Road Racing 101

I've decided to expand my racing endeavors and enter some road races this season. When I began racing mountain bikes, I really felt like that was the sport for me. Truth be told, I was really burned out on the road bike by that time. I had been doing long-distance rides and swinging a leg over a road bike signaled drudgery for me. With the love many of us have for cycling, you know that's a bad sign when saddling up means work, not enjoyment. Since I did jump into a couple of cyclocross races this year, I felt my racing experience would not be complete if I didn't at least give road racing a 'look see.' Therefore, I've put Froze Toes and Hillsboro-Roubaix on the roster for 2008.

I know Froze Toes is a training race, so that will be a great way to dip my toe into the water, so to speak. Let's just hope my toe doesn't freeze as the race name would suggest. I am cautiously optimistic. I've been training hard for the past 4-5 weeks. I signed up a coach, Andy Gibbs, and have been following his workouts religiously. Some of you may know Andy from the local race scene and a few others have trained under Andy's guidance. You know the benefits. For others, let me say this. With roughly 5 weeks of Andy's structured training under my belt, I think I would be faster than I was at any point during last year's race season. I have dropped another 15 pounds and will hopefully have another 15-20 pounds gone by time the season gets under way in March. From what I've seen in the Sport class, I'm going to need it too. The Sport class is going to be intense this year.

In order to have something of a suitable road racing bike, I needed to get a new road bike. In my workshop awaiting the buildup is this beauty:

Gone are most of the road bikes that once littered my workshop. In fact, the only road bike I have left is an older Lemond Zurich I purchased a couple of months ago as a bike to keep on the trainer. The new bike will give me 1 race worthy bike and one to keep on the trainer. (I don't count my commuter s/s road bike as bike. It's a vehicle, to me.) Completely built up the new Giant should tip the scales at roughly 16.5-17 pounds and that's not using extremely light parts. I'll post up some pics when this bike and the new Intense mtb bike is done and ready.

That's it for now. I'm limited on time today as I'm getting ready to jump on the trainer for 1 hour and 40 minutes of isolated leg training. Pedal or Die, baby!

New hoops

Picked up a new set of hoops for mtb racing. The new Mavic Crossmax 29ers. Yes, El Cavano they are UST compatible! Tubeless is in the cards for me in 2008. I'm going to run these as a race only set (I think) and plan on converting my 'everyday' wheelsets to tubeless as well. I've taken too much flack for being a luddite when it comes to the tubeless tire revolution.

Mark at Ballwin Cycles (my home shop) hooked me up with a great deal on the wheels (always appreciated, thanks Mark) and when he asked me if I wanted the Mavic wheel replacement plan I immediately said yes. An aggressive rider I know relied on his replacement plan mere hours after his purchase. Ain't happening to me. Mine are hanging in the basement resisting any temptation to smash them up in a snow-packed trail. Don't worry, they'll get ridden soon enough.

I felt a bit odd buying pre-built wheels from Mark. I've probably purchased 4 or 5 sets of very nice, handbuilt wheels from Mark in the past 2 years. In my opinion, there isn't a better wheelbuilder in the area, perhaps anywhere. With every set of wheels he asks me to bring them back after 100 or so miles to check the tension, but after that the wheels are bombproof. I know, I ride hard. My main set of mtb wheels are Mavic 719's with Chris King hubs. Mark has trued them a total of 2 times. Once after the initial break-in and another time when I had pounded some log crossings fairly hard. Great dude with exceptional skills. I guess if he was comfortable enough selling them to me, I trust his judgment.

Who is Boz?

Is this Boz?

NOPE!

What about this one?

GUESS AGAIN!

Or this guy?

NICE TITLE, but wrong person and wrong machine! (Pedal that thing around South America and we'll talk.)

I'll give you a two-fer. Me on the right and the next generation Boz on the left. That's me and my son, Collin, on the Champs-Elysees in Paris this year watching the Tour de France. Many folks have asked me where I came up with the nickname Boz. It all comes from the pronounciation of our last name, Basler. While many folks pronounce it Baz-ler, it's actually a German name pronounced Boz-ler. Simple. (And no, I don't own or intend on owning a Mercedes-Benz anytime soon. I actually took the picture of us and had no idea the Mercedes-Benz sign was perfectly frame in with us.)

I'm just saying

What's happening around here? Things are hitting a bizarre-o factor of dead of winter proportions! What am I talking about?

Check out this gem of a discussion over on StlBiking! http://stlbiking.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=9911 Perhaps dialogue like this is what you get when overly competitive types spend too much time thinking and not enough time training and riding? In the end, I think the argument says we must choose sides over supporting a company who supports bike racing or telling (same) company to quit supporting the desires of the public who also happen to hate bikers. But now I'm confused. Aren't bike racers a subset of the general public? are we mutually exclusive? can the public actually hate us?

What's up with our local weather? Mr. Bad meet Mr. Worse. We did need the rain....4 months ago! Now our local weather forecasters are calling for 6-10" of snow Friday night. Translation, Saturday will be the pick day of the week for a road ride. I guess local bread and milk sales were sagging, so the alerts were sounded and the weather(people) responded with prognostications of an epic snowfall. Quick question. Why does the forecast for foul weather increase the appetite for bakery goods and dairy products? A future study may be in order.

Traffic on the local highways. I-40/64 is less than 3 weeks from a shut down but MoDot assures we'll all be okay. Sorry for my apprehension, but aren't you the same group that has struggled to close the Daniel Boone bridge for 1 weekend on 3 separate occasions? You know, Olympic sprinters are tossed from the race after 2 false starts. Blame it on the weather forecast you say? Please re-read item #2.

Performance Enhancing Drugs in baseball. You think last year's Tour de France resembled a circus, just sit back and watch the claims, excuses, and fallout from this bombshell. It's very unfortunate, too. Another sport gets it black eye. Another set of excuses for a sedentary lifestyle. "It's all a sham." "Why work hard when someone else can cheat and win?" Why work hard? Because you should, you can, and it's rewarding. Don't believe me, try it.

You won't see me loading up on performance enhancing drugs before I shovel my driveway tomorrow, no sir. I'll consume a hardy breakfast of bread and milk, grab my shovel, open the garage door, toss the shovel on the ground and head back into the house to get dressed for a road bike ride. Sorry, if you think this post is a little cynical you're right.

I'm just saying.

Out with the old

And in with the new. Meet the new race bike, Intense Spider 29. This will be my race bike for 2008 (and hopefully beyond.) I was quite happy with my Gunnar Rockhound, but on really long rides, I was feeling a little beaten up. (Yes, I'm getting older.) I'm thinking of swapping everything over from the Gunnar, but I've also given consideration to building this bike up with all new components. I don't know yet, but I'll have the bike in approximately 2 weeks, so I've got some decisions to make.

I thought long and hard about this bike vs. several others. Included in my thoughts were the Turner Sultan, Ventana El Rey, and a Titus Racer X. At no time did I give any consideration to going back to a 26" wheeled bike. Sorry, been there done that. Besides, for a guy of my size the 29er just feels better. I ride it better and feel more comfortable between the wheels.

I ended up getting the bike from Dave Chase at http://www.redstonecyclery.com/redstone/home.htm in Lyons, Colorado. Dave and I traded a number of emails and then had a couple of phone conversations before I made my decision. Dave used to work for Schwinn and covered the midwest and has ridden all of our trails. He owns the Intense Spider 29, as well as the Turner Sultan, and commented if he was moving to St. Louis, the Spider would be the bike he would ride. As it turns out, my choices were down to the Turner and the Intense and after talking with Dave, my choice became crystal clear.

I've been getting rid of a lot of bikes lately in preparation for this decision. I'm likely to sell 2 more frames and then I will be down to 2 mtb's, 2 road bikes, and 1 'cross bike. Seems reasonable to me. However, unless this weather changes and things dry out, perhaps I should be looking at another set of rollers or even a stationary bike??

Ughh!

Man, I just don't like this sort of weather. Cold...I can deal with that by putting on another layer. Wet...I can deal with that when it's warmer out. Cold and wet...Just makes me shudder. I dealt with these conditions on last week's ride. Took me the better part of an afternoon to warm-up.

I guess there ain't no sense in complaining, though. Either saddle up or settle in. One gets you stronger, the other one gets you fatter. Pedal or die, baby.

A Great Day

Aggro Jo suggested some recon was in order for Howell Island. We were both scheduled for long, low-heart rate rides, so I agreed to meet him at 11am yesterday. If you live in the greater St. Louis area (which I'm sure is true, as I'm not suggesting I have readership around the world) you know that yesterday's temps were around 60+ degrees around dawn, but were far from that following lunch.



We hit the island, me in knickers, a long sleeve jersey, wool socks, and my trusty Pearl Izumi Optik jacket (shown here).
Aggro on the other hand opted for shorts, and two short sleeve jerseys. We rolled out and enjoyed the warm winds blowing across our backs for some 30+ minutes. We were so warm that we stopped to alter our clothing, wherein I stuffed my jacket in the back of my jersey pocket. An unwise move, as some 20 minutes later, the clouds rolled in and the winds shifted from the south to the west, northwest and the light rain began to fall. I thought it might be a brief shower and actually commented, "the weather would have to get a whole lot worse to be a funkilla for this ride."


Mother Nature obliged my request and within minutes the rain started at a steady clip and the temps started their retreat toward "the frozen foods section." We kept rolling at our rather pedestrian pace in an attempt to stay in zone 1 and 2 of our heart rate monitors. Overall the island is perfect for a recovery ride. However, yesterday's weather kept trying to force the issue. If you've been on Howell Island, you know there is a large open field section on the western facing side. Yesterday, that field was ground zero and completely exposed us to the elements. As we rolled down the trail leading to the field, the wind was hitting the trees hard enough to snap sections of them off. I recall thinking a tree top could snap off, land on us, and we'd be trapped on Howell Island. Worse yet, we'd be part of a search and rescue, breaking news story!


We kept our commitment to the ride and towards the end came upon three hunters carting their kill out of the woods. We had seen a buck sprint across the trail earlier in the ride directly before seeing them walking and discussed the possibility of their trophy being on in the same. Since we were rooting for the deer, we didn't offer to help pull their cart with our bikes and left the hunters to earn their keep. We rolled off the island after more than 2 hours and quickly got to the cars and shed our gear. Jo's skin looked like it had freezer burn and mine wasn't much better. As we shivered out of our wet clothing and back into our street clothes, I recall thinking we rode, we had fun, and we got our training in. A good day.


I've made a commitment to harden up, this ride was therapy for me. While others were stalking their four-legged prey, I was stalking mine...my own heart and mind.


By the way, get yourself one of those PI jackets.