Blah…Blah…Shut this guy up!

Well, this weekend, Team ionresistance.com took on Two FIB’s and a Yooper in clash of titans at  the Pleasant Prairie Triathlon.  Two FIB’s handed us a solid defeat, even with great sportsmanship from Marc Grove.  I want to give then all the credit in the world as they soundly defeat us this weekend.

Onto my race report.  It was a wet, wet morning.  I didn’t think we would race, but my wife and I still loaded up in the car.  We drove to Pleasant Prairie and parked.  In the dark, I tried to force some air into my front tire… a Zipp 808, but none would go in.  There was some in there, so I figured I would ride it to transition and then deal with it if we actually raced… which I did not think we would.

I racked my bike and waited for a decision.  After some rain and delays, it was decided we would race.  So, back to my bike to try to force some air in.  None would go in.  I made the mistake of removing the valve extender to try to release some air in case the valve had closed and was not letting air in.  Well, after taking the extender off, I couldn’t find the valve.  Now I am panicked.  I am looking for the mechanic and he had left thinking the race was canceled.  So, I hoped VQ could help and although they tried, they could not.  So, I was in trouble.

I spoke with my teammates and the other team.  The problem was that no air would go in, but there was enough air that we couldn’t take the tire off to remount.  So, we came up with the idea we had to puncture the tube.  We weren’t sure how we were going to do that without ruining the tire.  We came up with the idea that we would take a pin from a race number and puncture it through the sidewall of the tire.  It worked.  Marc Grove worked fast and hard at getting the tire off and remounting with a new tube.  The new tube let out some air, but I thought that was just the natural state of things with the valve.

The race starts and the relays go off.  With about 10 minutes before my teammate, Rick Cook, came in from the swim, I got ready.  I checked the tire and it was flat.  We thought we were done.  Marc, in a great display of sportsmanship, offered me his front wheel and he said he could ride his teammates mountain bike.  I told him that I should ride the mountain bike and he should race as normal.  So, after quickly lowering the seat, I awaited my team.  After all, Jim Rung’s mountain bike was about two sizes too big for me, had some rusted derailers, and knobby tires about 45 mm thick.  It was not ideal for racing.

I got the chip and took off on the relay.  I had to stop to adjust the seat.  It cost me about 30 seconds.  I was working hard, really hard.  I kept thinking I will at least give this my all and try to hold off Marc as long as possible.  The relay wave was the last wave to go off for the international distance.  Thus, that meant very few people would be behind me on the bike.  Just some slower swimmers from later waves and our wave.  The way the course is set up, you only see international distance participants for the first half of the bike.  To my amazement, I was passing people.  Here I am on this mountain bike that is too big for me and I am passing people on $5000 bikes.  So, I am chugging along, but going as hard as I could go, and I switch gears and the chain falls to the right of the big chain ring.  I have to pull off.  I am trying to get the chain loose as it is caught between the derailer and the ring.  I am having no luck.  Marc pulls up and helps me out.  We get it out and off we go.  This is about 5 miles into the ride and it cost about 4-5 minutes.

Marc, once again being a sportsman, paced me the next 10 miles.  We were going along pretty fast at stretches.  I even got that bike up to 23 MPH on some of the flats.  At about mile 16-17, a girl has a flat and Marc stops to help her.  I told him I would keep going and he could catch me when he was done.  So, I am still chugging away, at 100 percent effort mind you, and I am still passing people on really expensive bikes.  No brand was immune, Trek, Kestrel, QR, Cervelo and even Orbea.  I couldn’t believe it.  A woman pulled up along the side of me and commented, “You can really keep that bike moving.”  I was trying my best to do just that.

I made a turn and realized we couldn’t have more than two miles left and I was wondering where Marc was.  I kept riding as fast as I could though.  I figured I would let Rich, our third team member, think we were really winning this thing.  I knew that we had lost by default, but I wanted him to work as hard as I did.  So, I pull into transition, “in the lead” and handed the chip to Rich to start the run.  I then explained to the rest of my team and the other team that they had already won due to Marc’s great sportsmanship.

A few minutes later, Marc pulled in.  Mike Biarnesen was more than fast enough to catch Rich on the run and we lost the relay, even though Marc paced me, stopped to help me with the chain, and helped a woman with her flat.  That was true sportsmanship by him.

I have to say I had a great time chugging along on that mountain bike.  My time was 1:25 for an average of 17.5 MPH.  I am thinking I actually averaged about 18.5 when you take out the time it took to fix the seat and the chain.  How can I be unhappy with that.

Last night, I remounted the tire, tube and valve and pumped up the wheel.  I thought it would hold, but when I checked it this morning, it was flat again.  Tonight I was have to change tubes and see what happens.

My valve woes didn’t end there though.  This morning, I went to ride my cross bike.  As I do every Monday, I pumped up the tires.  On my rear tire, I started to put in air and the valve actually separated from the tube.  I spent about 10 minutes getting bitten by misquitos trying to fix that thing and off I went.

Overall, I had a great time.  I also want everyone to know my wife did the sprint triathlon.  She had a PR at 1:31.  Also, she did that with only swimming 15 minutes in the last three years.  She had a great bike and a great run.  I am very proud of her.

I want to start this off by writing thanks the to Prairie Cycling Club for letting me tag along on their Saturday morning ride. You see, my wife doesn’t just like to sit around the house all that much. It didn’t matter that since Memorial Day, the weekend of August 11th and 12th would have been our only free weekend until after September 9th. So, when my wife and sister-in-law, decided we needed to travel down to Champaign, I reluctantly agreed on the one condition I would still ride Saturday morning.

I searched for bike clubs in Champaign and found the Prairie Cycling Club. I found they had a Saturday ride out of Meadowbrook Park in Urbana at 8 am every Saturday. They had all different levels, so I decided before hand, I would choose the “Fitness” category over the “Advanced.” The description for the “Fitness” Category stated, “For experienced cyclists with substantial group riding experience wishing to concentrate on improving individual and group riding skills as well as physical fitness, with an emphasis on pace lines, some sprinting and intervals, etc. Average speed 15-18 mph. Individuals experiencing mechanical difficulties can expect a few members of the group to stop and lend assistance, including “pulls” to rejoin the main group. Group will stop occasionally to regroup with stragglers. Although physically challenging, emphasis is still on group riding for fun.”

The “Advanced” Category stated, “Semi-competitive rides; average speeds of 18+ mph for extended distances. Riders are expected to be fully competent with pace lines, sprints, intervals, etc. These are physically demanding rides — dropped riders will probably be on their own, although those with mechanical difficulties may find a few members of the
group willing to stop and lend assistance, including “pulls” to rejoin the main group.”

I considered riding with the Advanced group as I was guessing that is what I would be my kind of riding. Knowing that Champaign County is flat, flat, flat, 18+ MPH is still within my capabilities, especially if there is a lot of drafting involved. I chose the middle category though due to the fact I would be riding on roads I was unfamiliar with. Although, if lost, I trust my instincts to get me home, it is always nice to think someone will wait for you in case of an emergency mechanical. Also, the worst thing a visitor can do is ruin a serious ride by not being fast enough to keep up. So, I figured I don’t want to be that guy.

I showed up, unloaded my bike, kissed the wife and kids good-bye, and looked around. It was easy to tell from the start where the Advanced Category was grouping. I specifically was looking for this ride:

“Saturday Fitness Ride – Level 3/4
Leader: Rick Francis (351-7587, rikfrancis@hotmail.com)
Depart: Meadowbrook Park, Windsor Road, Urbana
Time: 8:00 am
This ride will average 16-18 mph with distances of around 40 miles. The ride leader will ride the advertised pace and make sure nobody is dropped. Routes will be country roads in Champaign County, with the emphasis on fitness.”

I asked saw a group. Most were not in kits of any sort. The bikes weren’t the latest and greatest technology. Some of the people, like myself, could have stood to loose a few pounds. So, I asked if that was the 3/4 ride. I was told it was. I introduced myself to some of the members. I have to apologize now, I most likely will get some names wrong, as there were a lot and I was concentrating on riding most of the time.

The Advanced Group rolled out. About three minutes later, we rolled out. I stayed near the back as we rode a double-pace line. I tried to get a feel for the group. Not only the riding strength, but etiquette to be used. It was apparent to me that my legs weren’t as fresh as they could have been. All week, I had been suffering from fatigue due to some rowing and increased weightlifting. There was a slight wind. The weather called for five MPH, yet it felt slightly stronger, but not more than ten MPH. For the Prairie Cycling Club riders that read this, I am going to throw out some power numbers, so to let you know my Functional Threshold Power (one hour time trial power) is approximately 265 watts. On a typical Saturday ride, I will average 195-205 watts for about 2:45 with a normalized power (estimated physiological cost of a ride) of 230 watts.
I continued to introduce myself to other people. I met a nice woman name Stacey who was a professor at the University. I never did find out what she taught. She had traveled around. I think I remember her stating she was in Virginia before Champaign. She taught me the ride etiquette about taking turns pulling and how to let the riders behind you know when you are peeling off. She was very nice, as was everyone on the ride.

The ride continued that way, on my second turn to pull, I was told I probably needed to back off some. It wasn’t anything intentional. After all, it is bad form to ride with a group as a guest and then try to shatter them. I was just trying to push as hard as the person in the pace line next to me was pushing. I guess it was one of those things though the harder I perceived them pushing, the more they pushed to keep up with me. I rarely looked down at my power meter, but when I did it seemed that we were pushing hard. The watts seemed to be upwards of 220, yet any time I checked my average it was right around 155 watts, which means sitting in does help and brings down average power.
On one of the pulls, I was upfront for a decent amount of time when a few people rocketed from behind me. At first I thought they were from a different group. I asked the other line’s puller if they were with us and they were. So, I took off to catch them. I did and latched onto the leader’s wheel who was using aerobars. I sat in and by the time I looked back only one guy was behind me. At some point he swung out and passed and I went with him. I didn’t realize it, but we were supposed to be sprinting into town. Since my group doesn’t do that, I didn’t really understand what was going on. I just knew if people were going to ride hard, I wasn’t going to back off.

In town, we took a break about 27 miles into the ride. It was a longer break than I am used to taking. To me five to ten minutes is enough where this seemed to be about 25-30. On the way back, we took the shortest route as the heat was getting up there and it was predicted to hit about 98 that day. The roads we encountered had a lot of gravel and made for some unsafe conditions. At this time, I started talking to Sheldon. He was nice and the guy that led me into the rest stop. At the rest stop he had talked to me and it was apparent he worked for the university. So, on the ride back I asked what he did. He stated he was Chair of the Math Department. I have to admit, I was impressed. After all, he was brilliant and the head of the math at a major university. I had to wonder how often he was calculating simple numbers about his ride while were were going. Turns out he is an active cycling advocate also. His wife works in City Planning (maybe county) and specializes in transportation, so him being a cycling advocate is a perfect fit.

One of the things about riding in a group, is that there are natural ebbs and flows to the the speed. Unfortunately, during one of the ebbs, Stacey had taken her hands off the bars, rode up on another rider, Alex if I remember correctly, and she took a nasty spill. He shoulder was all cut up. Alex’s rear derailer snapped off the frame, but luckily he didn’t go down. The group was extremely nice in helping the two get everything together, organizing transportation back to town, ect. This is why I chose this group. You need people like that when you are out on unfamiliar roads.

After we were sure nobody was seriously injured, a bunch of us remounted our bikes and headed back for town. The ride did heat up. About four of us split off from the rest of the group and pushed the pace. After a few miles we were down to three. Me, Sheldon and Johnathan. The youngest guy in the ride, Jonathan, took off hard. He was moving fast. I had to struggle to pull back up onto his wheel. Definitely about three minutes of work at VO2 max. He let up and the Urbana sign. Sheldon fell way back. I told Johnathan, I didn’t realize it was a sprint. He said, “Oh… were we sprinting?” I smiled. He was posturing with that comment. After all, we were riding really hard. So, although it wasn’t a sprint per se, it was all out to the sign… which I didn’t know. Either way, it was fun.

As I pulled into the parking lot, my wife happened to be pulling in also. I said good-bye to Sheldon and joined my family at the park. It was a fun ride. I will definitely show up again next time I am in the area.  My final ride numbers were 46 miles in 2:18 for 20 MPH.  The power numbers were low for a Saturday ride with the average being 164 and the normalized being 205.  Either way, that was about a 65-75 percent ride, compared to the normal 80-90 percent ride I would have done at about an average 0f 200 and a normalized of 230.

Thanks again to everybody from the Prairie Cycling Club for making me feel welcome.

So, we all watch the first race which is a female race. Then my category is up. It is the CAT5/Citizen 1 race (there is another for the same category later in the morning).

Some notes. I estimate my FT (one hour TT power) to be about 265. Since my bike broke a few weeks ago, training has been more sporadic and I have noticed a decrease in overall power, but especially in the 1-5 minute range. I will throw out some power numbers during the report, but I didn’t know these until downloading after the race.

So, I line up in the front. I did have some apprehension about clipping in, but I figured if I was in the front, then that was less ground I had to make up. The race starts. We aren’t going all that fast into the first sweeping 180 degree turn. No worries. We hit the first straight and things are picking up. Up comes the first 90 degree turn and everyone seems to play it safe, but not all that slow. Same for the second 90 degree turn. The next three turns are sweeping 180 degree turns. It seems everyone is doing a good job of not taking unnecessary risks. Unfortunately for me, I am near the back and the guys I am following are probably just like me. So, we are losing ground on the pack during turns.

It should be noted that after 5 minutes, more that two laps, it looks as though my power output was as follows: average power 315, normalized power 330. Given that my FT is only 265, I was riding those first two laps above VO2 max. Also, even with the turns, average speed was 25.3 MPH.

This race was a learning experience. I knew it was important to save energy in the pack or at least draft. So, I picked a spot where I felt comfortable drafting, but by no means was I mixing it up in the turns. So, I was near the back. Unfortunately, I learned a valuable lesson. The accordion effect is fine on a weekly ride, but not so great when you are doing a bunch of turns in a mile. By the time the 4th lap came around, the guys I was following lost contact with the pack. We were only about 20 feet away, but as hard as I tried, I couldn’t make up the ground as I would lose any gains in the turns. Eventually, the guys I followed dropped behind me and the pack was too far ahead for me to catch. Oh well… chalk it up to first time racing.

Power numbers for the first 10 minutes were still very high. Average power of about 300 with normalized power at about 325. Speed was about 24.8 MPH for that time.

After that I had to get into TT mode and just try to not get lapped. I knew it would be a challenge. I started to look ahead to others that would get dropped and slowly reel them in. There was one guy, I caught him and he dropped behind and didn’t keep up. Then I caught another guy and he actually was smart enough to latch onto my wheel. I did most of the work for a couple of laps, but then when we saw another guy up ahead, we started working together to catch and pass him.

The end of the race had the winner catch me at the finish line. I was a lap behind. I coasted through the last lap. It was nice.

Overall, I am disappointed of course. But, the power numbers are about where I expected for the 30 minutes. My average for the entire race was 275 with a normalized of 295. Far above what I expected to see. I would have to suspect that people in the group didn’t have those kind of power numbers. I mean this is a CAT5 race after all.

My weakness is explosive power and cornering, especially in a group. I was able to handle the corners at high rates of speed when I was by myself. I guess I just have to get used to doing that in a group and I should be okay. It should be noted there were no crashes in either of the CAT5 races (I didn’t do the later one which seemed to be moving slower as the guy I worked with finished easily with the pack in the second race). The other races did have some crashes.

I did have fun. I didn’t get pulled, which I think is rare for a first time racer. So, it was a good experience. I will most likely do some more.

I am going to start this by stating that I truly believe Lance did not dope post-cancer.  I mean you would just have to be a complete idiot to have gone through what he went through and then take the risk of doping.  Does this mean I believe Lance doped pre-cancer? No.  It just means I really don’t care.

So, then how did Lance beat the plethora of cheaters when he himself didn’t cheat?  To the non-cyclist, or endurance athlete, this may seem impossible.  It is not.  I will state this, Lance did for cycling what guys like Joe Gibbs and Bill Parcels did for football.  No detail was too small.  So, I am going to quickly review some of the reasons why Lance did not have to cheat.

First, Lance was already a World Champion and winner of a Tour de France stage even before cancer.  He had the power to be an elite cyclist even before cancer.  Then cancer hit.  This changed him in many ways.  First, it stripped off a lot of his mass.  If you look at early photos of Lance compared to those of him winning the Tour, you would think he took the drug that makes you lose muscle mass.  Weight in cycling is a killer.  So, post-cancer, Lance weighed only about 150-155 lbs compared to about 175 lbs pre-cancer.  So, take World Champion power, reduce body weight by over 10 percent and you have a great climber.

That isn’t all though.  Due to his cancer, Lance could no longer generate power by grinding out big gears.  That situation would be great to win a one-day race or win a Tour stage, but that wasn’t going to win the Tour.  Lance, post-cancer, had to figure out a better way to generate his power.  Thus, he and his team of coaches focused on pealing.  Lance needed to generate the same power by using cadence over strength.  This ended up making Lance 20 percent more efficient. Twenty percent!!!!  Think about that.  Take any elite athlete, world class, and improve one area of their performance by 20 percent and that is a huge edge over the competition which might make gains of a couple of percent.

So, where do we stand with just this… a person with World Champion power decreases his body mass by 10 percent and increases efficiency by 20 percent.  Now that and that alone would make you win the Tour seven times, even against cheaters.  Once again though that isn’t all.

Lance was the first to focus on the little details.  He understood that any wasted watt meant he had to work harder.  So, Nike designed shirts that were tested and retested in wind tunnels to make sure they were not catching wind.  In fact, I heard Nike once spend $100,000 to rework a manufacturing line to move a single seam.  Giro designed a helmet to give him an advantage in time trials, one of the places Lance would gain on his rivals.  Trek, the largest elite bike manufacturer in the world, designed bikes specifically with the goal of Lance winning the Tour.  What other cyclist could state they had the resources of Nike and Trek at their disposal.  Most companies at best make a custom version of their stock bike for their riders.  They don’t design bikes around the rider.

So, now we have world champion power, 10 percent reduction in weight, 20 percent increase in pealing efficiency, and the biggest companies designing the best technology just for one rider?  Does that sound like a 7-time Tour winner yet?

No?  Okay… how about Lance was the first to scout every critical stage of each Tour?  He didn’t ride them just once, but many times to the point that he knew them intimately come race day and how his body would react.  Convinced yet?  How about a guy that once he decided he wanted to ride again post-cancer, didn’t miss a single training session in 10 years?  How much weight did Ullrich gain in the off-season? Sometimes up to 30 lbs and he would take a month off of the bike.  How about a guy that planned every meal around training and recovery.  Do you think Basso did that?  How many guys were getting $15,000 dexascans to determine body fat a couple of times a year?  What this is getting at is Lance was watching every detail  He was single-minded in winning one race.  No other rider has or had that luxury in the past.

Could any great cyclist of done this?  Well, physically they all had the ability to replicate Lance.  Technologywise, maybe a bit harder.  However, no cyclist had the single-minded focus to bring everything together to win.

That is how a person wins without cheating in a world full of cheaters.  To paraphrase the Nike campain, “What is Lance on?  I’ll tell you what he is on.  He is on his bike.”  365/24/7 everything was focused towards winning the Tour.