Napa

This will be an almost cycling free post. My 40th birthday came and my wonderful wife took me on a trip to the Napa/Sonoma valleys. I knew Santa Rosa was Levi's home town and that the Tour of California came right through there recently, so there must be some good riding. On the other hand, Kim has been looking forward to some together without the kids time, and the prospect of lazy mornings with coffee, croissants, and morning.... ok, moving on... well that was alluring as well. In the end I decided to forget about cycling and just enjoy the time.

It was the right decision, although if we ever go back, the DeRosa is coming too! Lots of great roads especially as you get into the far north of the valleys. The southern ends are just too congested. Trinity road is the route of the ToC which goes from the sonoma side over the Mayacamas range to the Napa side. This is a testing climb, about 3-4 miles at 9% ave grade. We drove over it too many times, as our inn was on the Sonoma side very near its base.

Obviously the reason people go to this place is the wine and food. We were not dissapointed in either regard, although my bank account is feeling a bit bruised. Wineries we went to included Silver Oak, Opus One, Duckhorn, Rombauer, Stags Leap, Far Niente. I have very fond memories of Stags Leap from the Annie Gunn's dinner in 2005. Stocked up on Silver Oak and Opus One! I am considering getting on the list for Stags Leap, but its a fair amount of money and I don't know if I want to put all my eggs in one basket. I won't bore anyone with tasting notes, I'll just say it was all good.

The markets around the valleys are incredible. Forget about restaurant lunches, just head down to the Oakville Market in Oakville or Dean and Deluca in St. Helena. Breads, cheeses, pates, caviar, desserts. Just incredible. Then go to the fancy schmanzy places for dinner. I toyed with the idea of getting a reservation at French Laundry, but decided against it in the end. You need to be very aggressive in calling the moment the reservation line opens exactly 30 days prior to your desired reservation and then waiting on hold forever. Dinner is $210/person not including wine or tax/gratuity, so you're looking at around $1300-1400 for a party of four depending on how much you spend on wine. We were travelling with Kim's sister and her husband. They don't have that kind of change and I'm not ready to pay for all four.

We ended up going to two fantastic restaurants. The first, Cyrus in Healdsburg turned out to be much more upscale than we had anticipated. We could have easily spent as much there as at French Laundry. The food was very progressive with an emphasis on the emerging trend of molecular gastronomy. Lots of foams, infusions, essences and very unusual combinations of tastes. The highlight of the evening was a tie between the presentation of the shaved black truffles and watching the lesbian couple make out in the corner booth.

The very next night we went to La Toque in Rutherford. Equally fantastic food, totally different atmosphere. Very french country and rustic. Dishes were classic french, more simply presented, with just extraordinary emphasis on freshness and technique. Kim and Coray did not like the whole Japanese firefly squid served with their salad, but I was more than willing to pop them down the hatch. The highlight of this evening was the sommelier Scott Tracy who is a man in love with his job. He personally presented every bottle to us, tenderly cradling them like his own children, and offering a short story behind every one. The sommelier at Cyrus had pretty much lost interest in us after we ordered the wine pairings for the tasting menu and not the $3000 bottle of Screaming Eagle.

It was a marvelous week. My riding will suffer for a time, but everyone came back happy and the marriage was recharged. That's good for a one track mind guy like me.

Feeling Like Crap

For some reason my legs have gone on vacation. I have no idea why. Maybe lack of miles 2 weekends ago after my Sylvan street sweeping incident, maybe too much intensity during the week, maybe bad nutrition. Went on the Ghisallo ride saturday plus riding there and back. I was at my limit on the two climbs and totally pooped out on the way back. Felt totally bonked riding back home. Maybe a fluke? Went for another 3 hrs yesterday with 2x20min threshold plus several 3 min VO2max. Unable to maintain my normal 310W on the second 20 min effort. Did 2 of the VO2 intervals and was hardly able to keep 340W on the second. Again, totally bonked. Limped home. Now my hamstring is sore down by the knee and my legs are cramping occasionally even 18 hours later. I was looking forward to getting my ass kicked at Tues worlds this week, but I think I better give it a rest. It's my best friend's wife's birthday too and they want to go to Tony's that night. Hmmmm, Tony's or ass kicking?

Froze Toes

The time everyone looks forward to - how do you stack up to the rest of the winter warriors?

I knew I had decent form going into the spring. I have bumped my threshold power from 300 to around 310W. Riding around with Justin will do that to you. Actually I have only done a few long rides with Justin, but it has been enough to mentally reset my base pace from a more leisurely endurance to a brisk tempo. I have noticed that I am going faster and with higher average watts on my standard routes. Plus I was recently able to complete 10x repeats on Ladue hill at 405W (about 2min each) with no significant power drop. Now power to weight is another issue. I find myself stuck at 180-185 lbs. If I try to decrease calories, I end up ravenously hungry and blow the whole thing. I love food too much and at 40 years old and in a position of some means, and with a serious foodie best friend... well, I can complain but I'm also not going to give up dinners at The Crossing!

Anyway, the race. Bad starting position, stuck in mid pack first 1/3 of race, no space to advance, surge-brake-surge-break etc. Got better on the back stretch, but then Austin and Klages had already gotten a good gap. I have no sprint and no teamates, so I knew I had to make a move with some space to go. This I did with about 3 miles to go and had a decent gap. I thought I might just make it, but two guys (Patrick Hawley and some Trek store dude) had too strong of a sprint and nipped me about 10 meters from the line. I would have to be happy with 5th. Partially successful move? Probably would not have finished as well if I had waited for the sprint. I'm cooling down afterward and several people complimented my move. Then some guy rails me saying I went way too early, no chance, why did you kill yourself, etc. WTF!?? I fucking beat you, you moron! I like my plan, it's my strength and I'm sticking to it. One of these days it's going to work.

Jonathan Page

I watched the world cyclocross championships on cycling.tv yesterday. What a great race! Crashes all over the place and a ton of bad luck for the favorites, especially Wellens and Nys. The one guy who seemed to avoid the nastiness was Page, who capitalized and got a close silver. I was screaming for him toward the end, but Vervecken was just a bit stronger. No shame for Page, he made Vervecken suffer for his win. I really felt sorry for Wellens, who was nearly taken out of the race after a moto bumped a barricade into him on a fast section, taking him and Nys down. I thought he was out, but he got back up and fought to a brilliant 4th. I felt sorry that is until he said this:

"Even though I had the best legs of the season I couldn't do much more than what I did. The jersey went to the wrong person, he shouldn't have won it even though he's a teammate. He deserves to be on the podium but the other guys don't."

I can understand his frustration, but what a sore loser! In such a situation just shut the heck up. Whoever is on the podium is on the podium. That's racing, unless you are accusing someone of cheating.

Nys on the other hand just gave up after his 3rd crash. His dismal performaces at worlds continue. But what about Page! US CX is on the map. And a world cup race in the US next year. You think there will be a "Lance effect" in cyclocross? I think unlikely.

Epic Ride

I've ridden a couple of times with Justin M. now. We have very similar riding styles, both being somewhat larger riders (me quite a bit more than him) and being flatland pedal mashers. Big difference being about 50-60W threshold power Justin has on me. Nevertheless, riding base the two of us together works well. When the spring season starts in earnest, I'm going to have to just let him do his thing.

Justin mentioned we should ride to Washington, MO, so we decided to head out there yesterday. I had an extended hall pass from my dear wife, so there would be none of that guilt I know so well of knowing you've been out too long and what will await you when you get home! I have never ridden west past St. Alban's but I had an idea it was pretty hilly.

Anyway, our lesiurely ride changed abruptly when Shawn O'Neal overtook us on WHC Rd. I honestly don't think the guy knows how to just ride endurance pace. Every time I have ridden with him it is all hammer, hammer, hammer. He decides he's going to come with us, so I know right there I'm going to suffer.

Let me just say that the hills on hwy T are a bitch. There are three long steep climbs in rapid succession right around St. Albans and the rest of the way is big rollers, up and down, steep with no flat ground at all. I'm either at 400-500W or coasting.

Back to Shawn. He wants to stop in Labadie to get a drink. As we pull up to the gas station, a girl walks up. She's not ugly, but no big prize either. Probably quite a catch for a Labadie guy. Shawn starts to unapoligetically hit on her, following her into the store. I'm not sure where he intends to take this, but he's all hot and bothered when we start riding again, talking about how she wanted to go out with him and all. Justin and I could only shake our heads. In my experience, most women are not turned on by men in tights, even if you are riding a $6k bike with an SRM. Especially if you exude a certain kookiness like Shawn.

After we got to Washington and turned back, Shawn says he needs to put his thicker gloves back on, "go ahead, I'll catch up with you." Given that he had been towing us most of the way till now, I had no doubt that he would. Well, we never saw him again. Kept looking back, wondering if we should stop, never even spotted him in the distance. My guess is he finally succeded in picking up a choice woman at the feed store on T and old 100!

This is where things went downhill for me. My quads started cramping a bit and by the time we were back to Labadie and the three bitches my legs were staging a massive coup d'etat. I crawled up the last hill to Ossenfort at a pace I will not repeat on these pages, not being able to stand due to my quads locking up. I thanked the Lord quite literally to see the flat earth of WHC again. Justin was very cool to hold up on a few stretches for me. We ended up riding to the new Chipotle on Baxter and Clarkson and eating burritos. I felt like a new man afterwards.

90 miles total, average speed 17.6, 4000kcal burnt, and I am one tired puppy. I will think twice before doing that ride with people who are better than me again.

Ghisallo Leg Ripping

I went to the Ghisallo ride yesterday like I frequently do. Rode there and back to give me 20 more miles in the saddle. Normally the ride gets interesting on the way back when a group at the front forms and does paceline work which turns out for me to be tempo/subthreshold effort in the draft with VO2 max bursts when my turn rolls through. I all depends on who shows up though. When Dave Schindler led the ride it was very consistent. Now its more variable. If John Thrasher is there, you know it will be good even though he is more of the sprinter/power climber than the roulleur that I am. A couple of the other Ghisallo guys have gotten some good power too.

Today was the first time that Tim K went on the ride (when I was there). I thought this could be good. What I didn't figure on was meeting up with Shawn O'Neal on the Ossenfort downhill. Shawn proceded to tear all of our legs off. We had about 6 guys in the group, and when Shawn pulled through at about 30mph, one of the guys would pop off the back. I was right behind him which made it brutal to take my turn right after him, but it was better than being on the wheel of someone who's rubber band was about to snap. This continued until it was just Shawn, Tim and myself. I was doing 330 watts in Shawn's draft and about 400-450 at the front. I knew I couldn't take that for long. I finally popped at the S-curve on Eatherton. TK popped at Rombach's, which made me feel a bit better.

Good leg ripping today! I'm supposed to do a reference 20k TT today, but I think I'll wait till tomorrow and let the legs come back a bit.

CX Season a Wash

I had high hopes for this year's cyclocross season, but I was derailed by life. My father died after a two year struggle with ALS (Lou Gerhig's disease) in mid October. I subsequently did a lot of weekend commuting between St. Louis and Tallahassee and Michigan. I actually did get some quality road riding in in some unlikely places like northern Florida and Chattanooga (highly recommended for riding if you're ever in the area). When the cross season started, I felt slooooooow! Maybe it was the jump from C to B race, maybe it was lack of focused training, maybe my head just wasn't in it with all the stuff happening in my life. Anyway, the season was a wash and I'll just leave it at that.

Now doing base and working gradually on threshold. Major goal for next year is state TT champs. Hopefully that Delbert dude won't show up and destroy the 4'!