smackdown with a twist

The demise of the BikeWorksMA TT, or maybe just a hiatus, has sort of left a few of us who've counted on it as a fun summer weekly race to prep for CX kind of lost.

Not having that 20 min effort every week is part of why I'm feeling slower and more out of it this year. Sure you can do your own intervals and TTs and all that but the extrinsic motivation that came with rolling up to the TT start, handing Bob $5-6, lining up and going as hard as you can week in and week out for 4-6 weeks is really hard to replicate for me on my own.

I found a bit of a motivation by trying out a new TT course. Calling it the Medalist TT course. Way more challenging than the BW one, hilly. Starts with a broken pavement downhill, over into the second half of Hillside, carrying speed through a right hand turn up to the top of Pine and then slightly downhill all the way to Rocky Hill from the North. Finishing with a steady hard but not steep climb.

We tried it out the first time with Andrew and Steve and Jason, was good, hard and I died well before the finish. Barely climbed to the top. That day we ran into GR on the ride home. We tried a second loop but there was a lot of chip and seal and it finished climbing Rocky Hill the steep way, downside for me was I managed to turn off the strava ap so i don't have that run recorded.

Went out a week ago on sunday, underfueled and tried it again. Wasn't terrible. I was definitely feeling a bit of the fuel issue but at least I got the course set.

Tuesday last week Myles Burke and Fox and a kid headed to try the Smackdown with a twist. The kid got a flat on the Henderson and hopefully he had stuff to change one with him because we were way gone before we realized it. Myles rolled up to let us know as he had only a tube and no inflation device.

With Jason we headed up the fastest way. Tuesday we headed up the normal way and for the first time ever Fox pulled for the length of Pine and it was all I could do to stay on his wheel. It hurt. And we really weren't taking it easy but instead of heading around the normal smackdown loop we turned over down Hillside to the start point for the Medalist TT.

We went off in a loose 15 second or so interval spacing, I got caught at the turn onto Pine by three cars in succesion, had to basically stop and Burke more or less rolled up on me as I was waiting, so that kind of made it interesting. I was dropping him on the hills and he was going past me on the flats. Maybe me on the CX bike had something to do with it. That was the other change for me. The other two times I'd done the course I was on the Paramount. Heavy, but aero and nice road gears with clip ons. The CX bike has CX gearing. I probably messed up the strava segment creating it because the time was way off.

SO yeah the twist was we did the medalist TT, then finished the Smackdown loop, aka we rode over to Hillside and climbed it completely then raced back on Read/walker over to 152. I got shelled on Hillside. Stomach was cramping from eating too late. Why eat too late? well it was that or not eat at all, figured usually it is okay. But I pushed so hard on that final climb in the TT section that I created a bit of distress i think. Oh well. It was a good day on the bike. Didn't sleep at all that night, it was hot and muggy and my legs were feeling the effort and i was wired from too much coffee too late in the day. A hole I'm still in that finally caught up to me yesterday on the way home.

Yeah worked both days this weekend on top of a long and somewhat stressful week. A fire at work, lots of unexpected challenges.

Going to try and find a day to get the TT effort in this week. Talking with Steve I think maybe we'll just hit the old course anyway. Do it bandit style, and strava timed or something. We'll see.

heddwch
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new threads

its official...  granted we have to wait for delivery but deposit has been made and team orders placed.

There is an homage to Ophelia. It is a given esp considering it has been an integral part of the orange jumpsuit, and what's an NECX with out spotting the guy in the dirty orange jumpsuit with the Vanderkitten patches (from when i was pit/mechanic for Christine Vardaros before she went to Belgium full time).

Always fun having a RISD department head in the club who's not so bad with designing stuff...

Lots of questions always though right?

Why? Back to basics, Prov Velo Club has been something I've been involved in since I got here. I started riding with the Brown Cycling Club when i moved back and there was this cross over with Prov Velo and heck since I wasn't eligiable to be Collegiate anymore made sense to hook up with them. Been that way ever since.  That group of old men that ran around in CX started kind of when Boivin got Chabot on PVC, then Chabot talked Planet Bike into forming a Master's squad for NECX and we sort of solifided the team that year, moved on to CyclocrossRacing.Com for a few years then last year with JP's success launched ENGVT exclusive team.  You've been reading this - 2014 has been a big year of refocus, change, trying to more positive and be happier, one of the more difficult things was actually this desicion to fly the club colors for CX again. Relationships change and dynamics are different sometimes. Sometimes it is a punctuated event sometimes it is a gradual thing with a clarifying moment, sometimes it is just about orange juice. But CX is CX, it no care what colors you wear.

The PVC club is made up of the people i ride with all year round. there's a handful maybe racing CX this year and it just made sense to carry the leadership roll through the CX season as well rather than go split teams.  Kind of exciting that this is the first skinsuit from PVC since the Refunds Now days, Deano did an awesome job with the design I think. Pretty stoked about it.

It is a big change but not really. And is CX really a team sport? No. G-ride has the untapped guys now and that team has been awesome for him.

That and @NotoriusJunk won't be the thing everyone is looking for on monday photo day after CX races. Back to black for the junk region. #stealthmode

So yeah. I meant to write about the Smackdown with a twist earlier, haven't yet. Figured might as well get this up.

Cyclocross is coming and i'm NO WHERE NEAR READY. I'm way slower and more out of shape than last year. But meh who cares. I've got some time to get close and we'll see where I'm at. As good as last year? Probably not but that's okay, last year didn't end so well. Starting over. Moving forward and being positive.

Kind of funny, bad events seem to lead to good things.  Blue terminating JP's sponsorship before Nationals gave Jerry the opening to take on the roll of title sponsorship. That lead to solidifying the idea that he wanted his own team. Which was way more work than he bargained on and low return on investment but it also lead to a few big things, Worlds and Healthy Hubble tagging along, all that lead to the ENGVT Untapped team, which has been great. Even from a distance and no real conneciton, it is pretty obvious that it has been a very positive thing for my grumpy friend in VT.  Heck I've been on a spiral down a touch the last few years, and kind of jutst kept pushing through, feel like with a few key actions and some supportive people I managed to get through it, or at least feel like things are on the up not down... getting lighter not darker...   I'm sure any copy editor would find most of this post today a bit challenged. Written in a few settings, edited hap hazardly.

But I'm excited. I was excited last year but i was excited to race with the team and carry on like we had and then the team sort of felt like just me with a few exceptions...  so shedding that expectation, and the pressure, feels right. We'll see how that translates and bears out in the long run, but it feels right. And I do actually like feeling happy and excited.

best just publish and move on to the next topic

heddwch
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something crazy happened on Sunday

So back up to Saturday first. Or further but forget beyond that - ancient history.  Saturday morning was all about getting car re-inspected. It has a few issues that I need to resolve before I get another sticker (IN TWO YEARS - yes). But re-inspection time. Oh boy the stress. Got the car sorted out. Smaller injectors put in, Advanced the timing 4°, replaced the EGR vacuum hose (the old one sort of was disconnected), full tank of biodiesel... and actually less of a smoke issue and more of a drivability one... I did the hammer mod. Aka physically changed the injection quantity. It was limited out on the max fuel side of things. A big part of the start up smoke actually. It would overfuel HEAVILY. How much? Well, so much that I couldn't use adaptations to get it to inject any less fuel. It was completely maxed out on the IQ.  Explains the shutter just below the torque peak and then around 65 under moderate load (too much fuel, and then pump acting funny trying to regulate the fuel).

So car can't smoke if I tried. Big change from when i went in with dino and big nozzles and the rest of the stuff not done. It made big power but admittedly was a bit smokey. How smokey? It blew a 74% on the opacity test. Limit is 20%. If the computer reads anything higher than 20% i don't get a sticker and it spits out a rejection notice. No question, no debate. Renders other issues moot. Gotta pass the test.

Underpowered (can't even chirp the tires in 1st right now, NO POWER, aka stock power) I drove down. Got there a bit early for my 10:15. To make this not an epic novel about the morning, well... ignoring the snide comments about "you know it isn't going to pass, right?" from one of the people there (not a tech) and someone else remarking how the Dyno always breaks when I show up.  Yes I gotta be on a dyno. 1996 needs dyno. 1997 can just plug into OBDII. Not me. Not this car. Finally just before noon my car heads into the bay. Of course they let it idle for 30 min (filling exhaust with a bit of extra soot, that I had blown clean on the way there). Turned it off. Let it sit for an hour, then finally pulled it in.

I hear the test (the dyno shakes the whole damn shop)...  walk over and the guy's printing out a pile of paperwork shaking his head.  It failed.  WTF?

I caught the tag end of the run and there wasn't even a hit of smoke in the garage. Yeah tailpipe is inside. It was F'N SUPER SMOKEY last time. Oops sorry guys (but all but one of the techs were actively smoking while changing oil and putting new brakelines on). No smoke. The guy running the test was confused.  It was 84% opacity. No Fucking way did it get worse. He asked what I did. Explained. One of the other techs actually drives an old diesel v-dub, perked up as i listed it i all. "Yup, nothing else to do." He could tell it was gutless compared to the last test. And there was no smoke. No way it was 84%. He hates the computer and machine. I was understandably pretty anxious. hours of sitting around not knowing. Fuuuuuuck. 

Tech gets an idea, does a practice run after tipping machine over and cleaning it up a bit (same thing he did before the first run). runs it. 8% opacity.

NOW THAT'S MORE LIKE IT.

Phew. 

But now we've gotta do a full re-test. Re-enter all the info. Re-run it and hope it works.

6% and I got a sticker.

Then I headed home, ate some lunch and went into the bike shop to get a few hours of work in to pay for groceries.  The car is legal. took some work, mostly time. $15-20 in parts and it hopefully will last until next year with my wife's car is paid off. And as much as I would love to do what the tech said "Now you can put it all back so it can get out of its own way," that's gonna take time. Maybe after CX season. Gotta go straight flat out until January or February...  transition from two jobs to CX and the school year with the girls stuff....

So saturday end of day at the shop, not much to do, no reason or need to come in on Sunday. suddenly faced with a "day off" where i wasn't working on a car in the last month...  first one...  chatting with Russ he said "Mt Bikes in the morning" no why -that's dumb...  I don't know where anything is or if the bike is ready...  It was still in the same shape it was when i last rode it before Nate T went to Seattle.  years ago. How many? I dunno 2011 i think. So maybe it was only 3+ years, not 4. Still. That's a long time not to ride a discipline. No pedaling the fat tires. And yes, as Mottram calls it? It is indeed an endo machine. 48x36 rings up front. No inner ring. Indeed, it is a Lumberjack 100 machine. Built for the tight fast smooth flowing fast single track in Michigan. And for that it is awesome. New England? so far? I've really yet to have much fun on it since moving back.

Oh well. It is a chance to ride with Russ and his new bike. I even found my bladder and pack and it wasn't in too bad condition.

8am Uxbridge. Never ridden there before. We did some stuff, rode around. Wound up with way more riding time than i've done on the mt bike since maybe riding the pato trail in Michigan. Hooked up with a guy Mike on an Ibis. At least he had little wheels. But he did have disc brakes. Me and my 559mm rotors and mechanical activated pads. And essentially no suspension and a million inches of drop to the bars. I think the bars on my CX bike might be the same width. At least not much different.

We made it to look out rock, and Gumbo (in the orange) had to ride up, and then on his way down as I'm taking a picture of russ... he eats shit, and leaves a bit blood stain on the rock (that's what they are looking at). Superficial, very much so. Not sure how that much blood got on the rock but it did. No problem with bike or rider.

And of course Russ had to get in the photo while i was taking the photo of the bike at the top of look out rock...  Meta meta... 

Best part of going on rides with Russ is his documentation: http://instagram.com/rusto88

And of course we had to sit in the shade and cool off with a throwback 1975 edition can of Ganset. http://instagram.com/p/p1XBZVmewT

Me and bike in the rust old race wagon.

Yes - GeWilli went mt biking. And had fun. Plenty of climbing. Plenty of scary descents and moments of OH SHIT TOMBSTONE. A few crashes, all minor. Plenty of dabs.  I even managed to stuff the front wheel into a rock and stick my face into a pile of poison ivy. Legit. It was growing up the side of the tree (ribbon trail area IIRC) and well the big leaf completely with fruiting branches POW RIGHT IN THE FACE.  All I could think of was, "awesome now I'm going to have poison ivy on my face."  Well i didn't get any yet. But when we got back to the car I had one of those individually wrapped cats tongue towels and wiped my face with it, then my arms, then rinsed with water and a clean shop towel i had in the car. So either I've managed to hit the only PI without ‎Urushiol, or I've become like my dad and am immue to it (already don't have any reaction to mosquitos), OR the cats tongue towel worked to get the urishiol oils off before they could become an irritant.

I'm just happy not to have PI on my face. And to survive riding a '96 bike with a bunch of guys all riding big wheels and full suspension. Seeing Myette and Zanc on the trail was a super nice surprise too. But man it was just good to have fun mt biking again.

Maybe it won't be 3+ years before I ride the mt bike again...  LumberJack 100 would be fun actually. Good "excuse" to go visit everyone in Michigan again. 

Today I dragged the even older bike out (the Paramount) in TT mode (well not the wheels.... ALL THE SPOKES-not aero). Gonna go head out and try a loop or two, yes, in the heat...  see if we can sort out a good TT loop, esp if Bob is threatening to make the BikeWorks TT extra long this year.

heddwch

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