Cascade

First: congrats to Cadel Evans. Never before has anyone looked so much like a shaved pug and still won the Tour.

They're twins.

Anyways, this weekend was Cascade. It's 3 days, 4 stages, and a lot of pain. The first day was a 70 mile road race with a 10k climb at the end. I learned about 5 miles too late that I couldn't shift up into the 53 tooth ring. Well, I could pull on the cable at the down tube, then hold it up with the shifter, but I couldn't keep it there for very long. So I just did the whole stage in the small ring. I decided to Clif Bar it up at about mile 60. Then the road turned up mid-chew and I lost a bunch of spots while gasping for air while chewing. I was still at the back of the pack on at the bottom of the climb. Then I was off the back of the climb. I chased the rest of the way up the hill and came in a couple minutes down.

The time trial was hard. TTs are always hard, but this one is hard and uphill. I was mediocre as usual, but I did have some excitement. I was nearly kicked out of the race by this guy.

Now for the good part. The crit course there is a long, slightly downhill straightaway through the start finish, two corners that are really close together, a long, slightly uphill straightaway, and a bottleneck down to one lane coming into two corners that are really close together. This was the hardest crit I did last year. When I say I "did" it, I really mean I "started." We only raced for a half an hour, so it was really fast. I tried being faster than everybody else a few times and went off the front. Nothing ever got away, so I stopped trying after about 15 minutes. I got shuffled a little coming into the last lap and wound up about 30 riders back. I waited until the backside and powered past about 20 guys through there. Then I went really hairball into corner 3 and moved up a few more spots. I came out of corner 4 5th wheel, perfectly positioned for the sprint. I knew I couldn't hold the field off for all three blocks to the line, so I waited a little. I was still the first one to jump. That worked for a while. For 250 of the last 300 yards, there was nothing between me and the line. A guy came around me with about 50 to go and just put in a better sprint than me. I tried but couldn't quite catch him. I wound up in 2nd place.

That's beer you're seeing. Typically, cash is given for doing well at races. I tend to take that cash and buy beer, so this saves a trip to the store.

Stage 4 is the Awbrey Butte Circuit. It's like racing dump loops, which I enjoy doing. It's a bunch of short, steep climbs then a sprint for the line. I liked my odds on that course. We were the only field that didn't get the whole road, so I had to work really hard at staying at the front. That didn't always work, and I had to move up in the corners and hills. Somebody yelled at me for moving up in the corner. I apparently "did the same sh*t in the crit." The same sh*t all the way to the bank! I didn't really care and just kept doing it. I didn't ever actually see who was yelling at me. I would have been intentionally sketchy around him if I had. I moved up a lot on the Archie Briggs climb every lap, so that was a complete reversal of last year. I made it with the lead group over Archie Briggs on the last lap, and was scheming for the sprint. I wanted to make another crazy maneuver in the final roundabout and get a gap between me and the rest of the field. Back in reality, there were cars parked on the descent. We got all slowed down and I got confused and moved to the back of the pack. Had I known about the cars, I would have attacked over the top of the climb and gone crazy through the cars. But I didn't, and just wound up shuffled. I finished in the pack. When I got back to the car, Josh had drank all of my remaining podium beers. He made Ben drive him home. We're an elite cycling team like that.

It says so on the trailer.

Painting Bikes

We got the rental fleet in this week for the . It's a whole bunch of cruisers, but not just any cruisers. These are University of Miami cruisers. You might be asking why Boise State got a bunch of Miami Hurricane-themed bikes. It's a long and confusing story that I'm not even sure of the details, but suffice it to say that we got a deal on them. We can't be checking out UM bikes to BSU students, so we're painting them. Here's where you come in. I'm going to show you some paint schemes that I poorly Photoshopped over the bike and I want your opinion and/or ideas. Leave a comment at the bottom of this and I'll randomly pick somebody to win a prize. If you're a BSU student/faculty/staff, you'll win a free day on one of these beasts. If you're not, I don't really know what you'll win but I promise it will have an equal or greater value than 1 High Five From Brian. Here's the designs:

Let me know what you think!

4th of July

I was in Hailey this morning.  Now I am in my hammock.  I can see the occasional firework through the tree in front of me, but I just don't really feel the need to get up and move.  My hammock is awesome.  Bike people out there: get a hammock.  They're awesome to nap in, you can travel with it and it gets your feet up.  But anyway, back to Hailey.  For those of you who don't know, the Hailey 4th of July crit is held every year after the parade and what appears to be a cowboy fighting a bunch of Indians.  With that as the prelude, the race has to be a good time.  It is too.  The citizens of the Wood River Valley put up a ton of money so there's a prime lap for at least $100 about every other lap.  I thought I saw a firework doing something crazy, but it was just an airplane.  It's got to be nerve wracking to be a pilot taking off at 2230 on the 4th of July.  There's a lot going on there.   Back to the crit.  They announced at the start line that there wouldn't be a prime on lap 1.  Oooh...the top quarter of a green circle!  After lap 1, it was game on.  Sure enough, laps two and three had big money in them.  I wasn't quite ready to be racing at that point so I drifted to the back pretty quickly.  It appears that the plane is just making laps around the fireworks.  I bet he feels like a WWI fighter pilot right now.  According to Ben Monahan, the fighter jets from that era had some sort of timer to keep the machine gun from shooting off the propeller.  So I fought my way back up to the front of the race where I would actually be useful.  The race was a lot easier from the front, but I still had to work pretty hard to stay there since they were constantly giving away money to whoever was at the very front as we crossed the S/F line.  Fireworks are over.  There was a lot of noise for the Grand Finale, but I couldn't see it.  BrianFact: the 5th of July is the busiest day for animal shelters because all the dogs freak out at fireworks.  So after a while I tried getting up the road in a move, and I succeeded.  Remi from Exergy and I contested a prime (more accurately, I sprinted and Remi sped up a little to take it).  I looked back and we had a two corner lead.  Remi sat up shortly after he won his money, and I had to try to figure out what he was thinking as quickly as I could.  My conclusion was that he wasn't going to pull because he is a pro and I am a 3 which makes me an idiot that will work my brains out so he can jump me later and win more money and be off the front and I'd just be left really tired.  But I wanted that break to work, so I was torn between being an idiot and hoping that wasn't what was going on or sitting up and making him do some work.  I decided to take a medium pull for a half a lap then see how he reacted.  When I looked back at him, he said "are you going to work?"  Then I swore at him and said no.  So we got caught pretty quickly.  I still don't really understand Remi's thinking on this one.  We could have just gone, taken a bunch of money, and he would have blown by me at the line.  He's a professional sprinter.  Even if he is out of shape, he should be able to crush me in a sprint.  So we got caught.  A few laps later, there was another prime.  Remi and Josh Berry from RealCyclist.com (the non-Exergy pro in the race) took off.  A corner later I went off after them.  I saw them as I rounded corner 4.  I could tell that they had no idea that I was there and were playing games with each other.  I had another choice to make: do I get on there wheel and hope that they'll work with me to get up the road or do I blow by them and take the money.  At this point I was a little wary of trusting Remi to work with me, and I've got bills to pay.  If they wanted to work with me, they could get on my wheel.  Somebody else is shooting fireworks now, and the road's really busy.  I'm guessing people went up on the Governor's Hill to watch.  So I went flying by Remi and Berry while they were focused on each other.  I won $100!  I was up the road by myself now.  I knew I couldn't hold the field off solo with that many prime laps.  I made up another on the spot plan: I would go hard enough to stay ahead on the peloton for a few laps, but stay within sight of them.  With a little luck somebody would bridge across and we'd be gone.  Nobody came across, and I went back into the field.  A few laps later, 3 Bob's riders got up the road with 1 of the Exergy gingers.  That made me happy, but it also meant that I had work to do.  If anybody tried bridging, I had to ride their wheel up there.  I wasn't going to do any work, but I couldn't let the Bob's to others ratio change.  So I covered moves, then apparently the ginger wouldn't work, and the move came back.  Then Remi, Berry, Hoene and some others went up the road.  Not ideal to have Berry and Remi up there, but we'll take it.  I covered more moves, Berry jumped everybody on a $500 prime and went on to nearly lap the field.  Remi stayed away too, and everybody else got caught.  The neighbors appear to be lighting off fireworks directly under their deck.  This should be fun.  I finished about 10th in the field sprint, and I think 2nd in the 3's behind my teammate Charles, so that's pretty awesome.  They might owe us money for that, but they didn't have results posted when I left.  Hopefully they'll be online.  They weren't last year, but I can hope.  I might have to email the promoter for them.  I don't really care too much about the money since I made back my entry fee and then some for riding fast for a lap, but I need the upgrade points so that I can stop racing for upgrade points for a little while.  I really hate racing for points.  My preferred style is to either win or come in dead last because I did something to try and win and it backfired.  Unfortunately, I now have to race to get a top 5 in a large field so that I'll get a couple points.  There are no points awarded for being in a break for 100 miles only to get caught or for sneaking past two pros for a prime or for covering moves for your teammates in the break.  I don't really know what a better solution would be, but I just really hate racing for points.  I just previewed this and "prime lap" came up as an Ad-Word.  What could that be an ad for?  There's still people driving down the road!  What is going on?  My feet are going numb.  I'm going to bed.