Cyclocross Season... Nationals Etc.

So after taking a month off racing after a decent result at the UCI race in South Carolina, I headed to Madison WI for nationals. Me and Steve K took the fit. No exterior racks. Everything inside. 34mpg for 1200 miles round trip.

Pittsburgh had some seriously awful weather which made working out outside pretty tough.I did a lot of trainer riding for two weeks. In fact I did more in the first two weeks of December than I did in the 8 years before. That sucks, but what can you do?

I figured that I would race my hardest, put no pressure on myself and have fun. Then I saw this on a popular race predicting website.

That got the nerves going.

Saturday: 30-34 Champs I had a second row start. The conditions suited me to do well. I had a killer pit crew and was ready to take 2 bikes per lap. Unfortunately the mud iced over and I didnt need to.It also turned the race into somewhat of a drag race and less of a steering contest. I dangled in the 6/7/8/9/10 spot for bunch of laps and ultimately got 10th.

Elite Race I actually felt good. I was warm. I could feel my fingers and had on gloves that allowed me to have dexterity. I started a little bit fast and eventually worked my way back to the 30's. This was fine. For my last lap and a half I couldnt get into my pedals due to ice pack. At one point I honestly thought that I had knocked my cleat off while smacking it off of my pedal. I would put my foot against my pedal and it felt like a road shoe with no cleat on it. I was so frustrated. I had a few groups ride through me while I was kicking my pedals and pedaling with one foot. So be it. 48th. Nothing to be ashamed of.
My coach, Kris Auer at Athlete Development Group told me earlier this year that my heart has always been in it, but I finally stepped it up. This season was great for me and I have no regrets. It was by far the strongest,smoothest and most confident that I have ridden. I had great equipment and was constantly surrounded by good people. With that I do have to thank everybody. I raced 26 cross races this year. That is a lot for me.

Coach Kris at ADG and twenty/20 cycling. He definitely moved me up a group as far as where I was finishing. He also ran the team and stood in the pit at every race. On Saturday at nationals he raced at 9am and then stood in the pit for the 6 hours after.

C3 teammates. I still feel like one of the new guys and a bit of an outsider due to me living in Pittsburgh, but I got to do a lot more races with everybody and am stoked to be a part of the team. Watching and helping with the Charm City weekend was the definition of team work.

Pittsburgh travel posse. Ed and Brett are my boys. We drive a lot. There is a hashtag for instagram #bikeracermarriage because we hang out more together than with our wives sometimes.

Pittsburgh bicycle racing. Past and Present. Limestone at the Kiln

During the 1980's, Pittsburgh was a powerhouse as far as cycling went. There were great racers from here; The Chew brothers, Matt Eaton, Ron Lutz... Davis Phinney lived in the Chew house off and on. Pittsburgh had good bike racers...

We have had our stars come and shine for sure. Mike Friedman and Sinead Miller both represented us proudly...

This past weekend was the final MAC cyclocross race, Limestone at the Kiln. Looking at the results, it makes me proud to be from Pittsburgh.

It looks like around 10 people drove the 4:45 each way to race a cyclocross race. Pittsburgh walked away with: Elite Men Win and 7th, B Men 1/2 and overall jersey, Elite masters 2nd... On top of this, plenty of other results to be proud of. It is really awesome how many people are traveling out east and making a showing for our city. Personally it was also very awesome to have friends from home yelling at me during my race, and hopefully vice versa. Hopefully this trend continues next year.

Here is a video Keith Hower shot of his weekend.

2012 Limestone at the Kiln Cyclocross MAC #8 from Keith Hower on Vimeo.

PA State Championship... BMX vs. CX

This past Sunday was the PA state Cyclocross championship. Mostly the Western PA state cyclocross championship, as in the "Elite field" there were only a handful of guys not from Western PA/WV.
I managed to keep my bike upright for MOST of the time,and won my first state championship in 20 years. 21 in cyclocross years. Im old.
This is my medal.

When I raced bmx, if you won something you could run it on your front plate the following year. I rocked the 1PA for two years straight as a kid. Kind of a cool idea.

I told a friend of mine who runs a a real cycling website to watch the first turn, as it kept raining and the conditions changed before our first lap. A change in conditions is not a big deal when you have the skills that I obviously do below.

Dirty Dozen Power Details.

For anybody who is from out of Pittsburgh reading this, the Dirty Dozen is a 30 year old group ride in Pittsburgh up 12 of the steepest hills. One is arguably the steepest in the world. It is a group ride with a winner, as they track the top 10 Men (5 women) up each hill. Low cadence out of the saddle steep climbs benefit me, and I have won the event 9 years running. Im old. Yes I have won a group ride. Anyway, this is not a bragging post, because all of the numbers except a few are relatively mediocre. Here are the power numbers:

Hill 1 High St 4:15 . 375 watts = 5.978 w/k (Cracked 3 mins in.)
Hill 2 Ravine 4:54 . 357 Watts = 5.69 w/k (Cracked 3.5 mins in)
Hill 3 Berry Hill 1:10 610 watts = 9.724 w/k (1st)
Hill 4 High/Seavy 2:27 . 402 watts = 6.40 w/k (1st)
Missed 5
Hill 6 Suffolk St 3:23 409 watts = 6.52 w/k (1st)
Hill 7 Sycamore ST 2:58 409 watts = 6.52 w/k (2nd)
Hill 8 Canton Ave :58 510 watts = 8.13 w/k (3rd)
Hill 9 Bousted St 1:57 446 watts = 7.11 w/k (1st)
Hill10 Welsh Way 1:47 458 watts = 7.30 w/k (2nd)
Hill 11 Berry/Holt 3:07 412 watts = 6.57 w/k (2nd?) Mathematical Lock
Hill 12 Flowers 5:17 324 watts = 5.16 w/k Open Road to final hill.Lots of attacks.

The times are taken from when my power spikes and declines. Don't compare these to Strava. If you do you are lame.

My power over 3 minutes was lower than last year.My power under 3 minutes was my highest ever. Im impressed with Berry Hill and let down with the first two. My weight was about the same at 137/138. Bike setup was the same as last year with the exception of lighter skewers.

Canton Ave filmed by Matt Dayak

Dirty Dozen Race 2011-Canton Ave from Matt Dayak on Vimeo.

It was great racing somewhere that my family could see me. My Dad showed up to watch his first bike race in about 20 years. Amy wanted to watch 1 hill but watched like five. Im thinking Matt will have another video of Canton this year.

The Niece doing recon for future years.

Its not what you have... its what you do with what you have.

So this is a story of a 320 dollar bicycle.
Amy was in the hunt for a bike in 2001. She was basically broke. We scoured ebay and found a Jamis Aurora touring bike for her. It was a funny bike. 26" front and 700C rear. Shimano Sora throughout.

She got it on her birthday March 20th. (3/20... $320)... The stars aligned.
I know a lot of people want to hate on cheap stuff. Yes it is heavy. Yes it can break, however, I have found the light stuff breaks too.

Anyway, I took her on her first bike tour, an overnight camping trip. Then we rode to DC. Then we packed up the bikes and rode around Europe for 9 weeks. She also commuted on it everyday. After 10,000 miles the sora shifters died. TEN THOUSAND MILES.

The bike got stolen, and then recovered.

Then she and her best friend rode Pittsburgh-San Francisco together. Same 320 dollar bike. At this point it has new wheels, shifters, rear derailer, chainrings and cassette.

Life is about what you have done, not what you own.

Still set up to commute and carry stuff.

Under a bridge to avoid rain somewhere in germany. Taken with an analog camera.

An agreeable sound...

So about a year ago, I posted a video of me "singing" Love is a Battlefield and Amy doing time after time. My buddy Matt who makes the movies was in California and filmed my brother in law. I think it might be my second favorite after Amy's.

An Agreeable Sound : Brian from Matt Dayak on Vimeo.

The rarest of blog updates

If you are reading this, my apologies for not updating. A few things that have prevented this:
- Space bar on my computer broke. This makes typing anything more than an email annoying. - Nonstop travel to race / work / grown up stuff

Anyway. I have to do a post about cyclocross.

Earlier this year at a mountain bike race, I was talking to East Coast cyclocross legend Ryan Leech. I told him that I was going to be super serious this year. He responded "more serious than last year?" which was a huge compliment on my natural abilities and self coaching technique. The answer was simply "yeah".

SOO... Since Mid July all cycling has been for this CX season. C3/Athletes Serving Athletes is the team again and I am getting coached by Kris Auer (ADG). We are riding specialized bikes/tires/helmets/shoes with Enve wheels. Yes, Enve Wheels.

At this point "half way" through the season, I have raced about the same amount as I did TOTAL last year. My results are better, I feel stronger and I am having a ton of fun. The team is great. The people on it are great. The people at races are awesome. I travel with Ed or Brett and they are awesome. Basically its fun and all good.

So far I have won some local races, a regional race and scored a few UCI points. I have had some good luck, some bad luck and some good days and bad days. Basically just normal bike racing. Pretty stoked to be able to do all this while still working full time.

feeling nostalgic for things that you think are modern but are like older than the kids you race every weekend

Bicycle racing and art.

Friday night Amy and I took in a lot of art. First was performance art, followed by a gallery thing. I dont know anything about art. I dont know anything about playing music or acting or interpretive dance. I know about a few things one of which is bicycling.

I sat and watched art and thought about how under appreciated cycling is. Competing at cycling, especially bikes that require talent more than natural ability (mountain, cross, etc) is really hard to do. It is similar to being in a band or making art in that there are very few rewards for most. Most people do it for something as simple as self satisfaction.

One great thing in the world is watching somebody who is naturally gifted using their gift. Its not often, but in any discipline of life, it is amazing.

Issac "groundchuck" McCrea. I grew up riding in the woods with him. A few guys we rode with went to the Extreme games and then the X games. He didnt do tech stuff, just big and smooth. I would rather watch him just ride than some super tech kid do 1000 tricks in one air. Below is an ad that ran in the 90's. Sickest 1 handed tabletops evar.

I have never been able to play guitar. I have never tried, but whatever. Watching J Mascis shred his guitar is unlike any other musical experience that I have had. It is so awesome.

Friends.. life's stories

When I was 19 or so I went to my dad's townhouse in the burbs to do laundry. I had been gone for about two years and probably went back three per times year, despite living about ten miles away.

I talked to a friend who was also at his parents' house doing similar stuff. He lived a few blocks from me and we both went to Pitt. We had a few classes together. We had been friends since we were 8 or 9 years old. I would say best friends since 11 or 12 years old. By that time I was racing a ton of bmx and he started getting into it as well. Within a year of racing, he was winning the 12 year old expert field. He ended up two year streak as age group expert PA stat champion...

We hit our teenage years and dated girls who were also best friends. Lots of double dates, lots of "coupling." We continued riding together, however he was way better than me at dirt jumping. He could do BIG 360's and pretty much had no fear. I had no shortage of fear. I remember once when we were about twenty, upon meeting him a kid went "whoah... I had a photo of you on my wall growing up..." He was good.

Anyway, so we are in the burbs doing laundry and decide to go to the restaurant where we both worked as teenagers with two other good friends. Yeah we even had the same job. It was closing,so we went to a local diner, Eat n Park. The first one that we went to was SUPER crowded with teenagers on a Friday night. We left to go to another one like three miles away. Upon leaving, we were going through a traffic circle and had a weird interaction with another car. The tough guys in the car halted us by pulling in front of us and asked if we, and me in particular, had a problem. I was laughing at the situation and told the driver that yes, I had a tetanus shot the day before and I was really sore. That was my biggest problem... Ive been not funny for a long time.

So we pull out and talk about how weird that was, and how those dudes were dicks. We realized that they were following us after a couple of minutes. We continued on to the less crowded diner. Looking bag, we should have just gone to a police station, or somewhere else, but what could possibly happen.. right?

We pulled into a spot, and they pulled right up to our bumper, parking us in. We kind of collectively decided to fight them. We got out of the car and this big dude gets in my face. I remember the trial where the prosecutor asked him how much he weighed and it was something like 225 and 6'4". I was like 145 at the time. Dude is in my face and pushing me. I just kept saying "dude I am not going to fight you" like it was a mantra. I think this just made him madder. I knew this dude. He was two years younger than me in high school. The other dude in the car lived on my high school girlfriend's street.

So when the giant starts pushing me, my best friend steps between us. He was pretty strong and took the push without moving. Then the giant's friend pushes the giant away and just starts tearing at my best friend with a pretty big knife.

I dont really remember watching him getting stabbed. I do remember watching the big guy pull the stabber off. This probably saved my best friend's life. They jumped in their car and took off. My best friend was dumping blood everywhere. Like fucking everywhere. He had new shoes on and took them off, cause he didnt want to get blood on them. I dont think that he realized that he was maybe going to die. I guess he was in shock. Im not sure where everybody else in the car was at this point. My memories are super tunnel vision. We laid my best friend down and ran to find a phone... remember when there were not cell phones everywhere?

Anyway, when the paramedics said casually "we should get the helicopter"... I knew things were really bad. Anyway, this is going nowhere and is too long already, sorry. My best friend had both lungs punctured, his liver punctured and his stomach punctured. Bile went into his body and made him go septic. Like people are always like so and so "almost died" or "it was on the verge of death" ... but yeah I think he was. He lived. He spent a month or so in the hospital. He had to drop out of college, etc. There was a long shitty trial where the kid delayed the inevitable by like a year with bullshit lawyer stuff.

Like I said, this isnt really going anywhere, but was something I have been thinking about lately. I remember going home and staring at my ceiling until I passed out. I remember sitting on my living room floor calling the hospital to see if he was alive the next morning. I remember thanking him when he came to in the hospital. There is no doubt that I would have fucking died. My friend totally punched the stabber a few times and was limiting the damage as it happened. I am weak. I would have been dead. My friend told me "I would do it again" while he was in the hospital. man

There are not many people like this. Even best friends.

4th grade.

My Wedding 20 years later