There are some recreational riders in the classes, and the occasional “enthusiast”, but for the most part, it’s just people looking for a way to burn off some french fries and maintain some level of fitness.  Classes are pretty fun, and I am able to play whatever music I want – which is probably not what you’d hear in a “normal” SPIN class.  Sometimes I wish I was outside riding, but I do that on plenty of other days.  This is a quick way to get a good sweat on and the bottom line is that it’s often an hour in saddle (essentially on a trainer) that I wouldn’t otherwise have.

    The goal of my class is different from other classes too, in that the goal of my class is for ME to get a good workout in.  When I became “Certified” it was made clear that the goal should be to use a “do as I say, not as I do” method.  This was explained to me by the SPINNING “Master Instructor”, who was about 30 pounds overweight.  She advocated getting off the bike and walking around the room during the class.  Uh… no.

    In my world, there are talkers and there are doers.  Talkers add no value to anything.  I get in a half hour before the class starts, get everything set up, warm up for a while and then deliver a 45 minute beat down.  I would argue that I am working harder than anyone else in that room.  One time there was blizzard, and no one showed up.  So I blasted Metallica and did the whole class by myself out of the saddle.  To this day, that was one of  my toughest classes ever.  So, hopefully the people who normally take my class want to see someone lead by example, rather than reading from the manual.

    Bottom line, to me any time on any bike (or trainer) has benefits.

    “To all my little Hulkamaniacs, say your prayers, take your vitamins and you will never go wrong.”
    Hulk Hogan

  • Ready as I’m gonna be


    I haven’t done a WORS race since June 13th, and haven’t even ridden the trails much this summer because of the typhoons.  So most of my miles have been on my road bike this season.  While it’s been a lot of fun, it’s not the same as riding off-road.  Besides the obvious differences (dirt being the first thing that comes to mind), it’s a completely different workout.  If road biking is like watching a movie, mountain biking is like watching TV while someone with ADD holds the remote.  Nothing ever stays the same, you’re constantly changing positions, speed, effort levels, etc.

    While this is what the appeal (to me) is all about for riding in the dirt, there’s not much you can do on a road bike to replicate training for a mountain bike race on a road bike.  Or so I figured anyway – that’s where the Spokesmen rides come into play.  The Tosa Spokesmen weekday rides are generally short and very hilly.  Chris Beyer picks some nutty routes through the city, and we blast around them before work.  Anywhere from 10-20 miles, there are very few straight or flat sections that last more than 2 city blocks.  Most of the routes focus on getting to and then climbing various hills around the city.  So, if you happen to show up on a single speed mountain bike and try to keep up with the group on their road bikes, you’re essentially in for a mini-WORS workout.

    This morning was a great warm-up for Sunday’s race; average speeds of 16-20 mph, and lots of hills with speeds generally increasing on the climbs.  It took a lot of effort to keep up, sometimes I just ran out of gear, but I feel about as ready as I’m gonna get.  There are 3 races in the next 4 weeks, so this is kind of like the second race season for me this year.  I’m hoping for some more hardware, time will tell.

  • Brought a knife to the gunfight


    Monday morning road ride with the Spokesmen – I brought the 69er.  The new 36:15 gearing for the WORS race Sunday feels ridiculous compared to the biggest previous gears – 32:16.  We were rolling along at 20mph this morning, a speed previously reserved for downhills only on this rig.  Spinning up the paved roads felt like butta, I only hope Suamico is as flat and fast as they say it is.

    I had no problem holding my own today, but there were only 3 of us and it was a fairly mild roll; bc was on the MASI commuter/’cross rig. Tomorrow’s ultra-hilly TMTOT will be another story.  Probably closer to 12 guys, all on road bikes, with tons of short, quick climbs.  That will be a much better test of my legs or lack thereof.

    At least I was able to sweat out all of the leftover fried goop I ate off my kids’ plates at State Fair yesterday.

  • Friday the 13th


    …and my name is Jason.  The jokes never get old (yes they do).  Thankfully this only happens every so often.

    Great ride with the Spokesmen this morning – although 2 flat tires on 2 different bikes in 20 miles was a possible sign of the Apocalypse?  Thank God we weren’t on mountain bikes in the woods somewhere or we would have been carried off by the mosquitoes.

    I’m trying to ride myself back into peak shape and I seem to have misplaced my power somewhere.  It must be all the flat, faster road rides I’ve been doing.  I can cruise along forever, but I can feel my power fade on hills like it’s April.  Not sure how to get it back, other than hitting more hills.  It’s been really hard to get any significant time in on the single speed mountain bike with all the rain we’ve had.  I’m putting the big ring and cog on tonight for the Suamico WORS race, and taking it out on some road rides with the Spokesmen next week.  That should either kill me or cure me.

    Drop the Doc ride tomorrow?

  • Welcome to Hell boys!


    5 rides in the last 60 hours.  Not too much mileage overall, but it feels like I’ve just worked, ridden and slept (a little) this week.

    Yesterday’s monthly Networking Ride went off as usual.  We picked a set route and then varied from it, separating the group and losing a person or 2 in the process.  Not a very “organized” organized ride.  It was hot and humid and the handful of cheese and crackers I was able to pound down before the ride didn’t really fill the tank enough for 50 miles.  The vodka-lemonade afterward helped a little, but the 18 gallons of water I drank the rest of the night helped a lot more.  We had a good, but not great turn-out; 18(?) riders or so.  The most “fun” part was taking a short-cut thorough a subdivision where every road was a court that went downhill.  I think we tried 37 ways to get out before we found a walkway through a park to get us back to the road.  I think the subdivision is called “Purgatory”…  Some riders may still be looking for the exit today.

    This morning it was the infamous Puker, and hour or so of hill repeats.  The turnout was a little on the light side, which I was hoping for anyway since I didn’t really have the legs for a beat-down.  On Tuesday I figured I’d bring the single-speed to this ride and drop the hammer, but when I rolled into the driveway last night I was 100% sure I’d be taking my light, geared road bike.  I’ll just have to live with that choice when I get passed at the next race.

    Tonight – putting man-sized gears on the single-speed for the upcoming WORS race; 36:15 (26″).  Then I have a week or so to see if my legs can even turn those.

    Tomorrow, a Pewaukee Lake ride at 5:30am followed by work, followed by beer.  After that, all bets are off.

  • TMTOT WTF?


    All aboard for the Spokesmen’s “Tuesday Morning Tour of Tosa”!

    I had sort of forgotten how much fun, and how challenging these short hilly rides were.  I’ve been doing a relatively flat, fast paced 33 mile ride on Tuesday mornings lately.  After last night’s 2 hour ride, with 2 rides to do tomorrow, I opted for the “easier” TMTOT.  It’s only as easy as you make it.  Going up and down Chris Beyer’s crazy routes can give anyone a good workout in a short amount of time.  I had also forgotten how strong all of these short intense road rides made my mountain biking.  1100 feet of climbing this morning, and it just creeps up on you.  Seems like I’ve barely put any miles on the 69er all summer, since it rains every other day.  Got a WORS race in 2 weeks, and I’m definitely gonna head back out with the Spokesmen as much as possible between now and then.  It’s fun to go fast, but it’s more fun to hammer up hill after hill after hill.

    I was a little disappointed with my total mileage for 2010, it seemed pretty low.  When I look back at the number of rides though, I’ve got 110 for the year – 1 every other day since January 1.  Many of the rides have just been shorter distances, so I can’t complain.  Quality over quantity I guess.

  • The quicksand of hero worship


    What a week it has been!  If I didn’t ride this morning I was afraid I’d go postal.   I’m too smart to truly worship people.  Look at all of the Sports greats of the last decade – they have all (OK there are a few exceptions) fallen from grace: Tiger, Lance, Jordan, Favre, it’s a long list.  I learned long ago that these are just human beings with superhuman physical abilities.  I respect their accomplishments, but my dog is a better role model.  He can do things that I certainly can’t do, but he’d also crap on the floor if I didn’t take him outside.  I respect his physical abilities (like being able to bite my head off), but I certainly don’t put him up on a pedestal.

    This week, someone I really respect and admire let me down in a big way.  It really disappointed and upset me, and I spent way too much time thinking about it.  In the end, I realized that I was the one who set myself up for it.  Granted, what the person did was wrong, but the reason it affected me so deeply was because I had given the person a spot just a little higher in life than I should have.  Not hero-worship, but more respect and admiration than they deserved.

    This friend has NEVER let me down:

    She asks nothing of me, but delivers everything I ask of her and much more.  Plus, she doesn’t crap on the floor if I don’t take her outside.  This morning’s ride (with the Executive Director of the Bike Fed of WI and various Spokesmen –  old and new)  started out as a ball of stress, but by the time I was done all I was thinking about was riding.  My head was clear, my body felt cleansed, and I was ready to deal with wrapping up this week of drama and move on.

    I feel sorry for all of those armchair quarterbacks out there.  The ones who put so much stock in their heroes, and take their indiscretions so personally.  Those people are really lacking something that I cherish – a passion for doing something they love.  They try to live vicariously through their sports heroes – or worse, through their children.  These are the parents that never miss sitting on the bleachers night after night screaming through their 8 year-old’s soccer games.  If I lived like that, I’d be 300 pounds, bald and die of a stress-induced heart attack in 5 years.

    The point of all of this rambling is this: be your own hero, but don’t buy into your own bullshit.  Last year I never placed in a race.  This year I’ve been on the podium in both of the WORS races I’ve done so far.  It would be easy to believe the hype and look at myself as somehow different from the guy who wasn’t up there last year, but I’m not.  There are still thousands of guys (and lots of women) who could crush me.  That’s the way I like it.  I’ll never be a hero to anyone, but I’ll never put any other person above me in the grand scheme of things.

  • “It is easier to stay out than get out.” – Mark Twain


    10 years ago I was pretty happy.  I had a good job, and a great wife and a good life.  I had been riding my bike less and less over the past few years, but I had a career now and a house, etc.  That was 2 weeks before I was hit and run over on my motorcycle by a parts delivery van.

    I was dragged for a bout 50 yards and my leg and hip were both crushed.  Long story short – I have a small drawer of heavy-duty utensils bolted to my left femur.  Unfortunately, I broke the first set and had to have the Super Duty set screwed in a year later.

    So what?  Well, today I don’t remember the fact that I couldn’t walk on my own for a year.  I don’t remember the long, slow painful recovery.  But most of all, I don’t use it as an excuse anymore.  For a few years there, I found myself saying “…I used to…”.  As in “I used to be a pretty good mountain biker…”  or “I used to do XYZ…”.  It was a legit excuse, I mean my quad has a hole the size of a half-dollar in it.  I could have just ridden that lame excuse right to my grave.  Then something happened.  After literally years of relatively little activity, I dusted off my old Fisher and headed out to the Southern Kettles with a friend one Saturday.  I hadn’t been there in years, but it all started coming back to me.  As corny as it sounds, I kind of  felt like I was re-born that day.  Or at least shown what I had made the decision to miss out on for the better part of 6 years.

    Today I ride whenever I can, which usually means very early on weekday mornings, and I jump into some races when it fits around my family’s schedule.  I’m a much better/faster rider than I was back then, but it’s because I truly cherish every second spent on the bike now.  I am constantly challenging myself to get better, to get stronger, to turn weaknesses into strengths.  I have to report, that after 4 years or so back on the bike, I feel like I have earned the right to ride with guys twice as strong as I would have in my 20’s.  This morning’s 23 mph, 33 miler is something I couldn’t have even hung off the back of back then.

    What I DON’T do anymore is talk about excuses.  I’m not the fastest guy out there, or the smoothest, but I keep getting better.  It’s way more rewarding to have other people talk about what you do NOW, than to tell them what you “used to do…” years ago.

  • Thoughts from my early morning ride


    Sometimes cycling is just about getting away by yourself for a while.

    Sometimes it’s about climbing hill after hill, mashing the pedals, mouth wide open, heart beating in your throat, trying to outrun your own shadow.

    Sometimes it’s about seeing the sun rise over the trees – not another soul in sight, a private show that so many people never see.

    Sometimes it’s about pushing yourself hard, sometimes even harder, cresting a hill and collapsing onto the saddle barely able to turn the pedals on the descent.

    Sometimes it’s about leaving the house in the slightly chilly morning air and rolling out onto empty roads because everyone else is still sleeping.

    Sometimes it’s about hearing the sound of nothing for a while.

    Sometimes, most times, it’s about not wanting to stop when you get home.

    Wanting to just keep riding and riding and riding until the wheels fall off or the sun goes down or your body gives up.

    Sometimes, like today, it’s about all of those things.

    30 or so hilly Lake country miles @ 5:15am all by myself.  No real traffic, no companions, no computer, no phone – just me and the bike.  Even on days like today, it can be hard to find that tranquility.  The first 15 miles or so I struggled to be in the moment; thinking of what I needed to do when I got to work, or when I would mow the lawn, or any number of things.  Finally I was able to just enjoy the moment – me and the bike and the road and a few occasional deer to watch out for.

    Mornings like today make everything else so much better.

  • There’s a fine line between confidence and stupidity


    Recently I’ve realized that some of the people I most admire in life ride the razor’s edge between confidence and stupidity.  That is not to say they are stupid, or cocky, or jerks.  It’s more a realization that there seem to be some people who are born with a unique ability to never second guess themselves.  Fortunately or unfortunately, I am not one of them.

    I recently read an article about Danny Way, perhaps the best skateboarder in the world.  He was trying to perfect a trick that had never been done before.  Each time he attempted it, he was literally risking his life.  He tried unsuccessfully all day, time after time, until at the end of the day he finally pulled it.  Then he went home.  Just like Barry Sanders – score, set the ball down, walk back to the sidelines.  Danny Way needed to pull that trick for himself.  He knew he could do it (confidence), but if he missed he could have been killed (stupidity).  Some of these guys live their entire life on that fine line, never seeing things from the outsider’s perspective.  They respect the danger, but they somehow feel immune to it.

    I showed up at the Puker this morning like Danny Way.  I brought my single speed mountain bike to do (road) hill repeats with a bunch of guys. This was a mixture of confidence and stupidity because in addition to nursing 2 cracked ribs and a broken toe, I was laying in an MRI machine last night trying to figure out why my head felt like it was exploding this weekend.  A guy like Danny Way, or Lance Armstrong, or (insert immortal sports figure here) would have shown up and ridden like he was freshly rested and ready to rock.  Not to impress anyone, but because their brains are not programmed the same way as mine.  All they know is 110%, all the time.  I certainly managed to hang with the group, and I’m pretty sure no one noticed much of a difference – but I did.  I didn’t feel that confidence once we started.  I did feel stupid for not bringing my road bike and just taking it easy. I’m not Danny Way, or Lance Armstrong or Barry Sanders, I’m just me.  I’m a 40-year-old guy who rides for fun, and the minute I forget that, I lose one of the cornerstones of happiness in my life.  I’m not out to prove anything to anyone except myself.  It doesn’t matter if I come in first, last or mid-pack in any race.  How I feel while I’m in the moment is what it’s all about.  I would guess it’s the same for about 99.9% of the guys I ride with.

  • Morning of the Living Dead


    I awoke to no alarm this morning at 5:23.  I had some definite eraser-head because of all the migraine drugs I’m on.  It took 3 seconds for me to realize that the alarm never went off, and I was due to teach a 2 hour SPIN class in 7 minutes.   I got dressed, ate and brushed my teeth in 4 minutes and flew to the Wisconsin Athletic Club.  I HATE being late, and I’ve never been late for a class in 3+ years.

    My friend Dan is fond of saying “excuses mean nothing and apologies make everyone uncomfortable”, and I agree.  So I literally ran into class 15 minutes late, and proceeded to give everyone – including myself – a most righteous beat down.

    Not really the best way to come back from a week off, most of it heavily medicated, but whatever.  Every day that goes by I hear about more high school friends that are grandparents now, or have some type of ailment that I once thought was reserved for the elderly.

    I can rest when I’m dead, which based on the results of the MRI tonight, will hopefully be a LONG time from now.

  • Post Tour-itis?


    Now that the Tour deee France (as Bobke would say) is over, I find myself in a world of hurt.  Not from cycling, but from something which has yet to be determined.  I woke up with a headache on Saturday, which got progressively worse all day.  By 2am Sunday, it had become impossible to sleep and no over the counter medicine was touching the pain.  When my wife woke, she took me the Urgent Care clinic.  After shooting me up with some drugs, they sent me to the hospital for a CT Scan and then a spinal tap – both of which were to rule out blood on the brain.  Scary crap.  I thought I was just depressed because Andy Schleck’s chain came off in the mountains.

    Next stop, and MRI on Wednesday.  Meanwhile I am NOT enjoying a steady diet of pills, quiet and darkness.

    Will I miss the Puker again??  The Spokesmen are rapidly losing faith in me I’m certain.  Thank God the WORS race was rescheduled.

  • Alterra WORS race Sunday?


    For those of you who haven’t raced it, or are unfamiliar with the race – here’s a shot from the top of the Comp/Elite climb from 2009:

    And here’s a shot from the top of the Comp/Elite climb from 2010:

    See you all on Sunday(?)  P.S. bring your water wings.

    http://www.wors.org/schedule/event.php?e=4

  • Get your blood pumping with a wet 69er…


    Sorry porn dogs, this pic is probably not what you were hoping to see…

    Skipped the Puker this morning to lead a group of riders for the Wisconsin Athletic Club. Sadly (or thankfully) no one showed up, so I was able to get out for an hour by myself.  Because I had the single speed, and I was in the city in a rain storm, I hit the bike path for some powerline to powerline sprints.  It kind of reminded me of cruising around in the rain on my BMX bike when I was 10.  Unfortunately once I saw a few lightning strikes, I had to turn around.  The best part of the ride was the 5 minutes I spent after the ride on a picnic bench under a pavilion watching the rain.  Absolute serenity.

    This is definitely not good for Sunday’s WORS race.  Crystal Ridge holds more water than Anna Nicole Smith.  That course is going to be a swim through pudding pools.