Paris-Roub- I mean Ancaster

(Hell of the North, Sector 1)

It has been awhile since this blog has seen much of anything in the way of new posts. Naturally the fives of people who read it must be profoundly disappointed. Or something.

Spring is in the air, robins are peeping around, and until today we had a nice dry spell where I got to race the 'cross bike in some long, demanding early season races before the whole roadie thing takes over everything. Yesterday was the second of two Paris-Roubaix Canadian knock-off races, both of which I completed.

Paris-Ancaster is a monster event with over 2000 participants. I was spared the routine of being sandwiched into a school bus at the finish to be bussed to the start as I am now racing for ZM Cycle and got a ride to the start in the team gas guzzler rammed full of middle-aged adventurer men in ridiculous blue and yellow Lycra.

The real deal was the week before, 100 km further up in the 'Hell off the North' which La Bicicletta ran this year (and superbly well I might add). It had 92 racers, and was much colder and longer at 89 kms of road and trail. I bonked with about 25kms to go, but I still pulled off about 30th. That was a really epic bike race.

I finally rode the Mudslide at P-A this year, or tried to anyway, doing a couple of half-crashes in slow motion inside the 250 metre long downhill muck trench filled with big rocks. It was still good fun. All twenty gears seemed to be working fine on my muck-covered bike with the final climb to go at kilometre 59.5. P-A traditionally ends with a steep dirt road climb out of a gully and can say that I was must pleased to be in my 34x27 gear whilst doing it. I even sprinted the last 25 m to nip a guy at the line, 106th of 1202 finishers thank you.

It's hard to describe the whole arc of the process from day before prep to race start and enduring it to hitting peak-working in pacelines-dropping people-final ascent-recovery-return home. A huge journey inside a controlled adventure of a few hours. Endorphins replaying the whole thing in your head hours after.

Yellow.

The solution to everyone's problems.

Icycle '09 Dufferin Grove Park Rink

Photo: Frank Theriault
Les pistards sur glace: Panama Jack vs. Pete 'Bones' Breward

The ice race played out in all its icy glory. (Jim 'Ice bear' Kuz chases Ted Ingram in the final. Eventually Kuz crashed on a flat tire in a corner and took Ingram down with him.) There were lots of 'cross machines in attendance. Good weather, fine times and a bit of a crowd too!

WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?

Tyler Hamilton, riding in the cold and sopping wet Tour of California yesterday, along with two of his boys at Rock Racing who are apparently too tough to wear gloves or rain jackets unlike everyone else. Well, they were defending the leader's jersey. And they are Rock Racing. We are deep in the depths of a not very bad winter here in southern Ontario; the sun has been shining for whole days. Temperatures have been hovering around the O degrees Celsius mark in the last days, and I have been totally uninterested in racing a bike for months now. As in, no training of any kind and disgusted at even the thought of participation in a road race.



Until Sunday. We had one of these one degree and blazing bright days that screamed for a bike ride of one kind or another - even A. felt the urge and that guy can sit in front of his computer in the dark of his bedroom under any circumstances. We rolled out as three, with our wise old Yoda of the bicycle, the one and only D. D. took one look at me with my bib knickers and race-ish white road bike, and said "That's serious, man". What did he mean?



"I've got double overbooties on" was my only reply.



Of course, D., who's been an amateur road racer, pro mechanic, bike messenger, and model train engineer in his days, was running a single speed winter bike with at least 28mm tires and full fenders, as well as foul weather cycling pants. As in pants, not tights. D. has let go of all pretenses to speed and raciness. I, on the other hand, have not. And this sub-two hour roll through the flat, straight streets of a peopleless South Etobicoke confirmed it. Not having done a group ride since early September, I kept finding myself off the front of this mellow, first of the year outing with my two non-racer companions, itching for more.



Yesterday I pulled the trainer out and put my bike in it for the first time since I was racing 'cross in the Fall. It felt good. There, I said it. I enjoyed riding on a stationary bicycle in my living room. The downpour of sweat, my heart rate monitor still not working, my old bike shorts now hideously stretched and deformed, none of it dampened my enthusiasm, not even the 8-speed wheel I had stuck into the rear of my 10-speed setup could bother me. I made a horrible racket for a solid hour and climbed off, feeling good.

Frame of Cuba.

This brand new machine I found in Cuba in the first house I stayed in. The seat stays are attached to nothing, presumably to take a bolt that would secure/be part of a cargo rack along with the frame itself. Like everything else it Cuba it managed to look old even though it was new. It takes Communist industry to pull that off (I believe).

Zabel

What can be said? It is the end of an era.

Erik Zabel's last pro bicycle race ended in triumph in Berlin on 27 January 2009. He and Robart Bartko went into the final night of the Berlin Six in the lead and stayed ahead of Bruno Risi and Franco Marvulli, the Swiss powerhouse defending champions. Was it by gentlemen's agreement? Very possibly, but who cares: a class act went out in style in his home town in front of 13 000 Berliners and other fans.

In the days of Eddie Merckx, it was common for stars to race everything, from the Spring Classics to the indoor winter Six Day track races, as they needed the money. Now that Zabel has finished up, no one will be. The last hard man has gone home. I wanted to be there, to see it happen but it was not to be.

For the record, the lovely photo (Velo News) is from this year's Bremen Six, also won by Zabel and Bartko earlier this month. Zabel was no tourist in the sixes, having won a dozen of them over the years. What were his feelings when he took that final lap of honour, I wonder?

Zabel is one of the last of a dying breed, those pro bike racers raised in the old communist East German sports system, selected as kids and primed to maximum ability (amongst others - Jens Voigt, Rolf Aldag, and one Jan Ullrich). People always associate that system with massive, organized doping for the Olympic Games, but that's not the point to me. Each of these racers brought something special to the sport. From being coerced into into it by the state, they went beyond that to become stars on their own with their own love of the sport, long after the GDR was absorbed into the West.

The trackies do this tribute thing for winners where they line up standing on either side of the straightaway, saluting with their bikes propped up on the back wheel as the victors roll past.
A fitting end for Zabel, so respected amongst the pro ranks.

Ete, werden Sie verfehlt.

(Ete, you will be missed.)

Men at Sea

Who are the humanlike figures in this photo?
Could they be Canadian national cyclo-cross team members lost in a sea of panic in their current European tour? Is it Floyd Landis and Michael Rasmussen, after having lost their final appeals in their respective doping convictions? 'We're in the same boat, you and I - why not make it a proper shipwreck in an icebox?', said one to the other, maybe.

In fact what we have here are a couple of Burmese fishermen who were found somewhere off the coast of Malaysia or some place, after twenty days shipwrecked at sea. The photo is from the rescuing helicopter. All other hands disappeared in a monsoon/typhoon but these two were smart enough to think of the icebox and use its buoyancy to sail in for weeks.

Perhaps they survived on fish they kept in their icebox while reading that Yann Martel novel about the kid and the tiger in the boat. But the point is that they danced with death in the wide ocean, and lived.

Overbooty Review

Axiom polyester vs M.E.C. neoprene - of course the neoprene is thicker and tougher and has a rubber sole. Which makes it one hell of a burden to yank on over the bike shoe as opposed to the loose and simple but only wind resistant Axiom booty.
The MEC booty sole is designed to be cut to fit the cleat of your choice and the thick rubber actually creates an opening allowing cold air to rush in. Solution: use a thick insole from a walking shoe as insulation.

Bonepicking: Bike Racers Vs Jews

'Exercise? We don't need no stinking Jane Fonda!'






So who is tougher - roadies or Ultra-Orthodox Jews? It's a question on the mind of everyone, so let's not shy away from what medical science has to say on this conundrum.





In this bone density study
(ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DiscoveryPanel.Pubmed_Discovery_RA&linkpos=1&log$=relatedarticles&logdbfrom=pubmed) fifty young Hasidim pulled down their black pants and were examined by experts seeking bone mineral density data. In order to be thorough, crotches were investigated first-off, just to be clear there were no Yentl-benders confusing the sample.


In this study of roadie bone density, by Smathers, Bemben & Bemben (most likely godless gentiles), http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11331729, road racers with over nine years (= 7000 pp. of Talmud) of racing under their belts, so to speak, were also tested for bone mineral density but not tzitzit-capaciity. Both groups reveal low-ish bone mineral density, and both pray excessively, leaning forward for lengthy periods, but roadies carry much lighter carbon fibre prayerbooks and have a much more aerodynamic tallis.

As to which group could field a better decathalon team, data projections are unclear. Sorry.

In addition to detailed examinations of Hasidic crotches (itself so unlikely as to be worthy of an entire blog post), speculation was made as to possible causes of osteo-whateveritscalled. "Modest clothing" was cited as it blocks out the sun's rays and the crucia vitamin E. Kosher dining habits were also blamed as "milk products" aren't eaten until six hours after meat is digested.
During that long six hour window, lycra-wearing road racers can plan and execute daring raids on large batches of Hasidic yogurt, a highly sought-after dietary enhancement by men who shave their legs.

Let's Talk About Gaza, Baby

Gaza is burning.

What else is new? An New Year email from a charity I support in the West Bank is all about Gaza of course, because that's where the action is, that's what gets the moneys flowing in so you're crazy not to write about Gaza, even if your org. doesn't exist in Gaza. Never mind that.

Over at the Guardian by way of the Nation, Naomi Klein's gone all pro-boycott and divestment and sanctions, and backs it up with the example of a Brit telecom that's shut off business with Israel since this latest invasion began 27 December '08. Just a practical business decision, she points out, given the general British feelings about Israel in and its occupying and invading, proving that boycotts aren't only for the bleeding heart liberals, and cites a coalition of Israeli academics etc. calling for a trade boycott themselves.
Apparently trade with Canada has risen by 45% since last year - thanks to the Canadian free trade deal with Israel. And they've got one with Merosur now too!

It all has really gone on too long, this Israeli need to crush all opposition to it, be it Hezbollah or Hamas or whoever. It is a hyper-aggressive strategy that constantly claims all terror will stop through overwhelming lethal force. Just slaughter enough opponents and their resistance ideology will dry up and blow away - nothing could be further from the truth in fact, and eight wars and more sit there reminding us. All Israel does is further anathematize itself to the rest of the world and make the Hamas-style line of reasoning make more and more sense.

Why concede to Israel when its principal goal is to obliterate you? Shaheeds (martyrs) only raise the bar of resistance, obligating everyone else to do the same. Hamas has ambitious goals that go well beyond ending blockades on Gaza's borders. Even beyond a viable Palestinian state. They want a 1947 Palestine with Muslim sharia law in full effect and no Jews in sight. So why make peace in Gaza?
Since Hamas won the last Palestinian election, Israel has been stomping all over them, throwing their elected politicians in prison, forbidding their travel to the national assembly in Ramallah, and of late bombing the Gazan Assembly building to bits. All for a few poorly aimed rockets into southern Israel. The only thing that will break Hamas popularity is good conditions in Gaza, to the point where its jihad against Israel will seem less and less relevant.

Does this mean Hamas actually wins politically by losing militarily as Gaza is smashed to smithereens? Yes.

Gran Piedra

Architecture of strangeness: government building in Santiago, Avenida de las americas.

Giant hood ornament; these guys were unloading something from their truck and this beast seemed very eye-catching.

Later I wondered what it was like in those buildings - they had to be ten storeys or more - did they have elevators? Power failures are quite common in that country.

La Gran Piedra - actually a rock on top of a mountain outside Santiago de Cuba. Down on that sunny coast I did stay for a couple of days at Playa Siboney. 1500m up the air is cool and fresh.

It was the one time I wished I'd had a bike as the road up is an epic climb by any measure, complete with a huge collapse at one point with half the tarmac missing. Even descending by car takes about thirty minutes. At the summit is the oddity of the Big Rock, a big bald boulder on top.

Cuba, mi Cuba

Monumento General Maseo (19th c.)

!Deportistas estan revolutionarios!
Typical Cuban shopping attempt.

Santiago de Cuba - full of life, poverty and baseball. I witnessed both the in-stadium national league game and the barefoot in-street game down by the docks where the outfielder kids stand right in the avenida de Los Libertadores. Luckily most of the traffic is donkey-driven around there.

Ride the Boards of Glory You Fool

The good ole days of track racing: wooden rims on wooden boards.

2008 Olympics - Spanish Madison team: Juan Llaneras and co.

Ah track racing, the original form of cycle-sport. It conjures thoughts of chamois creme, 225 lbs psi 18c tubular tires, and balls-out tactical sprints in elimination races. Come the depths of winter in northern climes, and track is really all there is left.

Which is likely a good thing. People should find something else to do besides obsess on the weight of their drivetrains. Me? I'm Cuba-bound, and I'm not even taking my bike. The closest I'll get is renting a motorina (as in Vespa). I can let go of it, see? That's what I'm telling you, anyway.

In truth, I'd love to take my track bike out to a velodrome, but that'll be an adventure for another day, like a day when there is a track closer than 250km from where I sit.

But the track is on my mind - the Six Day races are well underway in Europe and Zabel will do his 'final' race of any pro variety in Berlin this January. Thoughts of going have come to mind. Inside dope is that the Berlin Six is the best of the circuit, with the hardest racing.

A Six basically features all the track events or nearly: solo and team time trials, elimination races, derny races (w. each racer paced by an electric motorina at crazy high speeds), and the featured event, the Madison, which is a two-man relay race where teammates hand-sling each other into the action for 80 laps or so. It's fast and furious, and pretty damned dangerous. The winning team has travelled the farthest by the time it's over.

Basically, the trick is 'steal' a lap by launching an explosive sprint when the rest of the field are watching each other. To keep things interesting there are sprints for points every so often and a 100 points accumulated gets your team a lap on the rest (usually). In between all these events are either a whole other 'B' level Six or cabaret style entertainments, just to keep the audience entertained. In many velodromes much of the infield itself is given over to spectators, drinking fine Belgian draught beers and doing a lot of yelling.

I've only been to one Six, and it wasn't European but Ontarian. There was still a bit of a crowd, and the elimination race was damned exciting. Madison wasn't bad either, even if they weren't doing proper handslings. Round these parts, they have 'madison shorts', with a bulging thing sewn inside them to push on (No, not in the crotch area thank you).

As can be seen from the two photos, things have been calmed down considerably since the good old days. Spain got the silver medal in the madison at Peking, for the record.

Provincials '08: Bit More

The off-camber

(photo: M. Clark) and mini-me (photo from J. Safka)

Barriers before the snowy track loop.

Start of M2 race..? Proof that the sun shone that Sunday, anyway.

It was a good day on earth, Sunday 23 November 2008 (at Riverdale Park anyway).

'Cross Provincial Championships 2008

It was a wet and wild time at Provincials, where the snow melted into muddy off-camber bits like you see above at Riverdale Park. (That's Lorne Anderson in the leopardskin tights in the mixed Master 1/Senior 1,2,3 race, and he's passing Cycle Solutions' Stefan W. who's dealing with the most advanced class of racers he'd ever come across; "I have a plan", he told me before the start).

The crowds were pretty big, the falls were plentiful, and the day was altogether successful. There were 190 racers in total, including two or three organizers from the organizing club, who paradoxically won nothing for change. The Angry Johnny's/Cycle Solutions team is the equivalent of a small town in the little world of Ontario club racing: more bodies in their colours fill the ranks of various events than anyone else. Orange and blue jerseys fill podiums continually, but somehow today was different.
My race went reasonably well, as I navigated the course crash-free. I just didn't have any starting power/energy. It took me to the third of four long laps to get the energy flowing past the awful feeling of weak muscles. In the end I cruised to a 6th/35, forty-eight seconds off the leader.
It was a day of old men: Pierre Perrin (age 51)won my event by a healthy twelve seconds or so over Brian Kelly (approx. 46 years); Had Pierre stayed in M2 where he started the season, he'd have been 15th or so. Smart guy.
It was a great course though, and conditions made for a number of upsets. Peter Mogg, national M1 champion and winner of every single 2008 Southern Series M1 event he entered this year, actually lost - finishing off the podium.

All in all, it was a good first season in 'cross. I had good times and a bunch of top five finishes. I love the grinta (Ital. sort of like 'guts') that 'cross is all about, and the amazing feeling you get after the agony of the race is over, and learning to think past the internal chaos outside to the race itself.

Fast Times at Willow Beach

It was a cold, wet, mucky affair with a beach on top of all that. The beach was on Lake Ontario. The day was Sunday in November, a cool four degrees Celcius after 20mm of rain the day before.

It was a day for a cyclo-cross race.

We arrived with mere minutes to spare off the highway, I scrambled to take a practice lap on the winding, mostly flat and lightly forested course and forgot my helmet in the car, which preceded to leave altogether. A baker's dozen had made the drive to Port Hope in my event. Half a dozen more readied themselves for the staggered start: Beginner Men. An appeal filtered through to my competitors and suddenly a man was motioning me to follow him. "Bring your bike", he said and off we went to his house 400 metres away, smack in the middle of this circuit in the middle of nowhere.

A helmet was given over, we returned and the commissaires started the race. I let the small field sprint ahead of me towards the beach section - best to make a slower start after the chaos of the previous minutes, I thought. Eric Sanders (Wheels of Bloor) and I rode together at the back, and for the rest of the race. He was coming off a fourth and third place on successive days at the big UCI races in Toronto the week previous; in my case an 11th and a exploded chain off the hot start on the Sunday past.

I never let me get past me, occasionally pulling ahead, passing a Beginner, and marvelling at the sheer exhausting effect of this authentic 'cross grass-and-muck fest. Yet I was the nimbler, figuring to give it my best no matter how far back we were. In the end I got second place, Eric third. That's the strange thing about 'cross. A twisty course, all the concentration you can muster, and somehow you're at or near the front of it with no idea why. My best result so far.

In the midst of pre-start chaos, I'd neglected to even take my chocolate energy gel, but was able to hang in there nonetheless. When you race 'cross, you enter a tunnel of exaggerated experiences. Perceptions distort. Time seems out of whack, indiscernible, as though being held contained in a bag somewhere. The visual field is reduced to a narrow spectrum of the metres in front; the air temperature has no effect. Even the wetness of water splash is minimized in the stress of the task at hand. The key is to focus on the details of the course.

When it is over, relief is palpable and the ensuing minutes bring a continual endorphin rush. You feel excited, sometimes ecstatic, briefly immune to the cold, the dirt, the wet. Jokes and congratulations. A bike to be washed off by the waves.

The Grimace of Joy - Durham

Photo credits: Unrau (Salienta)

Cyclo-crossing All Barriers

Yes, another blog about bike racing. I keep meaning to get to other things but races keep happening and the over-excitement must be channelled somewhere. This mildly rediculous photo documents the final moments of my day out at the Southern Ontario 'Cross Series best attended race to date, ZM's 'Turkey Cross', just over a week ago in this very town I live in.



The sun shone on a lovely Fall day, the course was fast yet challenging, and I rolled and hurdled through it without troubles. It was the largest field yet for my category, a whopping 41 riders; I ripped my way to 5th place, trying to pull back the same Mr Cyclossimo for all of the last two laps (15 minutes or so). I got quite close in the last lap, but then he pulled away again in a hairpin turn and I could not pull him back. I just couldn't figure it out - where was the speed I needed? I felt good enough, yet the momentum just wasn't coming through the bike. Mr C. didn't seem that fast, just grinding away in a low gear.


At home, all became clear at last: my chain had been bone-dry the whole time! I'd made this incredible decision to not properly clean the chain/drivetrain, and then wiped it down just before leaving the house. End result - no lube at all. Which is a real handicap.



Durham Cyclocross Classic - 18 October


Saturday morning rose fresh and cool and I off I went by commuter train - once I'd chased it down at Union Station after watching in the darkness as it rolled right through my stop. I de-trained and, riding through the wide roads of Whitby, Ontario I found myself in the 5 degree C cold of Heber Down Conservation Area with nowhere to go inside and warm up, and was reduced to riding in circles in a patch of sunshine attempting to get warm with ninety minutes to go till my race.


Finally I managed a good semblance of warmth, took fourth wheel off the out-and-back opening lap on asphalt, and settled in to a properly twisty, yet flowing course. The grass was still soaking from the dew, making things a bit technical but not overly. Wetter still was the muddy water-crossing, which became deeper and muckier throughout the race. I found myself in a real 'cross race for once, legs and face covered in mud, shoes getting harder and harder to clip into pedals. Dudes kept passing me, despite my good cardio - none of my usual threshold heart-rate panting-like-a-dog yet it didn't matter.


So what then? This week's minor fiasco turned out to be my seatpost - it sank a good three inches into the frame, having been too low from the gun. As the bike got progressively smaller, I got slower. Eventually I realized afterward that my right-side pedal had gotten damaged on one side, making clipping in an extra challenge on top of the muck itself.


End result of what was actually a blast of a fun race: another 5th place, but an utterly dodgy one due to the complete lack of finish line technology - no camera, no actual line on the ground, no sensor of any kind. Just two guys with a notepad, reading numbers off backsides. Unsurprizingly, somebody got placed as lapped when apparently (according to him) he finished ahead of me. We compared notes and it did seem clear that he passed me mid-race. A protest was made, but what recourse did the commissaires have? Tire tracks on the grass?

It was really the only bad note of the whole day - Mill Street showed up with free beers for racers, and there were no tickets either! Organic microbrews at the end of a 'cross race, in sunshine, in a country wood - it doesn't get better than that. I set up on a picnic table on the sandbar by a stream and commenced highly vocal encouragement of anyone willing to ride the whole hillock-to-sandbar-to-singletrack-to footbridge section, which a number did do, to my great satisfaction. That is la grinta.

The Return of the Comeback

Raul Alcala is not a name I'm familiar with, to be honest. Nevertheless, I have learnt that he made his mark on the pro peloton, winning a couple of Tour stages (pretty remarkable for a Mexican) before he was done.

Alcala triumphantly announced his return to pro racing a week ago, after a scant fourteen years away from the game. His debut being la Vuelta de Chihauhua, where the man lasted all the way into stage two before crashing on a mountain descent and ripping face and body badly enough to pack it in. Alcala declined to comment on the situation, and remained in the team car while holding bandages to his herridos.

¡Qué mala suerte! is a all I can say, being only in the second week of my new Advanced Spanish class. Raul, you'd be happy to know that I'm making a reaparición myself, not having studied any foreign language for some years now. Entonces amigo, creo que es mejor elegir sus batallas sabiamente. At 44 years of age, a man needs to care for his ego gently, I should think.

Pero hay otras reapariciones actualmente, Raul: Atras de Armstrong (37), Laurent Brochard (40), y Ivan Basso (29?) tambien. Yes, the fad is growing madly since Lance announced his return to the pro peloton this Fall, if only to spread everywhere the message of the yellow bracelet.

Now we could speculate madly about Lance's reasons (i.e., for the glory of Kazakhstan), or his chances in le Tour 2009, or the palace coup brewing in his Astana team (la ragia azul de Alberto Contador), but why do that when one can speculate juicily about who will be the next to announce his great reaparición (yes, I've heard about Aleksandr Vinokourov's ludicrous announcement about re-joining the Astana team he founded - that's not going anywhere). Attempts to reapariciónar, so to speak, the peloton back to c. 2002 have only just begun you see.

No, I'm thinking the time-away-from-pro-racing can be vastly improved upon - let's listen carefully to Belgian national news in Flemish - I'm waiting to hear from you, Eddy Merckx. Come back and spank these ignorant young punks, why don't you M. Cannibal?