BFF

This year's Bicycle Film Festival looks really good...Road to Roubaix, The Six-Day Bicycle Races, film shorts on bmx, messengers, David Millar (I hope they show him clubbing in Europe!!), etc. The above photo is from the Six Day Bicycle Races movie.

Looks like Toronto and Chicago are the two closest stops for this event.

Race!

Don't forget to check out the two upcoming Mahoning Valley Cycling Club events...the Race for Alex on Sunday June 1 (a circuit race) and the Mill Creek Park Race (a criterium) on Sunday June 8. These are both very well run events on good courses. Link to info for both races is here.

Here is a photo of the break from last year's Mill Creek Park race:

The week in pictures, W.Va style

Arrive at cabin.



Ride.



Cook.



Eat.



Hike.



Repeat, several times.

The Brave Sir Reuben...

...earned his first agility title on Sunday.

The plan has come together

Finally.

And reservations have been made. After talking about it for a few years, this is the year I'll be doing the four-day Green Mountain Stage Race in Vermont from August 29 - September 1.

Now I just need to learn how to ride hills like those New England folks.

Thanks USCF

As I've already discussed on this blog, my trip to the (canceled) Bull Run Farm road race north of Cincinnati was a pretty big debacle. To add insult to injury, I also managed to lose my USCF racing license that day when I got it back from the promoter after turning in my timing chip.

A replacement license....a piece of paper with my info printed on it....costs $15. Wow, that really gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling inside. Sure, it's a donation to USA cycling, but I prefer my donations to be voluntary, not coerced. And I prefer that they be to organizations in which I have confidence with the way they are currently being run.

Lame.

Food for Thought

I tend to eat a lot. Biking makes me eat more. No surprise there. Did you ever wonder how all of that excess eating affects the world food supply? Yea, I know, we can drive ourselves nuts worrying about all of this stuff. But it's at least worth thinking about. And discussing. While out on the next ride, burning a bunch of calories.

And yes, I know, there are a million other reasons for food shortage issues....inefficiencies in the distribution chain, bad governments, subsidies to not grow crops, etc. etc.

Here is an excerpt from a recent article in the New Yorker:

The problem is not just the number of mouths to feed; it’s the quantity of food that each mouth consumes when there are no natural constraints. As the world becomes richer, people eat too much, and too much of the wrong things—above all, meat. Since it takes on average four pounds of grain to make a single pound of meat, Roberts writes, “meatier diets also geometrically increase overall food demands” even in those parts of Europe and North America where fertility rates are low.
***
Even now, there is no over-all food shortage when measured by global subsistence needs. Despite the current food crisis, last year’s worldwide grain harvest was colossal, five per cent above the previous year’s. We are not yet living on Cormac McCarthy’s scorched earth. Yet demand is increasing ever faster. As of 2006, there were eight hundred million people on the planet who were hungry, but they were outnumbered by the billion who were overweight. Our current food predicament resembles a Malthusian scenario—misery and famine—but one largely created by overproduction rather than underproduction. Our ability to produce vastly too many calories for our basic needs has skewed the concept of demand, and generated a wildly dysfunctional market.

Deep thought

Driving through the country and watching people spend hours obsessively mowing their multiple-acre yards/farmland before the grass has hardly even grown since the last time it was mowed makes me feel better about spending several hours a week riding and racing bikes.

That thought occurred to me while driving to southern Ohio on Saturday after racing in the final Race at the Lake.

The 1-2-3 race averaged around 26.9 mph and featured a bunch of dudes much more fit than I making people like me hurt a whole bunch for about an hour. How's that for a race report?

Here is a video of the riders entering the final lap:




Here is the finish:

Well said

Cycle tracks will abound in Utopia.

~H.G. Wells

Westlake

Today was my first Westlake race of the year. We had four SBR's in the A field, including myself, John E., Chris B., and Tom K.

I managed to grab the first prime. Then, somewhere around halfway into the race, a well represented break got away without anyone from the team in it.

The field managed to catch the break with less than a half lap to go, and a mass field sprint ensued. Not much else to say, other than we didn't crack the top five.

I think we raced for about 40 miles, and averaged somewhere a bit above 26mph.

Bull Run Farms Road Race

Sunday presented many race options for those who were willing to drive 3 - 4.5 hours. A bunch of us from SBR decided to make the trip to southern Ohio for the Bull Run Farms Road race. It was closer and had a later start time than the Wilkesville to Wilkesville race that same day, and it was less likely to end in a flat tire than the Cone Azalia race (which featured 2.5 miles of gravel roads each lap) in Michigan.

The race was a disaster. After a bit more than one lap of riding around totally clustered with 60 other Cat 3's and no ability to move around because the center line rule was STRICTLY enforced and teams with riders in the break were blocking like crazy, the race was stopped because of two separate accidents, neither of which were in my field.

They postponed the race and are going to move it to a new location on a different day.

Did I mention that the second turn had cones along the center line of the road onto which we turned, right after the apex of the turn? Brilliant.

After the races were canceled, a few of us did a 20 some mile hammerfest. About 40 miles in all, including warm up, and 8 hours of driving.

I heart bike racing.

$147.77 road bike

Here is link to the bike.

Note that the GMC logo of the bike looks like the BMC brand logo, the Cionlli seat sure sounds (and looks) like Cinelli, and the style and font of the Vitesse logo on the wheels sure looks like the Easton wheels logo.

This bike appears to have more trademark violations than Wal-Mart has employees who receive health insurance.

edited: They changed the bike. The current photo is of a different bike than the one I had talked about in this post.

Justice

A few weeks ago, I received a completely bogus ticket in Euclid for making an illegal left turn into the driveway of a business. I won't bore you with the details other than saying that I had resigned to the fact that I broke the law until I took another look at the "no left turn" sign I allegedly failed to obey and realized that it was actually more misleading than I had thought. Unfortunately I was driving home from paying the ticket when I realized this.

This ticket made me think about how many times drivers dangerously pass bicyclists with oncoming traffic or on a blind hill/corner. This is pretty much a given for most motorists, and it happens in front of police officers all of the time. Has anyone ever gotten a ticket for doing this? Perhaps unsafe operation of a vehicle? Driving like a selfish jackass? This happened twice last night on a group ride and scared the life out of us both times.

I guess it's only fair that I pay $125 for a victimless crime based on a deceiving sign while drivers everyday place our lives (and the lives of oncoming traffic) at risk for the sake of saving 6 seconds...and never receive a ticket.

What's yours is mine, until I return from this errand

Here is a link to a recent Plain Dealer Article by Jim Nichols about the heavy use of bicycles in Oberlin, Ohio and the city's problem of having dozens of bikes abandoned by students at the end of the semester. I also enjoy the part about the students who will "borrow" a stranger's bike for a quick trip, then return it.

I'm down with the whole communal property thing and all, but please don't think about "borrowing" my Cervelo race bike. That could be a problem.

Tour of Perry County

I ventured to Somerset, Ohio on Saturday to do the Tour of Perry County Road Race. I was already going to be in the area, so the 2.5+ hour drive wasn't a big deal. Two laps on a 17 mile loop, which happens to be one of the hardest loops I've ever raced. There were about 30 riders total, so the promoter raced us all together and scored us separately based on categories. Dave T. from SBR was also there.

I managed to make the winning break on the first major hill of the first lap. Our group swelled to seven at one point, then fell to five riders after going through town at the start of lap two. The five of us stayed together for almost the entire last lap until someone attacked one of the many hills in the last few miles. I couldn't respond, but still maintained fifth overall, and third in the 3/4 field.

Dave T. raced really well, finishing 4th in the 4/5 field and in the top half of riders overall.

So far, all of the Team Columbus races I've done this year have been well run, safe, well-marshaled, and have featured great courses.

The roll out.




The break goes through town at the beginning of lap 2.







Dave T. near the finish.








Here is a video of the three leaders finishing. Note that the finishing hill did not even feel like a hill compared to the rest of the course. The finish is after the turn.

Wow.

While recently looking through some old pictures, I found a photo of myself from the 2003 Chippewa Creek (Brecksville) road race. At the time, I was a very recreational cyclist who dabbled in the occasional Citizen's race. And I was about 45 pounds heavier than I am now. Ouch, does that hill look hard with all of that junk.

I think I need to keep that photo next to the pantry where I keep the cheezy poofs, as a reminder.

We have a winner

Congrats to Thom D., who knew the answer to yesterday's contest question. The name of the song was Broken Bicycles by Tom Waits. Although Thom failed to read the fine print of the contest rules and e-mailed me his answer instead of posting it as a comment to the blog, I will cut him some slack and still declare him the winner.

I conducted a post-contest e-mail interview with our lucky winner Thom. Here is the text of the interview with answers in italics:

1. who is your favorite spice girl?
cardamom spice

2. have you ever romanced or attempted to romance someone while listening to tom waits?
yes, certainly. even mr. waits himself...

3. shimano or campy or sram?
ShRAMpy. (ok, campy)

4. do you consider yourself?
a) a tom waits fan
b) ambivalent about tom waits
c) someone who dislikes tom waits
d) someone who only knows about tom waits because you look cool as hell at parties when people start talking about him and you can hold your own in the conversation
answer: a

5. who has better hair, quick step's tom boonen or csc's fabian cancellara?
boonen's euro-mullet trumps all, even from history.

6. do you ever sing tom waits songs in the shower? if so, which ones?
Any I can remember. One can only imitate his voice while gargling steamy water.

7. how has winning this contest changed your life?
It has increased my daily email activity by a full 3 percent.

(end of interview)

Here is a video of Mr. Waits performing Broken Bicycles at the Montreal Jazz Fest in 1981. Look at the angle of that tipped hat!!

A contest!!

The first person to leave a comment to this post identifying the artist and name of the song with the following lyrics will win wild praise from this blog, a prize not to be underestimated. And no, you're not allowed to cheat and use the internet to find the answer.

Broken bicycles, old busted chains
With rusted handle bars, out in the rain
Somebody must have an orphanage for
All these things that nobody wants any more
September's reminding July
It's time to be saying goodbye
Summer is gone, but our love will remain
Like old broken bicycles out in the rain
Broken bicycles, don't tell my folks
There's all those playing cards pinned to the spokes
Laid down like skeletons out on the lawn
The wheels won't turn when the other has gone
The seasons can turn on a dime
Somehow I forget every time
For all the things that you've given me will always stay
Broken, but I'll never throw them away

Everyone and their mother...

...showed up for this past weekend's Race at the Lake in Munroe Falls, OH. They also all blogged about it after the race. My own mother, however, did not race. She recently had a total knee replacement. She also didn't blog about the race, because she still has a dial-up internet connection and rarely uses her computer. Neither would I if I had to wait five minutes every time I wanted to view a new page.

Anyways, the Elite Cat 1-2-3 field was full of studs (the author of this post not being one of them, to state the obvious). After it started, I was actually having a decent time. That is rare for me at a crit. Then it got fast, and the obviously unseasoned racer on whose wheel I was riding decided to quit by slowing down and pulling out of the race. This person was from a team you would not expect that behavior from, which is why I was on his wheel to begin with. I'll leave it at that.

The problem was that there were several people (including me) on his wheel when he slowed down and made his hard right turn to exit the race. At the time, I was maxed out and frustrated. I closed the gap to the next guy, who then also blew. At that point, it was game over for me. I spent the rest of the race relaxing in the team car (my Element) and spectating as the dwindling field sprinted past the parking lot every lap.

SBR's Tom K. rode very well and hung in there with the main field until the end.

Like usual, the race was run extremely well by the Summit Freewheelers. Props to them for all of their hard work.

Watch the Tour of Georgia live for free

Go here:

www.wcsn.com

Now the workplace productivity of American cyclists/bike racers this week will take a bit of a hit. Oh well. Most of us don't take smoke breaks though, so this is payback.