hood river – Brian Towey

Hood River Double Cross

Cyclocross has been a big deal to some of the guys I ride with in Hood River for a long time. I’ve never completely figured it out, because sometimes it looks like it’s just a way for hopelessly insufferable, wannabe bikey hipsters from Portland to endear themselves to the cycling community… Thankfully, that’s mostly untrue – many of the guys (and girls) are bad fast and it has always looked like everybody has loads of fun. So, for years it seems, I would plan to acquire a bike – nothing fancy, just something that would work better than a mountain bike or converted road beater.

Double Cross Photos

In "cross" time is spent carrying the bike and tripping over obstacles

Last year, I finally pulled the trigger – which means that I had a bike by the time the season was about half over. This is a “cross” tradition born either from the reality that bike shops don’t want to stock a bunch of “weird” bike stuff that will be useless by the time Christmas rolls around (and until September of the next year), or a massive conspiracy to prove “you’re not cool enough”. Your bike will be here next week, er September, I mean mid October…

Anyway, the bike showed up and I figured that since the guys I ride on the road with are racing in the Masters B category (the equivalent of Cat 3 on the road), that I should do the same. WRONG. First, if you start at the back (there is another conspiracy to guarantee this), you will likely stay there. The courses can be quite technical which is problematic for a guy that doesn’t spend much time on a mountain bike anymore – that means passing is hard. I struggled to get into the middle third of the pack. I sucked.

It seems there were always 100 guys in the races. And, the line-up is done by lottery based on the last digit of your race number – my number was never in the top half of the guys that started at the back half of the race. I have come to believe that this is because I was new and cyclocross has another special math based conspiracy to determine these things. I was definitely going to need a new plan for this year.

Each cross event has about 90 different races split up by different combinations of age, experience and sex (there are no fewer than three of those, as near as I can tell). There is always somebody (something) to race with and I would like to do well, but I really don’t want to be a sandbagger (those that race a category easier so they can win the beer prizes which are based on more “randomly” generated combinations of numbers).

This year, even though I’m 49, I can race as a 50 year old (another tricky numbers thing – but it says so on my racing license). They have a geezer class in cross that starts at 50. Surely, there would be fewer age 50 plus riders, so starting at the back wouldn’t be as far back, and since its age based – no sandbagging… The only problem is that, like road racing, there exists the possibility of x-pros in the field (or guys that are just plain fast). But hey, if I can be the “new kid”, I’m going to check it out – and how many fast guys that age could there be, anyway..?

Double Cross in Hood River is when the Mountain View team starts it’s cross season. Pretty much everybody gets involved, including the kids which is super fun. This would be my first time doing these races, which is hard to believe given how long I’ve been riding bicycles. Day one would be at the High School and day two would be at the Hood River County Fairgrounds in Odell.

“Masters 50” races along with “Masters B” (age 35+, where I raced last year), so comparisons between the two would be easy and I would still kind of get to race with my buddies. We started one minute behind the B’s (about 35 of them, 25 of us) and it was clear while waiting for the start that a few of the old guys were going to make it through a lot of the B field. The High School course is kind of wide and / or grassy in a lot of places, so passing wouldn’t be a huge issue and the start was easier than I expected.

I settled into a top 10 position early and just rode my heart rate for the first couple of laps. Now, I have issues running in the red zone – I don’t like it. It’s probably that I’m lazy – I just don’t have a very high “suffering index”. In cross, however, red zone is what it’s all about – go till you blow. I ended up in a race with two other guys (two of us chasing the other with a gap that varied between about 1 and 10 seconds).

I had backed off a bit with 3 laps to go with the idea that I could deliver a big, demoralizing and crushing blow to the others at the beginning of the last lap. My heart rate was low in zone 5 and if the other guys were redlined (like I expected they were), I would win the mini “race within a race”. As we crossed start / finish at the beginning of the last lap, the scorer shouted out “you’re done” – WTF? I had made a stupid rookie mistake and didn’t see that the lap board had gone from 2 to zero as we approached the line – the guy that had been following me for two laps did see it and put a wheel on me at the finish. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I don’t make that kind of mistake – well, except this time… F*** me. I was ninth.

I figured the Fairgrounds course wouldn’t suit me because it was less technical. As it turns out, even though my bike handling skills are in the toilet lately, I am blessed with good line selection capabilities so that even when my bike doesn’t go exactly where I wanted it to it is still close to being “on line”. Being on line makes it possible to start pedaling earlier when exiting corners (the same principal that applies to cars) – this is important on a “non-technical” course like Sunday’s because it had lots of “easy” turns.

As we were staging for the race there was a line of guys in the front row and I parked my bike behind them. Minutes passed and occasionally somebody would push through to the front – a couple of guys simply went around and backed into the front of the line-up. I thought these guys are being awfully aggressive for a bunch of old f***ers – some of them are going to beat me, but not all of them. There is something about the protocol that I don’t get.

Then as we rolled up to stage I found myself in the back row – I’m really not very good at this. Several of the guys were suggesting that we take it easy until we get to the grass – we’re all here “to have fun” I think is how it goes… I had already made one rookie mistake this weekend so screw that. Besides, I think it would be more “fun” to be nearer the pointy end. The way I see it these guys had started racing when they forced their way to the front – once we “switch on”, it’s on…

I was able to make it around most of the line barging hipsters by the end of the long start straight and a few more as we went through the first barriers. When things settled down I was in the top 10 which I was comfortable with. My decent late corner acceleration was making it possible for me to stay close to the fast guys at the start of the race. I was worried that my legs would be tired from Saturday’s 45 minute effort in the red zone, but I felt better than expected. I don’t think cross’ effect on the body is as much like road racing’s non-stop prolonged efforts as I expected it would be. But still, I need to do a lot of work before I can stay with those top 4 or 5 guys.

Like Saturday, I had a really fun race with a few other guys on Sunday. There were always three of us within a few seconds. Mid-way through the race I felt the rear tire briefly roll off the rim (I’m still riding clinchers which do that at the lower pressures used in cross). I was convinced I wouldn’t make it to the end of the race as it felt like the tire was going flat. I checked it a couple of times and it seemed that it hadn’t lost all of its air so I was able to ride carefully to a sixth place finish. At the finish line it was totally flat – better lucky than good.

Cross is fun and it has been good for my fitness – its forcing me to run in the red zone for prolonged periods which is exactly the kind of training I’ve been missing (that laziness thing again). I’ve also successfully kept the bike from hitting the ground after loosing traction several times which is good for my bike handling confidence. Afterward everybody gets beer and French fries. How cool is that?

This cross thing is growing on me.

p.s. Cross races are also fun to watch on fall weekends – that’s how I originally got suckered in. In Portland, Cross Crusade is the big deal.

Oregon Raceway Park

There are not words sufficient to describe how cool it is that a bunch of guys that like racing were able to pull something like this off. Seriously, they are 99.9 percent of the way to a functioning racing facility.

Oregon Raceway Park Website

Being from Hood River it seems that we are among the closest active racing residents to this new facility – that makes it even cooler for us. So Sunday, Garth Levin, Jonny Davies and I visited Oregon Raceway Park for the first time since we had attended a tour in November of 2006, shortly after they had cut the original path through the fields that now contain the race track.

This is going to be a challenging place to race. It seems that first they will run races in the clockwise direction, but the track was conceived with the notion that it could be run counter clockwise, as well. I think it looks much better clockwise than counter. My biggest concern is turn 1 in the counter direction – it will be fast and scary, and it doesn’t get really scary until you leave the track. There is a nice place to land the medivac helicopter near where the cars will finally finish crashing, though. I think it will be a while before this track races in that direction. Everything else I’m worried about looks like it could be handled by mid-week.

Jonny Davies was the driver on Sunday – he is one of the finest amateur race drivers in the country. I was in attendance to collect data and help with the car – the same car that I’ve been racing this year and was used in the 12 Hours of the Cascades and 25 Hours of Thunderhill last fall. Garth came along to fix anything I broke while working on the car.

We use the AiM data acquisition system in all of the cars and I also gathered some video, and for one session taped a small Garmin GPS device to the dash. Here are some interesting factoids from his second session in the clockwise direction:

Top speed (clockwise) – 98.8 mph

Best Lap Time (clockwise) – 2:04.671

Elevation Gain / Loss – approx 400 ft

To put things into perspective, Pacific Raceways, the track with the most elevation gain and loss in the Northwest, has about 140 ft change per lap. According to our little GPS unit (with a slow sampling rate), ORP is somewhere around 400 ft in just over the same distance!!!

It is a shame that there will not be a race at ORP this year. It was on the ICSCC schedule up until last week, and then it seems a new interpretation of some rules ended the fun. For sure, there are still some safety issues to work out. But, in racing anything is possible as long as everybody pulls in the same direction – for some reason they aren’t.

Again, I can’t say how impressed I am by this group of people that did what many thought was impossible. This is an awesome accomplishment and the sooner ORP is raced on the quicker the issues of amenities and safety will be addressed, and the facility expanded.

Bravo!!!

Vista Ridge Ride

cross here or ride back over the big hill

A couple of years ago, a big fall storm / flood destroyed several bridges on Oregon Hwys 35 and 26 making it impossible to reach the Mt. Hood Meadows Ski Area for several weeks. During the same storm, the bridge that crosses the Hood River just west of Parkdale (the middle fork, I think) was lost, as well.

In order to use the route that crosses over Vista Ridge to Red Hill Road between Lolo Pass Road and Parkdale, it is necessary to cross the river. There are no homes west of the river, so nobody knows (or cares particularly) when the road will open again. But, it is kind of a cool ride and we’ve all ridden it many times as it was previously part of the Road Race Course for the Mt. Hood Cycling Classic.

Eric Sletmoe had crossed the river recently from the Parkdale side and was able to persuade the rest of us that it would be a good route for the Saturday morning Hood River Group Ride that leaves from Ground Coffee Shop at 8am. Lara had made the portage, as well, and 8 o’clock is too early to argue about stuff like this, anyway…

The ride is pretty incredible, as it uses a lot of National Forest Service road that pretty much goes to “nowhere”. The tricky part is that around here “nowhere” is usually “up there somewhere”, so there’s going to be some climbing.

I haven’t totally figured out the NFS road labeling system, but I think it’s something like this – 2 digit numbers are paved, 4 digit numbers are spurs of 2 digit numbers and if they end with a zero, they are kind of paved. Avoid the odd numbered 4 digit variety – we did some four digits with zeros – they were just fine.

In any case, we made it safely on pretty good roads, and since we crossed the river relatively early in the day the water level was pretty low. Most of us took our shoes off so that we could walk across the temporary “bridges” that had been made and our feet never even got wet.

We stopped at The Taqueria for some burritos afterward and it all made for a pretty good day.

Map

Mount Hood Cycling Classic

The saying on one of the t-shirts the volunteers were wearing said something like “It’s not about strategy, it’s about survival”. Fair enough, but in my book survival is a strategy, and success will be determined by the tactics you’ve chosen to get there.

The short version is that I believe I maximized my result through some pretty good tactical decision making. I made an error in the criterium that I’ll beat myself up over for a while, but I was in the sprint for the win (a rarity) and managed 10th, placing me 17th overall in the General Classification.

MHCC is a great race and the final stage happens literally down the street from my house (8 blocks to be exact – I couldn’t park much closer). I guess location is important for the same reasons that it’s a big deal for somebody from Indiana t0 compete in the Indy 500. It’s just part of our culture here and it is an immense privilege to participate.

There were a relatively large number of local riders participating. I had four Mountain View teammates in the Cat 4 Men field (Karl Mikkelson, Tony Dirks, Eric Moody and John Kenney). Lara signed up at the last minute with

a few of the other girls to ride in the Cat 3-4 Women race and there were a few locals in the Masters field, and my friend Albert Gonzales came up from Southern California and rode the Pro 1-2 field in the Mountain View kit and finishing 4th in the crit field sprint (44th on GC).

Highlights were Lara’s road race, on Saturday, which was 72 miles with 8,500 feet of climbing and she killed it – finishing 11th ahead of all but a few Cat 3’s, and our friend Andy Olsson (riding in a mountain biking costume) was fourth in the road race. We were well supported by the team members that weren’t riding the race for a variety of excuses that included only one good reason…

Anyhow, for Cat 4 Men this race is brutal. It’s close to 200 miles over 4 days

with about 18,000 feet of climbing, and an extremely “interesting” criterium course in downtown Hood River. Course Overview

I’ll write more about the race later, as I’m off to the race shop now to prepare the Miatacage.com Spec Miata for the Portland Rose Cup Races this weekend. If all goes well today and tomorrow I may register for the Elkhorn Classic Stage Race in Baker City, Oregon the next weekend. That would be 3 weekends of racing in a row… How often will an opportunity like that present itself?

First things first.

Mount Hood Cycling Classic Recon

I pushed for this to happen, so I’m not really going to blame the other guys for not talking me out of it. But, today against our collective better judgement, and because the race organizer said that the snow was rapidly melting, six of us drove up to Mount Hood Meadows and embarked on a mission.

There is almost always some comedy involved in a long bike ride. The perps today were Tony Dirks, John Kenney, Eric Sletmoe, Mike Jones, Jeff Lorenzen and me – on this day, AKA The Six Stooges.

It was a pretty simple idea, really – ride the Road Race course for the

upcoming (starts a week from Thursday) Mount Hood Cycling Classic stage race. What could go wrong? MHCC Race Website.

It’s a lot of climbing, and in this case hiking. This is a stage that belongs on a Grand Tour (it would be a hard day in The Tour of California, anyway), and I feel fortunate (usually after a couple of martinis) to have the opportunity to race a course like this – and in my own back yard!!!

It makes sense to have a look first, and a look we had. The race organizer (Chad, who is rapidly becoming one of the most prolific race organizers in the country) now knows the true situation (where the rubber doesn’t actually meet the road because there is 3 ft of snow between them), and there is still time to sort it out. The expedition, it turns out, was a brilliant idea.

Ride Map

Pain – or, Attitude Really is Everything

Bicycle racing is hard, but not just for me – that’s what I learned yesterday at the Silverton Road Race.

Most of the Cat 4 Men Mt View Cycles team that did the Cherry Blossom Stage Race in May will be doing the Mt Hood Cycling Classic at the beginning of June. Six of us went Silverton as a sort of reality check. Mt Hood is going to be hard – as hard as it gets for Cat 4 road racers, and we needed this opportunity to get our heads straight. Also, it is super cool for a small town like Hood River to be able to rally such a large group to race together – in all there were close to a dozen of us at Silverton and I wanted to support that.

The race went well for me, but wasn’t without some challenges. Masters races are usually open category, and category races are usually open age group. This was the first time that I recall seeing a race for Cat 3-5 Masters, and I saw it as a great opportunity to see what Cat 3 guys my age are doing – they usually race in the open category masters races.

It is helpful for me to relate issues in bicycle racing to something similar in car racing. I learned some very valuable tools several years ago when one of the guys racing a Spec Miata from the Seattle area, Garth Stein, arranged for 20 of us to do a two day racing “clinic” at Pacific Raceways. The primary instructors were Don Kitch who is one of the best communicators I’ve ever known, and Ross Bentley the author of the awesome “Speed Secrets” series of race driving books.

Ross made a point that for lack of a better term (or because he may have used it) that I still refer to as the rule about your “happy place”. The context, in that case, was that if you get into the race car to go out in the rain, for example, and you are fearful of the challenges presented by the adverse conditions – you are, as they say, doomed… Well, I always had liked racing in the rain – mostly because my results were often spectacular. Racing in the rain is my happy place, but others are often concerned, anxious or terrified and this helps to make my life inside a miserable, wet race car quite pleasant (no crisis wasted, you might say). Coincidentally (or maybe not so much), Garth is now a world renowned novelist for his book “The Art of Racing in the Rain”.

Yesterday, I consciously sought and found my happy place on the bicycle, allowing me to work my way through a challenge that could have ended my day. I had ridden the first two laps of the 17 mile course mid pack, conserving energy and focusing on the challenge of being mid pack and not getting caught up in a crash (Masters are much more comfortable to ride around than Cat 4 teenagers, by the way – go figure…). At the beginning of the 3^rd lap there was an attempt to bridge a recent attack and I found myself feeling quite good and at the front of the main field. The bridge attempt really wasn’t, and we settled back down only for me to realize that I was going to cramp.

My left leg, all of it, was starting to tighten up – and not just a little bit. I slid back, dropped a couple of gears and started spinning. More Hammer Gel, more Cytomax, spin, spin, spin. But, my legs did feel pretty good and I knew if I could work through this that I could be a factor at the finish – that made me happy and motivated me to keep going. Not to try, but to do.

There were some accelerations and riders in front of me continued to be gapped, but I always had enough to make the jump. This was new for me – I am usually functioning in survival mode. I was pushed off the road by a rider that had cramped and swerved as he lost the use of one side of his lower body – I was again able to accelerate back to the group. Another racer cramped on one of the last little bumps and I heard the sound of bike tipping over with its rider still clipped in, and still more racers faded.

The fact was, that as much as I was being challenged by my cramping (which had now moved to both calves, in addition to my left hamstring), everybody else was going through the same. I was in survival mode, but happy to be there. As the uphill sprint to the line started, I was poorly positioned but still able to accelerate past 3 or 4 riders. I had survived near the front with the Cat 3 guys – not such a bad day!!!

I do believe I can climb and my next happy place is as a sprinter.

The Dalles (West) Ride

I needed a stop at Home Depot anyway (for some things related to food), and they have a big parking lot – so, why not ride from there…?

This ride is good for a rainy Hood River day, or when you want to ride when there are stiff westerly winds (it will blow you up the biggest hill).

Anyway, not too long with some climbing and great views.

Map

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.

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.

Hood River and East

Pretty much as close as you can get to a flat ride around here. The ride starts next to one brew pub and ends next to one that has outdoor seating (there are coffee shops near by, as well).

The route follows old Hwy 30 out to The Dalles and continues east to an 18 mile loop that starts by following 15 mile creek on lightly traveled rural roads.

This is a ride that friends have used as a training ride for newer riders preparing for long (100 mile plus) organized rides.

There are plenty of amenities (including food, drink and a bike shop) available in The Dalles, so it is an easy ride to do unsupported.

77 Miles and 4,200 feet of climbing.

Map brian-mosier

Orchards and Desert

Most of the rides from Hood River cover roads to the south (up the Hood River Valley), or to the east (including The Dalles). This ride does a little of both and covers one of the epic Gorge climbs (7 Mile Road).

This ride never exceedes 2,000 ft in elevation, which makes it a good early season option for avoiding poor road conditions and colder temperatures. In the summer months The Dalles can get very warm and this ride is best done on a cooler day or with an early start.

This ride starts at Egg Harbor (a good place for breakfast, and you’ll need it) and ends in front of 3 Rivers Grill (a good place to sit on the deck and have a frosty cold beverage).

From Hood River you work up the West Side of town The roads are light with traffic and pass through orchards and one of the town’s golf courses. You then cross the Hood River and up a short hill toward the town of Odell before crossing The Valley to the east for the ride back down East Side Road.

Now, back in Hood River, travel east on old Hwy 30. Hwy 30 from Hood River to Mosier is now a very wide bicycle trail (beware of loose dogs, unatended children and bewildered tourists – travel cautiously). From Mosier keep riding east on lightly traveled roads through more orchards, with views of Mt. Adams and the Columbia River. This portion of the trip includes a twisty 2 mile decent from Rowena Crest that is so beautiful that many car and motorcycle manufactures choose to film advertisements there.

Once in The Dalles, work your way over to 10th Street and continue east to Cherry Heights Road (near the center of town). Cherry Heights gains about 1,000 ft before the first little decent and then rolls before beginning a decent back toward the west end The Dalles and the start of the 7 Mile Road climb.

Here you can turn left and tackle the 1,500 ft climb (it’s kind of a shortcut) that will then decend to Mosier. Or, you can continue another mile or so back to Hwy 30 and return to Hood River over the same route on which you came. The climb is worth the trouble, however. There are spectacular views any time you choose to look for one and the decent will permit you to reach speeds that you have believed are myths told by comentators of bicycle races on television

If your goal is to see it all in The Gorge, this is a good start..

72 miles and 6,000 feet of climbing.

Map

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