Slow Death on the Cobbles

At the end of the Sector 16 video, you saw that I did a double-take when the National Champ of Belarus rolled by me. The little dude and a couple other FDJ guys sucked my wheel all the way across those cobbles but I was suffering so bad, I never heard them or even thought to look back and see if anyone was there. I recovered on the on the asphalt roads, absolutely giddy, trying to soak in as much of this experience as I could, and telling myself...."What every you do, do not crash and take any of these guys out". I have no doubt those guys liked the hole in the wind I make.... but I am also sure that they had not idea of my ability to wad it up on short notice. Being on my wheel in rough terrain is not necessarily the safest place to be. It appears that somehow they all knew this as the rest of the FDJ team

So, the next section (Sector 15) we hit at 18 mph. George Hincapie was on the front as none of the FDJ guys wanted to go around him. I settled in on the wheel of good ol' Yauheni and prepared to do another high output interval. Little did I know that I was about to discover that my Maximum Heart Rate seems to have dropped 3 beats per minute over the last 7 years.

Let go to the film, shall we?






I probably could have caught back on before the next section of cobbles... but it would have only resulted in another video of me getting shelled again. Still, this one of the funnest and yet painful experiences I have had. A whole lot like racing CX.

Riding Cobbles

We rode 50 miles of the Paris-Roubaix course with Rich Hincapie and his SoCar posse. We had learned earlier in the week the these guys wait for no one. Yet, there we were at the end of of riding the first section of cobbles..... waiting. I asked Rich H. why we were not rolling and he came back with "We are waiting on my little brother". I replied... "Oh, that guy, I guess we can wait on him". Soon enough George rolled up and we were off. George in the lead, Rich on his wheel, the SoCar posse and then us CO guys on the end. We were rolling at a pretty good clip through some the French countryside and small villages when I heard some gents behind me speaking French. During the Cyclosportive, I got used to locals latching on to my wheel and did not even bother to look back this time to see who was sucking up the draft on my big carcass. We hit the cobbles and well... I will let the video tell the rest.






We came off that section and I simply cannot believe I just rode a section of Paris-Roubaix cobbles with the pros. I had to go pretty deep into the red and run my heart rate up to about 90% of max, but shit man, I just stayed with the pros!!!!! Little did I know that George was just getting warmed up.

Tune in tomorrow to see what happens on the next section.

More RRV Video

Here is some more video I shot on the Tour of Flanders.


This first one is a rolling on a flat section of cobbles. The way I was rolling compared to the local Belgians made me feel like I was a man of the cobbles and had a chance on the stones of Paris-Roubiax. In a few days I would learn that these cobbles are like a freshly paved parking lot compared to anything in PR.

The Longest 5 Minutes of My Life

This was the first real video I shot with my GoPro HD Camera. It is my attempt at climbing the Koppenberg.

All the cycling geeks who read this blog know exactly what it is. For those who have a life outside cycling, the Koppenberg is a very famous climb in the Flanders region of Belgium. It is a major feature each year during the one-day classic race known as the Tour of Flanders. It is relatively short (600 meters) as are all climbs in the this race. However it is very steep (22% at the max) and made of cobble stones. Very rough cobble stones as you will see. When the stones get wet, they get very slick. It was raining the day I rode this with 15,000 others. The bottom had dried a bit but the steepest part is in the trees and that was wet.




The rough cobbles cause for considerable background noise. Probably a good thing because I was up against my max heart rate and gasping for air for the whole second half of the climb.....you probably don't want to hear all that. About 1/3 the way up, you hear me call out a number if you listen close... I thought for a split second that it would be cool to call out the grade as I went up. That thought went away as soon as my ability to get enough oxygen did.
As you can tell, I was pretty damn stoked when I actually pulled this off. We came back and rode it again a couple days later when it was dry. It is much, much easier to ride when it is dry.

Off To The Races

I passed up on the first weekend of CX in Colorado to head out to the land of BBQ and farmland to take in the final stage of the Tour of Mo.

Here is a quick photo recap of the highlights

You know you are in the mid-west when things start to center around farm animals.

The Tour of MO had good crowds all week according to the reports I read. The Start line at Kansas City was no exception.

Mark Niemiec and his MAVIC crew had new cars for the race. With the demise of Saab earlier this year, they were granted the opportunity to find new ones for the neutral support fleet.

This was the last 200 meters. Again notice the way the subtleties of the mid-West are integrated into the course. Here we have the same design used in a cattle chute applied to the finish line sprint. The run-in to the finish line was a long straight-away. Most of it was downhill with a small "bump" about 300m to go as the course went over bridge. Then, as you can see above it was downhill off the bridge and the last 200 were flat.

The final stage of the ToMO was a 10 mile circuit race. The provided an excellent opportunity for people who knew people to snag a ride in one of the VIP caddies. Each lap it was like a mini NASCAR pit as all the caddies come in a high speed and braked hard to stop. They were putting 3 heads in each back seat so you hand 9 sets of assholes and elbows coming out, 9 more going in and people ToMO staff telling them to hurry the whole time.

MAVIC was taking of a few extras as well.

Mark Niemiec was kind enough to offer me a spot in one of the cars when he and I worked an event earlier this summer. I gladly took him up on it. Here is a camera-phone pic out the front just so say I was there. I got to spend just a bit over 20 minutes caching up with Mark and TJ (Mark was MAVIC 2 that day and TJ was his jumper). My first questions were about how new VW Jettas handle differently that the Saabs. Mark had plenty of opportunity to show me. The course was very technical with a myriad to turns, four climbs and a 60mph decent in each lap. It was a bitch of a course for the final stage. Before the race, Mark predicted it would be fast. He was dead on. 70+ miles in a bit over 2.5 hrs. If a rider flatted, they were pretty much done. I only heard of one rider chasing back on at it took him almost a whole lap of riding in the cars to do it.

This is a climb about half way though the circuit. Earlier in the week, my buddy that I was staying with in K.C. and I looked at the course map and he noted this climb. Not for anything related to the difficulty it presented to the racers. No, he noticed the hood. The race map in the local paper noted it as a good viewing area. My buddy noted it as a place whitey don't want to be after 5pm. Indeed, he was right. You cannot see it in this pic, but trust me, behind the people, it is full on barrio.

We had moved up in the string of cars as we came to the bottom of the main climb in case the race broke up there. Then, on the decent, we slid back some in the line of team cars. They did that same dance each lap.

The race grid.

Moto #1 did a 10 second swap for an OUCH rider. Then they swap the dead wheel out with a freshie MAVIC wheel and let the car haul the dead one to the end of the race. All at 30 MPH rolling thought the K.C. Streets. You will notice in this picture that MAVIC uses a wide array of wheels. Ksyiums, Carbones, and R-SYS. I did not ask Mark why..... should have.

This is the race come through 300m before the start/finish line on a mid-race lap. On the final Thor and his lead-out man had a three bike length gap at this point. I am guessing he was not happy about losing this one.

Put me in coach, I'm ready to play

Well, taking a mandatory break is never a good thing, even if your hematocrit is not above 50. After taking on the bog at Interlocken and losing out to a sprained ankle, I was finally able to get back on the bike and raced this weekend. Damn, it is hard to get going again after being out for 3 weeks.

Saturdays race in Highlands Ranch was a great way to get back into the swing of things. The Frites en Mayo squad was a co promoter, so racing was bevrijd (free) for us. Good thing, since I started DFL and then rode at the back, giving out pointers to guys falling down in front of me. In the end, I finished and the ankle was good. Cant say the same thing about the lungs though.

Sundays race at the Fed Center was another eye opener. With a dirt "wall" to climb every lap and a cement drainage ditch that was eating tires on every turn, I thought I would go into survival mode early. There was a small turnout, 35 or so, for the beer drinking dad's league race. After the first lap and my legs burning again, I was told 19th place. They must of have missed some people I thought.

Rode the next couple laps with the same group, each taking pulls and trying to scratch our way to the next group up the road. Going out on the last lap we had a good gap to the chasers. Up the dirt "wall", which had to be about a 60 degree pitch, I looked over and here comes some guy from CO Bike Law, full gas towards us. I took off and rode quick and told my legs "dont fail me now" and motored to the finish. I got 18th, not a great result, but a finish with speed is a good finish.

Brian rode to a 10th place finish on Sunday. This is Brian's first year of racing cross. He has been killing it all year. He also finished 18th on Saturday. When you see a really really big guy in the Frites en Mayo argyle kit riding an Orange Kona, stay out of his way. You will know when he is coming up to you, his brakes squeal really bad.