For folks who will be in Solvang for the ToC TT, there's a fundraiser event that evening in town.  $75/person or $1k for a group of 10.  Dinner, wine, and "surprise celebrity appearance" (my money is on Bob Roll), music, dancing, silent auction and other assorted nonsense.   RSVP by 2/12.  www.tourofcalifornia-solvang.com.

Just in case you have some extra money to blow.

 

 

These are extra words.  Really, no need to read them unless you want to.

Ok, here's the riddle...

Option A: Used 2008 Specialized Tarmac SL2.  $2500.  Upside:  It's an $8000 bike for cheap.  Downside:  No warranty for the 2nd owner (and Specialized bikes seem to break a lot).  Random:  The current owner sprinted on it to a national championship recently.

Option B: New 2009 Specialized Tarmac SL through my racing team's deal:  $2700.  Upside:  It's a $5000 bike for cheap.  Full warranty.  Downside:  It's not quite the bike that the SL2 is.  

Assume equal/equivalent parts and wheelz and whatnot.  Actully, the used bike might have somewhat better wheelz.  

So, what would you do?

Hi-
Here's my situation.  Training wheels = alu clincher.  Race wheels = carbon tubulars.  I'm too lazy and cheap to swap brake pads before/after each race, but the regular rubber is quickly destroyed by the carbon.  Any suggestions for good pads that work well for both?
thx-
s

At first glance, this might seem a bit irrelevant, but trust me.  Do the test:  http://dothetest.co.uk/  And then forward it to others.  
ss

Once again, the stage 5 ITT is held in my hometown of Solvang.  Despite being a cycling mecca, I'm one of two racing cyclists in the entire village, so it's encouraging how excited the town gets about this event.  The rain you see on TV is real.  And it's wet and cold -- and the forecast for next week is sunny in the upper 60s... Irony.
So here was the plan:  My buddy Jason who lives on the TT course out in Los Olivos (right before the climb) drove to my house in Solvang this morning at 7:00.   We were going to ride down highway 101 on the coast the 40 miles to Santa Barbara, and hook up with friends Gary and Chester, and a few of Gary's friends from "back East."  
The weather was beautiful as we noodled out through the valley and over the pass down to the 101.  As soon as we went through the pass, it started to rain.  A lot.  We now faced a 25 mile headwindy slog in the rain to Gary's house.  Between us, we had four flat tires.  I was shivering.  We arrived at Gary's place 1/2 hour late, soaking wet, and pissed off.  Weather.com had betrayed us badly.
At Gary's, we threw our stuff in the dryer for an hour, gorged on oatmeal, and tried not to go the way of Jackson Stewart.  
After awhile we headed out, climbed over the highway 154 pass (remember ToC 2006?) and descended back down into the Valley.  The rain came in fits and spurts (and a few downpours) and the wind came from all directions.  
After a total of 70 miles, we arrived at Jason's house, pigged out, and sat on the porch to watch the riders go by.  My throat hurts from screaming.
I wish I had something more insightful to say, but I'm tired.  Here are a few observations:

1.  Dave Z's mustache is straight out of a 1970s porno flick.  And his USChamp TT kit is really sweet.
   
2.  Bettini looked defeated.
   
3.  Cipo and the rest of the Rock squad have the coolest kits I've ever seen (they're also a staple of many of the races I do -- but the green is new).
   
4.  Fabian looked rough.
   
5.  Levi was FLYING.  We were sitting where they were really slogging down the mouth of the headwind and everyone looked like they were pegged.  But Levi was FLYING.  FLYING.  It was really impressive.
   
6.  I love the SuperFan.  

After the Levi came through, we put our wet socks and jackets back on, rode over the Ballard Canyon climb and dropped the 6 miles back into Solvang to the S/F line.  I bumped into Bjarne Riis and I saw Bob Roll.  But mostly I saw a lot of my riding/racing friends, none of whom looked as cold and dirty as me (because they drove).  Because of the crowds, I got separated from the rest of my friends (who were separated from one another).  After some brief searching, I dropped down the hill to my house to take a warm shower.

So, a great 4.5 hour ride in the rain with friends, followed by good eatin' and front-row seats at a pro bike race.  Can't beat that.  

In case you didn't see this already.  Fun reading...
http://www.bikeradar.com/news/article/humour-8-halloween-costumes-for-cyclists-12934

I figured that some of you might like this.  I'm preparing for a new class I'm teaching this week and reading an article published in 1898 that is considered to be the first ever social psychology experiment.  It focused on the speed of track cyclists riding alone or in competition (essentially, why do people in direct competition perform better than people competing alone against a record).  

Here's a great quote:
"The excretion of nitrogenous products is directly proportional to the amount of work done.  The blood, surcharged with the poisonous matter, benumbs the brain and diminishes its power to direct and stimulate the muscles, and the muscles themselves, bathed by the impure blood, lose largely their contractile power."

They go on to speculate that the leader of a race can't win in a "spurt" due to the acids produced by "brain worry."

Kinda sounds like my weekend...  

If, like me, you like to listen to podcasts when you ride (which you should never do because it's dangerous), check out the competitors radio show.  
Really interesting interview recently with Betsy Andreu about the culture of doping and Lance.  I imagine that lots of it is in the new Lance-Landis book, but it was interesting to hear it from her directly.
Check it out here:  http://www.competitorradio.com/ or download via iTunes.

About two months ago, I purchased a set of Neuvation R28 SL3 wheels.  They originally listed at $499, but I got them on sale for $399, plus a ceramic bearing upgrade, which took the total price up to $409, delivered to my home.  Right now, they're advertising the same set for $299!  Neuvationcycling.com

I bought these wheels to serve as my daily training wheels, replacing a set of Ksyrium Elites that I've had for about 4 years.  My goal was to get a solid set of wheels that were simple, lightweight, relatively robust.  

After two months, these wheels are awesome!  At an advertised weight of 1540g, they're lighter than my Ksyriums and the ceramic bearings seem to give a smoother ride going downhill.  They might lack some degree of the stiffness that a deeper section rim might bring, but I've not noticed any sponginess or lack of responsiveness.  And I've really banged them around - we have some mountain roads here that have the worst pavement you can imagine (i.e., more gravel than pavement -- including some sections that are really just gravel).  I've blasted down some of these roads, shaking and rattling through 6in deep potholes and these wheels remain completely true and solid.  One caveat here is that, at 125lbs, I'm not as naturally hard on wheels as some folks, but what I lack in density, I make up for in intensity and quantity (2 months = 3k miles).

The ceramic bearing thing was new to me.  The kit comes with all the bearings you need as well as the gizmo to install them.  The installation was relatively straightforward and required only one trip to my LBS to use a tool that I didn't have (I also had to cleverly use some dental floss in the process, but this also relates to the tool issue).  Although it's probably unclear what difference it really makes, the website claims in increase of a few watts, which seems fairly substantial for such a small addition.  But, as I say above, the place where I think that I notice the difference is in descents that feel just a smidge faster and smoother.

Other tidbits:  The rear hub has a pleasing, but quiet click-click when freewheeling.  The spokes are simple and easily replaced when needed.  The hubs have about three parts, which is about right.  A handful of extra spokes and nipples come with the order.    

Overall, I'm really pleased.  The only things that are potential drawbacks are: 1.  No bling or sex appeal.  Even the website is drab.  2.  Gotta use rim tape.  Is it me, or does that stuff weigh about 100lbs?  That's it.  Honestly, I like these wheels so much that before I strap on my Eastons prior to races, I really have to convince myself that they're really any better.  In fact, I have a buddy who uses the Neuvations as his racing set and has some tricked out (and much more expensive) Ksyriums for training.

The bottom line is that there's no beating the price on these solid, lightweight, and straightforward wheels.

Due to an unfortunate accident, I'm in the enviable position of buying a new bike frame.  I've got about $2500 to play with (and lots of team/shop/loyal customer discounts).  
The relevant stats: I race a lot - primarily road races.  I'm a Cat 3 and "specialize" in climbing.

Here are my main options so far (see the poll)...

Poll

Pick a bike frame for Steve

4%

Giant Advanced

1 votes

8%

Ridley Helius

2 votes

26%

Cervelo R3

6 votes

4%

Trek Madone

1 votes

26%

Scott CR1 SL

6 votes

8%

LeMond Something or another

2 votes

8%

Specialized S Works

2 votes

4%

Pinarello 4.13 or whatever.

1 votes

8%

Storck 0.9

2 votes

23 votes | Poll has closed

Every year, Sea Otter in Monterey, California is a real blast.  Thousands of riders from all over the country converge on the Laguna Seca Raceway for about 4 days of racing and marketing.  But every year it seems to rain at least once, turning the infield of the racetrack (where the marketplace is) into a mud pit full of expensive bikes.  And this year was even worse.

It's taken me two years to realize that the circuit race on the raceway is not for me.  Bombing through the "corkscrew" at 55mph is not the best venue for a guy who really hates sketchy descents (although I nabbed a 6th place there as a Cat 4).  But I skipped it this year so that I could be fresh for the 70-mile RR on Saturday.

The RR course is great.  Closed roads, mostly decent pavement, and good support.  About 100 of us lined up at the start inside the raceway, where we prominaded out of the raceway through a narrow fence and proceeded to bomb down the finishing climb to the race loop.  The loop itself is about 8 mi of rolling roads with one pretty serious climb.  The finish of the race loops back up toward the raceway up a 2k long hill that's probably about 8%.
We did 8 laps.

Because it's Sea Otter, the pace was fast and there were quite a few breaks and attacks.  A few guys stayed away for a lap or two, but we always managed to bring them back with minimal effort.  Each time up the climb was a bit of a nightmare, but it was a good way to whittle down the field a bit.

And then the rain started.  Just a sprinkle at first to make the roads nice and treacherous (especially on the 180-degree turn with all the road paint).  But then it started to RAIN.  This happened on the climb when we had about 2 laps to go.  I mean, RAIN.  I'm guessing that this is the same time that they were cancelling the women's pro race back at the Raceway.  Stinging rain, no visability, and no brakes going down the twisty descents.  It was terrifying.  And very cold.  I only had on a base layer and arm warmers (and my old Quad hat), so I started shivering so bad that I was in danger of losing control (hey Drew, remember Sunapee?).  

After awhile the rain settled down into a steady stream and I realized that there probably only 40 of us left in the race.  The finish of the race features a long twisty downhill followed by the leg-breaking climb to the finish.  Because of the slipperyness of the roads, I cowered at the back going downhill.  And then the climb started.  I picked my way through the exploding bodies and still had the legs to drill it for the last 500 meters (which seemed to take about 20 minutes).  I finished 15th, which felt pretty good at the time (but I've been kicking myself all week for not going harder at the bottom).  But, most importantly, I didn't crash in the mayhem.

Afterwards, I rode the 2+ miles back to my car, soaking wet and freezing.  I got in the car, got dry and ran the heater for about 30 minutes.  I also put on all the clothes that I brought.

After warming up a bit, I went over to the marketplace area for the first time.  It was still raining pretty hard, so everything was really muddy (which was a real blast for the 15yo kids riding wheelies on mountain bikes through dense crowds of people).  Each year, road bikes are getting further and further marginalized and the wet conditions didn't make me so interested in checking out cool stuff.  However, I gotta say that Storck's 9.9lb bike was pretty obscene.  Yep, 9.9lbs ($16k pricetag).

The Clifbar tent is always my favorite - I just sat and gorged myself on the freebies.  After an hour or so of noodling around and trying to make deals ("I'll give you $10 for all of that"), the sun started to come out, so I went over to watch a bit of the pro men's circuit race (which had been delayed for 2 hours or something).  I'd just like to point out that the guy who won the pro race (Daniel Ramsey) is a great guy who often comes out for our local group rides.  I was pretty stoked to see him win.    

Each year I say it: I'm not sure I'll go back next year.

I'm cooler than you because I live in Solvang.  And it was a great day to be a Solvanger.  My teammates organized this morning at my house around 8:30, with a roll-out close to 9:00.  Downtown Solvang was already really busy and so we headed out of town backward along the TT course.  Riders were everywhere, mostly well-meaning freds and wankers, but it was great to see so many folks out to see the event.  Occasionally a pro would zip by, out for a pre-ride of the course.  

We got to the top of Ballard Canyon hill at about 9:30 and there were surprisingly few folks out.  We added layers because the wind was really cold and blustery (Drew, look for me in my QuadCycles jacket!).  A dude came by with chalk for us to chalk the climb (look for where it says PodiumCafe.com about ¾ the way up!! - Chris, I took a picture - email me and I'll forward it along for you to upload if you want).

At this point, pro riders were coming through in dribs and drabs for warm-ups.  Jens Voigt gave us a big wave and his big goofy German grin.  Also, Saul Raisin came by- apparently he's pre-riding all the stages (there's a group ride with him tomorrow AM in Santa Barbara).  

After the race started, it was simply awesome.  I had a copy of the standings, so we could anticipate who would be coming next.  The hill we were on is a short, winding, steep affair with a couple of really tight switchbacks on the way up.  I big chainring it, but only if I'm standing for the most part.  These guys were flying up, most of them seated, a few on aero bars.  Also notable were the riders who were obviously out for a 14mile spin and not working hard at all.  Some were even smiling and looking around.  But as we got closer to the leaderboard, they were all business.  

There was a race marshal at the top of the hill who was relaying the standings down to us and it was no surprise how things were going.  Thor was flying, Fabian was flying, even Bettini looked really good and seemed to be giving it a good show.  Even above the screaming crowd, you could hear some guys straining for breath.  But no one looked as fast as Jens and Levi, right at the end.  Such different riders!  Jens is a big boy, and seemed to be strangling the crap out of his bars; Levi looked totally smooth and focused.  Great stuff.  But super cold and windy all day.

After Levi came through, we rolled back down to Solvang, through the Finish line where Levi's time was still up on the clock.  We noodled through the expo area, getting free crap, and oogling all the stuff we can't afford.  Floyd was there signing autographs (I got an autographed waterbottle and a photo of him an' me).  

The weather report for tomorrow is more favorable for the Santa Barbara start.  The course tomorrow is much harder than it looks on the profile, particularly the climb up highway 150 before Ojai.  On Sunday, I'm headed down to Long Beach where I'm doing a Cat 3 race in the morning on the same course where the pros will be racing in the afternoon.  If I crash, you'll be able to see my blood on TV!

Somewhere recently, I came across a mention of a small company called Matisse and Jacks (http://www.matisseandjacks.com/).  They make natural, organic, bake-at-home energy bars.  The ingredients are simple, but the nutritional value is pretty spectacular.  At present, they have two flavors: Cranberry Walnut and Chocolate Chip.

The baking is really easy.  Just add applesauce and yogurt (the yogurt is not required if you're lactose intolerant or vegan) and put `em in the oven for 30 minutes.  They say that this makes 9 bars (at about 180 calories each).  I cut mine into 18 bars because I like a lighter on-road snack.  Wrap them up in aluminum foil and you're good to go.  They're freakin' delicious - seriously.  And they don't have all the icing crap that some bars do, that gets all over your hands - they're more like a good oatmeal cookie.  Great eating during a hard ride.

The coolest thing about this company is their focus on environmental and organic issues.  And although ClifBar is a pretty green/organic company, their bars come in completely non-recyclable packages.  With these, you can wrap them in aluminum foil that you can either recycle, reuse, or use to line the inside of your helmet to keep the aliens out.  The other bonus is the price.  Each box makes 9 bars (or 18 if you're me) and costs $5.  Order 5 boxes and the shipping is free.

Just thought I'd pass this along.  It's cool to support a company that's doing something right for a change.

Hey-
Anyone know of any good cheap-o or free training software?  Because I'm all Garmin'ed up, I use the included Training Center software along with the greatest super-duper (and free) software ever: SportTracks.  But neither of these will do a planned versus completed time comparison.  For that, I still need to pull out my old Excel spreadsheet.  It works ok, but I'm always on the lookout for something better.

Hi all-
I just returned from the race that bills itself as "The Hardest 2-Day USCF Race in America."  The Everest Challenge is held in the beautiful Sierra Mountains just south of Mammoth Lakes, California (right in the middle of nowhere, really).  Two days, and a total of 29,000 feet of climbing (the height of Mt. Everest).    Day one is a 120 mile slog with three mountain climbs (total of 16k feet of climbing), the tallest peaking out at just over 10k feet on the highest paved road in the Sierras (can you say "altitude sickness"?  Day two is a mere 86 miles with three mountains (13k of climbing).  On both days, the finish was on top of a mountain and both days had sections of about 17% in the final 2 miles.  To have a look at the profile, go here and scroll down:  http://www.everestchallenge.com/EverestChallengeBible.htm

Despite being a decent Cat 3 climber, I'm toasted.  I've been training like crazy in the mountains near my house and have put in several 25+ hour weeks of training over the past month.  I'm not sure it was enough.  Because the fields were so small, they started us with the Pro/1/2 group, so our neutral 8 mile start on day 1 was at about 25mph.  And because it was so cold at the start, I somehow neglected to drink enough.  In fact, during the entire 120 miles of day one, I only drank 2 water bottles.  I'm an idiot.  My bonk on the final climb was something that parents will tell their children about for generations to come -- in the last 5k, I lost 3 places to other riders who started slower.  I had to cut a few paperboy switchbacks near the top even.  All preventable and I've been kicking myself pretty hard.

Day 2 was much better, however.  I drank 8 water bottles and finished strong.  I managed to take back some GC time (although results aren't posted yet) and felt pretty good at the end.  At the top of the 20 mile long final climb, there were people literally collapsing across the line.  And it was so cold at the top that some of the more wirey folks were nearly hypothermic.

Two notes for next year:

1.  Drink.  I can't believe I was such a moron.
   
2.  Compact crankset, maybe?  As I approached the finish of both days, I was cruising along at about 5 mph and spinning away at about 40rpm.  The 39x27 might not have been enough.

Ok, so who's in for next year?

Hi all-
Some time ago, I posted a review of my cool Edge 305 GPS bike computer/HRM.  That was about 2 months ago, so I thought I'd give a bit of an update.

Things have not all been well.  Upon switching on the unit, it must take a moment to locate satellites so that it can figure out where it is.  There is no indication in the manual about how long this should take, so I didn't think much when it would take about 5 to 10 minutes for this to happen. Although frustrating to begin each ride with having to stand still in the driveway for 5 minutes, I figured that this was normal and merely a price I had to pay for the cool GPS data.  But then I had several rides where it would get completely lost - noodling along on a flat road under blue sky, it would tell me that it lost satellite reception and would stop tracking my distance.  The kicker was a few rides when it would cycle in and out of reception on a second by second basis, making all sorts of concerned beeping noises.  

Emailed Garmin and they told me that sometimes this just happens and that I should shut off the automatic start-stop feature (so that it was recording time, no matter if it was reading me as moving).  Fair enough.  Did this for awhile, but one morning, the gizmo failed to locate satellites even after about 20 minutes (it was foggy).  Called Garmin and they were totally cool.  I sent the unit back that day for repair.

Within a week, I get a new unit back, with a note that they couldn't find anything wrong with the old unit, but that they replaced it anyway.  A bonus here is that the one they sent back had the cadence/wheel speed sensor, which is not an option I had before, so I kinda got a free $60 upgrade.  The difference in this unit is remarkable.  The longest I've had to wait for it to lock satellites was 20 seconds!  And it's usually faster than that.  The accuracy is much better and the additional wheel sensor unit (which wirelessly reads rear wheel speed and cadence) means that if it ever loses signal that it's still recording speed through a rear wheel magnet.  

So, the quality of the product is even better than I had originally thought, but it seems that their quality control procedures might need some tweakin'.  

[editor's note, by chris] I had a rule about hollywood stuff only being in the diaries, but this is too good...

See this headline from cyclingnews?  
 "The choice of which Hollywood star will play Lance Armstrong in the long-rumored biopic of the seven-time Tour de France winner was reportedly leaked by Armstrong while talking to ESPN. Jake Gyllenhaal, the co-star of the film Brokeback Mountain has apparently been chosen, according to multiple entertainment news sources."

Probably a fine choice, but it makes me think that we should generate a list of other random or inappropriate actors to portray important supporting roles in Lance's life.  Let me suggest these other fine choices:
Lance's Mom:  Dolly Parton
Johan:  Harvey Keitel
Jan Ulrich:   Hugo Weaving or bring back the evil bearded Russian guy from American Flyers
Greg LeMond:  Jack Nicholson
Other nominations?

[editor's note, by chris] Very interesting thread... test yourself!

As a psychologist, I decided long ago that we're all capable of just about anything given the right circumstances.  All the icky evil stuff that folks do is possible for all of us (which is why we like reality TV and crime dramas - because it satisfies the little murderer in all of us).

But I think a lot about this stuff with Floyd and the pressures of a professional cyclist.  Research has shown that most Olymic athletes would dope if they could win a metal - even if taking the drug meant that their lives would be cut significantly short.  What would you do to advance in your own career?  

Poll

So, would you do it?

8%

Yes, only if there was a 30% chance I'd get caught.

4 votes

15%

Yes, only if there was a 10% chance I'd get caught.

7 votes

55%

No, never.

25 votes

4%

Yes, only if there was a 5% chance I'd get caught.

2 votes

0%

Yes, only if there was a 70% chance I'd get caught.

0 votes

11%

Yes, only if there was <1% chance I'd get caught.

5 votes

4%

Yes, only if there was a 50% chance I'd get caught.

2 votes

45 votes | Poll has closed

Continue reading this post »

Ok, this Garmin GPS bike computer is the single coolest thing ever.  Really.  But let me add a few caveats at the outset:
1.    I don't have a power meter, nor do I have the desire to buy one.  In addition to the money, I don't really want to try to learn a new training language at this point.  I'm pretty happy with training by HR.
2.    I'm a geek and I like anything that takes batteries or you have to plug in from time to time.  
I ordered the Edge 305 and received it about a week and a half ago.  I paid $270 on Ebay for a new unit - HR monitor only, no cadence.  There is also a model available that has a wireless wheel sensor which, in certain circumstances, would come in handy.

First off, the Edge has a rechargeable battery, which I really like because it saves the environment a wee bit.  Can be recharged by a power cable or through USB.  Battery life is advertised as 12 hours, but you really only get about 8.  I have a friend who built a portable battery pack for his, just in case.  But for folks who do lots of mega-endurance rides, this would not be the best choice for equipment.  

Another problem is that it tends to "lose" you when under dense tree cover and in some deep and narrow canyons.  When lost, it extrapolates your route based on last known location, speed, and elevation.  This can be really frustrating when you look down and see that it is not registering your speed or is blinking a kindly message that says "lost satellite reception."  But, these blips are relatively momentary and seem to be more of an issue when riding very slowly (because it takes a reading every 5sec, regardless of speed).  All the while, it will tell you the accuracy of its satellite reading within a certain number of feet.  For most of my rides, it's usually tracking me within +/- 19 feet.  However, when I was in the Sierras this past weekend under dense tree cover and in deep narrow canyons, that number went up over 200.  Unfortunately, if you're riding uphill very slowly at these times, it sometimes thinks you've stopped and so will register you going 0mph until it figures out that you've moved.  However, for most of my other rides, it has worked flawlessly.

These gripes aside, this thing does everything as promised.  The displays are totally customizable and allow you to track all the usual bike computer stuff and usual HR monitor stuff (on a 5-zone system) plus an almost endless list of other options: elevation, total elevation gain, total elevation loss, direction, %grade, time until sunset (go figure), etc.  (Surprisingly, it doesn't read temperature).  You can also view a tracking map of your ride (this is not an overlay of a real map, but merely a graphic depiction of your ride at each point) where you can save markers for landmarks so that they show up at each ride.  Another view allows you to see the elevation profile for your current ride.  In both map and elevation views, you can zoom in and out to get wider or narrower perspectives.

The Edge has a navigation feature where it will provide direction and distance to a saved marker.  Unfortunately, this is a "as the crow flies" metric and doesn't take into account all the twisty mountain roads around here.  But I can imagine that this would be handy for mountain biking and maybe even road situations where you might be lost.

The software interface is really cool.  You can up- and down-load rides to/from the computer.  The software provides detailed information about your rides and will overlay your HR with elevation changes.  It also shows rolling time versus total time.  Once you have done a particular ride, you can upload this to the software, name it, and then download it back into the Edge; you can then used these saved programs to race against yourself or even other riders using motionbased (I'll get to that in a sec).  Also, you can design workouts based on a training program and then upload them into the Edge so that your daily workout is structured.  Imagine taking all of those cool workouts in the back of The Training Bible and uploading them so that you can call them up so that it can count your sprints and intervals.  The Edge saves two years' worth of training rides.

Even more snazzy than the packaged software is the interface with motionbased.com.  This is totally free (although some of the cooler features are extra).  All rides can be uploaded onto motionbased, where they get linked with Google maps.  Also, you can download other people's rides and race them over the same courses.  For example, this past weekend, I did the aptly named Death Ride in the Sierras (129 miles with 15k feet of climbing).  My data is here: http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/episode/view.mb?episodePk.pkValue=1029334.
(you can also see how it freaked out enough in the tree cover so that it registered my max speed at 160mph and my max HR at 210!).  (And check out Levi's data on Mt. Ventoux).

The thing that really impresses me is how well-considered and planned this thing is.  Between the total customization of views, array of data, and utility of the computer software, everything just seems really well planned and designed.  As a guy who's had seemingly 10,000 bike computers over the past 20 years, this is far and away the best of the bunch.  If you live in densely forested areas, this may not be the thing until the GPS technology improves, although I'd love to hear from mountain bikers who have tried this under other conditions.

Hey all-
I could use some advice.  I'm smitten with the Garmin 305 HRM/bike computer: http://www.garmin.com/products/edge305/.
My favorite bike catalog company (sunrisecyclery.com - Free shipping!) is listing them for $399, but they're kicking around on ebay for around $250.  The idea of tracking elevation and being able to race myself on the same course seems pretty cool.  It also offers the bonus of being completely interchangable between bikes (so I can directly compare road races versus crits versus cross). And I can imagine dropping it in my pocket when I'm doing running workouts for cross.  But is this useful for training or am I just bewitched by cool technology?  Will this allow the feds to track my movements even more than the microchip they planted in my brain?

A story from the Mount Hamilton RR: San Jose, California

First, check out the course profile: http://www.teamsanjose.org/memorialday/2006/img/mthamall.gif.
Next, realize that there's nothing you can do to adequately prepare to ride uphill for 20 miles.  The climbs I frequent near Solvang are the same gain in elevation as this climb, but they're over in 10 miles or less.  One might think that such training would make a race like this somewhat easier (given that the climbing is spread out over a longer distance).  Not so.

The Cat 3 field had nearly 100 riders, and I realized with dismay that I was not the smallest guy there (at 5'8 and 134lbs, I usually have that honor - which makes me road kill in crits), so I knew it was going to be a beatdown.  One might also think that, with a climb of 20 miles starting about a mile into the race, we'd take it somewhat easy.  Again, not so.  The first attack came about 2 miles into the climb.  Chased and brought back.  The second attack came about 10 miles into the climb.  Again, chased and brought back.  The third attack came at about 5k to the summit at which point the blistering pace took me out of the running.  I had the horrible "slide out the back door" that every racing cyclist knows.  But, at that point, as the group rode away from me, I was somewhat comforted that there were only about 30 people left in it (which is still larger than I had expected).  

I towed a handful of other riders over the summit, even picking up a few of P/1/2 riders who had been dropped for 10 minutes from their race.  Unfortunately, it seemed that all I needed was about 30 seconds of riding at my own pace before I was ready to dig again (Maybe I should have asked.  "Say, fellas, mind if we chill for about 30 seconds or so, I just need a breather").  By the time we crested the KOM point, the Devil seemed a little less than encouraging.

In any case, turns out that the crappy roads around here have improved my descending skills because I was totally El Falco on the back side of the climb.  Totally sweet roads with some crazy switchbacks and cattle grate crossings.  At the bottom of the hill, I hooked up with about 5 guys and we totally slogged it out for the remaining 40 miles to the end.  We picked up a few riders and lost a few riders, but we never took it easy.  We passed guys who looked like they'd been beat to hell.  I ended up getting a little dehydrated because I rarely felt like the pace settled down enough for me to take a hand off the bars.  It was a total slog and the heat was nightmarish.  And if it hadn't been so difficult, it would have been absolutely beautiful.  So, the badass competitors were are, we sprinted for the line.  I got 27th on the day.  Disappointing, yes, but I consider it a recon for next year.  And if anyone has any training suggestions for riding up a mountain for 80 minutes, I'd love to hear them.

And, given how short my hair is (almost entirely shaved bald), I got some very unfortunate helmet vent sunburns on my scalp.  

And I raced a crit the next day, but it didn't count.

Hey-
So, wanna hear a sad story?  Saturday's race was a 48-mile road race.  An actual road race - a very rare event in SoCal.  The Cat 3 race is three laps and each lap has about 1500 feet of climbing - mostly on one giant climb.  An awesome course way out in the desert.  This was my day and this race was not quite an "A" on my training calendar, but it is certainly a "B+."  I traveled down the night before and stayed with a teammate.  Well fueled, well rested, and ready to roll...

The climb starts almost immediately and lasts for about a mile and a half.  I felt great.  I love climbing and listening to other folks breathing way harder than I am.

Then we dropped into the downill portion and cruised along at 50mph through clean sweeping turns.  Then, I started noticing that I was getting lots of road vibration.  Too much.  Yep, flat tire.  Five miles into the race - flat tire. In California races, we don't tend to have many follow vehicles, so I was out in the middle of the desert by myself with a flat.  Long story short, I caught a ride with the patrolling police back to the start area, changed wheels and finished up the race.

But here's the issue.  What have your experiences been with ultralight tubes?  About a month ago, I caught a sale at the Performance Bike Shop in Ventura and stocked up on the Ultralight tubes (entirely because they were out of the regulars).  I've had more flats in the past month than ever before (including three on one ride) - and not even on the same wheels.  So, I think I've decided that light weight tubes aren't worth the trouble, but I wondered if anyone else had tried a different brand and if there's every any sense in using these things.  I'm not a weight weeny and I really did get these things because they were sold out of the others, but really, what's the point?  And at 135lbs, I'm not really squeezing these things...

[editor's note, by chris] Meanwhile, stateside, Steve checks in from Sea Otter...

Hey all-
Just got back from a weekend of racing at Sea Otter, which bills itself as the largest cycling festival in the world.  Held near Monterey California at the Laguna Seca raceway, Sea Otter is 4 days of all sorts and manners of bike racing - except for road, which I'll get to in a minute.  The backdrop here is the rainiest spring that northern and central California have seen for 100 years.  San Francisco had something like 40 days straight of rainstorms - lots of mudslides, washouts, and ruined mountain bike race courses.  The Sea Otter organizers had to rearrange and move some of the race courses because the previous courses were just gone.

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Hi all-
If you're like me (and you shouldn't be) and you listen to an iPod or some such thing while you ride (which you should never do), let me make a plug. Check out Cycling Insights (http://www.cyclinginsight.com/).   Couple of Aussies ripping on everything cycling-related.  The nicknames for many pro cyclists (Landis = "predator," Jan = "sausage") and discussion of various disappearing twins found in Tyler's body are inspired.  Light on content, heavy on commentary.

Please note that you should never ride your bike while listening to an iPod.  It's far too dangerous and fun (much like cycling in general).

[editor's note, by chris] Steve checks in from the ToC, on his bike as usual.

On the stage to Santa Barbara, the riders passed down highway 154, which is just down the road from here.  Three of us rode out to the course and up to the San Marcos Pass.  We got there about an hour early.  It was pretty cold and windy, but we had a good vantage point about 200m before the KoM.  It was so cool to see the amount of spectators out, chalking the roads, taking pictures, etc.  

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[editor's note, by chris] Promoted from the diaries... another one of Steve's adventures with the pro peloton.

Although nothing can compare to the first ride I did with CSC, over the weekend, I did two more rides with the team. On Saturday, they were doing a publicity ride with employees of CSC and Cervelo. All these recreational cyclists with the company were outfitted with tricked out Cervelos and team kit. In addition to the 22 CSC riders (minus the TOC riders who left on Friday), there were probably about 25 "guests" that came along for the ride.

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Ok, so this could become a habit. The plan was that I would "work from home" today so that I could try to re-join my CSC pals for another ride. As before, I popped into the hotel parking lot just before 10AM this morning. My Speedplay pal from Sunday waved me over and said that I had missed them by about 20 minutes ("they're leaving at 9:30 these days," he says). He tells me that after a 50 mile warm-up, they're headed out to ride Mount Figueroa, the Valley's most infamous mountain.

A bit disappointed, I noodled out to Buellton to see if there was any action at the T-Mobile camp. There wasn't, so I figured that I'd cruise through the valley and hook up with CSC as they approached the mountain.

After about an hour and half, I approached the the bottom of Mt. Fig and stopped to pee and take off my knee warmers. I thought it would be wise for me to get a bit of a head start on CSC. However, as I looked back, I saw a group of about 10 riders in pink coming up not too slowly. I hopped back on my bike and started moving.

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[editor's note, by chris]Promoted from the diaries. First hand reporting!

On a two hour recovery ride today, I saw riders from both CSC and T-Mobile noodling through the Santa Ynez Valley.  It's nearly impossible to tell who these guys are without some type of Phil and Paul narration, but it's still pretty cool to see them in your own backyard.

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