Nice to have evidence that what you are doing is working.
I haven't had any rhubarb since I was a kid, it used to grow wild behind the house where we lived in Michigan. My Mom used to cook it up sort of like applesauce. I'm sure she added a bunch of sugar. I can almost taste it now.

This just in: I still suck at racing. But I'm starting to come to terms with it.

Today I bought a new-to-me 2006 Felt S32 time trial bike. Sort of entry-levelish but it'll be fine for what I want to do (use it in stage races) and maybe I'll find out I'm OK at time trials and do them more regularly (there is a monthly time trial series not that far from here)

So on the spur of the moment I decided to go to a race in Louisiana. There are 2 races this weekend, one in west texas and one in lake charles, LA. The west texas one looks hard as ****. 3 road races in a weekend. The first one is straight up the tallest mountain in texas. There are some 17% grade sections. I would like to go out there and ride, yes. I do not want to race up that mountain. The road race for a cat 4 is also 75 miles - with lots of elevation gain. I think I'd get shredded and dropped pretty much immediately.

The race in Lake Charles is more my speed. 45 mile road race, very short time trial (3 miles!), 40 minute crit. Also my theory is most of the hardasses will be out at Fort Davis.

Part 9 in an ongoing series of "why am I such a pussy about everything"

Cracked me up. Hey, at least you are out there trying.

Where is the race in West Texas? Sounds like the Big Bend area, but that would be a long ways to travel for a race.

I have a partial theory that one of the reasons I don't really do as well as I could in races is that I don't embrace pain the way that a lot of racers seem to. Every time I skip a ride because it's raining and then someone posts some epic 150 mile suffer fest I die inside.

Fort Davis, I think, which is in the big bend area more or less. The first race is up to the Mcdonnell Observatory I think.

So I rode the new time trial bike for the first time today. Trying to get the setup a little better, have no idea what I'm doing in that regard really. Just going to wing it for this race and try to get a proper setup later. Was not using my new aero helmet, because I hadn't even unboxed it and I was running out of daylight.

Does it work? Yeah, I think so.

I beat one of my old KOMs - one that's been unbroken by myself or anyone else for 2 years. I thought no one would ever be likely to beat it - it's up a shallow hill, then down it, then straight for a fair bit. My previous KOM was 27.4 mph, the new KOM beat it by only 1s.

But when I got it 2 years ago, there was a gale force wind behind me. Today there was medium to high wind, by at a cross tail. It probably helped a little but not a ton.

Anyway if I can sustain 27mph in my next time trial I will be pleased a ****ing punch. (Note: that's not a particularly good speed for a short time trial, but let's start with achievable goals)

And a ****ing bee stung me in the middle of this KOM I got so I had to slow down for a sec and brush it off. What a dick. We could have been friends. Of course I probably did slam into him at 30 mph.

I hit a bee with my lip once, he stung me. I should have bit him in half, like Jens Voight.

“Funny thing happened to me in today stage! A bee was sitting on my lip and I thought leave the bee in peace, she won't sting you...,” he wrote.

“Wrong guess, she did, and then i decided to live up to my image and swallowed her and did chew every bit of honey out of that bee!!!” he continued.

“But all good now, lip looks normal again, and it did not bother me at all while I was out there riding. Just another Story for the grandkids.

“And then my lips start to swell an I felt like a stupid Hollywood Starlet with my blown up lip, I looked like I just had some botox!! Hahaha.”

Haha nice. How are they gonna catch me? I'm Jens Mother****ing Voigt.

Oh and I almost forgot, at a different part of the ride I got buzzed by a helicopter. Barely above the treeline. Scared the **** out of me.

We were buzzed by a helicopter last year while paddling. Right at the exit of a cut, ****ers were so low that their prop wash almost swamped the canoe.

So, race report time. I went to Lake Charles, Louisiana for the Race du Lac stage race. 45 mile road race, 3 mile time trial, 40 minute crit. That crit course looked tough as **** too.

It's like... 5 or 6 hours to Lake Charles. **** me. I leave around 1pm and still don't get there until 7:30. **** you Houston traffic. I arrive and pick up my race stuff and the first thing out of someone's mouth is "you must be from out of town?" I say yeah but don't think much of it. I'm starving so I go next door to a pizza place that looks like it's been there since 1950, which is also when it was last cleaned. They have an enormous selection of foreign candy, though, and these dirty places are always the best. I order a 10" pizza and eat the whole thing. It's great.

As I go to pay, the guy at the register says "you must be from out of town?" Now I'm curious. I haven't even opened my mouth or anything. So I say, "Is it that obvious?" and he sort of shrugs, like "yeah". I ask what gives it away. He pauses and says "you're much more put together."

Now, this confuses me. I'm wearing jeans, a rumpled t-shirt, and I haven't shaved in 3-4 days. I just spent 6 hours in a car. Looking around I guess he either means I'm the only normal-BMI dude in a 20 mile radius, and or I'm probably a queer. I ask where he thinks I'm from and he guesses Houston. We chat a while about Houston and Austin and then I leave.

My hotel is a hilarious joke. I mean, it's fine, but the TV uses the top 1/3 of the screen to play a commercial about itself (which I can turn off, but it keeps coming back on when you turn the TV on again) and only has standard def programming, which I didn't think was even possible any more? I have the room to myself because the guy I was travelling/racing with crashed on thursday and tore his face up. I get **** together for the race and go to bed.

Morning of and it is COLD. Like 40 degrees and colder in the shade. I ride about 1/4 of the race loop to warm up and see what the conditions are like. Road looks great, no obstacles, turns look fine, etc. Race starts and the pace is normal. I decide that for once I'm going to concetrate the whole race and try not to do anything dumb.

This is another race where we only get one lane, which on old county roads is often pretty narrow. I remember from my last race that it can be hard to gain positions so when I see a gap on the side open up, I go from the back to about 5th from the front in one go. Good. Now I just need to keep on task and stay up here.

I mostly manage to do so, staying about in the 2nd quarter of the field for the most part. I'm not worrying about actual position too much. People are going off the front and not getting chased, because, uh, it's a long way to go still. They get folded back into the pack soon enough.

The race is 3 laps around a 15 mile loop. Once we start the 3rd loop I think it's time for **** to start happening. With about 12 miles to go we head into a section with a reasonable tail wind - the wind isn't high but but you can feel it. I'm in a good position and I'm ready to follow any group that wants to go. I'm feeling great.

But no one goes. A gap opens up and I'm like, **** it, so I take off myself. I drag 3 guys with me. I look back only once, to make sure that we actually dropped the pack (there is nothing worse than being in a "breakaway" and finding out you've actually been pulling the peloton for miles). The 4 of us yell at each other for a minute to basically negotiate that we'll work together and then off we go.

We actually hold it for a good while, I think probably about 3 miles. We get joined for 3 or 4 more people and then it falls to hell. We stop having a good rotation, we slow down, we get brought back into the group. I don't know how far we got from them, probably no more than a few hundred yards.

Still, though, it was amazing. It's the first time that I feel like I've taken hold of my own outcome, instead of waiting for someone to tow me to the finish, or hoping that I can just finish with the pack, I did what you're supposed to do, and it was fine. It was probably the greatest moment of my cycling career.

For the first time, I thought, "it's possible I could win this race." Not, mind you, that I thought I was going to. But I could imagine it. Before, that was something that was totally incomprehensible. When you're holding on to the back and finishing in 50th or whatever place, you don't think that. Now I think I see a glimmer of how it could be done. I think if I'd had 3-4 team mates we could have won it.

In the end after we're brought in, I stay in the front quarter and follow a few more attempted breaks but nothing sticks at all. There's a crash about 5 miles to the finish, and lots of sketchy situations. I rub someone's wheel from the back but keep upright. Someone's ass bangs into my handlebars and causes me to veer but we both keep it up.

Here's where I made a really crucial mistake. Remember, I'd done the loop 2 times already. The last 2-3 miles to the finish are on a very small road with no shoulder. Very narrow. So whatever position you have going into that section, that's what you're stuck with, there is no way anyone is going to let you by. Since we're now headed to the finish I have no option to move up. I estimate I'm in 15th-20th as is.

Heading to the finish the sprint starts at about 200 yards to go. I pick up speed to stay with the guys around me but I'm not trying to sprint, there is no point, impossible for me to catch anyone in front of me.

And here, the guy in front of me goes down, I don't know why, and I run into him and go down myself, and tumble a bit. I guess probably 3 or 4 guys crashed in total right there at the finish.

And... that was is. I'm OK but my face is bleeding, my jersey is torn to shreds. I get cleaned up and go back to the hotel and my back is aching. I take a hot bath, do some back exercises and then go to get ready for the time trial. Still trying to decide whether I'll do it or not. My plan is to get in position and start it. As long as you start, you can proceed to the next stage (in this race, it varies). If you have a "mechanical" and can't finish then you just get the worst time.

But when I go to get dressed I can't even lean over to put my shorts on. There's literally just no way. I pack my **** and drive the 6 hours home.

And so, that's it. My best race, by far, and a really great sensation for me, kind of a pity it has an asterisk next to it. I'm going to let my back heal and see what happens next, it's feeling better already today so maybe just a week off the bike should do it.

Oh and here's the strava recording
https://www.strava.com/activities/275341112
Pretty speedy race, but it was very flat and not windy (wheras most races here are both windy and hilly)

Some things to note... this is what a race should look like. Heart race averaging in the 140s (which for me is zone 2-3)


And like, here's a power histogram. Look at how much time I spent doing nothing at all. That is the way to do it.

I lol'ed at being "a little more put together", too.

Good job man. Sounds like it's time do bring a few friends next time and chase that victory.

Sounds like standards are pretty low in Louisiana.

Nice trip report, sorry to hear about the crash. Would have been nice to be able to try out the new TT bike.

I learned all I know about racing by watching TV, lol, but on a flat stage without much wind it's really hard to get away from the pack.

Ugh, one of my neck vertebrae is hurting pretty good. Worried I might have cracked it or something. I have an appointment tuesday.

hoping it's nothing serious!

I have a stage race in Fayetteville this weekend, which is basically nowheresville between Houston and Austin (closer to Houston). It's one of the MS150 starting points. This race should be good for me - it's 2 road races and a longer than normal time trial. The road races are, I think, 35 miles and 45 miles, and the TT is 9 miles. This is actually kind of my sweet spot I think. At 25 mph this is 21:30. I have better than average power for time periods of 10-20 minutes (and worse than average power for times under than or above that I think). This will be my first time trial on the TT bike and with the new helmet. I think it has a turnaround which I am nervous about.

Next week there is a single road race in Cold Springs, TX, which is north and east of Houston a fair bit. I think it's 45 miles which should be fine.

I am really going to try to properly strategize these this time. I did much better last race, aside from, uh, crashing. I would really love to finish somewhere in the top 1/4 of one of the road races and I want a top half finish in the GC.

Oh and I guess I never reported back. My doctor told me I was a pussy and that my neck was fine. He offered me muscle relaxants anyway, which I declined. We high fived and chest bumped and then I went to work.

Never turn down muscle relaxers or pain pills. They always come in handy down the road. No, I'm not an addict, lol. Glad your neck is fine.

Good luck on the race.

did you ever link or post an image of your tt bike?
glgl

We have a few full bottles of vicodin in the medicine cabinet. I never used it when I had my back problems initially. The muscle relaxers I did use back then, though.

I don't think so. It's nothing special, really, it's an entry level aluminum Felt S32. It's this one:
http://www.bikepedia.com/quickbike/B...Felt&model=S32
same color and everything.

The advantage of the TT bike, as far as I can tell, is like 95% positioning. I went in and had it fitted. It is not comfortable. But the longest TT I'll do is 40k (about 25 miles) which should be sub-1-hour. I can put up with it for an hour.

nice.

yeah, it's all about being as aero as possible. mainly your position, but also the wheels, seat post etc.
make sure that you use a race jersey (as tight fitting as possible; or a skin suit, hehe), shoe covers and no gloves, it matters a lot more for a TT than most people think.

I don't have shoe covers, I need to order some (well, I do, but they're cold weather gear). I hadn't thought about gloves. They actually make TT specific gloves but they seem a bit silly. I have a fancy aero helmet that I've never actually worn, I'll wear it for the first time this weekend. I find it claustrophobic but I think it'll be OK. I ordered a road suit - it's like a skin suit but it includes back pockets. I will use it for both road races and TT once I get it.

I remember I found a pretty good page once that gave reasonable estimates of how much power you can save with a given improvement, and how much it cost. It then ranked those things in order of $/watts, which makes sense to me. Pick off all the low hanging fruit. On that list were (in no particular order, but all within the $100ish price range)
* fix your position
* shoe covers (these offer a minimal savings - but they're like 20 bucks, so...)
* aero helmet (mine was a $120 Bell)

almost everything else was well off the list - fancy aero tubing and disc wheels and stuff. Those things help but they're expensive.