TT race 3 - Kentucky Speedway

The third time trial in the series was held yesterday at the Kentucky speedway, down in Sparta. (Or was it Warsaw?) The race, being held on an actual Nascar track, was rather interesting. (Ignore the Strava climb data, it has issues.)

It was a "long" 2 hour drive down there, which is nothing compared to at least one racer from Pennsylvania that also made the trip. The mountains were lovely, and the areas where there was no shoulder nor guardrail overlooking some valleys were just insane. (Note to self, try not to take I-71 in Kentucky, unless necessary.)

Packed the night before,  spare clothes for after the race, tools for changing a tire, etc. For a lot of my races, I still the bike inside the Vue rather than on the bike rack.

It took a few minutes to find the entrance to the racetrack (gate 3, in hindsight. That was missed in the pre-race instructions) and then I got to drive under the track itself to the central area for parking. (I assume that would be the place spectators don't get to visit.)

 

It was a nice tunnel though.

 It was a somewhat fun race, a little different being on the track, especially compared to the road races that make up the rest of the time trial series. 7 laps on a NASCAR track, and no worry about pedal strike if I corner to hard, what isn't to like?

I might have enjoyed myself more than I should have...

 I got 5th place, and have a firm grasp of 4th for the point series. If I miss the final race, which I don't plan to miss, I will still be guaranteed 4th overall. I don't think one of the 3 above me will miss, the race is local to one, and the other two haven't missed a race either. (Certainly the guy who has a freaking Carbon framed fixie isn't going to start skipping now, and the other guy did RAIN the day before the race, as well as in the time between finishing RAIN, he picked up his daughter at the airport and still beat me at the race. (He came in at 353rd for RAIN, out of 1,086 riders. Showoff...)

During pre-race warmup, I stopped to get a pic of my bike leaning against the wall in turn 4, which was more difficult than I expected, due to the slope of the track.

It was a fun race overall, I do need to get more time riding in to place, but my times are getting better, and next year I think I will actually be able to beat someone in the fixed division. I don't know if I will do that on Glowie though, but maybe I will. Just because they have carbon or aluminum bikes don't make them the fastest. (Though the 50/15 ratios help them, by about 6% compared to my 44/14 ratio.)

I know what the bike needs to go faster. White tires. Or at least white walls. Yeah, that's it...

Seriously though, I enjoyed the race. It did get a bit hot out before the awards were done, and I did come home with another # of pasta. (After the first race, I think I have a lifetime supply.)

Hey, more pictures! (some by me, some from Good Times races, who did the timing.)

Gloves and a color shifting bike

I got to thinking about my gloves during a ride this week, largely because my rides give me a bit too much time to think. I own three pair of cycling gloves, a pair of Schwinn gloves, Bell (from Walmart a few years back) and some Bontrager mountain biking gloves my wife bought me for a holiday or birthday when she worked a few miles from the Springfield bike shop.

Typically, I never wear the Bontrager gloves, they feel weird on my hands, and in the winder, they are not much help. If I did mountain biking, which probably would require I have a mountain bike, they might be great. I haven't owned a mountain bike since my Mongoose Transport was stolen off my second floor balcony back in 2003. (That happened to be the same 2 day period of the great Blackout, and my dad's death. That week rather sucked. And yes, the bike was locked, they really wanted that bike, not the 20 other bikes in the complex that weighed much less, and were not locked up.)

(I refuse to acknowledge the Kmart special, a Huffy Howler. I had a few issues with it, but it was all I could afford after the Mongoose was stolen. The deductible on the insurance was 500, so they gave me $100. I would later sell that thing at a garage sale for $5. I'd have happily thrown that thing off of a cliff, if it wouldn't have been considered littering.)

Anyways.... my go-to gloves are the Schwinn ones. I got them at the Troy bike shop when I worked at Wendys, so that would have been in 1996. I had actually looked at them a few days before I bought them, and figured I would come back for them. I was then riding across the overpass for I-75, when I had a gear break on the Huffy Blade I had at the time. (I had crappy bikes after my parents divorced. I probably would have had better bikes had I picked to live with my dad instead...)  In the crash that happened, I cut my hand open rather badly. I did get a decent scar from it, and I probably should have gotten stitches, but I didn't. Had I bought the gloves, I would have been a lot better off.

Being that the gloves are now a good 18 years old, and legally old enough to buy their own porn, I really should retire them. Half the time I put them on, my fingers end up coming out of a different hole than the finger hole, but they still work.

A few weeks ago, after my last race, I stopped into the Performance Bike in "Dayton", and saw some nice looking crocheted style gloves. They reminded me of the ones my dad had when I was little, but they didn't have my size. I just find it weird to think of retiring a pair of gloves that I have had, and used, for over half of my life. Like I said, sometimes when I am riding, I have too much time to think.

The other odd thing for me is that I still can't get Glowie to glow when I ride. Not that she hasn't learned a new trick. Last month, I ran a 5k put on by NoxGear, who makes a glowing vest. (Fiber-optic LED) Now, because Glowie is white when not glowing, whatever color the vest is lit up, Glowie reflects. So.... riding at night, the bike is now shifting between various colors, including red, green, and blue. (I forgot what other colors it can do.)

I have my next race Sunday morning, at the Kentucky Speedway. This may well be as close to a Velodrome as I will ever get, so I really need to make it count. I'll pack up for it tomorrow afternoon, after I put oil in my car. (I swear it seems to drink oil sometimes.) I have a busy couple of weeks ahead, with the TT this weekend, the Dayton Dragons 5k next weekend, Dayton Celtic Festival's 10k the weekend after that, and I am planning to do a 5k the weekend after that as well. On top of that, I need to start pushing my longer rides, in preparation for the Double Donut. That won't be on Glowie, I think, but it is going to be a hard ride.

2 races in a week

I had two races the first week of June, both on Glowie, and one was my best, and one my worst, race so far. (I delayed writing the blog to see if pics from the second race would get posted. They didn't.)

First off, I had the Troy Strawberry Festival Time Trial. There were a few people from the Fort Wayne team that had taken most of the podium at the TT in Fort Wayne there, which meant a good 2 hour drive. I'd see both of them again three days later at the second in the Midwest series.  I was at a bit of a disadvantage in this race, since my road bike has a few loose spokes, and wheel truing is not one of my skills. The Strawberry festival race doesn't have a FG division, just age groups. Still, I managed to shave about a minute off my time from last year, so I really can't complain too much. (Other than coming in 60th out of 65.)

2014 Troy Strawberry Festival TT

I am in the Tour De Donut Jersey. I think it had just dawned on the one person that I was on a Fixie. 

The second race was also the second in the Midwest TT series, which I am competing in under the FG division. This was one of the hardest races I have ever done, mainly due to a particularly nasty hill. It was the first time I have ever had to get off of Glowie and walk up a hill. That wasn't the worst part. The hill, on the way back down a few miles later, had a few turns. I fought to keep the bike at about 30 MPH, because my legs just couldn't keep up with the pedals at that point, and I questioned if I was going to survive the race. The winner of the fixie division there said he hit 40, but he is also running a 50/15 ratio (compared to my 44/14) so he had it harder on the uphill (obviously, he is a bad-ass) and a little easier on the downhill, since at the same speed, his pedals rotate less.

TT2 - Bellbrook
(I know the link says I got 4th overall, it does that sometimes when somebody makes a new course the day of a race, and then there are about 5 people who all get 4th. I started 7th or so, and with the gps time, blah blah blah, etc.)

Overall, for Men at Bellbrook, I came in 86th out of 86. For the points series, I believe I am now in 4th for the FG division. First and Third from the Ft Wayne race didn't show up to this one, and the winner for this race wasn't at Ft Wayne. The next race in the series will be at Kentucky Speedway, which should make for an interesting race. I am planning on taking a second bike along and doing a second race. Yeah, I know that I won't likely end up on and podiums, I'm there to have fun. Even if that means I enter the age group division for my second race using a 1974 Schwinn Varsity. Nothing says 'there to have fun' like riding a bike that weighs more than 2 or 3 other peoples bikes combined.

What part of TURN don't I understand?

Went out for a quick ride on Glowie, which became an adventure in the last three blocks.

It started out well, since I didn't have a lot of time, I took the bike on a route I hadn't used with that bike yet. (The weather was beautiful, it was supposed to rain, instead they now predict horrible weather for tomorrow.) The Strava segments were not my best, and one of them was among my worst.

What was interesting about the trip was that I did an out and back to the current end of the local bike path with a turn around in a construction zone. Measuring from the footbridge (Why the Hell does Piqua have two bridges on the bike path with stairs?) to the construction site, Strava gives it around 1.8 miles. (It varies on two different pages for the same segment.) It took me 7:56 to head out, and only 7:55 to return. Only 1 second difference in the two directions, which I really find amusing.

I felt good coming out of the last section of the route, and got onto Main street. Seeing the light was still green, I gunned it. I realized as I entered the turn at somewhere north of 20 mph that I was on a fixie, and I wasn't about to coast that turn. I had to accept that I was probably going to crash into the curb, and it was probably going to freaking hurt, so I did the only reasonable thing I could decide in the fraction of time allowed, I changed direction and aimed for the curb head on. I managed to jump my front wheel up, and the rear may have come up as well, but it hit the curb hard, and I felt the bike momentarily ride only on the front wheel onto the grass and gravel of the parking lot / grass of the factory on the corner. The bike felt a bit wobbly as I headed out from there for the few blocks home, but my speed was about normal. Once home, I put the bike on the repair stand, cleaned it up a bit, and adjusted the rear wheel. No visible damage to the bike, not the frame, not the wheel, not the tire. It did knock the wheel loose, but it was an easy thing to tighten, and I actually got the lag out of the chain this time. (So it is now, in theory, better than before my ride today.)

I don't really want to think what would have happened had that been my road bike I was on at the time. That is the second incident that I am lucky to have walked rode away from this year. (And I didn't destroy my wheels this time!)

If I had a tail light, I'd have gone out for another ride. It looks great out there, a shame the Indiana Weather Service has predicted some real nasty weather for tomorrow. (Which includes Trick or Treat.)