Category: bicycle racing

Racing Bikes AND Cars

I’m lucky to have many “hobbies” of the type that just one would make me happy.  For the past 5 years, or so, there has been an ebb and flow between my bike hobby and my car hobby. 

Mt View Team
Mt View Team

I wouldn’t be able to do the car racing without help from friends and sponsors, and because of the relationships I’ve developed over time in the sport, I have an opportunity to race at the Rose Cup Races at Portland again this June.

The problem is balancing the time required to prepare for bicycle races such as the Mount Hood Cycling Classic June 4-7 and Rose Cup which begins with testing on the 11th.  The car I am to drive for Rose Cup is the same car Chuck Hall, Will Schrader, Jonny Davies and I won the 12 Hours of the Cascades with last November and that Jonny and I drove with Ken Sutherland and Bruce Wilson at the 25 Hours of Thunderhill (leading until all of the oil fell out through 4 big holes in the block).  Until last week, it was largely in the same state that it rolled (was towed) off the track in December.

12 Hours of the Cascades Winner
12 Hours of the Cascades Winner

The balancing process is hard (in a good way).  Yesterday, I rode my bicycle for a couple of hours before going to the race car shop to work on putting the car back together (new engine, transmission, differential, shocks, brakes, repair light body damage, etc).  Sean Hedrick of Miatacage.com has made the task possible by providing the big components in a mostly complete state.

Enduro / Rose Cup Spec Miata
Enduro / Rose Cup Spec Miata

This morning I will go to Silverton (near Salem) for a bicycle race with my Mt View Cycling team mates.  I’ll work for a couple of days (sneaking some cycling miles in) and collecting more of the parts needed for the enduro / Rose Cup car, with the goal of installing the drive train late next week.

Hood River Cycling and the Crit Series

These races have taken place on Thursdays in April for the past 5 years, or so, and each year the turnout gets a little bit better.  There’s another story sometime about how the series started.  My recollection is that the first attempts were made by my good friend and former neighbor, that got me into road cycling 8 years ago, Julio Paredes. 

Anyway, as near as I can tell there are now no fewer than 5 cycling “teams” in the gorge – two of them are basically bike shop teams formed for the purpose of increasing the visibility of those shops (selling shit).  The others are the result of guys not wanting to spend their money to help other guys sell their shit.  We all ride together anyway, and since the cycling community here is relatively small, I have always thought it would make sense for there to be just one team.  But, not to be.  I’m wondering what I should call the sixth team – for a while I was puting “Team Julio” on my race entry forms, hmmmm…

Again, I wander.  Discover Bicycles, the shop who’s kit I wore (for no good reason) was sold last year and the new owner has made no effort to maintain the “club”.  My options were to wear the kit of the guys I ride with in Orange County, California (which would give the same race support (none), access to a coach and better equipment support than I ever got here), or to accept the invitation to ride with the other local shop. 

The owners of the other shop, Mountain View Cycles, ride and race, grew up here and have had the shop forever.  The cyclocross team that they have been building is awesome.  I had been asked to join them for the Cherry Blossom Classic stage race and we had a team of 8 Cat 4 guys show up!!!  Seems like a no-brainer. 

Moon with Sunset
Moon with Sunset

The problem is that the kit is the saddest excuse for a road racing uniform that I recall ever seing.  This is a small problem given that most everything else is in order – BUT WHYYYYYYYYY!?!?!?!?  At least they have agreed to go to a manufacturer (Castelli) that makes high quality clothing.  And it turns out that their graphic design guy fixed the two most obvious problems on his own for the first proof…  It still looks like an early 90’s mountain biking reject kit, but at least my ass won’t hurt.

The crit series was 4 races and we had a guy, Andrew,”the big kid”, in 3rd place and within 4 points of the leader.  The leader was my friend, Andy, who is new to road biking and I personally encouraged him to race the series.  He is wearing the jersey of another small repair shop that one of his buddies owns – as such, he must be defeated!!!

We had totally buggered up the week before – pretty much hammered around in circles and led out the rest of the field.  We’re Cat 4’s and we’re not very smart about a lot of stuff – we aren’t supposed to be, really.  But, Andrew wanted to win and the guys wanted to help.

This will seem totally obvious to anybody that thought for more than 3 seconds about it, but the plan was to launch a series of attacks – everybody had a job.  Andrews  job was to do nothing until two laps to go and then follow Tony and whoever else could help to the front and win the sprint. 

Sure as the sun rising in the east, Andy and the 2nd place guy had to chase the 2nd and 3rd attacks.  They didn’t really have to, but they’re Cat 4’s too (Andy a 5, actually) and just as dumb as us.  But, they did have to beat each other – it was the perfect tactical situation for us.  We had to do only one thing – beat them.  They had more to do and nobody to help them do it.

Just after 4 laps to go was my turn to attack and they both came with me.  After getting clear I let the top two take turns beating the hell out of each other for a couple of laps.  Then, on cue, here comes Andrew doing his thing – the big kid is tough for short distances…  He sprinted well, won the race and the other two finished in an order that allowed him to win the series – well done.

Enough of PIR

Last night, I “raced” a bicycle at PIR for the second time this year.  What a freakin’ cluster…

I’m a Cat 4, and I get what that means.  But, for God’s sake, is it so hard to pedal a bike around a 60 ft wide race track without running into stuff..?  PIR is quite wide, but not without obstacles – some care and planning are warranted.  It’s not like everybody doesn’t know what is possible…

Turn 7 was re-profiled for 2008 and it took a while to figure it out in the car (2nd gear, third gear, early turn in and throttle, rotate the car, etc…) – but everybody did.  The bikes nearly came to a stop there once last night and half the field never did work out that the track narrows at exit.  WTF?

Team mate E1 and I tooled around at the back of the field after the 2nd prime – both of us having concluded that we wanted to reduce our exposure.  The field was crawling and at times became 10 riders wide at the front (blunt end).  Every time I queued up to get into a rotation the third guy would sit up…  That’s fine – I had helped to organize the chase last week and this time my plan was to let others do some work to see if I had any sort of sprint (I don’t).  Maybe everybody else had the same plan… again. 

But, we’re Cat 3’s and 4’s – and this isn’t the friggin’ Tour de France…  It isn’t necessary to force your way between the barrier and the field in a sprint for a possible 10th place finish!!!  If you F***ed up the last lap and started the sprint 30th – you can give it a go again next week…

Somebody is going to get hurt, and I don’t really feel like I need that right now.  Racing is always a calculated risk – and the calculation says to stay away from PIR for a while.  But, I need to race something, somewhere…  I’m not much of a climber, but maybe the Tabor series will be more sensible – everybody has to work or get shelled there…  Maybe stick to the Cat4 40+ races and the harder road races or mountain bikes.  Maybe I should focus some more time on making sure a fast car is available for Rose Cup…  aaah, the warm, friendly and happy security of a roll cage…

On the up side, Wes ended up 3rd on the night – pretty good for a Cat4 in a 100 plus rider Cat3/4 field.  Well done.

But, In the end, E1 ended up on the ground on the second to last lap after riding us back to the front with 2 laps to go.  It sounded like somebody had steered him into the barrier on the finish straight – why go straight when you could be having so much fun turning..?  One of the teenagers elbowed his way between me and the barrier (using his body as first notice that he was coming through) and sprinted into the back of two guys who had sat-up after mis-timing their final efforts.  Brilliant!!!

I feel like I dodged one (or eight) last night.

Cherry Blossom Classic

Columbia Gorge Road Race

Last weekend was the first edition of the Cherry Blossom Classic stage race in The Dalles, Oregon. This race is basically an early edition of the Mount Hood Cycling Classic using stages that are all east of Hood River to take advantage of more reliable spring weather.

3 days, 4 stages and a boat load of climbing.

I was invited to ride with what turned out to be the biggest single category team ever to race out of a bicycle shop in Hood River – Mountain View Cycles. We were mostly a bunch of old guys racing in Cat 4. It was an impressive showing with some great support and I am very optimistic that it will grow into a good team with some nice results.

Day one was a 38 mile circuit race of two laps with a lot of wind. Day two was an 8 mile time trial in the morning and a criterium in downtown The Dalles Saturday afternoon and a 55 mile 5200 feet of climbing road race on Sunday (map above).

I finished mid-pac, which is better than I would have done a year ago. I must earn redemption!!! – at least I’m headed in the right direction…

I shall return.

BT

Motathlon

As this is all about cars and bikes, I figure I should relate the story about the only time I know of that people used both of them in the same race.

 

For the Mazda Grand Prix of Portland last July the promoter had hatched the brilliant idea that you could do a race like a triathlon, but using race cars instead of swimming. There were some problems, though. First, that’s the kind of race I could actually win, even if it sounded kind of dicey – but, I had “retired” from car racing at the end of 2007. Second, I thought they would change their minds after they thought about it for more than a minute.

 

I was wrong, of course, and on Sunday morning we were called together for a meeting about how the race would work, and how hopefully nobody would be killed and how it was worth the risk because the winner would get $400. It did seem likely that I’d risked my life for less than that before…

 

I had, the day before, un-retired from car racing and finished 7th in the first Spec Miata race of the weekend which had taken place Saturday afternoon. I had also hatched a brilliant plan to race the Motathlon then drive up to Vancouver, Washington to race a Criterium (bicycle’s, twisty, crowded, and in reality more dicey than the Motathlon) and then return very quickly to Portland to take part in the feature race of the Mazda Grand Prix in the Miatacage.com Miata. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

 

How often will the chance to do a real bike race and real car race on the same day present itself, anyway?

 

There were about 10 of us dumb enough to show up on the Motathlon grid and most of us were in Spec Miatas. We drew for starting position and would do four laps of PIR in the car, about one mile on the bike and then run about 300 yards to the finish (where Playboy bunnies would be waiting for the winner – yes, those Playboy bunnies).

 

Will Schrader took off on the car leg and had gapped the field led by Bruce Wilson and Alec Osenback. My excuse for being fourth is that my plan was simply to avoid the bad things that might happen during the car part and win it from the bike. I think most of us were using nearly all of our regular safety equipment except the HANS (head and neck restraint). I had decided to do the entire race without changing or removing any gear!!!

 

Motathlon and Mazda GP Spec Miata
Motathlon and Mazda GP Spec Miata

That was Will’s biggest mistake. The time he took to switch helmets completely erased the gap he had made for himself. Bruce and Alec were banging on each other entering the “transition area” (I’m told that’s what the triathlon people call it) and frankly, I’m surprised they didn’t wreck themselves – but 400 bucks is 400 bucks and Bruce was pretty well spun up about the bunnies.

So, I hopped out of the car and was handed my bicycle by my friend (and hairdresser), Fenn Bourland, who is an experienced triathlete who uses words like “transition” and “area”. It was pretty much over, save the sweating, at that point. Alec was in the lead and I could hear the muffled obscenities as I blew by him and continued to stretch out a 45 second advantage by the time the run started. That part was pretty cool because Alec is young and all kind of spry looking and I’m kind of old… Anyway, a sprint in full race driving gear down the straightaway and the bunnies and $400 would be mine!!!

24 Hours of Lemons

LeMons WinnersCar people, in particular, love the 24 Hours of Lemons and as I was forunate enough to do it once, I’m often asked questions about it. The 2007 edition of the 24 Hours of Lemons at Thunderhill was the first “race” out of retirement for me. I’ve described it as a Halloween party with cars, and that really is just about it. Cyclocross racers have got nothing for these clowns.
If you want to know more about the race go here http://www.24hoursoflemons.com/
As I have pictures and video that describe the experience I will simply add them for your viewing pleasure.  We brought a guy that can drive around on 2 wheels (video) and some people cheat (more video).  If you cheat by bringing a car worth more than $500 the motor might be confiscated (yes, more video)…
Those bags stacked on top of the car contain $1,500 worth of nickles… 600 pounds or so.