Westlake Worlds

or what it's like to race after a month plus off........damn Gary talked me into racing the A's, so along with Chris, Gary, Dr. John & David S we assembled for the start. I was going to try out my new SLR seat/position.
Ian, Matt & Dave K. rounded out the B's.
I had no clue how strong I was going to be and after being the sweeper for like 4 laps I figured that I was feeling OK , plus I didn't want a strong move dropping me off the back so I started to work my way up the field to the upper 1/2. It was a constant struggle for position....everyone wanted to be in the upper group. The attacks were constant and the speed fast (26.4 avg) the whole time. I did go up a couple of times; once with Chris (he was great the first time out) and once with Gary (see Dr. John's view).
I felt surprisingly good and should have worked more at the front than I did. At the bell lap I just wanted as safe as position as I could get; I had been run into by another rider a couple of laps earlier and wanted to avoid a crash. I ended up in good position and was able to watch and catch onto the RFG train as they were wanting to do a leadout past Paul and the others. As I was doing this I realized that I was at the 200 meter mark and sitting around 12-13th, so I hit what gas I had left and sprinted in for a 9th position finish.

Stats:
1:01:31
27.1 miles
156/178 avg/max HR
26.4/38.9 avg/max speed*
102/122 avg/max CAD
temp was around 79 at the start and 76'F at the finish
*the avg speed for the first 1/2 of the race was 26.2 and 26.7 for the second half.

Thanks for reading,
Rick

MS150 update

HELP!!

Even though this year's MS-150 ride is over, there is still time for YOU to support a truly worthy cause. People are most frequently diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in the prime of life (ages 20 - 50).

Click HERE right now to help win the fight against MS, because you can never know what tomorrow might bring for you or for someone you love.

I need to come up with a few more bucks for this worthy cause.....yes I took this right from Gary's post.
:-p

Thanks for reading,
Rick

SnakeBite Racing Valley City Race

Well, the team's big race of the season was yesterday & as always Linda did a great job of organizing and executing the race. Many thanks goes to all of the team members that helped out in working at the race.
Some of the folks were:
Linda & Pat Miranda
John Ehrlinger
Gary Burkholder
Jim Nichols
Mr., Mrs. & Matt Orehek
Lynn Marut (did your goof-ball husband really have to show up and race?) ;-)
Ray & Yi Huang
David Steiner (thanks for doing everything and giving up you racing that day)
Eric Gibb (my Fav triguy)
Dave Kovach
Chris Belowich (for showing up as a driver w/o a car to drive - LOL)
Peter Scacheri
Carolyn Spengler
Aimee Millward
Tom "the killer" Keller
jeese, whom am I missing.....

I was at the corner of SR303 and Lester Rd....photos shown were taken while I was stopping traffic, so they are not the best....

The rain held off until the last race of the day was done and then the heavens opened up in a big way! Too bad I couldn't race, but as President, I feel that I need to help out.....there will always be racing.

Anyway, thanks to all the team members that helped and make it a success and for the racers that made it a blast to watch. It's always fun to see what Paul Martin is going to do along with all of the men/women that I know from the Cleveland racing scene.

Thanks for reading,
Rick

The New Valkyrie

The collaborative Adams/Burkholder effort has yielded a new TT machine; The Valkyrie. I couldn't bear doing away with my Specialized Allez Pro frame/fork/seatpost and Gary had extra parts and was willing to buy some stuff on close out, soooooooooo here's what we came up with.

The ride was cool; about 10 miles into it a group of three riders came up from behind while Gary was taking pictures and they go by....well, that will not stand so I ramped up the speed and blew by them.....they were not the friendliest guys anyway. At the halfway mark we switch bikes and I find out as soon as I get on the Titus I realize the rear tire is way low.....Gary remarks no wonder he had a hard time staying on my wheel, so I throw some air in it and off we go!

The position needs to be changed a bit which we did when we got back from the ride; our verdict on the Valkyrie is that it is yummy and we are looking forward to riding it again...it ain't leaving my house though Gary! :-)

Stats:
1:37:30
29.2 miles
133/163 - avg/max HR
19.7/43 - avg/max speed
95/113 - avg/max CAD
1240' of climbing
temp - 82-84'F and humid as heck

*I hit 30 mph on the flat with the TT bike; Gary & I shared the bike; I rode the first half and he the second half

Thanks for reading,
Rick

MS150 Ride

So I was going to do my first Charity Ride with Gary in honor of a friend that passed away from cancer who had ridden the ride for many years. Just a quick note; I suck at getting up and riding much before 7-8AM and it shows....Check out Gary's blog for more info.
I'll write more soon; I wanted to post some shots to add to what Gary had written for now.
The pace of the ride went like this;
- 17.7 warmup for 14 miles til we came across a rider that got hurt and when Gary's "swiss cheese" tire blew (8:24 minute break)
- 19.1 pace for 18 miles (lunch break for 31 minutes)
- 20.3 for 30 miles til my rear wheel needed some luv (broken spoke) at a rest stop by the Pros at Eddies. (14 minutes)
- 19.3 for 10 miles and we arrived at the end.

Following a much needed shower and then eating like pigs, we headed to Cedar Point to take in the rides and people watch. The weather was perfect; I don't know why Gary & I didn't check the weather forecast or bring wet/cold gear with us. The next morning the typical MS150 weather had arrived; 56'F and raining like crazy. Wisdom won out over pride and we abandoned the ride for a trip back to Berea in his G-pa's car. That may be the smartest thing I've done in a while.

Stats:
43:38:30
72.8 miles
avg speed - 19ish, max - 43.9
HR - 123/162 (avg/max)
CAD - 96/117
temp started at 63'F and was 73'F at the end

Thanks for reading,
Rick

The Hurt Locker

Jeese, I have been off the bike too long and I got thrown into the Hurt Locker and don't know when I'm coming out. Avg speed is down, little hills are killing me....blah, blah, blah. I am trying to get back at it by putting in the miles again...last week wasn't too bad (129ish miles) and so far this week I've done 96 miles including last night's copious amounts of pain at the Shaker Thursday night "group" ride; which is kinda like the A Group Westlake ride with some nice hills that they like to attack on. More on that ride later. That and I'm going to ride the MS150 ride this weekend in a friend's memory with Gary and Jim N (Plain Dealer). I'll do a follow up w/picts hopefully after this weekend.

Stats on the "Shaker" ride:
1:43:03
33.7 miles
19.6/45.8 - avg/max speed (21 mph was the avg speed at the 23 mile point)
141/170 - avg/max HR
95/125 - avg/max CAD
1,660' of climbing
73'F temp for the ride

Enjoy the weekend all.

Thanks for reading,
Rick

Polar Power Sensor

Is going back to Polar. The biggest weakness of the unit is the whimpy wiring they use; mine broke again...I have never seen "skinnyness" since donny was a climbing god to me a few years ago. :-)

So,it's off the Titus and I'm going old school with just CAD and speed. I'll update if Polar will do the upgrade for me when I return my unit in to get fixed.

Thanks for reading,
Rick

no time no blog

wow, nothing since July....well, vacations and that dang job of mine getting in the way. :-)

Basically no riding since the Troy Crit nightmare, so after doing the surfer dude thing - which was a blast btw, I have been (painfully) getting my butt back in the saddle again. Gary's ribs are still hurting so at least he's not dropping me like yesterday's news all of the time when we go riding.
Stats for last week:
22.5 miles
39.7 miles
18.5 miles
34.4 miles
32.3 miles
Totalling 129.9 and 7:39:00 time on the bike. This is close to the total of what I rode in the prior 4 weeks. Damn. It's not fun trying to get back on it, but as everyone knows, sometimes "life gets in the way", huh?

Thanks for reading,
Rick