Mellow Johnny’s Classic
It’s officially the end of spring racing season! Things were on the upswing at Sea Otter, kind of leveled off in South Africa, and then took a bit of a nose dive in Texas this weekend… But hey, it’s almost “summer”, which, as I recall, is proper bike season.
After the fairly brutal trip home from South Africa (40-odd hours in transit) I met up with our esteemed massage therapist and all around life enabler, Felice, for a recovery rub. She is normally pretty candid about the state of my lower extremities and this session was no different. The expressions were obvious, as were my reactions. My body was F’d. She dug into all the problem areas (everything) and I trusted her judgment in between wincing and trying to crawl up off the table. I rode my bike back up Portland Avenue afterwards feeling more balanced but quite debilitated. That explained why my bike ride that morning seemed really hard and kind of weird. That was the first step in getting my body and brain back together over the course of two days at home before heading down to Austin for the fourth Pro XCT round, the UCI C1 Mellow Johnny’s classic.
We were excited to stay with the Gentry family again, but not as excited as Tito was to see us... Thanks for having such cool parents, Meredith.
If it wasn’t a solid event with good points I’d have probably skipped it, but after our experience last year, we know the Texans love their mountain biking and that the trails at Lance Armstrong’s ranch are super fun to shred on. So, I went. Which was a good call, as I felt reasonable for the first time all week on race day. That’s how it usually goes, fortunately, especially after another massage from Felice, this one less painful and clearly the final step in the right direction…
These Arctic Heat ice vests are really amazing. Especially as the sun is just coming out on the start line.
Unfortunately, the biggest cheers I got during the race were for riding up the decisive climb, which was packed with spectators, Tour de France style, with a flat tire. It was flat after a kind of mysterious (although I have my theories), quite violent rushing of air back into its beloved atmosphere while I was chilling in 5th place on the second lap. I had just started the lap, so the tech zone was 3k away. Bummer. It’s a good thing I’m still adhering to the idea that, even though you don’t have to, you SHOULD be able to fix your bike on the trail, in case you were actually on a trail, maybe in Siberia. So I pulled out my trusty spare tube and installed it in a timely manner. It promptly exploded (confirming my theories). So, I rode the flat to the tech zone, perched at the top of said climb. As I approached the climb, kind of annoyed about having ridden 3k of rocky singletrack on a flat, I noticed that the guys in front of me (who were in second through seventh from last at that point) were carrying their bikes. Hmm, guess I’d have to walk too. This meant that the crowd was doubly impressed to see a Rabobank jersey riding up the climb on a rear flat. It didn’t seem that hard, but I guess those guys were tired from the 1,000,000 (91 actual) degree sunshine. I’d had a nice rest (pointlessly) changing the flat. Suckers. Since I’m not allowed to drop out of races, I swapped the wheel at the tech zone and set off to see how far the top 10 was ahead and maybe scrounge some UCI points. Turns out they were a long ways…
Ryan Trebron lent me a book this winter while we were riding in the NorCal rain. It’s called “The Dip” and basically is a book about knowing when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em. According to the author, if you’re on a dead-end road, you’re better off turning around and looking for a road that goes somewhere than driving down to the dead end for no gain. This leaves more time to find a road that goes somewhere. Basically, it’s OK to quit, even preferred sometimes. Deep stuff… Well, riding around in the blazing sun, 10 minutes out of the top 10 with two laps to go after a week spent being exhausted is a dead end. So I quit.
This whole spring of struggling and being unable to get out of that pesky 8-Ball’s path I’ve been looking forward to the beginning of May, when we’d have a couple weeks off and time to train, rest and re-center for the beginning of the summer racing season. Well, with quitting the Mellow Johnny’s XC I reached that light at the end of the tunnel about 35 minutes sooner. And Mike van Linden from Fox Racing Shox had extra time to install some prototype, super buttery, fork seals before I took my bike home. He also brought me a prototype Kashima RP23 rear shock, courtesy of head shock engineer Josh Yablon. Josh is keen to get some miles put on the new (slippery gold) coating and Adaptive Logic damping system. That I can do in the next couple weeks of finding out just how high the snow level is getting around The Cascades. There should be some shred time in between testing my 1 and 5 minute power and generally getting in shape. Maybe even lifting some weights. Yeah, “training”. It’s gonna be awesome, and the reportage from the next round of World Cups at the end of May will have a return to my typical sunny disposition and amazing results… I did have some amazing results, once upon a time, right?
The Kashima coated shaft and body boosted compliance and grip to 11 on the surprisingly slippery Juan Pelota trails. It just didn't keep my tire on the rim...
Oh, and Lance wasn’t there, again. Good thing there were plenty of other people around who were stoked on mountain biking. Sorry I don’t have a picture with him… What I do have is this sweet camera phone sequence of a rope swing Spencer Paxson (career best 6th place this weekend!) and I found on our Sunday morning recovery ride along Barton Creek. Wonder if Lance stops here to cool off too…
I wonder if this rope is going to break?
Nope, but this water sure is refreshing.
Fortunately, while I wasn't having things work out in Texas, Michiel van der Heijden was winning the U-23 race in Houffalize with Henk-Jaap Moorlag a close second. Good work, Rabobank teammates...
http://www.giant-bicycles.com/news/article/rabo.giant.goes.1.2.in.houffalize/15573/
Michiel is a proper mountain bike rider who seems particularly stoked to have learned the phrase "shred". He's always asking if we can go for a shred at the races. Of course we can. Here's a little clip of some SoCal shredding...
http://www.giant-bicycles.com/maestro/