1" Of Rubber

I did an epic today, a damn 19.83 mile epic. Apparently distance isn't everything.

My friend Matt and I saddled up in Hollywood, far from my regular riding haunts. Due to a recent layoff I found myself with a far more flexible riding schedule temporarily and decided to capitalize on that by visiting some LA riding buddies. Many think LA & Hollywood riding is a wonderland for fixie clad hipsters that spend their hours dodging in between buses. I promise, if you look my friends, there are some wonderfully steep climbs and quiet roads to be had for the adventurous roadie in the hills of Hollywood.

The route was pretty straight forward, we climbed Nichol's Canyon and areas surrounding, descended Mulholland and then trekked into Griffith Park. We climbed steep grades that were often times all but destroyed, I consider myself a decent bike handler but the condition of some of the roads tested my abilities. As we climbed up towards the top we finally found ourselves at the peak of a mountain, sitting around 60 or 70 feet above the Hollywood sign. Twenty seven years in LA and I had never seen it from the back.



We had ridden only about 10.5 miles but had climbed around 2,400 feet. Ahead of us lay a short but treacherous descent from the peak, followed by about a half a mile of undulating fire roads and then a paved descent back down to Sunset Blvd. Truly an unexpected adventure, from the top of the peak to the north I could see Burbank, to the south Hollywood & Los Angeles. I was dusty and very satisfied to stand on top of Los Angles looking down. All the blaring sirens and obnoxious horns were vague noise far in the distance. The mighty flow of traffic on the 101 freeway below was now a dull unidentifiable murmur.



During the descent my knuckles went white as I dodged rocks, sticks, mounds of sand and areas where pavement was just non existent. Once safely back on well paved tarmac we made a quick assent and before we knew it found ourselves riding on dirt trails. We joked that mountain bikes might have been a better choice for this ride. For a roadie I embrace poor road quality, and I adore riding my road bike on dirt trails, partially for the adventure and partially for the attrition. We passed hikers, dogs, and so much poop I have to imagine there are bears roaming Griffith Park. After a trying month, this is what I needed, a reminder of why I saddle up in the first place; for the adventure.

As we left the dirt trail and started a speedy descent back into the city I looked down at my front tire. That dusty 1" wide piece of German made rubber spinning beneath me, acting as my small foot print on these roads. I looked at it spin, sturdily holding back the high pressure the thin inner tube hidden in it's casing was putting on it's beads. I looked up as I approached the next turn, I adjusted my body position, scrubbed my speed accordingly and felt the weight of my bike and body push into the camber of the road.



As I straightened back out I thought of the 1" of rubber that was rolling underneath me as I screamed down the descent, all cyclists have done this. That 1" of rubber stood up to so much abuse on this ride, sharp rocks, glass, potholes. I thought about the fact that every time I took to a descent, every time I found a high rate of velocity on my bicycle I put an immense amount of trust into this thin 1" piece of rubber. Finding oneself with a total blowout of the front tire during a high speed descent is a fear every road cyclist has. It is not a guarantee that you will meet the asphalt, but in many cases it is hard to recover from a catastrophic failure of the front tire during a high speed descent.

As the descent neared an end I found myself in my own head considering what I had put the tire through on this day and how I was nearing the end of my ride in one piece and safe. The magic of the 1" of rubber, such a minimalist design yet so sturdy. Allowing me to on the same ride climb over sharp rocks and across dirt passes, yet holding me upright while I took turns at 35 m.p.h. on nicely paved roads. Never faltering in providing a smooth fast ride, another day was in the books.

As I sat and sipped my coffee I considered the thousands and thousands of miles I have spent on 1" of rubber in the last four years. Those two minuscule contact points your road bike makes, they are part of the magic of riding a road bicycle. Being suspended with such authority by so little, purely efficient, 1" of rubber is freedom. It is freedom to explore this world leaving minimal tracks. 1" of rubber is freedom to explore new places with friends. That 1" of rubber is freedom to push your body farther.

This is my ode to 1" of rubber, that small contact I have with the world while riding my bicycle. Cherish it, respect it and it will reciprocate. That small piece of rubber combined with your determination can bring you to places you never imagined existed.

1"

-Nick

J.R.Y.D.B.

50,000 +/- miles, truly used to it's maximum potential. Wish I had the dedication to wear a bike like this.



Inspiration.

- Nick

It's Better To Suffer Together

Once again I find myself late on posting a blog, but Everest Challenge 2011 warranted an entry late or not. After giving up the ghost and realizing I had not had the time to put in the miles to train for EC I decided that I would still make it out to Bishop to be a part of the event. With 16 La Grange riders competing in the event I assumed the roll of 1/3rd of La Grange's support crew at EC. I was privileged to see the event unfold behind the wheel of the support car, I even dusted off my camera to make some images for the first time in years.



For those of you who don't know what Everest Challenge is, let me quickly get you up to speed. In short EC is a two day USAC race that takes place in late September in Bishop California. Being the CA/NV climbing championships this two day race shapes up to be 208 miles with 29,035 feet of climbing. Yes that's right TWENTY NINE THOUSAND FEET. This race is pure hell, whether you enter the non-competitive category or you approach it as a race, it is pure attrition. The only thing more spectacular than the riders determination and sacrifice is the picturesque backdrop provided by the mountains.



Having not worked feed before I had no idea what I was in for. I knew what the race was like and had heard about the exploits of La Grange's successful EC campaign of 2010 but figured I was in for an easy weekend of beers and handing out bottles; not the case. With 16 riders competing this year we had our work cut out for us between two team cars and three feeders. Due to a shoulder injury one of our juniors had to abandon after finishing stage one and assumed the roll of feeder number 4 on Sunday.



My day Saturday started at 4:45 AM, waking up on a hotel room floor trying to stretch a painful kink in my neck out. I lethargically arose with two of our races who I shared the room with and walked over to Denny's at 5 for an early breakfast. After some greasy 'Merican food, I hopped behind the wheel of my adopted vehicle for the weekend, a speedy little Mazda 3 wagon with a turbo and off I went. As the sun rose, I shuttled riders to the start. The sunrise was beautiful as I went back and forth in and out of town and the day got brighter and brighter as the pelotons took off in waves.





The best part about a race like this whether you race it or support it is the bonding that happens between teammates. Odysseys like this tend to temper friendships and foster trust in one another, collective suffering is always far more pleasant than taking on a challenge solo. Once the riders were all off riding into the chilly high dessert morning my feeding partner Marc and I sat down with our other feeder Joe to figure out how the day was going to work. We decided to set up feeds in between the sanctioned feeds, allowing us to alternate feed zones so that while one was feeding the other car would be driving up the road to the next zone.





Our little Mazda was packed to the brim with coolers full of bottles and supplies, we were never without a bottle of electrolyte pills to force upon the often times mentally destroyed riders. Setting up a feed is no small task, there is no room for error, if a rider is given the wrong bottle with the wrong mix, a carefully planned nutritional plan can go wrong very quickly. Upon stopping at a feed we would rush out of the car and completely unload it onto the side of the road. Then we would quickly organize everything for the approaching riders, and wait.

As rider after rider came through, some stopped, taking on food casually allowing us time to give them pep talks and make sure they were hydrated. Others flew through the zones forcing us to literally run along with them pulling exhausted bottles off their bikes and jamming on fresh bottles with electrolytes taped onto them.



The hours ticked on and I saw riders who normally appear as indestructible reduced to exhausted and destroyed men, tested by the mountain just attempting to turn over the cranks to arrive at the peak of the last climb of day one. We ran, we drove, we mixed bottles, we lied through our teeth downplaying the severity of what lay ahead to motivate tired riders to continue on. No matter how bad it seemed to hurt, the riders just kept suffering, turning over the cranks.





The resolve of the racers was stunning, by the end of day one all our riders arrived back down to the base of the last climb. Their eyes were sunken and red, dried salt ran down the sides of their faces. As the sun started to hide behind the mountains we headed home, day one was in the books. The work continued into the night with a production line of bottle emptying, cleaning and refilling. Finally as riders headed to bed the feed crews work was done. We repacked the car, I had a quick Sierra Nevada, and went back to my hotel room floor for some much needed sleep.



Day two started identical to the first, waking to a pitch black sky and a sub par omelet. The riders were tired, you could see it in their eyes. While today's course profile was shorter than stage I, the grades were treacherous. On stage one I spent more time on the side of the road waiting, but today I would finally head up into the mountains to see first hand what the riders were going through. The sun rose as we drove out to the start of the final day. Today we only would have to be at one road side feed, we unloaded the car and waited.





Some riders screamed through the zone, barking at us for their particular bottle or food, others casually rode through, stopping to take on nourishment. Our crew of support had grown to four, and with one person down the road radioing us the names of incoming riders, we were a well oiled machine. Our focus was getting every single rider through this day. I saw red eyes, sunken cheeks and swollen veins. The first two climbs of the day revisited the same feed before sending the riders up the final brutal climb. Legs screamed, electrolytes ran low, but no one wanted to quit. The last rider came through and into the mountains we drove.



As we drove up we stopped at each teammate we saw, gave bottles, electrolytes, bars and verbal support. Whether teammates or not we gave unhinged riders pep talks, helped them remount their bikes and gave pushes to encourage stiff legs to turn over cranks. The air was dry and thin as we neared 10,000 feet of elevation. Road side feeds now had a 6% grade to their tables and I found my follow car staying in nothing above 3rd gear. We caught rider after rider, some seemed to fly, others struggled. We knew our top racers were nearing the summit at this point. Once all riders had been tended to we made our rounds, ascending and descending the mountain following our riders.





As each rider reached the summit we hovered closer and closer to the top until we finally found our self driving along side the last riders to the top of the mountain. We cheered and screamed from the team car, it was like a scene from a World Tour race, and as the last rider crossed the line our duty was done. We stood at the summit, with our team, tired and dirty. I had expected to feel saddened that I hadn't ridden the course with them, but the experience was incredible nonetheless. There is nothing like a team effort to bring racers closer together.

The top of the summit was so big it was a small valley, like a crater. We dined on cheese and refried bean quesadillas from the support tent. The riders with their stomachs bloated from hours of ingesting liquid calories savored the food. It was time to descend, some rode down, we drove. It was time to relinquish the wheel of my trusty team car to it's rightful owner, and as we drove down the mountain I quickly fell asleep in the passenger seat, with the dry mountain air blowing in my face.

Sometimes you don't even need to mount your bike to experience an incredible race, sometimes you just need to support incredible teammates. Seeing what these men and women accomplished was nothing short of inspiring.  As the weekend drew to an end La Grange was able to close the book on another successful Everest Challenge, and I feel privileged to have been part of it.






Suffer as one

-Nick

Pay It Forward

Cyclists don't always have the best reputation in the communities we ride in. We come in, take over roads and let's face it, often times roadies aren't the warmest of people; this is especially true in Palos Verdes. We saw this nice older lady on the side of the road on PV Drive West with a bad flat tire and decided to take a break from our ride to help her out.  After a quick 15-minute wheel change we received a very warm thank you and she was on her way. Sometimes I think roadies really need to pay it forward more often. It's a two way street if we want to make this a better world for cyclists.

Just a thought

-Nick

Letting Go

Almost four years I've been purely focused on riding bikes, oftentimes at the expense of my career, personal relationships and a normal social life. It started as cross training for rock climbing, then turned into trying to complete a century, and quickly graduated to racing. Within one and a half years, I was obsessively journaling my rides, researching training plans and avoiding anything I felt would derail my progress as an amateur racer.

Finally, within two years of getting my first road bike, I would not be found riding without a heart rate strap and a Garmin. Missing a day of intervals due to fatigue or work was absolutely unacceptable in my eyes. This in turn resulted in a sense of stress for the rest of the day, I often times found myself unnecessarily sidelined by illness or even injury. Very few of my friends and family understood this new obsession, while the health benefits were obviously a positive, my life had become incredibly unbalanced.

Nearing four years since I started riding, and three since I started racing I have found myself finally having to let life take over. Presented with a fantastic career opportunity I was no longer able to balance training and progressing in my career. Something had to give, and for the first time, it was going to be the bike.

As I started to realize that if I was to achieve the goals I needed to meet in the coming months in order to get to the next step in my career I was going to have to step away from training. For the first time in four years, I found myself riding a mere 45 miles a week at best. This was quite the departure from the 200-250 miles I normally logged per week in many parts of the year.

Wasn't it all about having fun anyways?

I found myself not wanting to ride, the lack of a training plan left me not knowing what to do when I got on the bike; I was uninspired. I just could not get my mind out of the training mindset, I had forgotten why I even loved riding in the first place, but I was damn sure it wasn't from heart rate data and 3x20x10 intervals. I decided it was time to ditch the journal, Garmin, and all the other training tools I had adopted over the last three years and get back to where I was when I got my first bike in 2008.

Let me make it clear, I am no way against any of these things, or training. I fully plan on returning to training, maybe focusing on something other than crits in the future, but I think part of the pleasure of road cycling is the competitive and scientific aspects of it. Training brought new levels of discipline to my life, and taught me work habits that translated off the bike helping make me a more ambitious person. In the end though I feel that everyone needs a new perspective every once and awhile.

So lately I've explored the world of riding without data, no idea of my speed, cadence or heart rate. No worry about riding too fast, too slow, too long or too short. My biggest concerns on my most recent rides have been the quality of conversation instead of the quality of miles ridden, or perhaps even more importantly, the quality of the post ride coffee. It has been refreshing to remember why I found this sport so engaging initially.

What I find even more refreshing is that I feel like I have rediscovered motivation to train, to get back to racing with the same enthusiasm I had in 2009 and 2010. While my work will continue to keep me off the bike till around November, I am definitely champing at the bit to return to morning rides before work, and long days in the saddle with teammates on the weekends.

So sometimes I guess life just has to get in the way. While it's tough to work towards a goal only to see your hard work slip through your fingers as your body goes soft, it can be a necessary evil. For all those people like me who are scared to step away, some fresh perspective might just be good for you, and the bike will always be just where you left it. The same though, can't be said about some of the opportunities life throws at you.

Here's to hairy legs and lattes.

-Nick

It’s Not About The Bike, Sometimes

A lot of people don’t understand cycling, the shorts, expensive bikes, countless hours of arduous training and definitely not the shaved legs. To them it just seems like an awful lot of effort and obsession for a mere hobby. Often times it’s not something I can explain, I simply refer to it as “le velo vie” or “the bicycle life.”

You cannot explain the feeling of rising with the sun and riding your bike through the twisting roads breathing in the fresh morning air. You cannot relate the feeling of pushing your body to its limit and then some as you ride with your friends on a tough training ride. I often just feel bad for people who will never partake in these experiences.



I recently read the book “Roadie: The Misunderstood World of a Bike Racer” by Jamie Smith. This book really sums up the culture of road cycling; it’s not pedantic and maintains a good sense of humor about road culture. If you’ve just started riding, even if you’re a seasoned vet you should pick up this book; it’s a good read.

The more time I spend on the bike, I realize that riding is only one part of what makes this sport so great. There are a lot of days where the only reason I get on the bike to train is because I know I get to hang out with awesome friends that will push me to new levels. So if you’re having a tough season or are a bit burned out, pick up this book, it might give you a new perspective.

Le velo vie.

- Nick

RACE/CRASH REPORT: Torrance Crit

A wise man once said “Shit happens when you party naked” and when I say a wise man, I mean I saw it on a t-shirt. Nonetheless if I had to sum up the perils of criterium racing into a simple phrase, that would be the six words I would use.

After a DNF at Ontario and another at Dana Point Grand Prix over the last two weeks I was beginning to fear some sort of mid season slump like last year. I decided I needed to jump into a crit ASAP to break out of my funk. I proceeded to sign up for the Torrance criterium which wasn’t originally on my race calendar.

I just needed a pack finish under my belt to get back in the game mentally, I decided that I would relax and not psyche myself out. The course was flat with four turns and definitely suited my strengths. The field was also small and full of PAA riders I knew, no La Grange riders were racing so upon arrival it almost felt like I was back on PAA for a day. Aside from high winds it was a really nice day for a good hard race.

As we rolled out I decided to play it safe and sit in the pack for the first 10-15 minutes while I gauged how my legs were feeling and made sure I had the gas to finish the race. From the start I was feeling strong but foolishly continued to sit mid pack and play it safe. PAA was out front doing a lot of work but the pace was very manageable.

About 15 minutes into the race I was feeling really good and I made the decision it was time to move up to the front and have some fun, as well as get out of my current sketchy mid pack position. Before I could make a move we came out of the 3rd turn and I heard that familiar sound of yells and bikes hitting the pavement; except this time it was closer than ever before…

All week I had really been thinking that this would be it, this would be the race where I would have my first race crash, but as I watched two riders hit the ground in front of me I couldn’t believe it. I looked to my left, then to my right, there was no way out. I looked forward and a third rider went down, I braced myself for the inevitable.

I remember grabbing my brakes thinking I could stop myself but at 26 mph I just went sliding. My front wheel hit the down rider’s bike and I went flying over my bars. The next thing I remember was landing on one of the downed riders and hearing him yell. Suddenly I could feel the weight of a rider slamming down on top of me, then a strong pain in my right leg.

I remember lying there for a second in a pile of bikes and riders, and feeling drips of fluid hitting my face; I couldn’t figure out if it was water from a bottle on one of the bikes or blood. As I began to stand up weakly I saw a rider in the pile up throw someone’s bike off of his. Another rider was on his knees yelling loudly, I couldn’t tell if he was in pain, just furious about crashing or both.

I stood up and looked over my body, outside of a gash above my knee and a horrible pain in my right calf muscle I seemed ok. I picked up my bike and limped over to a grassy hill and proceeded to lay in a fetal position. Another rider sat down next to me and lay there groaning in pain.

About 30 seconds passed before I decided I wanted more, I limped over to my bike and picked it up. My bike looked ok, so I frantically fed the chain back onto the gears and rode over to the wheel pit. A La Grange member was in the wheel pit and looked over my bike as the speeding peloton approached out of the 4th corner.

I asked him if my kit was torn, he told me it wasn’t and the USAC official looked at me and said, “Is that really what you’re concerned about?” I replied “Yah! I only have one!” They gave me a push as the peloton flew by and before I knew it I was back in the pack.

The adrenaline was so high I found myself in the top 15 riders, we had 20 minutes to go and I decided to put the pain out of my mind and make the most of it. I made a hard jump off the front trying to bridge up to a PAA rider who was getting reeled in by the speeding peloton. The pain in my calf quickly got the best of me and I fell back into the pack.

I hammered hard for the rest of the race managing to stay in the front of the group, as it got increasingly aggressive in the last 3 laps I decided to take it easy and I ended up sitting in the middle of the pack while the peloton fought it out for the sprint. I rolled through the finish with the back of the group for 37th place.

As soon as I got off the bike the pain in my calf was horrible, I couldn’t walk and had to pedal over to my car with one leg. After a quick visit to medical I was bandaged up and on my way home painfully trying to work the pedals in my car.


Chain-rings are sharp!
After it was all said and done I have to say, I’m kind of relieved I finally took a spill in a race. It wasn’t fun but after almost two years of racing I knew it was coming, and sometimes the fear is the worst part of all. So in the end I walked away with my pack finish and no serious injuries, and that my friends, well that’s bike racing; and I still love it to death.

Keep the rubber side down!

-Nick