The good and bad news for Robbie:

The bad:

• The Paketa is no more. The the past week and a half or so I've heard a noise that sounded like a worn bottom bracket. Upon further inspection I found that it was, wait wait don't tell me, another broken drive-side chainstay. 2nd broken Paketa, 4th broken chainstay in general. Oh, and guess who won't return my messages: Paketa. Maybe it has something to do with me asking for a refund. I don't want another Paketa that may or may not kill me.
• $100 ticket for rolling through the stop sign at 9th and Maxwell last night. Have I ever told you how much I despise the police? These numb skulls are impossible to talk to. They have disregarded reason for power and control. Excuse me, but ticketing a bicycle commuter for rolling through a stop sign in a residential neighborhood at 11:19pm when no other traffic is present is quite an excessive use of power. Boulder police, and all police worldwide, Go Fuck Yourselves! Who wants to go to court with me at 8:30am on the 23rd day of May 2008?
• Crash during yesterday's Primus Mootry crit. The worst part of it all was stubbing my left ring finger. It's all fat and blue.
  

The good:

• Tour of the Gila! I preregistered earlier this week, despite not having a bike, a ride to Silver City, NM, or any money. After a busy week I've now got all of the above and look forward to an epic 5 days of racing.
• New bike! The Cervelo R3. It's pretty rad. Although I'm having some difficulty making it fit properly.
  
• New team! I'm officially with the cat. 3 Horizon Organic team. I just got my kit, water bottles, and new helmet yesterday. Should be a good time.
• Getting surly and watching The Fugitive at Chris' house last night. Damn that Harrison Ford is sexy.
  

(photos coming soon)

Golden Haystack

Phew...
Whilst Kevin and folk were hitting up the mountains with some grueling rides, I was riding as hard as I possibly could for a few minutes--I think I need some big days this week...

Saturday
Chris and I rode our asses off at the Haystack Mountain individual time trial. It was a 16.8 mile loop just north of town. Winds were coming out of the Northwest at a steadily annoying 10-15 mph or so. The course began on hwy 36 near Neva Road and headed North, taking a right-hand turn onto Nelson Road, then a right onto 75th, right onto Niwot Road, and finally continuing onto Neva Road, finished at the top of a hill just before hwy 36.

Usually, I love riding hard on that exact loop (minus heading west on Neva), because it is one of very few roads around here that has rolling hills and typically has a tailwind. Usually, heading east on Nelson is like a fast roller coaster: bombing the descents, sprinting up the hills in the 53-11, and basically just hauling ass. Unfortunately on race day, the winds turned Nelson into a typically tough crosswind jaunt. Heading down 75th was pretty fast, but still tough. Then heading back on Niwot/Neva was an absolute nightmare. Actually, every minute of the damn thing was a nightmare, which is why I'm going to avoid time trials whenever possible.

Anyway, numbers schmumbers:
I finished 7th in the cat. 3s with a time of 37:47:30, avg. speed: 26.7 mph.

Chris beat 11 dudes in the cat 4 race! This is the same Chris that has ridden his bike like 10 times in the past month and a half. He finished with a time of 47:34:40, avg. speed: 21.3 mph.

And um, winning time of the pros, by Ben Day of Toyota-United, was 32:54:90, avg. speed: 30.6 mph. Damn. Don't tell him, but I put EPO into his soy latte when he came into Saxy's on Friday.

Sunday:
Tokyo Joe's criterium in Golden. Pretty standard crit. Not much to say other than it was fun to race with Ben Delaney from VeloNews and Dan Schuetz from the Horizon Organic team. I did my best to stay n 20-30 meters a swear the front, away from any crashes, of which there were a few. On the final lap I chased down a flier that I thought might take the win. As he began to run out of gas I could see the man field catching us, so I put in a big effort to take it to the finish. In the final 20-30 meters a swarm of dudes passed me. Darn. Gotta be more patient next time.



Big week of riding coming up and plenty of good weather!

Long Ride

Yesterday, while the Paris Roubaix took place, Chris, Mason, Erez, and I embarked on a ride that was a little shorter than the infamous Hell of the North and had way fewer cobbles. (I'll take this moment to ask everyone, please, not to tell me who won the Paris Roubaix, not today, not this week, fuck, not next year unless I ask.) What can I say... it was a beautiful day, the ride was incredibly scenic, and, excepting the beginning, the road was never flat. We crossed at least six county lines, making it back (just) before dark, having left at around 9:30 (we took plenty of breaks, and I had a ridiculous amount of mechanical trouble).

The route took us north via Carter lake, up Big Thompson canyon (detouring toward Glen Haven via Devil's Gulch) to Estes Park. Chris turned off to finish homework (though he still rode over 100mi), while the rest of us took Peak2Peak south past Nederland, turning onto Highway 72 toward Wondervu. We finished by descending to Gross Reservoir on a dirt road (the site of my second and third flats), and then climbed up and over Flagstaff back into Boulder. The descent of Flagstaff and the sight of Boulder has never brought me such joy as it did yesterday.

-Kevin

Click here to view the route on Mapmyride.com

Hill climbing and Alpe d'Huez

Hill climbing is my favorite part of cycling probably because I'm now scared of down hills. And this July when I'm climbing Alpe d'Huez I want to have put the hours in so that I can beat a bunch of frenchys. That being said I have just started my 'training' I'm a fair weather rider unlike the RobeastO.
Today in honor of the Paris-Roubaix (my asshole roommate told me who won before I could watch) and because it's warm I did a hill climb in preparation of next month's Lookout Mountain race and the Alpe d'Huez. I wanted to climb something that was comparable to Il Pirata's mountain and the best I could come up with was Super Flag and then to the end of the pavement. The climb is six and a half k shorter but it might be steeper so I'll call it even. It was sunny, I climbed slowly, broke a chain, got cold costing down hill but the the ride was sweet I think i'll do again it tomorrow.

70s tomorrow have a good ride,
-blake

Koppenberg

Jesper Skibby, after a long, solo breakaway lost balance and fell on the koppenberg climb in the 1987 Tour of Flanders.  The pack was closing, and the race director ran over Skibby's bike (and almost his foot) to make sure that the road was clear for the oncoming pack. Damn.

Wykkyd Klounz!

So I think that this summer/fall (late Augustesque), Sean and I will be riding our bikes from NYC all the way across the northern side of the great USA to the west coast (specific destination to be decided at a later date). If anyone would like to come for all, or a portion of the ride, you should, because we have fun. Oh yes, fun is what we have.

Also, if anyone has any information or tips that they feel would be helpful, please, lemme know.
Sweet!
Will

This was definitely one of the most epic days in cycling, ever. And damn I wish there were still races like that in Colorado.

France is the home of the Tour de France and this.

Spring Classics

Who knew that April was such a big month for cycling? Why are we such masochists? Can't we just move everything forward by one month and enjoy better weather?

Anyway, it's been a pretty good month so far. I, Robbie, had some races last weekend and feel that they went pretty well.

Saturday, April 5:
Spencer let me borrow his car to drive to the Lookout Mountain hill climb time trial in Golden. I was quite nervous going into the whole thing because I've been more of a flatlander this year. Although, the climb was just short enough for me to do ok. Total distance was around 4.5 miles with about 1220 feet of ascent (yeah, the mapmyride elevation profile is wrong). After a good warm up and plenty of solid and liquid sugar I rode a time of 19 minutes and 57 seconds. This was good enough to place 2nd in the cat. 4's in a field of 74 riders. In addition to being a good opener for the Koppenberg the next day, I was able to get some stats on my maximum sustainable heart rate, which turned out to be somewhere between 183 and 185. Now I might consider aiming at some heart rate zones in the next few months.

Sunday, April 6:
I take it all back Colorado! Don't harden up, just reschedule races whenever the weather is shifty, because in this case it was a damn good decision. The weather for the 2008 Koppenberg was phenomenal, not to mention it was held on the same day as it's predecessor, the Tour of Flanders. I had a rough start in the morning: ran out of granola for breakfast, late out the door, not enough time to drink coffee, and a headwind all the way to the race start (a ride that usually takes 35 minutes took me 55 minutes). I showed up just in time to register for the cat. 4 race and have a few sips of Maté that I brought in a thermos. I was planning on buying a few bananas before the race but I never had the chance, so I had a few gu's instead. Lining up at the start I saw Chris and Spencer on the sideline, which meant things were starting to look good.

The important thing about this race is getting into the 17% grade, dirt, Koppenberg climb first, so as to avoid losing your momentum. Despite riding perhaps a bit too hard I managed to be the first into the climb. Behind me I could hear pedals unclipping, chains dropping, and gears popping. At the top of the climb we had a long tailwind along a dirt road. Knowing that 3/4 of the field was still clawing their way up the Koppenberg I rode hard at the front to string out the field. It was a pretty awesome sight to look back and see the field strung out down the road. Coming into the Marshall Road "climb" I slowed the pace to avoid hurting myself. No one wanted to take a pull so I just rode my own pace and the other riders seemed to be ok with it. I finally got behind a couple of guys coming back through the start/finish area. I remained behind one or two riders all the way back to Marshall Road where somebody had ridden off the front. At this point I talked to Nate from Propeloton about bridging the gap, he sounded up to it. I made the acceleration first and unfortunately he wasn't able to match it. It would have been nice to have him for the 2.5 remaining laps. I reached the flyer and told him to hop on my wheel. Before we knew it we were clear from the field. I certainly didn't want to ride the rest of the race by myself but I also knew that we'd have to ride pretty fast for the the break to be successful. I let this other guy try to take a pull or two but it only slowed us down. When we got back to the Koppenberg I decided to go it alone by putting in a big acceleration up the climb. From there I guess it was just a simple matter of riding my guts out, but not too far out. I turned on my heart rate monitor (which wasn't working at the start) and made sure I stayed above 180 but below 185. This proved to be a good technique. I rode as fast as I possibly could without going into the red. The last mile of the race was a good one. I knew I had won it, which numbed the pain of the last 45 minutes. Just for fun I redlined on the final Marshall climb and the false flat to the finish, but I didn't feel a thing. The next few riders came in about a minute afterward. (Results)

Yesterday, I sent in my upgrade request to the American Cycling Association. Today I got my upgrade to cat. 3!

Upcoming Colorado races

• Haystack Mountain Ind. & Team Time Trials
• Team Tokyo Joe's Spring Criterium
• Deer Trail Road Race
• ColoBikeLaw.com Lookout Mt. Hill Climb
• Rabbit Mountain Time Trial
• Sunshine Hill Climb

Upcoming Spring Classics!

• Tour de Romandie
• Liège-Bastogne-Liège
• Flèche Wallonne
• Tour de Georgia
• Amstel Gold Race
• Paris-Roubaix
• Ghent-Wevelgem